Family Suspense Thrillers

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people—though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she’s invisible. All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written by her best friend—her grandmother Zelda—who died under mysterious circumstances years ago. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth.

An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences.

Christmas Eve, and the Lee family's reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man....

In The Flame Alphabet, language is toxic to everyone but children. For adults this means no speaking, no reading, no writing, no listening—at least not without severe allergic reaction, depression or crippling pain.

Commander Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard has just published a new book of poems and has taken a brief respite from publicity on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast. A psychotic strangler of young women is at large in Norfolk, and getting nearer to Larksoken with every killing. And when Dalgliesh discovers the murdered body of the Acting Administrative Officer on the beach, he finds himself caught up in one of the most baffling murder cases of his career.

After surviving an infamous family tragedy, 16-year-old Kennedy Jones has made it her mission to keep her brother's search through the cosmos alive. But then something disturbs the frequency on his radio telescope - a pattern registering where no signal should transmit. In a neighboring county, 17-year-old Nolan Chandler is determined to find out what really happened to his brother, who disappeared the day after Nolan had an eerie premonition. There hasn't been a single lead for two years, until Nolan picks up an odd signal - a pattern coming from his brother's bedroom.

Bertie's respite from his overbearing mother, Irene, is over. She has returned home from the Middle East, only to discover that her son has been exposed to the worst of evils: cartoons, movies, and even carbonated beverages. But the one who should be most concerned is her unfortunate husband, Stuart, upon whom her wrath is about to descend.

Amy and Dan make shocking discoveries about their family's power and their parents' deaths as they track the next clue to a remote corner of the world.

It is 1940 and a tragedy sends Lou and her little brother, Oz, along with their invalid mother, from New York City to the rugged mountains of Southwest Virginia to live with their great-grandmother. The story is told with both heartbreaking elegance and large doses of touching humor as the lives of Lou and Oz are changed forever.

She won't rest until she's sent every walking corpse back to its grave. Forever. Had anyone told Alice Bell that her entire life would change course between one heartbeat and the next, she would have laughed. From blissful to tragic, innocent to ruined? Please. But that's all it took. One heartbeat. A blink, a breath, a second, and everything she knew and loved was gone. Her father was right. The monsters are real.

Sally Proulx and her young boy have mysteriously disappeared in the stormy town of High River. Clare is hired to track them down, hoping against all odds to find them alive. But High River isn’t your typical town. It’s a place where women run to—women who want to escape their past. They run to Helen Haines, a matriarch who offers them safe haven and anonymity. Pretending to be Sally’s long-lost friend, Clare turns up and starts asking questions, but nothing prepares her for the swirl of deception and the depth of the lies.

Aiden and Meg Falconer are out to find the evidence that will free their parents from a life sentence in prison. But in order to do that, they have to live undercover. Ever since they broke out of a juvenile detention facility, they've been chased by the FBI ... and by a strange killer they've nicknamed Hairless Joe. Now their story has hit the airwaves, and suddenly everyone is looking for the Falconer kids.

The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

Tracing a group of ruthless outlaws from its genesis during the American Civil War all the way to a final bloody stand in the Oklahoma territories, The Winter Family is a hyperkinetic Western noir that reads like a full-on assault to the senses.

A car accident in upstate New York strands Nero Wolfe, America's largest detective, and Archie Goodwin, his confidential assistant, in the midst of a family feud. The feud, over $45,000 worth of prize bull, turns ugly when the beef in question is found pawing the mangled body of a family scion. Solving the mystery is no problem - but, alas, the evidence keeps disappearing.

When President Geoffrey Hilliard’s son Cam, a 16-year-old chess champion, experiences extreme fatigue, moodiness, and an uncharacteristic violent outburst, doctors are quick to dismiss his troubles as teen angst. But Secret Service agent Karen Ray summons her physician ex-husband for a second opinion. Dr. Lee Blackwood’s concerns are dismissed by the president's team - until Cam gets sicker. Lee must make a diagnosis from a puzzling array of symptoms he's never seen before. His only clue is a patient named Susie Banks, a young musical prodigy who seems to be suffering from the same baffling condition as Cam.

The second novel and first quick-listen title from Sunday Times and New York Times best-selling author Cathy Glass. My Dad's a Policeman is a dramatic and engaging story of a young boy with an alcoholic mother. Lonely, bullied and desperate for a life of happiness and security he tells everyone he meets his dad's a policeman. Fast paced and compelling, this short story from Cathy Glass follows the experiences of a Ryan, a small and lonely 12-year-old boy who struggles to fit in.

Just moved in to a new apartment, alone for the first time in years, Victor Forde goes every evening to Donnelly’s for a pint, a slow one. One evening his drink is interrupted. A man in shorts and a pink shirt brings over his pint and sits down. He seems to know Victor’s name and to remember him from secondary school. His name is Fitzpatrick. Victor dislikes him on sight, dislikes, too, the memories that Fitzpatrick stirs up of five years being taught by the Christian Brothers.

After a night of fun back in 1992, Abby is responsible for a car crash that kills her beloved brother. It's a mistake she can never forgive, so she pushes away Liam, the man she loves most, knowing that he would eventually hate her for what she's done, the same way she hates herself. Twenty years later, Abby's husband, Nate, is also living with a deep sense of guilt. He was the driver who first came upon the scene of Abby's accident, the man who could not save her brother in time. It's this guilt, this regret, that binds them together. Then, Liam moves into the neighborhood....

Welcome to picturesque Provence, where the Lady of the Chateau, Séraphine Demargelasse, has opened its elegant doors to her granddaughter Darcy and her three friends. Twenty years earlier, the four girlfriends studied abroad together in France and visited the old woman on the weekends, creating the group’s deep bond. But why this sudden invitation? Amid winery tours, market visits, and fancy dinners overlooking olive groves and lavender fields, it becomes clear that each woman has a hidden reason for returning to the estate after all these years.