English Authors Mystery

Retired to the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, rumored to be a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out-a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts? Or do they hold a significance both more prosaic and far more sinister?

Diary of a Murderer captivates and provokes in equal measure, exploring what it means to be on the edge - between life and death, good and evil. In the titular novella, a former serial killer suffering from memory loss sets his sights on one final target: his daughter's boyfriend, who he suspects is also a serial killer. In other stories we witness an affair between two childhood friends that questions the limits of loyalty and love; a family's disintegration after a baby son is kidnapped and recovered years later; and more.

Being a mercenary has made Sophia an expert at kicking butt, and her heritage has made her a professional at hiding in plain sight. Sophia is Fireborn, the supernatural community's public enemy number one. Fireborns have the ability to absorb magic - a gift that turns them into insane, power-hungry murderers. After years on the run, Sophia and her sister have finally found a home for themselves and jobs at the Mercenary Guild. Killing monsters may be hard work, but she doesn't need magic to do it. And as long as she keeps her powers under wraps, they're safe.

In these psychologically daring, chillingly suspenseful pieces, the author of We Were the Mulvaneys and Blonde writes about women facing threats past and present, once again cementing her reputation for "great intelligence and dead-on imaginative powers" (Los Angeles Times Book Review).

When Glasgow journalist Shona McGilvery moves with her partner Mikey and their baby to an idyllic cottage in rural Scotland, they believe that all that lies ahead of them is happiness. But with Mikey working offshore, the frightening isolation of the Aberdeenshire countryside begins to drive her insane.... That is, until she is rescued by a new friendship with the enchanting Valentina. She has the perfect home, the perfect man, and a charismatic new best friend - or does she? As her fairytale life begins to unravel, the deep dark wood becomes the least of her fears....

Mags Barkworth still suffers the effects of a life-changing tragedy over a decade ago. She knows her husband loves her. She knows he would never do anything to hurt her, or their daughter. But what if the voice in her head, the one she's pushed away with therapy and anti-depressants, is telling the truth? What if it's all a lie? When Tam, their daughter, draws an uncannily detailed picture of a place she's never been, Mags's life starts to unravel. But even in her most paranoid moment, Mags could never have guessed the secret she is destined to uncover.

Everything has a price, and the price of truth is steepest of all. Eden has an ironclad five-year plan. In three months, she's saying good riddance to Los Angeles and returning to the Pacific Northwest for medical school. Nothing is going to get in her way. Nothing... but the impossible. When she glimpses her doppelgänger at a party, the seemingly accidental meeting turns her life in a direction she never imagined, shredding everything she knows about herself and where she comes from.

In the clandestine world of shadow ops, he's known as The Man From Orange. A master of surveillance, signals intelligence - and silent killing - special operative Drake Woolf has been groomed and trained by the old-guard intel community after his CIA father and mother were murdered in Tunisia. Now he works for Task Force Orange, handling cases the government doesn't want its fingerprints on. Woolf can always be relied on to carry out an assignment with surgical precision - and exterminate a threat with extreme prejudice. But his latest mission is different.

Covert government operative Danielle Laidlaw leads an expedition into the deepest reaches of the Amazon in search of a legendary Mayan city. Assisted by a renowned university professor and protected by a mercenary named Hawker, her team journeys into the tangled rain forest - unaware that they are replacements for a group that vanished weeks before, and that the treasure they are seeking is no mere artifact but a breakthrough discovery that could transform the world.

Nicole Berman is determined to find there the first concrete evidence of the biblical patriarch Abraham while leading her first archeological dig in Jordan. During the excavation, Berman discovers a 4,000-year-old complex that includes evidence she believes proves her theory. But a devastating cave-in nearly kills her and she awakens in a Saudi clinic, haunted by visions of what she may have seen - evidence of Abraham and his two sons, the half-brothers Isaac and Ishmael. One discovery leads to another, and Nicole sets off across the region to connect pieces of an ancient puzzle.

Eighteen years ago, tragedy struck The Refuge cult in northern Minnesota. Forty people committed suicide, and the entire compound burned to the ground. At just 13, Clare was the sole survivor found wandering miles from the encampment, hands blistered, memories of the horrific event wiped from her mind. Now a sociology professor and liaison to the FBI specializing in cults, Clare has fought to put the past behind her. But intrusive memories and fear of inheriting her cult-leader father’s mental illness threaten to strangle Clare’s budding life when she receives a call from the past.

Ten-year-old Amy Mihaljevic disappeared from the comfortable Cleveland suburb of Bay Village in the fall of 1989. Her picture was everywhere - anyone who watched the local TV news remembers the girl with the sideways ponytail. Tragically, Amy was found dead a few months later. Her killer was never found. Now, 15 years later, journalist James Renner picks up the leads. Filled with mysterious riddles, incredible coincidences, and a cast of unusual but very real characters, his investigation quickly becomes a riveting journey in search of the truth.

Kadence has been sheltered from the world for her entire life, never allowed outside her home. It's not a life she's happy with, but it's one she's come to accept. Everything changes the day her father is slaughtered by a vampire and she escapes the walls that have kept her caged. After she's attacked by the monster responsible for killing her father, Kadence is unsure how to react when she's rescued by Ronan. Though raised to hate vampires, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to Ronan as she slowly begins to realize that everything she's been taught over the years may not be true.

The paranormal world just can't seem to cut Ren a break. Just when she thought she could finally settle into normal - well, relatively normal - life as the last of the dragon shifters with her four alpha mates, she finds her people on the brink of a supernatural war. The vampires have decided all shifter kind must be exterminated, and they've got the firepower to make good on that goal. Ren's got plenty of fire of her own, of course. But she's only one dragon, and there are a whole lot of vampires.

After barely escaping with my life, returning to Faerie is the last thing I want to do. But my mission has grown only stronger now that I've sworn to save more held trapped in that realm. If only I know about their fate, then I'm sure as hell going to save them. Even if it means returning to hell.

Maddie Kosloski is no fan of San Benedetto's Christmas Cow, a 30-foot straw bovine that graces the town square every December. For one thing, the cow displaces her paranormal museum as the number one tourist attraction. Plus, every year, despite around-the-clock surveillance, the cow goes up in flames. But this year, there's more than just a fire blazing in Maddie's wine-country hometown. One of the Christmas Cow guards has been found with an arrow in his chest, and Maddie's new haunted cowbell exhibit is fueling a panic.

My name is Sister Trixie Lavender, and I'm an occasionally possessed excommunicated nun. I was booted from the convent after doing something unspeakable. Something I had no control over. Something that lives inside me to this day, exploding out like that chest-burster in Alien when I least suspect it.

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of police - until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from state prison and heads for town. And that's not all. An EPA official with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off the face of the earth.

A knife that cut too deep, a slash that still burns, failures piled high and flammable. I held my losses at bay with knives, with guns, my hands, my bike, my brothers, my iron will. But not my heart. No, my heart was the flame that would light the match, ignite the blaze. I am the enforcer - the killer when called upon, the ruthless hound on demand, the one who cleans the mess left behind. I am the protector - I can make you bleed, smash you to pieces. But she smashed all my excuses, and I shattered hers.