NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST "A proper hero for these times . . . To us, V.I. is perfect." -- THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "Sara Paretsky's gloriously kick-ass private eye, V.I. "Vic" Warshawski, is back . . . in a political-rot thriller that's the definition of perfection in the genre." -- THE WASHINGTON POST Chicago's legendary detective, V.I. Warshawski, knows her city's rotten underbelly better than most, but she's unable to avoid it when her goddaughter drags her into a fight over lakefront land use, in this propulsive novel from New York Times bestseller Sara Paretsky. Chicago may be the city of broad shoulders, but its political law is "Pay to Play." Money changes hands in the middle of the night, and by morning, buildings and parks are replaced by billion-dollar projects. Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals through her impetuous goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard. Bernie tries to rescue Lydia Zamir, a famed singer-songwriter now living on the streets; Zamir's life fell apart when her lover was murdered next to her in a mass shooting at an outdoor concert. Not only does Bernie plunge her and V.I. headlong into the path of some ruthless developers, they lead to the murder of the young man Bernie is dating. He's a computer geek working for a community group called SLICK. V.I. is desperate to find a mysterious man named Coop, who roams the lakefront in the middle of the night with his dog. She's sure he holds the key to the mounting body count within SLICK. Coop may even know why an international law firm is representing the mass murderer responsible for Lydia's lover's death. Instead, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago's parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in America's meddling in South American politics. Before she finds answers, this electrifying novel pushes V.I. close to the breaking point: People who pay to play take no prisoners.

Roy Grace, creation of the award-winning author Peter James, unearths a powerful criminal network in Find Them Dead.Ending his secondment to Londons Met Police, Roy Grace gets a tip-off about a county lines drugs mastermind operating out of Brighton. On his first day back in his old job in Sussex, he is called to a seemingly senseless murder.

An Edgar(R) Award Nominee for Best Novel Jesse Kellerman--the international bestselling author of The Executor and The Genius-- brings his prodigious talent to bear on a topic he knows well in this hilarious and surprising spin on the modern blockbuster thriller novel. Missing for months after a tragic boating accident, William de Vallée, the superstar thriller writer, is pronounced dead. His oldest friend, Arthur Pfefferkorn, receives the news with an unsettling mix of grief and envy. A middle-aged college professor with long-dead literary aspirations, Pfefferkorn can't help but feel outshone by his friend's success--especially since he married the woman Pfefferkorn loved. But now Bill is gone, and Pfefferkorn is there to comfort Carlotta in her time of grief. Reconnecting with de Vallée's widow makes more than one of his dreams come true . . . until it plunges him into a shadowy world of intrigue and double crosses, where no one can be trusted--and nothing can be taken seriously.

Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper returns in the new breakneck thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of Death Angel who once again captures the essence of New York City--its glamour, its history, its possibilities, and its endless capacity for darkness. Grand Central Station is hiding more than just an underground train system. When the body of a young woman is found in the tower suite of the Waldorf Astoria, Assistant DA Alex Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman find themselves hunting for a killer whose only signature is a carefully drawn symbol carved into his victims' bodies, a symbol that bears a striking resemblance to train tracks. After a second body is discovered in a terminal alleyway, attention shifts to the iconic transportation hub and the potential for a bigger attack. With the President of the United States set to arrive for a United Nations meeting, Alex and Mike must contend with Grand Central's expansive underground tunnels and century-old dark secrets--as well as their own changing relationship--to find a killer who's cutting a deadly path straight to the heart of the city.

This is a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that takes Alexandra Cooper into the dark underside of New York City's most storied restaurants and a murder case spanning continents. Forty-eight hours after Alexandra Cooper arrives in France to visit her boyfriend and famed restaurateur, Luc Rouget, her vacation in paradise is cut short when a young woman from the village is found murdered. The only evidence discovered on the body is one of Luc's matchboxes promoting his new restaurant in New York. But before the investigation begins, Alex is summoned back to New York to handle a high profile case. Mohammed Gil-Darsin, the distinguished and wealthy head of the World Economic Bureau, has been arrested and accused of attacking a maid in his hotel. As the world watches in fascination to see how the scandal will unfold, Alex finds her attention torn between preparing the alleged victim to testify and a murder case with ties too close to home. A second body is found with Luc's matchbox, this time in Brooklyn, and Alex begins to fear that the two cases may not be as unrelated as she thought, and that uncovering the sordid secrets of the city's most wealthy and powerful could cost her and her loved ones everything they hold dear.

