Gripping Thriller

Penny has never met anyone smarter than her. That’s par for the course when you’re a savant—one of less than one hundred in the world. But despite her photographic memory and super-powered intellect, there’s one question Penny doesn’t know the answer to: where did her father go when he left her and her mother years ago? On Penny’s 21st birthday, she receives a card in the mail from her father, just as she has every year since he left. But this birthday card is different. For the first time ever, there’s a return address.

Can you ever really bury the past? On a cold November evening back in 1982, real estate lawyer, Marty Finnegan, and socialite, Tracy Reynolds, were seen fighting outside the dining room of the Wolforts Roost Country Club. Unbeknownst to them, three drunken teenage boys who attend the same prep school were witnessing their bitter exchange under the cover of darkness. When the boys decide to head out on a joyride that includes holding up Finnegan at gunpoint, their lives take a turn for the worse.

From the outside, my life appears normal, boring even – but in that way you treasure when you once had nothing. These days, I have a loving new husband, a polite and intelligent teenage son. Everything seems perfect, but beneath the surface, I feel afraid. My son, the child I’ve sacrificed everything for, is scaring me. When he looks at me, his gaze is dark and calculating. In public he’s as sweet as always, but the things he says to me at home make my neck prickle with fear. I'm a mother – I've learned to trust my instincts, and right now, they're screaming that something is very wrong.

It’s been six months since I woke up next to the body of the man I’d chatted to in a bar the night before. I still remember the metallic scent of his blood, the stillness of the room, and the panic that rose in my throat when I realized he was dead. I remember him buying cocktails. We talked. We went up to my room. And then...nothing. But I know I didn’t kill him.

FBI Special Agent Ilona Farris has barely recovered from her first escapade with the newly formed Unsolvable Crimes Unit when a bizarre case lands on her desk. A man has been chained to a sack of stones and pushed into the water at Seattle Marina. However, the victim supposedly died in a plane crash over twenty years ago. Witnesses report seeing a man in a straw hat and long coat at the scene. There one moment, then disappearing without a trace.

With his marriage over and his career in freefall, journalist Tom decides to reconnect with his fourteen-year-old daughter, Frankie. Desperate to spend precious time together now that they live an ocean apart, he brings her to Hollow Falls, a cabin resort deep in the woods of Maine. From the outset there’s something a little eerie about the place - strange whispers in the trees, windchimes echoing through the forest - but when Tom meets true-crime podcasters David and Connie, he receives a chilling warning. Hollow Falls has a gruesome history.

Ten years ago, the Harper family disappeared. Their deserted cottage was left with the water running, the television playing cartoons, the oven ready for baking. The doors were locked from the inside. Overnight, the sleepy village of Nighbrook became notorious as the scene of the unsolved mystery of the decade, an epicentre for ghoulish media speculation. For crime journalist Naomi, solving the case has turned into an obsession. So now, with Ivy Cottage finally listed for sale, it’s her chance to mount an investigation like no other.

Pulling a batch of my husband’s favorite golden oatmeal cookies from the oven, I smile to hear my daughter Phoebe playing in the treehouse outside. I was once so close to losing everything, but since I married handsome Jackson, I have a perfect life. Jackson might tell me what to wear, but he just likes to buy me nice things. He says I don’t need a job, and why would I want one? I can spend all day taking care of Phoebe and running errands in the fancy car Jackson gave me—he knows everywhere I go. But my whole world shatters when I find out Jackson is a liar.

I wake on the sofa, my head throbbing. Why did I fall asleep here? In the darkness, I make my way to my bedroom. I know immediately something is wrong. The sheets I tucked in so carefully this morning are rumpled, disturbed. I turn on the lights. And then I scream. There’s a body in my bed. And I know this man: We went on two dates together. Who could have killed him? And how did he get into this house? Only two people have a key: me and my ex-husband, Matthew. I cast my mind desperately back to last night, to the last few painful months.

When firefighters tackling a blazing house in a quiet suburb of Pine Valley, California, discover human remains, Detective Katie Scott races to 717 Maple Street. She calls a halt to the excavations the moment she sees the full number and size of the bones; someone has buried a whole family down here. Working night and day, it’s up to Katie to prove her theory that the fire was no accident, that someone wanted to expose the secret in the basement. Tiny traces of explosives residue found at the scene is all the proof she needs.

