"Charlie Marder, a World War II veteran and popular academic, is an unlikely congressman. Thrust into office by his power-broker father's connections, Charlie is determined to use his new position for good. He quickly learns, however, that in 1950s Washington, little is as it seems. Struggling to navigate the treacherous waters alongside real-life figures such as President Dwight Eisenhower, Senator John F. Kennedy, and Roy Cohn, Charlie is confronted by a world in the throes of McCarthyism, where no one trusts anyone. His education in the compromising and occasionally illegal ways of Washington makes him question his own ethical compass and the morality of men he admires, including his father. Alongside his pregnant wife, Margaret, a zoologist with ambitions of her own, Charlie struggles to do what is right while learning more about the mysterious circumstances of his predecessor's death. Amid the swirl of glamorous and powerful politicians and businessmen, a fatal car accident plunges Charlie and Margaret into an underworld of backroom deals, secret societies, and a conspiracy that could change the course of history. When Charlie learns too much, he has to fight not only for his principles and his newfound political career... but for his 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?"--

"It's December 19, 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are looking forward to a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday, when they are called upon to investigate the murder of a man in a Norfolk hospital ward. Cynthia Catchpool, Edward's mother, insists that Poirot stay with her in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while he solves the case. As Poirot digs into the mystery, he discovers that the murdered man was a retired post office master, and by all accounts very well-liked. The local constabulary's investigation failed to uncover how someone could have entered a hospital room and killed him under the noses of the staff. Cynthia's friend Arnold is soon to be admitted to that same hospital, and his wife is convinced he will be the killer's next victim, though she refuses to explain why. With no obvious motive or suspect, Poirot has less than a week to solve the crime and prevent more murders, if he is to escape from this nightmare scenario and get home in time for Christmas. Meanwhile, someone else also has ideas about what ought to happen to Hercule Poirot"--

When Hazel becomes the personal physician to Princess Charlotte, the sickly granddaughter of King George III, she is dragged into the glamor and romance of the British court, but she soon realizes malicious forces are at work in the monarchy, and she may be the only one capable of setting things right.

"A number of below-the-law powerbrokers plead with Easy to locate a mysterious, dangerous woman--Lutisha James, though she's gone by another name that Easy will immediately recognize. 1970s Los Angeles is a transient city of delicate, violent balances, and Lutisha has disturbed that. She also has a secret that will upend Easy's own life, painfully closer to home." --

Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon is set in an imaginative recreation of Elizabethan London, a rich, intense city overflowing with life and action, a city of spies and booksellers, alchemists and playwrights, poets, witches, plague and salvation. A series of strange events links the lives of an ordinary woman, a bookseller in St. Paul's, and the great writer Christopher Marlowe, as the Faerie Queen and her court invade London in search of the Queen's son, the reborn King Arthur. Marlowe must become in effect a detective, and Alice, strangely favored by the fairies, must become a heroine in a struggle against evil forces. The culmination of this extraordinary fantasy, a battle between the opposing dragons of good and evil, is certainly one of the most weird and enchanting events in all contemporary fantasy. Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon is a big, delicious fantasy adventure filled with strange creatures and ordinary people, famous characters, and mysterious historical doings. It is a triumph of entertainment and one of the finest fantasy novels of the decade.

“An elegant page-turner of nineteenth-century detective fiction.” –The Washington Post Book World One rainy morning in 1871 in lower Manhattan, Martin Pemberton a freelance writer, sees in a passing stagecoach several elderly men, one of whom he recognizes as his supposedly dead and buried father. While trying to unravel the mystery, Pemberton disappears, sending McIlvaine, his employer, the editor of an evening paper, in pursuit of the truth behind his freelancer’s fate. Layer by layer, McIlvaine reveals a modern metropolis surging with primordial urges and sins, where the Tweed Ring operates the city for its own profit and a conspicuously self-satisfied nouveau-riche ignores the poverty and squalor that surrounds them. In E. L. Doctorow’s skilled hands, The Waterworks becomes, in the words of The New York Times , “a dark moral tale . . . an eloquently troubling evocation of our past.” “Startling and spellbinding . . . The waters that lave the narrative all run to the great confluence, where the deepest issues of life and death are borne along on the swift, sure vessel of [Doctorow’s] poetic imagination.” – The New York Times Book Review “Hypnotic . . . a dazzling romp, an extraordinary read, given strength and grace by the telling, by the poetic voice and controlled cynical lyricism of its streetwise and world-weary narrator.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer “A gem of a novel, intimate as chamber music . . . a thriller guaranteed to leave readers with residual chills and shudders.” – Boston Sunday Herald “Enthralling . . . a story of debauchery and redemption that is spellbinding from first page to last.” – Chicago Sun-Times “An immense, extraordinary achievement.” –San Francisco Chronicle

"A frustrated academic still reeling from her husband's betrayal moves into Ashton Hall with her young son and tries to come up with answers after they discover the remains of a woman walled into a forgotten part of the manor"--

"It's 1970's Chicago. Eleven-year-old Matasha Wax is in the sixth grade and just starting to feel the pressures of growing up. Her best friend Jean has been blowing her off, while her parents are in a standoff over her mother's desire to adopt a refugee from Vietnam. And while the bullies in school have started to grow breasts and inches, Matasha remains a puny four-foot-four--which means she will need growth hormone shots, and she is terrified of needles. Apart from her daily reading of the advice columns in the newspaper, keeping up with the Patty Hearst and Watergate scandals, and tracking her parents' deteriorating marriage, Matasha is fixated by the story of Martin Kimmel, a nine-year-old boy who disappeared a few months ago, and whose body has yet to be found. But none of these ongoing problems could have prepared Matasha for her mother's sudden disappearance. When the letters start coming from Switzerland, she knows something is very, very wrong--but no one will tell her what's going on, so Matasha has to figure it all out for herself."--Page 4 of cover