New York City. Central Park. For thousands of residents and tourists who fill it every day, it's an enormous urban sanctuary. For one killer it's the perfect hunting ground. A young girl has been found dead in the Ramble, a secluded section of the park made up of winding paths, dense woods, and dead ends. Is she the first victim of a psychopath? Or a clue to other missing women in years past whose remains have never been found? For the answer, Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and Detective Mike Chapman follow a twisting trail of evidence that takes them deep into the city's dark history--and deeper into the mind of killer whose work has only just begun.

New York Times bestselling author Linda Fairstein is at her explosive best as she plunges into the byzantine world of New York City's most powerful and sacred institutions--and unearths the most sinister of secrets... Prosecutor Alexandra Cooper has been called to a Harlem Baptist Church, where a woman has been decapitated and set on fire on the church steps--with the imprint of a Star of David necklace seared into her flesh. Then a second body is found at a cathedral in Little Italy. Alex is blind to the sick and inconceivable motives feeding a particularly vicious serial killer--until she mines the depths of the city's vast and serpentine religious history. What Alex follows is a dangerous path that takes her far beyond the scope of her investigation, and directly into the path of a frightening and inescapable truth.

When Assistant District Attorney Alex Cooper is summoned to Tina Barr's apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side, she finds a neighbor convinced that the young woman was assaulted. But the terrified victim, a conservator of rare books and maps, refuses to cooperate with investigators. Then another woman is found murdered in that same apartment with an extremely valuable book, believed to have been stolen. As Alex pursues the murderer, she is drawn into the strange and privileged world of the Hunt family, major benefactors of the New York Public Library and passionate rare book collectors. Eventually Alex connects their internal family rivalries to a priceless edition of Alice in Wonderland, which also contains the world's oldest map. Would one of the well-bred Hunts be willing to kill for the treasures? The search for the answer takes Alex and her team on a breathtaking chase from Manhattan's grandest apartments to the secret tunnels and chambers of the New York Public Library and finally to a nineteenth-century underground vault. There, in the pitch-black darkness, Alex comes face-to-face with the killer who values money more than life.

"Hercule Poirot is traveling by luxury passenger coach from London to the exclusive Kingfisher Hill estate. Richard Devonport has summoned the renowned detective to prove that his fiancée, Helen, is innocent of the murder of his brother, Frank. Poirot will have only days to investigate before Helen is hanged, but there is one strange condition attached: he must conceal his true reason for being there from the rest of the Devonport family. The coach is forced to stop when a distressed woman demands to get off, insisting that if she stays in her seat, she will be murdered. Although the rest of the journey passes without anyone being harmed, Poirot's curiosity is aroused, and his fears are later confirmed when a body is discovered with a macabre note attached... Could this new murder and the peculiar incident on the coach be clues to solving the mystery of who killed Frank Devonport? And if Helen is innocent, can Poirot find the true culprit in time to save her from the gallows?"--

The fourteenth novel in the highly acclaimed Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, from international bestselling author Peter James. A parent's worst nightmare is Grace's deadliest case.Shortly after Kipp Brown, a seemingly wealthy businessman, and his teenage son, Mungo, arrive at the Amex stadium for their team's biggest-ever football game, Mungo disappears. Assuming that Mungo has gone to the loo before kick-off, Kipp calmly takes his seat. But when there's an emergency security announcement telling everyone to exvacute the stadium, Kipp begins desperately searching for his son.In the panic that follows, Kipp receives a text with a ransom demand and a terrifying warning: We have your son. If you wish to see him alive again you will not contact the police and you will follow our instructions very carefully. But as a massive, covert manhunt for the boy and his kidnappers begins, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace realizes that nothing is what it seems.

One of the world's most dangerous terrorists is on the loose. His agenda: to bring down the Network, Wall Street's fragile electronic nerve center, and obliterate America's economy. "Goosebump good fun, state-of-the-art sleuthing." — The New York Times Book Review FBI Special Agent and counterterrorism expert Sarah Cahill doesn't know the man she's tracking. But the so-called "Prince of Darkness" knows her—intimately. So when Sarah is summoned to Wall Street to investigate, little does she know that she's the one under surveillance... until the terrorist infiltrates himself into the deepest, most desperate corners of her life. "Smashing."— Cleveland Plain Dealer Soon Sarah is plunged into a deep labyrinth of intrigue and catastrophe as she races to uncover a diabolically clever conspiracy...before time runs out...and the clock strikes THE ZERO HOUR . . "RIVALS THE BEST OF TOM CLANCY." James Patterson

There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living. Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the U.S. government. He has always been the keeper of other people's stories, never a part of the story himself... Until now. When Clementine Kaye, Beecher's first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the President of the United States privately reviews classified documents. After they accidentally happen upon a priceless artifact - a 200 hundred-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, hidden underneath a desk chair, Beecher and Clementine find themselves suddenly entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder. Soon a man is dead, and Beecher is on the run as he races to learn the truth behind this mysterious national treasure. His search will lead him to discover a coded and ingenious puzzle that conceals a disturbing secret from the founding of our nation. It is a secret, Beecher soon discovers, that some believe is worth killing for. Gripping, fast-paced, and filled with the fascinating historical detail for which he is famous, THE INNER CIRCLE is a thrilling novel that showcases a brilliant author writing at the height of his craft.

