Family Life Thriller

Three well-off young men - former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno - brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat. It is this environment, the halls of San Leone Magno in the late 1960s and the 1970s, that Edoardo Albinati takes as his subject.

Twenty-three-year-old Katy Speed is fascinated by the house across the street. The woman who lives there, Gloria, is the most glamorous neighbour on the avenue, owning a fashionable dress shop in Bexhill-on-Sea. But who is the woman who arrives in the black car most Saturdays while Gloria is at work? Sometimes she brings women to the house, other times they have children. Hilda, Katy's mother, disapproves of Gloria. She wonders if these mysterious visitors have just been released from prison. Is Gloria secretly bringing criminals, or worse, into the heart of the community?

Caitlin Prescott was only a baby when her parents disappeared. Adopted by a wealthy Texas oil family, she became Kate Montgomery, and grew up with no memory of her parents or her two older sisters and brother, who have been searching for her, hoping to right a terrible wrong that was committed 22 years ago in a small Texas town.

Farrah "Digit" Higgins may be going to MIT in the fall, but this L.A. high school genius has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping - all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously.

Eleven-year-old Lauren O'Neil vanished one sunny afternoon as she walked home from school. Six years later, her parents Rachel and Dan still tirelessly scour their Oregon hometown and beyond, always believing Lauren will be found. Then one day, the call comes. Lauren has been rescued from a secluded farm mere miles away, and her abductor has confessed. Yet her return is nothing like Rachel imagined. Though the revelations about what Lauren endured are shocking, most heartbreaking of all is to see the bright-eyed, assertive daughter she knew transformed into a wary, polite stranger.

John Docherty’s mother has just been taken into a nursing home following a massive stroke and she’s unlikely to be able to live independently again. With no other option than to sell the family home, John sets about packing up everything in the house. In sifting through the detritus of his family’s past he’s forced to revisit, and revise his childhood. For in a box, in the attic, he finds undeniable truth that he had a brother who disappeared when he himself was only a toddler.

James Lionel Falconer has risen quickly from a mere shop worker to being the right-hand man of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. With Malvern's daughter Alexis running away to the country after a terrible tragedy and refusing to return, James' ascent to head of the company seems inevitable. But even a charmed life like James' is not without its setbacks. A terrible fire threatens to end his merchant career before it's had a chance to truly begin. Mrs. Ward, James' former paramour, has a secret that could change his life forever.

Nessa Garvey’s sister Deena vanished without a trace in Philadelphia in 2004. In all that time, Nessa has never once doubted what her instincts told her: her sister’s ex-husband has gotten away with an unspeakable crime. Nessa’s niece, Ruby, is raised by her father, the man Nessa suspects, in rural Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain. Ruby learns how to hunt, how the plants and trees grow, how to avoid making her father angry. The one question she longs to ask is the one she knows she cannot voice: What really happened to her mother?

Jan needs this. She’s flying to Crete to reunite with friends she met there five years ago and relive an idyllic vacation. Basking in the warmth of the sun, the azure sea, and the aura of antiquity, she can once again pretend - for a little while - that she belongs. Her ex-boyfriend Marcus will be among them, but even he doesn’t know the secrets she keeps hidden behind a veil of lies. None of them really know her. Then again, how well does she know them? When Jan awakens in utter darkness, chained to a wall, she desperately tries to reconstruct what happened....

From the queen of white-knuckle suspense and searing family drama comes a harrowing glimpse into the real world behind the headlines. This is a novel of immense power and compassion - one that will move all who listen to it. Tina is a young woman hiding from her grief on the streets of the Cross. On a cold night in the middle of winter, she breaks all her own rules when she agrees to go home with a customer. What she finds in his house will change her life forever. The Boy Under the Table is gritty, shocking, moving and, ultimately, filled with hope.

Now in her 70s, Katherine Vigneras, née Forrester, has returned to New York City after a successful career touring as a concert pianist in Europe. Much has changed for Katherine: She is widowed and retired, and has lived through the harrowing years of World War II. But when she encounters an old face from her youth in Greenwich Village, Katherine finds herself agreeing to perform at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, an endeavor that proves to be unexpectedly rewarding - and challenging.