Single mom and school historian Beth Haldane has promised her new beau, Detective Harry York, that her sleuthing days are behind her. But when she stumbles over the body of local artist Mark Smeaton while ambling in the park, it’s clear a dangerous killer is on the loose in peaceful Dulwich Village. Shocked, Beth can’t resist delving into the mystery. Snooping around the nearby cozy cafes, Beth listens carefully to gossip and soon learns Mark's graffiti-style art was famously controversial. There are plenty who might want him gone.

I’ve fallen in love with a man called Sam. And he’s perfect, just perfect. It’s a whirlwind romance. And when our dream home falls through just before our wedding, we decide to move in with his parents. He says his mother, Evelyn, is the sweetest person. But I’m not so sure. She’s obsessively protective over Sam. She wants to know where he is all the time. She wakes us up in the morning, bustling into our room like he’s a small child, not a grown man. She doesn’t want me to be alone with him.

My name is Isabella Butterworth. Your name is Isabella Butterworth. We’re around the same age. We live in the same town. But your life is more exciting than mine, isn’t it? Richer, dramatic, more fulfilling. Imagine if I’d never found out about you. But I have. Because someone mistook me for you. And now I can’t stop thinking about you because I know you’re in trouble. You need my help. And I need a way to get to know you.

One year ago, Meghan Wilton's husband begged her to help him die. Two months after asking her to do the unthinkable, he was dead. Now Meghan is on the run with her five-year-old son. Her new name is Zoe Roberts, and her hiding place is a cabin in the woods of Willow Creek, Tennessee. But someone else wants her found, someone with the money and power to destroy her because she’s a threat to his own freedom. The only way she can protect herself and her son is by uncovering dark and disturbing secrets that will leave her scarred forever...or get her killed.

Detective Bernadette Noel came to this quiet rural corner of southwest England from London to lie low after a high-profile prosecution led to death threats against her family. But she has barely settled in when the call comes regarding a missing child. A child abduction is about as far from lying low as it gets, and her boss wants to assign a different detective. But there’s no way Bernie’s not taking the case - she can’t miss this chance to prove herself.

Taking advantage of the nation's civil unrest to right the wrongs of her past, Dane Talbot finally reveals why and what she's protecting. The pieces all come together for the Remember the Ruin series in the third and final installment, Grand Gesture.

The authorities claim the serial killer doesn’t exist. Only Darcy has the unwavering courage to follow his deadly trail. One dead girl at a popular campsite. A second woman’s corpse tossed along a running trail. And unexplainable spider bites on both victims. After the medical examiner concludes both women died from venomous spider bites, the police want to close the case. Then a third woman goes missing, and Darcy discovers a dangerous man linked to the three victims. Is a murderer stalking the darkness?

"Your son is missing," they say, and life as I know it is over. "Where would he go?" the police ask. "Where would he be?" my daughter begs. My heart races as images flash in my mind. The cabin we rent every autumn, surrounded by fiery-red maple trees. Voices raised. Tears falling. A marriage falling apart. And worst of all my husband telling our child, Theo, to run. The rest is a blank in my memory. If I close my eyes I can almost see it. A betrayal that has left me alone, in tatters, grieving for what we had.

My husband and I are the dream couple: deeply in love, the envy of all our friends and neighbors. He surprises me with flowers; I make him his favorite meals and prepare picnics to enjoy with our son. It’s little gestures like this that keep our romance alive. But nobody knows how frightened I am at night. Oliver promises he’ll keep me safe, but I can’t stop feeling like someone from my past is watching me. Coming for me. I could have sworn I saw someone watching me through the window, lurking in the shadows across the street.

Frail butterfly enthusiast Maggie Muir has lived a lonely life in her huge remote house on the Cornish cliffs for many years. Once a mother with two beautiful children, the sudden death of Maggie’s daughter, forever a little girl in her fairy nightdress, ripped the family apart and caused her son Lucas to flee to the other side of the world. But now, Maggie is dying, and there is something she needs her son to know.