Literary Mystery

Welcome to Lemon Bliss, Louisiana, where an abandoned lemon tea factory is the most happening place in town and witches secretly rule the roost. Violet Broussard gets called back to the hometown she left in the dust when a dead body is found in the abandoned factory bequeathed to her by her grandmother. Violet has plans, and they most definitely don't involve staying in Lemon Bliss any longer than necessary. The town is mostly famous for its lemon tea infused with enough alcohol to make one experience bliss, hence the town's name. Yet, once she's there, things get a tad wacky.

From one of the most revolutionary writers of the twentieth century comes the uncensored and gritty novel that inspired today's street lit and hip-hop culture. After my ninth birthday, I began to really understand the meaning of my name. I began to understand just what my mother was doing for a living. There was nothing I could do about it, but even had I been able to, I wouldn't have changed it.

Allison and James Price move to the navy-blue forests of Concordia, Idaho, hoping to leave behind the chaos of Los Angeles and the painful memories of his indiscretions. Once settled in the picturesque town, where time seems to have stalled and life moves at a slower pace, their six-year-old daughter, Reagan, befriends a mysterious young girl who seems too idyllic to be true with her pressed pinafores and perfectly curled pigtails. One late autumn evening, as their playdate winds down, both girls vanish into thin air.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins. Over 150 years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items.

Dr. Jake Ross, a university astronomer, wants nothing more than to teach a few classes each semester and continue his research. Instead, he finds himself aggressively recruited to be the science advisor to Frank Tomlinson, an ambitious politician with his eye on the US Senate. Tomlinson is in need of an edge that will allow him to defeat his opponent at the polls, and Dr. Ross can contribute just that: MHD. MHD, or magnetohydrodynamics, is a new innovation that will allow electricity to be generated efficiently and cheaply. But MHD is still in its infancy, and there are deadly risks.

A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far - a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes. "Wake up, genius." So begins King's instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn't published a book for decades.

As a shaky truce between suburban gangsters starts to unravel, schlubby civilian Scott Clark has other things on his mind: if he can't afford to buy out his ex-father-in-law, Scott's about to lose the only house he's ever called home. In the red-hot urban housing market, he doesn't have a chance - until he and his best friends take the desperate measure of staging a fake drive-by shooting on the property to push down the asking price. But then Scott's mobster-posturing stunt attracts the attention of the real criminals.

More than 60 years ago, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, two novice writers at the dawn of their careers, sat down to write a novel about the summer of 1944, when one of their friends killed another in a moment of brutal and tragic bloodshed. Alternating chapters, they pieced together a hard-boiled tale of bohemian New York during World War II, full of drugs and obsession, art and violence.

A disturbing tale of a young man's uncanny ability to remain both young and beautiful while descending into a life of heartless debauchery, The Picture of Dorian Gray was considered proof of both Wilde's genius and his perversion. Oscar Wilde's scandalous best seller of 1891 was one of the most damning pieces of evidence used against him in the trial that brought about his downfall.

After losing her job as a TV psychic, Lee Barrett volunteers at the Tabitha Trumbull Academy of the Arts. When the school handyman turns up dead, Lee's clairvoyance begins bubbling. The Tabby is housed in long-vacant Trumbull's Department Store. As Lee and her students work on a documentary charting the store's history, they unravel a century of family secrets, deathbed whispers, and a mysterious labyrinth of tunnels hidden right below the streets of Salem. Even the witches in town are spooked.

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic best seller is a work of "superb horror" ( Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.

Oliver Marks has just served 10 years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.

The master at his scarifying best! From heart-pounding terror to the eeriest of whimsy - tales from the outer limits of one of the greatest imaginations of our time! Trucks that punish and beautiful teen demons who seduce a young man to massacre; curses whose malevolence grows through the years; obscene presences and angels of grace - here, indeed, is a night-blooming bouquet of chills and thrills.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. In the present, Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia....

One of the best-selling Western writers of all time, William W. Johnstone established three of the genre’s most enduring characters in Matt and Smoke Jensen and their stalwart friend Preacher. In Helltown Massacre,, the family Jensen lands squarely in the crosshairs of a railroad tycoon trying to run the iron horse through Paiute territory. To protect the land, three honest men will face half a hundred hired guns—impossible odds, unless you’re a Jensen.

Retired to the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, rumored to be a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out-a top-secret SS code? The keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts? Or do they hold a significance both more prosaic and far more sinister?

First published in 1948, Nothing but the Night marked the auspicious beginning of John Williams' career as a novelist. In the person of Arthur Maxley, Williams investigates the terror and the waywardness of a man who has suffered an early traumatic experience. As a child, Maxley witnessed a scene of such violence and of such a nature that the evocation of Greek tragedy is inescapable. Now, years later, we move through a single significant day in the grown Arthur Maxley's life, the day when he is to meet his father, who has been absent for many years.

Ensconced in a lovely tropical villa on idyllic Triggerfish Lane, Jim Davenport anticipates the good life to come. But this isn't living -- it's Florida, and the neighborhood is not quite what it seems. It's got overly aggressive Little League parents, drug-free Rastafarians, homicidal hookers, unnatural sex and casual violence. Oh, yes, and there's a psychopathic serial killer-cum-Sunshine-State folklorist named Serge A. Storms living directly across the street.

At Crewel World - the needlework shop in Excelsior, Minnesota, run by Betsy Devonshire - an array of beautifully hand-dyed yarns are supplied by Hailey Brent, an avid hand-dyer as well as a customer. But shortly after her most recent delivery of yarn, Hailey is found dead in her home, with a gunshot wound to the head. Betsy can't imagine who might have killed Hailey, but she is determined to find out.

Feisty Dr. Siri Paiboun is no respecter of persons or party; at his age he feels he can afford to be independent. In this, the second novel in the series, he travels to Luang Prabang, where he communes with the deposed king who is resigned to his fate: it was predicted long ago. And he attends a conference of shamans called by the Communist Party to deliver an ultimatum to the spirits: obey party orders or get out.