Best-selling sportswriter and Edgar Award winner John Feinstein is back with another sports mystery featuring Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson—this one set at the summer Olympics in London. In this book, Susan Carol isn't a reporter—she's an Olympian, competing as a swimmer at her first Olympic games. Stevie is both proud and envious of her athletic prowess. And he's worried by the agents and sponsors and media all wanting to get up close and personal with Susan Carol.

Marion Zetland lives with her domineering older brother, John, in a crumbling mansion on the edge of a northern seaside resort. A timid spinster in her 50s who still sleeps with teddy bears, Marion does her best to live by John's rules, even if it means turning a blind eye to the noises she hears coming from behind the cellar door...and turning a blind eye to the women's laundry in the hamper that isn't hers. For years she's buried the signs of John's devastating secret into the deep recesses of her mind - until the day John is crippled by a heart attack.

Paul Strom is the perfect husband: breadwinner, protector, provider. That's why he's planned a romantic weekend for his wife, Mia, at their lake house, just the two of them. And he's promised today will be the best day ever. But as Paul and Mia drive out of the city and toward the countryside, a spike of tension begins to wedge itself between them, and doubts start to arise. How perfect is their marriage, or any marriage, really? How much do they trust each other? Is Paul the person he seems to be? And what are his secret plans for their weekend?

Lyle Hovde is at the onset of his golden years, living a mostly content life in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Peg, daughter, Shiloh, and six-year old grandson, Isaac. After a troubled adolescence and subsequent estrangement from her parents, Shiloh has finally come home. But while Lyle is thrilled to have his whole family reunited, he’s also uneasy: In Shiloh’s absence, she has become deeply involved with an extremist church, and the devout pastor courting her is convinced Isaac has the spiritual ability to heal the sick.

Lili St. Crow’s darkly exhilarating Strange Angels novels have won a devoted readership. In the third book of the series, Crow’s unusual heroine, Dru Anderson, has been through the ringer, what with a missing mother, her father turning all undead on her, and forces of evil that just won’t seem to let her be. On the run from a predator with a taste for her blood, Dru can count on help from Graves and Christophe—but they just might do more harm than good as they battle for her affections.

April had absolutely no intention of becoming the only person who knows that Gabriel Winterborne, the missing-and-presumed-dead billionaire, is actually living in the basement of Winterborne House, sharpening his swords and looking for vengeance. Now it’s up to April to keep him alive. But there’s only so much a 12-year-old girl can do, so April must turn to the other orphans for help. Together, they’ll have to unravel the riddle of a missing heir and a creepy legend, and find a secret key, before the only home they’ve ever known is lost to them forever.

Legal investigator Finley O’Sullivan has had a difficult year in the wake of her husband’s murder. But in her line of work, there’s no time to grieve. Her job is to protect the firm’s clients and defend their innocence through grueling investigative work. Ellen Winthrop is a force to be reckoned with in the financial world. In a male-dominated industry, she shattered the glass ceiling by empowering and promoting women. But now her husband is dead, killed in the Winthrop family home—and she stands accused of his murder.

Ever-loyal Maddalena, a diminutive, blue-eyed, black slave, has borne Cosimo de' Medici a son and seen him rise to the position of cardinal. Now, late in life, she finds herself committed to a convent, as part of a scheme to protect the Medici bank from ruin by Cosimo's sons, by hiding a fortune in gold for Cosimo's grandson Lorenzo to inherit. But as the months go by, and the gold does not appear, her faith in Cosimo begins to wane, and with it, her confidence in her own worth. Has she been duped?

Newlyweds Sean Eagle and Meghan DeFord are no strangers to pain and loss as cold-case detectives. But when a new case hits too close to home, it threatens to pull loose the fragile cords of their young marriage. Sheila Menke was just a girl when her father left and never returned. An investigation revealed he had embezzled enough to start a new life elsewhere, but Sheila could never accept this. Sheila nad Meghan are poised to discover that while earthly fathers may fail, there is one in heaven who is a father to the fatherless.