First Mystery

When Meredith Mitchell bumps into her old school friend Rachel Hunter at the Chelsea Flower Show, she is shocked to discover that she was the first wife of her companion, Chief Inspector Alan Markby. But the meeting is not the only surprise; before the afternoon is out, Markby has a death on his hands.

Months ago Sarah Gallagher woke from a coma with psychic abilities she couldn't control. They changed her life and cost her the man she loved. And now, someone is playing games with Sarah's mind. It begins with Sarah's home being destroyed by fire - an act of arson that draws novelist Tucker Mackenzie into Sarah's confidence. But he has other reasons for pursuing a woman who can see what others can't. So does a mysterious enemy intent on eliminating Sarah, and everyone she cares about.

Lee Hanjo is an artist at the peak of his fame, envied and celebrated. Then, on his forty-third birthday, he awakens to find that his devoted wife has disappeared, leaving behind a soon-to-be-published novel she’d secretly written about the sordid past and questionable morality of an artist with a trajectory similar to Hanjo’s. It’s clear to him that his life is about to shatter and the demons from his past will come out. But why did his wife do it? Why now?

When the seven-year-old grandson of a US senator vanishes in the woods behind his home, the only witness is his older brother, who whispers, "The lights took him," and then never speaks again. As the FBI and National Guard launch a massive search, the boys' grandmother Lynn Roseworth fears only she knows the truth. But coming forward would ruin her family and her husband's political career.

In their battle to save Earth from becoming another conquest of the alien Kasari Collective, Mark and Heather Smythe have struck crucial blows against the enemy. But their best efforts have still failed to derail the completion of the wormhole gateway that would give the insidious extraterrestrial invaders access to the planet - and doom humankind as helpless slaves of the Kasari hive mind.

Dylan First, brilliant psychologist turned FBI agent, is trying to forget the horrific discovery of her past: that her mentor and father figure, a brilliant psychiatrist and professor, was secretly a serial killer. Though behind bars, he haunts Dylan’s psyche, and when a new killer turns up, seemingly targeting people from her mentor’s past, the FBI desperately need Dylan to solve the mind games that only a brilliant criminal psychologist like her can.

This book is for listeners of true crime podcasts and audiences of both fiction and true-crime nonfiction. It's the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way. When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, and wrote her out of the will.

On the muddy banks of the Calumet River, a body has been found posed next to a series of mysterious glyphs and bearing wounds from a ritualistic slaying. Chicago detective Addie Bisset knows only one man who can decipher the message left by the killer: her friend Dr. Evan Wilding. A brilliant forensic semiotician, Evan decodes the etchings as Viking Age runes. They suggest either human sacrifice or righteous punishment. But to what god? And for what sins? Only one thing is clear from the disturbing runic riddles: there are more victims to come.

Brother Cadfael meets Walt Longmire. Everyone has an inner life.... Father Ambrose found a simple, worthwhile path leading a secluded spiritual community in Northern California. He spends his days happily focused on guiding the farming and teaching meditation. Then, someone dumps a body in one of their orchards.

When University of Washington Professor Benjamin Bradshaw discovers the dead body of a despised colleague inside the Faraday cage of the electric machine, his carefully controlled world shatters.

When techno genius Nola Billingsley finds her former employee, an amoral creep who stole secrets, murdered, she doesn’t exactly shed tears. Instead, she begins a flirtation with the inspector assigned to the case. With her shorthaired pointer Skootch watching her back, Nola and her group of techno pals try to help solve the murder, bringing into play Nola’s feisty feminism and idealism, and putting both her life and her love affair at risk.

Set against a backdrop of racial tension and deadly force controversy in Dallas, Open Season introduces Sarah Kingsly and Angel Johnson, homicide detectives who are unlikely and unwilling partners. When people start dying in area shopping malls, the detectives find themselves up against a killer who has his own race card to play.

Rinehart's first American mystery published in 1908, reminding Agatha Christie fans of her first country-house English mystery, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published 12 years later. This book has servants, a secret room, multigenerational goings-on, and more like Styles did.

On the eve of Game One of the NBA Finals, basketball star Garrett Streeter discovers that his brother Jake has been kidnapped. To save his life, Garrett must intentionally throw the seven-game championship series. Caitlin Glass had aspirations of becoming a professional basketball player until an injury ended her college career. Now a police officer, she’s watched with envy as her college boyfriend, Garrett, went on to become a star. But as Garrett leads his team to the NBA Finals, he suddenly shows up at her door asking for help.

A love story serves as backdrop for The Map of the Sky when New York socialite Emma Harlow agrees to marry millionaire Montgomery Gilmore, but only if he accepts her audacious challenge: to reproduce the extraterrestrial invasion featured in Wells's War of the Worlds. What follows are three brilliantly interconnected plots to create a breathtaking tale of time travel and mystery, replete with cameos by a young Edgar Allan Poe, and Captain Shackleton and Charles Winslow from The Map of Time.

Wayson Harris is not your ordinary clone. He is an outlawed model with a mind of his own, an unquenchable thirst for battle, and a huge chip on his shoulder. Harris quit the U.A. Marines once it became clear its officers didn't give a damn how many clones were lost. But now he's been recalled for duty under the Elite Conscription Act. An unstoppable alien force is advancing on Earth, wiping out the U.A.'s colonies one by one along the way. It's up to Harris and his men to make a last stand on the planet of New Copenhagen, where they must win the battle and the war - or lose all.

Marci Simon lives a double life: conservative professor of English by day, and controversial blogger of aliens by night. But when a classified document lands in her lap, her two worlds collide in an explosive revelation of shocking and deadly secrets. Despite imminent danger at every twist, Marci embarks on an unstoppable quest to expose the terrifying truth. Only she never anticipated the entangled nebula of dark lies, nor the never-ending wormhole the government would spiral through to silence her forever.

Reed Montgomery's retirement is doomed to be short-lived. After the CIA receives intelligence from deep inside North Korea of a startling new weapon, President Trousdale green-lights an illegal mission to extract the informant.

The gripping first bundle in the next great detective series. Book one: Mack August, frustrated Los Angeles police detective, moves to a smaller city in Virginia to start over. Rather than join the force, he opens his own PI shop and hires out to local attorneys - until Sheriff Stackhouse comes calling, a stunner in designer khakis. Trouble has arrived, she explains, in the form of a gang general from the West Coast. He's galvanizing the drug trade using vicious strong-arm tactics, and the police can't identify him.

Robert Baxter once reveled in the intoxicating delights of Atopia - the man-made island where humans lose themselves in a world of boundless virtual realities. Now, Bob has returned to immerse himself in this mind-altering, consciousness-sharing refuge from the eroding Earth. But something is very wrong. Bob feels a tidal wave of doom cresting above the pleasure dome that is Atopia. As alternate universes perish, the salvation of all he loves - and all that exists - rests with Bob alone.