Home Mystery

The last person Ean Sangrave expects to see on his return home from the Deadlands is the magician, Sadiek Nidot. Two years ago, he killed Ean and stripped the lovely Azalea of her wings. Upon seeing his murderer, Ean can’t decide if he fears using his own dark power more than he thirsts for revenge. The brief moment of indecision allows the crafty Sadiek to slip through Ean's fingers, but not before he gleefully reveals that Rottwealth, Ean's hometown, is in danger. Ean speeds to the land of his birth and rebirth on a mission to save it.

As an overworked NHS psychiatrist, Dr Clancy Mclean is used to dealing with mental illness. But she is stressed - trying to balance her career and the needs of her only child, Rowan. And she has her work cut out trying to keep her patients well. She knows two of them are psychotic and becoming overwhelmed by their voices. If they act on them it could prove disastrous. Rowan is troubled. Her boyfriend is abusive but she doesn’t want to end the relationship - she’s too scared of being lonely. Can she find someone else to keep her company?

Financial analyst Sky Chapman must free her sister of a murder charge. Ex-SEAL Dirk Browning uses his skills as a private investigator and a military dog trainer to search for a way to keep Sky safe while they look for the killer and the missing millions the killer thinks she has. Neither Sky nor Dirk want the attraction that springs between them. She doesn't want it because she refuses to fall into the philandering husband trap both her mother and sister dove into. He doesn't because his mother abandoned him to the Brownings at the age of 10 and he never saw her again.

Gabe Dunnit watches from the cockpit of his sailboat as the Sunshine Skyway Bridge explodes, concrete and shrapnel crashing into the saltwater miles away. He tries to communicate with the civilized world and finds it impossible either by cellphone or radio. He moves toward land in hopes of finding other people and an explanation as to why every bridge to the mainland has suffered the same fate as the Skyway. He finds a young, but very capable teenage girl and her injured mother, companions in his new existence as a survivor and sometimes reluctant protector.

Frederick is a demon. Born in Maryland in the early 1980's, he hasn't a clue where he came from or why, but feels an irresistible desire to occupy a human body. Once inside, he finds the previous occupants' consciousness and memories forever erased, an inevitable side effect that gives Frederick pause when switching bodies, but not so much as to truly halt his ongoing enjoyment of human lives. In various bodies, he travels the world for decades - aimless - sampling cultures and experiencing life from the points of view of males, females, young, old, rich, poor.

But his slice of heaven turns to hell when 14 year old Charlotte, goes missing while walking home from a friend's house. Can he trust DCI Jack Finch and DS helen Wyatt to catch the right man, or should he take matters into his own hands to ensure revenge?

This is the predicament Polly Cooke faces when she returns to her new home. The first weeks in the house had been idyllic, but soon Jacob, a local man, is watching her. What does he want and why is he so obsessed with Polly? In a situation where nothing is what it seems, you might end up regretting letting some people in.

Deep in the woods just outside Acker's Gap, West Virginia, rises a ragged chunk of what was once a high stone wall. This is all that remains of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital for the poor that burned to the ground decades ago. And it is here that Bell Elkins - prosecutor turned private investigator - makes a grim discovery while searching for a missing teenager: A dead body, marred by a ghastly wound that can only mean murder.

Beegie is riding the bus when the quake hits. The teenager was heading back to her unhappy foster home, but then she’s thrown into a broken world. Roads crumble, storefronts shatter and people run wild. Dessa, a single mom, is enjoying a rare night out when it strikes. Cell towers are down, so without even knowing if her three-year-old daughter is dead or alive, she races to get back across town.

In War Crimes for the Home we meet an old and forgetful Gloria, living in an old folks' home called Sea View. But when she met Ron, he was a handsome American pilot, and she was working in a munitions factory in Bristol during the Blitz. Now, 50 years on, Gloria starts to remember what happened....

Hidden beneath the floorboards in a house he's remodelling, Christopher Flynn discovers something very tempting - and troubling. Summoning every bit of maturity and every lesson he's learned the hard way, Chris leaves what he found where he found it and tells his job partner to forget it, too. Knowing trouble when he sees it - and walking the other way-is a habit Chris is still learning. Chris's father, Thomas Flynn, runs the family business where Chris and his friends have found work.

Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath - vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research - three boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man.

When Kaz Elmore is told her five-year-old daughter, Jamie, has died in a car crash; she struggles to accept that she'll never see her little girl again. Devlin, a security consultant and witness to the terrible accident scene, inadvertently reveals that Kaz's daughter might not have been the girl in the car. What if Jamie is still alive? With no evidence, the police aren't interested, so Devlin and Kaz have little choice but to investigate themselves. Devlin never gets involved with a client, but the more time he spends with Kaz, the more he desires her....

Trey Garrison is an expert at keeping his clients secure and his heart guarded. But he was unable to protect his nephew Benjy from being kidnapped. He'll do anything to help his sister get her son home safely. Even if it means setting aside his reservations and consulting a so-called psychic.

From Wendy Corsi Staub, the New York Times best-selling author of Nightwatcher and Shadowkiller, comes a gripping work of suspense.... For years, Rory Connelly has been haunted by the memory of her sister, Carleen, who vanished from her bed one night and was never seen again. When Rory returns home to care for her ailing mother and teenage sister, she discovers a family that has never recovered from the tragic events of so long ago.

After a lifetime of being protected and sheltered by her parents, Kate's life turned upside down after their sudden death. With nowhere else to turn, she ends up with her fiancé: a conniving businessman who is well on his way to becoming a corrupt lawyer. At the same time, Kate’s father’s law firm houses more secrets than a politician’s hard drive.

Maggie Fishbone is not expecting much when she’s sent to the Midwatch Institute for Orphans, Runaways, and Wayward Girls—the last resort after causing a ruckus at the orphanage where she was living. Except . . . the Institute isn’t some dreadful, dreary place like she thought. Instead it’s full of curious girls training to solve mysteries, fight bad guys, and keep the city safe. In between fencing lessons and discovering all the shortcuts in the building, Maggie finds herself making friends at the Midwatch and finally feeling like she’s home.

The crime fiction canopy's a broad one, with room to give shelter to writing of all sorts, as editor Lawrence Block shows with At Home in the Dark.

A breathtaking missing persons thriller set under the menacing peaks of the Pyrenees. Five years after their disappearance, the village of Monteperdido still mourns the loss of Ana and Lucia, two 11-year-old friends who left school one afternoon and were never seen again. Now, Ana reappears unexpectedly inside a crashed car, wounded but alive. The case reopens, and a race against time begins to discover who was behind the girls' kidnapping. Most importantly, where is Lucia, and is she still alive?

From 1891 to 1894, Sherlock Holmes was presumed to be dead, having perished during the epic struggle with Professor Moriarty atop the Reichenbach Falls. But unknown to most, even his friend Dr. Watson, Holmes survived. During those three years, he roamed the world, acting as an agent for the British government and using his very special skills along the way. In volume one of Holmes Away from Home, the incredible two-volume collection of new traditional Holmes adventures, we find our hero crisscrossing the world - Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the US.