Family Suspense

Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story are cousins, but they barely know each another, and they've never even met their grandmother. Rich and reclusive, she disinherited their parents before they were born. So when they each receive a letter inviting them to work at her island resort for the summer, they're surprised...and curious.

In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is traumatized by a sexual assault, Nina and her husband, Caleb, a quiet and methodical stone mason, are shattered, ripped apart by an enraging sense of helplessness in the face of a futile justice system that Nina knows all too well.

Nine-year-old Harriet Bean can't believe her ears. She has aunts - five of them! Why has her absent-minded father never mentioned them before? Armed with a faceless family portrait and musty old clues, Harriet begins the quest for her long-lost aunts. But are her detective skills sufficient to track down muscular Veronica.

Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for 14-year-old Jory - so handsome, so gentle. And for Bart, who had such a dazzling imagination for a nine-year-old. Then the lights came on in the house next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching them, guarded by her strange old butler. Soon she had Bart over for cookies and ice cream and asked him to call her "Grandmother". And soon Bart's transformation began....

Three complete stories in one collection! Includes Mystery in the Sand, Mystery Behind the Wall, and Bus Station Mystery. In Mystery in the Sand, the Alden family is spending sunny days at the shore and summer nights in the mobile home right on the beach! One morning, Benny finds a gold necklace in the sand, and a search for its owner begins a trail of clues that leads to Tower House, the strange old mansion nearby. What will the Boxcar Children find there?

Laura is grieving after the sudden death of her husband. Struggling to cope emotionally and financially, Laura is grateful when a local community, Oak Leaf Organics, offers her and her 17-year-old daughter, Tilly, a home. But as Laura and Tilly settle into life with their new ‘family’, sinister things begin to happen. When one of the community dies in suspicious circumstances, Laura wants to leave, but Tilly, enthralled by the charismatic leader, Alex, refuses to go.

Just back from their anniversary trip to Dewey Beach, there’s no slow roll back to work for the first couple as Sam is immediately thrust into the baffling murder of her friend and colleague, U.S. Attorney Tom Forrester, which has everyone on edge. The FBI wants in on this one, and she’s determined to figure out what happened to Tom before they can take over her investigation as new and unsettling details arise about the crimes involving disgraced former Lieutenant Stahl.

Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit. Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works.

"Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilt a life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart.

An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal, Second Glance begins in current-day Vermont, where an old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it's a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there's nothing spiritual about the property.

What would happen if you discovered that your family was one of the most powerful in human history? What if you were told that the source of the family's power was hidden around the world, in the form of 39 Clues? What if you were given a choice - take a million dollars and walk away...or get the first Clue? If you're Amy and Dan Cahill, you take the Clue - and begin a very dangerous race.

The aging millionairess has a problem: where is her young playboy husband getting all his money? To help find the answer, Archie infiltrates a party at her palatial estate. But her late-night murder ruins the festive mood...and a letter bomb from a powerful crime boss makes Nero Wolfe do the unthinkable - run for his life. Suddenly Archie finds himself on his own, trying to find a killer without the help of his old mentor. For to all appearances, Wolfe has vanished. The career of the world’s most famous detective has ended in cowardice and disgrace...or has it?

Anne George’s novels offer a delightful mix of gentle comedy and compelling mystery. Murder Runs in the Family finds two feisty 60-something sisters doing a little amateur sleuthing into the death of a visiting genealogist. Mary Alice has spared no expense for her daughter’s wedding. Two days after the glittering affair, Mary Alice and Patricia Anne are spending a fascinating lunch listening to the groom’s cousin explain the ’dog-eat-dog" world of professional genealogy.

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day. So when the three unexpectedly run into each other, they decide to avoid their problems by ditching. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say...until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school - and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it’s about to get worse.

Morgan is not who she thought she was. She is not a regular 16-year-old girl. She is a witch. A real, ancestral witch. Her parents are not her biological parents, and she and her sister share no blood. Even in the coven, she is too powerful now, too different to belong. She is alone except for Cal, who is now her boyfriend. Cal tells her he loves her, and she needs to believe him. He helps Morgan accept the truth: Wicca is in her blood.

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night - dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q...until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q.

Simon Inescort is no longer bodily present in his marriage. It's been several months since he keeled over the rail of a Nova Scotia-bound ferry, a massive heart attack to blame. Simon's widow, Lorca Pell, has sold their farmhouse to newlyweds Zachary and Muriel. He spends time replaying his marriage in his own mind, while also engaging in occasionally intimate observation of the new homeowners. But soon the crisis of a missing child, a local 11-year-old, threatens the tenuous domestic equilibrium, as the weight of the case falls to Zachary, a rookie private detective.

Amy learned a lot in her babysitting course - but not what to do if two thugs show up, intent on kidnapping. When Amy agreed to babysit little Kendra Edgerton, she had no idea she was stepping into a kidnapping plot. Armed with misinformation and a weapon, the two men force the girls out of the house and take them to a remote cabin in the woods. There they make videos of the girls and mail them to Kendra’s wealthy parents in an effort to get ransom money.

Pirriwee Public is a beautiful little beachside primary school where children are taught that ‘sharing is caring.’ So how has the annual School Trivia Night ended in full-blown riot? Sirens are wailing. People are screaming. The principal is mortified. And one parent is dead. Was it a murder, a tragic accident or just good parents gone bad? As the parents at Pirriwee Public are about to discover, sometimes it’s the little lies that turn out to be the most lethal.

In retreat from a devastating loss and crushing injustice, Katie lives alone in a fortresslike stone house on Jacob’s Ladder island. Once a rising star in the art world, she finds refuge in her painting. The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob’s Ladder in search of someone—or something—they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived, one so strange even the island animals are in a state of high alarm.