First Mystery

Before I Wake is a thriller fan's dream, a rich, resonant collection that reminds us, once again, of its author's enduring and unmistakable importance. This is popular fiction as it should be written. It doesn't get better than this.

The phone rang, and like a fool I answered. Mistake number one. Then I agreed to do a job for the Hidden Council. Definitely mistake number two. Now I've lost count of my bad choices, same as I have the bodies, as they're piling up faster than a troll after free chalk. As I get to grips with this new magic I've been gifted, the city remains under a spell of violence, and it's down to yours truly to deal with it. But I'm a noob at this job, ill-prepared and with my own personal demons to fight.

Twelve thousand years ago, when the glaciers melted, the level of human sentience mysteriously surged. After millions of years of slow and steady growth, it's as if a light switch had suddenly been thrown. Was it extraterrestrials, gods, or supernatural beings that lit that spark? What if that ancient knowledge and those helping hands that lifted us out of the darkness of our caves and into the light of our easy chairs were closer to home?

The bundled edition of the first three books in the popular Ambassador series. 1: Seeing Red - Cory Wilson is about to start his new job as representative to gamra, the alien organization that controls the network for wormhole travel, when a political murder may well end his career before it starts. In Coldi society, you can get killed for looking a superior in the eye. Never mind accusing him of murder. 1A: The Sahara Conspiracy - Cory is asked to deal with the alien mafia on Earth, and stumbles across a plot that endangers Earth's fragile peace.

John Jordan's first two cases in one box set. When John Jordan was 12 years old, he came face-to-face with the man who went to prison for the Atlanta child murders. Six years later, John returns to Atlanta to discover the truth. Innocent Blood is both a standalone thriller and the true first book in an electrifying series. And in Power in the Blood, John Jordan, now a prison chaplain in the Florida Panhandle, witnesses the bloody death of Potter Correctional Institution inmate Ike Johnson. But what exactly did he witness? Murder, accident, or suicide?

In a bid to dominate Asia and the western Pacific, China provokes a military crisis with the United States and then starts shooting down GPS satellites. America has only a short amount of time to devise some way of protecting its remaining satellites or China will gain an enormous advantage in the coming conflict. The only way the satellites can be protected is from orbit, so an armed spacecraft must be quickly designed, built, and launched to fight on this new battlefield.

The United Nations is thrown into chaos when an alien spacecraft is discovered buried beneath the ice in Antarctica. With no one nation able to lay claim to the craft, a multinational effort is undertaken to salvage the vessel, which is estimated to have crashed several hundred thousand years ago. Rather than leaving key decisions to hostile governments or their armies, a jury is established to represent the average global citizen, being selected from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Their job is to review findings and guide the process of discovery.

While on vacation in India, Trina Holmgard meets and marries Sam, a poor but charming man. She returns home to New York to arrange his entry into the US and leaves him with her heirloom locket as a pledge of her commitment. But as time passes, she begins to question his motives. Does he really love her or is it life in America that he wants? Deciding she has been deceived, Trina cuts off all contact and marries another man. Driven by rage when he realizes his dreams have been shattered, Sam dedicates his life to getting revenge. But, how far will he go?

The hugely powerful and pervasive presence of the Colossus supercomputer mechanically runs Earth and its myriad operations. Managed by its creator, Dr. Charles Forbin, it is incapable of lies and void of human emotion. It is not a robot and not human. As part of its brief to enhance the human race, it runs eerie emotion research centers, authorizing acts of savagery to measure resistance and feeling. Art and abstract creation are banned, and surveillance is constant. No one is free.

A brutal murder, in which all the toes of a young student were amputated, causes horror in the murder department of Walter Kruger. The sometimes too casual main commissioner first hands over the case to his young assistant Marie Liebsam to show her how hard the job as a commissioner is. But she surprises all colleagues with a cool head and clever conclusions. Until she makes a fatal mistake. In the first part of the trilogy Blood, Corpses, Murder, Carlton Roster confronts the unequal team of investigators from Hamburg with very tricky investigations into extremely violent murderers.

Under 30,000 feet of water, the experimental exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it's about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

An Englishwoman is found dead in a house near Rome. Her distraught husband enlists the help of his closest friend, Chris Bronson, who discovers an ancient inscription on a slab of stone above their fireplace. But who are the liars? And what is it they are lying to protect? Pursued across Europe, Bronson uncovers a trail of clues that leads him back to the shadowy beginnings of Christianity; to a chalice decorated with mysterious symbols; to a secret code hidden within a scroll. And to a deadly conspiracy which – if revealed – will rock the foundations of our modern world.

In debt after her husband's unexpected death, Meg Rosenthal secures a job as a teacher at an upstate New York boarding school. Leaving suburban Long Island, Meg and her teenage daughter, Sally, embark on a new life in Arcadia Falls, a beautiful but isolated small town and the inspiration for a number of magically eerie fairy tales.

On the tenth anniversary of her daughter Autumn's abduction, Francine receives an anonymous note containing just five words: I know where she is. When a young woman approaches her the next day claiming to have sent the letter, Francine wants to dismiss it as a cruel, twisted joke. But the stranger knows things that only Autumn would know. Francine discovers that danger comes from unexpected sources. She will do things she never imagined herself capable of. But will she get her daughter back - or is it too late?

The 22nd Century. Dr. Charles Forbin is Earth's most powerful man. As mediator between Colossus, the Super Computer, and the rest of humanity, Forbin holds the key to Earth's fate. When Colossus, an awe-inspiring technological creation, suddenly became self-aware and took upon itself the task of righting humanity's wrongs with no regard for humans themselves, Forbin intervened. He took the decision to turn off his great machine - but could not do it alone. Forbin called upon invaders from Mars.

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.

When Detective Morgan Brookes is called to the scene of a suicide, she’s devastated to recognize the young teacher sprawled out on the grass like a broken doll. She hasn’t seen Brittany for years. Not since the tragic death of Morgan’s high school boyfriend ripped their friendship group apart. But when witnesses describe Brittany’s erratic behavior and jumbled speech that morning, Morgan is convinced the fearless, life-loving girl she once knew didn’t jump of her own accord.

It began as a game, a treasure hunt in an old German castle. For Vicky Bliss, tall, beautiful, and brilliant, it is also a challenge, a chance to bring an arrogant young man down a notch or two. And all things considered, it would have been no contest.

A dusty old theater that was shut up for years is coming to life again, and the Aldens are there for opening night! They're excited to help out backstage with a brand-new mystery play. But the Trap-Door Theater has mysteries of its own - with rumors of ghosts, disappearing props, and even a haunted seat! What secrets lie behind the scenes?

harles II is well established at White Hall Palace, his mistress at hand in rooms over the Holbein bridge, the heads of some of the regicides on public display. London seethes with new energy, freed from the strictures of the protectorate, but many of its inhabitants have lost their livelihoods. One is Thomas Chaloner, a reluctant spy for the feared secretary of state, John Thurloe, and now returned from Holland in desperate need of employment.