NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly * The Boston Globe * Kansas City Star "A legal thriller that's comparable to classics such as Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent . . . Tragic and shocking, Defending Jacob is sure to generate buzz."--Associated Press NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney for two decades. He is respected. Admired in the courtroom. Happy at home with the loves of his life, his wife, Laurie, and teenage son, Jacob. Then Andy's quiet suburb is stunned by a shocking crime: a young boy stabbed to death in a leafy park. And an even greater shock: The accused is Andy's own son--shy, awkward, mysterious Jacob. Andy believes in Jacob's innocence. Any parent would. But the pressure mounts. Damning evidence. Doubt. A faltering marriage. The neighbors' contempt. A murder trial that threatens to obliterate Andy's family. It is the ultimate test for any parent: How far would you go to protect your child? It is a test of devotion. A test of how well a parent can know a child. For Andy Barber, a man with an iron will and a dark secret, it is a test of guilt and innocence in the deepest sense. How far would you go? Praise for Defending Jacob "Ingenious . . . Nothing is predictable. All bets are off."-- The New York Times "Stunning . . . a novel that comes to you out of the blue and manages to keep you reading feverishly until the whole thing is completed."--The Huffington Post "Gripping, emotional murder saga . . . The shocking ending will have readers pulling up their bedcovers to ward off the haunting chill."-- People "The hype is justified. . . . Exceptionally serious, suspenseful, engrossing."-- The Washington Post "Even with unexpected twists and turns, the two narratives interlock like the teeth of a zipper, building to a tough and unflinching finale. This novel has major motion picture written all over it."-- The Boston Globe "Yes, this book came out in January. No, we are not done talking about it."-- Entertainment Weekly

Hailed as the most suspenseful and compelling novel in decades, PRESUMED INNOCENT brings to life our worst nightmare: that of an ordinary citizen facing conviction for the most terrible of all crimes. It's the stunning portrayal of one man's all-too-human, all-consuming fatal attraction for a passionate woman who is not his wife, and the story of how his obsession puts everything he loves and values on trial--including his own life. It's a book that lays bare a shocking world of betrayal and murder, as well as the hidden depths of the human heart. And it will hold you and haunt you...long after you have reached its shattering conclusion.

"Exciting . . . deliciously absorbing . . . full of hair-pin turns." — The Washington Post Meet Claire Heller Chapman. A criminal defense attorney who's made a name for herself by taking on—and winning—the toughest cases, Claire still manages to have a relatively calm life as a Harvard Law School professor, devoted wife, and proud mother to six-year-old Annie. Until one night, when the family is out having dinner, a team of government agents bursts onto the scene...heading straight for Claire's husband. "A powerhouse tale." — Chicago Tribune Tom Chapman has been arrested for an atrocious crime he swears he did not commit. Claire is desperate to believe him—and prove his innocence—even when she learns that Tom once had a different name. And a different face. Now, in a top-secret court-martial conducted by the Pentagon, Claire will put everything on the line to defend the man she loves. But as the evidence keeps piling up, the less she knows who her husband really is...and the more he appears to be a cold-blooded murderer. "Provocative and chilling." —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"A murder investigation draws firebrand attorney Samantha Brinkman into her boyfriend's past in this novel of high-risk suspense by bestselling author Marcia Clark. When it comes to relationships and self-preservation, defense attorney Samantha Brinkman has always been cut and run. But it's different with her new lover, Niko, an ambitious and globally famous entrepreneur. Sam is putting her faith in him. She has to. He's also her new client-a suspect in the murder of an investor whose shady dealings turned Niko's good life upside down. He had the motive: revenge. As did many others who banked a fortune on the wrong man. That's a point in Niko's favor. So is his alibi for the day of the slaying. Until that alibi mysteriously disappears. As Sam's feverish search for another viable killer begins, the investigation only leads deeper into Niko's past and its secrets. From the darkest suspicions to final judgment, fighting for Niko is Sam's job. To do it, she must risk everything on a man who could make all her worst fears come true." --

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.

Stewart Dubinsky knew his father, David, had served in World War II, but had been told very little about his experiences. When he finds, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancee and learns of David's court-martial, Stewart is driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man he never knew.Using military archives, old letters, and David's own notes, he discovers that David, a JAG lawyer, had pursued a maverick U.S. officer in Europe, fallen in love with a beautiful resistance fighter, and fought in the war's deadliest conflicts. In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart gains a closer understanding of his father's secret past and of the brutal nature of war itself.

