Dystopian Mystery

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get nothing but dust.

London is in lockdown under martial law. A hospital is being urgently built by the river Thames to contain the thousands of victims of a flu-like epidemic. Construction is brought to a sudden halt when a leather holdall containing the bones of a child is unearthed from the rubble. A psychopath has been unleashed on the city; his mission is to take all measures necessary to prevent the bones from being identified. But why are he and his handlers determined to go to such murderous lengths to hide the origins of the body?

On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial. This can't happen here. Not in America. Not to her. This is just the beginning. Soon women are not permitted to hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke 16,000 words a day, but now women only have 100 to make themselves heard. But this is not the end. For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.

Across the world, the United States recalls troops to combat civil unrest after the biggest economic meltdown in history. Marine Sergeant Ronaldo Salvatore’s platoon comes home to a powder keg that could ignite a civil war. While some see the coming collapse as the end, others see opportunity. Fleeing Naples after rival crime lords decimated his family, Don Antonio Moretti settles in Los Angeles to rebuild his criminal empire. But he is far from alone in his ambitions.

Vitus Adamson is falling apart. As a pre-deceased private investigator, he takes the prescription Atroxipine hourly to keep his undead body upright and functioning. Whenever he is injured, he seeks Niko, a bombshell mortician with bedroom eyes and a way with corpses, to piece him back together. Decomposition, however, is the least of his worries when two clients posing his most dangerous job yet appear at his door looking for their lost son.

Reaching the end of their flight in The Knife of Never Letting Go, Todd and Viola did not find healing and hope in Haven. They found instead their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss, waiting to welcome them to New Prentisstown. There they are forced into separate lives: Todd to prison, and Viola to a house of healing where her wounds are treated. Soon Viola is swept into the ruthless activities of the Answer, while Todd faces impossible choices when forced to join the mayor’s oppressive new regime.

He survived The Scourge, defeated The Cartel, and escaped The Dwellers. Now he wants revenge. After a brutal attack on his homestead, Marcus Battle seeks to find the men who took away his second chance at life in a postapocalyptic world. When he finds them, they'll wish they'd left him alone.

It is 2059, and the world has crashed. Forty years ago, a solar catastrophe began to slow the planet's rotation to a stop. Now, one half of the globe is permanently sunlit, the other half trapped in an endless night. Ellen Hopper is a scientist living on a frostbitten rig in the cold Atlantic. She wants nothing more to do with her country after its slide into casual violence and brutal authoritarianism. Yet when two government officials arrive demanding she return to London to see her dying college mentor, she accepts—and begins to unravel a secret.

The world has been thrown into chaos after thousands of people suddenly vanished one horrifying evening. Four kids in the Chicago suburbs - Judd, Vicki, Lionel, and Ryan - reel with shock as they learn they are the only ones left in their families. As the truth behind the disappearances becomes clear, the kids discover they are faced with far-reaching decisions. But while the others are making their choices, Lionel gets a disturbing message from his uncle in Chicago. Not knowing if his uncle is still alive, Lionel rushes to the inner city to search for him.

Ben Davis was prepared for disaster. He just didn't know it would come so soon. He and his teenage son Joel, are miles deep in the backcountry of the San Juan Mountains when high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic detonations light up the pre-dawn sky. Ben, Joel, and their dog, Gunner, must make their way home - or whatever's left of it - on foot.

The seventh and never-before-published book in USA Today best-selling author Nicholas Sansbury Smith's propulsive postapocalyptic series about a soldier's mission to save the world.

During an unacknowledged mission inside the Syrian border, a government operative had unwittingly triggered an incredible worldwide event that irrevocably shaped the future of the United States. In the aftermath of the crisis, families have struggled to survive in a world short on food, water, and electricity. Hyperinflation cripples the United States economy, and postwar armored military vehicles are patrolling the streets. One man has now stepped forward and continues to push back the dark wave of tyranny.

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

This is the fifth novel in the action-packed series following Special Forces Captain Lee Harden and a group of survivors struggling to make their way in a ruined world. After a bacterium has turned 90 percent of the population into a ravenous horde, Lee must complete his mission: SURVIVE, RESCUE, REBUILD.

Every Winter, the human population hibernates. Your name is Charlie Worthing, and it's your first season with the Winter Consuls, the committed but mildly unhinged group of misfits who are responsible for ensuring the hibernatory safe passage of the sleeping masses. You are investigating an outbreak of viral dreams which you dismiss as nonsense; nothing more than a quirky artifact borne of the sleeping mind. When the dreams start to kill people, it's unsettling. When you get the dreams, too, it's weird. When they start to come true, you begin to doubt your sanity.

In Aurora, Illinois, Aubrey Wheeler is just trying to get by after her semi-criminal ex-husband split, leaving behind his unruly teenage son. Then the lights go out—not just in Aurora but across the globe. A solar storm has knocked out power almost everywhere. Suddenly, all problems are local, very local, and Aubrey must assume the mantle of fierce protector of her suburban neighborhood.

They call it The Violence: a strange epidemic that causes the infected to experience sudden bursts of animalistic rage, with no provocation and no memory of their crimes. While it tears the nation apart, one woman sees something unlikely in the chaos—an opportunity.

A new mission. An old rival. The powerful secret that binds them. Since the U.S. collapsed into chaos, Conor Maguire has fought to keep his family and friends safe, turning away attackers who threatened their community, seeking to live off the spoils of theft and murder. Fortunately, Conor is no stranger to fighting. In fact it’s his job. He’s an old-school assassin. When Conor and his partner reach their target they find that all is not as it seems. One small job, killing a shady financier, quickly becomes something larger.

On a hotter and more volatile Earth in the 23rd century, humans like Clare and Jon live in utopia, hunting and gathering in small tribal bands, engaged in daily art and ritual, reunited with old friends like the shaggy mammoth and giant ground sloth. Even better, they still have solar-powered laptops and can communicate with each other around the world. The understanding of physics has also advanced.

R is a young man with an existential crisis—he is a zombie. He has no memories, no identity, and no pulse, but he has dreams. His ability to connect with the outside world is limited to a few grunted syllables, but his inner life is deep, full of wonder and longing. After experiencing a teenage boy’s memories while consuming his brain, R makes an unexpected choice that begins a tense, awkward, and strangely sweet relationship with the victim’s human girlfriend, Julie.