Paige Vallis claimed that she gave in to Tripping's sexual demands because he had threatened to harm his son if she didn't. Alexandra Cooper, prosecuting the ex-CIA man, knew she had her work cut out to convince the jury, but before Paige could complete her testimony on the stand she is found dead - strangled in her own apartment building, just hours after she'd confessed to Alex that she had had a relationship with another ex-CIA operative. While the accusation of rape against Tripping is dropped, he has other charges to face, not least abusing his own child. As Tripping's defence team go into overdrive to keep their client out of jail, Alex, Chapman and Mercer set out to discover who so conveniently killed the woman who could have put him behind bars. As they peel back the layers of Paige's life, they discover a decades-old viper's nest of robbery and double-dealing and discover that truth of the adage of money being at the root of all evil - however old and 'respectable' it might be.

A special ten book box-set featuring the first ten novels in the Roy Grace series by Peter James.Includes:Dead Simple, Looking Good Dead, Not Dead Enough, Dead Man's Footsteps, Dead Tomorrow, Dead Like You, Dead Man's Grip, Not Dead Yet, Dead Man's Time, Want You Dead

When a young waiter is found dead in the swimming pool of one of south Florida's most prominent citizens, "Discreet Inquirer" Archy McNally rushes in to salvage reputations and solve the possible crime. But Palm Beach's rumor mill is already in overdrive: What connection did the victim have to a dowager duchess who just dropped dead? Who is the mysterious millionaire who's just arrived to claim an inheritance? What role is being played by the well-preserved baroness who's attached to his arm like an antique bauble? When another member of Palm Beach society suddenly dies, the gossip couldn't be any wilder. And McNally's attempt to solve the case couldn't be any more daring ...

Mosley departs from his Easy Rawlins mysteries for this thought-provoking novel. Charles Blakey is a young black man whose life is slowly crumbling. When a mysterious white man offers to rent Charles's basement for the summer, Charles embarks on a journey into inconceivable worlds of power and manipulation, and unimagined realms of humanity.

Enter the world of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief, in Maurice Leblanc's thrilling mystery, "The Hollow Needle." A classic of French literature, this gripping crime novel plunges readers into a complex game of cat and mouse. Lupin, a master of disguise and deduction, pits his wits against those who seek to unravel his elaborate heists. Packed with suspense and intrigue, "The Hollow Needle" showcases Lupin's audacious schemes and remarkable ability to outsmart his adversaries. This meticulously prepared edition brings Leblanc's timeless tale of crime and detection to a new audience, preserving the thrill of the original publication. Dive into a world of secrets, suspense, and the brilliant mind of Arsène Lupin in this enduring testament to the art of the heist. A must-read for fans of classic detective fiction and thrilling mysteries. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Bodyguard Atticus Kodiak could find himself in over his head when he is approached by a woman in desperate need of his services and who could just be the most dangerous woman in the world.

Bestselling author Ben Elton delivers a heart-stopping thriller and a killer comic romance. With old friends like these, who needs enemies? It's a question, short, mild mannered detective Edward Newson is forced to ask himself having, in romantic desperation, logged on to the Friends Reunited website searching for the girlfriends of his youth. Newson is not the only member of the Class of '86 who has been raking over the ashes of the past. As his old class begins to reassemble in cyberspace, the years slip away and old feuds and passions burn hot once more. Meanwhile, back in the present, Newson's life is no less complicated. He is secretly in love with Natasha, his lovely but very attached sergeant, while comprehensively failing to solve a series of baffling and peculiarly gruesome murders. A school reunion is planned and as history begins to repeat itself, the past crashes headlong into the present. Neither will ever be the same again. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

Atticus Kodiak knows where people go to hide. That's why he and Alena Cizkova have come to a secluded Georgian town in the former U.S.S.R. What he doesn't know is what his friend and neighbor Bakhar Lagidze was hiding from. Bakhar and his entire family have been viciously murdered--all except for Lagidze's fourteen-year-old daughter, whose nightmare is just beginning. To rescue her, Atticus must enter a lethal web that stretches from Russia to Istanbul, from Dubai to Las Vegas, and into the very heart of evil. But what troubles Atticus the most is that Alena, once one of the world's most fearless assassins, is clearly terrified of what Atticus will uncover--and what he'll become when he does.