"There is no privacy more inviolable than that of the prisoner. To visualize that cell in which he is thinking, to reach what he alone knows; that is a blank in the dark." Privileged whites in post-apartheid South Africa, Harald and Claudia Lindgard have managed to live the better part of 50 years without ever confronting the deepest shadows in their culture or in their own souls. Though they conceive of themselves as liberal-minded, neither has ever taken any active political stand; neither has ever been in any black person's home. Harald sits on the board of an insurance company; Claudia is a compassionate doctor. Neither of them has ever been inside a courtroom before; neither has ever been inside a prison. When their architect-son, Duncan, is arrested for murder, both know that the charge is preposterous. But Duncan himself fails to deny his guilt, and his parents are brought by a harsh and ungainly process to accept the possibility that he has committed an unthinkable crime. Nadine Gordimer's The House Gun is a gravely sustained exploration of their long-delayed but necessary descent into an intimate acquaintance with the culture of violence that surrounds them and that is "the common hell of all who are associated with it." The novel is a mystery, but not in the usual sense of the whodunit. Here the question of who quickly gives way to why and thence to other, still deeper quandaries of culpability, both immediate and ultimate. The enigmatic Duncan becomes a dark mirror in which his stunned parents must desperately grope for a new vision of themselves and their world--a vision that will not shatter, as their old one has, under a single blow from reality. Gordimer's prose is mannered and severe; humor is rare, or absent. "As the couple emerge into the foyer of the courts, vast and lofty cathedral echoing with the susurration of its different kind of supplicants gathered there, Claudia suddenly breaks away, disappearing towards the sign indicating toilets. Harald waits for her among these people patient in trouble, no choice to be otherwise, for them, he is one of them, the wives, husbands, fathers, lovers, children of forgers, thieves and murderers." This difficult exposition is the reader's own dark mirror, where we as spectators fumble from one dubious explanation to the next--a twisted reflection always reminding us that, underlying this social tragedy, there is a mystery play in the old sense, and an unanswerable question: What is a human being? Paragraph after paragraph, the reader is led into deeper and deeper perceptions of the sensibilities and the dilemmas of these characters--into a quiet intimacy with their trouble that is sometimes acutely uncomfortable, but which pays off richly in an ending that reconciles our sense of the horror of violence with our desire to believe in the value of each life. --Daniel Hintzsche

In 1955, New York Times bestselling novelist Harold Robbins shocked the world by pulling back the bedroom curtain to expose America's complicated and controversial relationship with the power of female sexuality. The concept was stunning, salacious... and breathtaking--a story not only built entirely upon the premise of illicit sex, but from a woman's point of view, as she uses it to rise to a position of power and wealth in a man's world. It was a seminal moment, and the literary world would never be the same. Fate, love, power, and sex collide in the halls of justice in New York City as ADA Mike Keyes comes face-to-face with his lifelong love, MaryAnn Flood, the city's most notorious--to say nothing of dangerous--madame. Before she was a tabloid celebrity with a little black book full of the names, though, Marja Fluudjincki was a shy young girl who captured his heart and never let it go. In the years since, she's parlayed her beauty into power and position as the head of 79 Park Avenue, an escort service catering to the rich and powerful under the guise of an upscale modeling agency. Now, with Marja on trial and Mike the prosecutor assigned to her case, they both face the biggest challenge of their lives. Is she still capable of love after sacrificing everything to claw her way up from the mean streets to the penthouse? Can he--should he--set aside his personal feelings for the sake of justice? 79 Park Avenue is a story of unanswered, perhaps unanswerable, questions, for society as much as its brilliantly nuanced characters. Why is the promiscuous man celebrated while his female counterpart is shamed? How can we revel in the sexualization of women, yet respect them so little? How much progress have we really made in the battle of the sexes? More than 60 years after its original release, the story of MaryAnn Flood remains just as relevant today, and this, more than anything demonstrates the genius and talent of Harold Robbins.

From the author of The New York Times #1 bestselling novel The Carpetbaggers comes a story inspired by the real-life murder of Johnny Stompanato, allegedly stabbed to death by the daughter of his lover, actress Lana Turner. Where Love Has Gone is a thrilling tale of greed, betrayal, and passion. When first published in 1962, the novel rocked Hollywood to its core, staying on The New York Times bestseller list for 14 weeks. In love and soon to be a father, Luke Carey has the life he's always wanted. That is, until a mysterious late-night phone call summons him to San Francisco. Luke's first daughter whom he hasn't seen in six years, fourteen-year-old Danielle, needs him, and he's desperate to do anything he can to help. But coming back into Danielle's life means facing his ex-wife Nora, and the explosive, violent drama of the life he left behind. Where Love Has Gone was adapted into the Academy Award(R)-nominated blockbuster film of the same name, starring Oscar(R) winners Bette Davis and Susan Hayward.

Nathan Stein -- once an attractive, cultured lawyer -- has stipped into the dark world of his powerful father's corrupt practice. After one too many shady deals, he finds himself alone, sick in body and spirit. His career and life are careening out of control, and he's about to become the prime suspect in the murder of a young woman. As we follow him over a long day and night, Nathan encounters the friends, lovers, and family members he has betrayed. Lurching toward redemption, he must answer for his actions. Is he a murderer or the victim of an elaborate frame-up? Or do his sins go even deeper? A tale of chilling suspense that belies the elegance of its prose, Blood Acre is a compelling story of one man's harrowing search through the dark streets of the soul.