Literary Thriller

The Pope is dead. Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, 118 cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world's most secretive election. They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals. Over the next 72 hours, one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.

A young woman is dumped, injured and unconscious, in a private hospital's parking lot. She is an amnesiac with no memory prior to her discovery by hospital personnel. Detective Inspector Peter Diamond of the Bath homicide squad is unwilling to become involved. He has other, more important cases to solve: a woman has plunged to her death from the roof of a local landmark while half the young people of Bath partied below, and an elderly farmer has shot himself.

Years after an Easter weekend tragedy devastates a family, they return to the house they grew up in to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is visiting his family in Cornwall when he is approached by a woman asking for help finding her mother, Margot Bamborough - who went missing in mysterious circumstances in 1974. Strike has never tackled a cold case before, let alone one 40 years old. But despite the slim chance of success, he is intrigued and takes it on; adding to the long list of cases that he and his partner in the agency, Robin Ellacott, are currently working on.

After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago. Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

After rescuing the President from kidnappers, Navy SEAL turned Secret Service agent Scot Harvath shifts his attentions to rooting out, capturing or killing all those responsible for the plot. As he prepares to close out his list, a bloody and twisted trail of clues points towards one man - the world's most feared, most ruthless terrorist, Hashim Nidal. Nidal has assembled an international league of Islamic terrorist networks in an ingenious plot to topple both Israel and America.

On winter solstice, the birds disappeared, and the mist arrived. The inhabitants of Nebulah quickly learn not to venture out after dark. But it is hard to stay indoors: Cabin fever sets in, and the mist can be beguiling too. Eventually only six remain. Like the rest of the townspeople, Pete has nowhere else to go. After he rescues a stranded psychic from a terrible fate, he’s given a warning: He will be dead by solstice unless he leaves town - soon.

A riveting story of World War II and the courage of one young woman as she is drafted into Churchill's overseas spy network, aiding the French Resistance behind enemy lines and working to liberate Nazi-occupied Paris.

In the fall of 1918, 13-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia's overcrowded streets and slums, and from the anti-German sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the US Army, hoping to prove his loyalty. But an even more urgent threat has arrived. Spanish influenza is spreading through the city. Soon, dead and dying are everywhere. With no food at home, Pia must venture out in search of supplies, leaving her infant twin brothers alone....

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.

Eleanor Trewynn is a recently retired widow who has moved to the small village of Port Mabyn in Cornwall. Neither frail nor retiring, after a lifetime of traveling the world, she's ready for an uneventful life with her dog and friends in this quiet town. Unfortunately, excitement seems to happen around her. Her friend and neighbor, artist Nick Gresham, returns from a trip only to find several of his paintings slashed, reportedly by rival local artist Geoffrey Clarke.

For 30 years, they have avoided the outbreak of walking death that has consumed America's heartland. They have secured a small compound near the ruins of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Isolated from the world, they have remained blissfully unaware of what lies outside in the region known as the Dead Lands. Until now. Led by a military vet who's seen better days, the inexperienced offspring of the original survivors form a small expedition to explore the wastelands around them. Small pockets of humanity hide in the shadows: some scared, some mad, all dangerous. This is the New World.

It was only supposed to be one weekend. Now I'm serving this young muscle god's every desire, and I can't get enough. Was it too soon to call it love? Is that even what this was? This unstoppable tangle of dominance, compassion, and lust between us? He was the one thing in my numb, lonely world that made me feel beautiful, wanted, and alive. I knew it was wrong to live out all of my secret sexual fantasies with him, but he wanted it just as badly as I did, and didn't we both deserve to get what we needed?

The death of Tom Bettany's estranged 26-year-old son brings him back to London. His return sparks the interest of everyone from mobsters to MI5 officers - he may have thought he left his old life as a spy behind, but nobody just walks away. Tom Bettany is working at a meat processing plant in France when he gets the voicemail from an English woman he doesn't know telling him that his estranged 26-year-old son is dead. Liam was smoking dope on his London balcony when he fell....

In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for....

On the day before his twenty-first wedding anniversary, David Sullinger buried an ax in his wife’s skull. Now, eight jurors must retire to the deliberation room and decide whether David committed premeditated murder—or whether he was a battered spouse who killed his wife in self-defense.

The year is 1869. A brutal triple murder in a remote community in the Scottish highlands leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. A memoir written by the accused makes it clear that he is guilty, but it falls to the country's finest legal and psychiatric minds to uncover what drove him to commit such merciless acts of violence. Was he mad? Only the persuasive powers of his advocate stand between Macrae and the gallows.

Just when she thought she'd seen everything... Detective Lieutenant Anita McElone is one of Harbor Haven's finest. She's also a hard-boiled ghost skeptic. So when she shows up on the doorstep of Alison Kerby's Haunted Guesthouse to ask for supernatural help in solving the murder of her former partner, it's hard to tell which woman is more flabbergasted. But McElone is dead serious, so Alison promises to help in any way she can - even asking her resident ghosts, Paul and Maxie, for help with the case.

All good things must come to an end, Constant Listener, and not even Stephen King can write a story that goes on forever. The tale of Roland Deschain's relentless quest for the Dark Tower has, the author fears, sorely tried the patience of those who have followed it from its earliest chapters. But attend to it a while longer, if it pleases you, for this volume is the last, and often the last things are best.

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King has won sweeping critical acclaim and an impressive collection of awards for her writing. Although other writers have tried, no one has matched King's ability to capture the allure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.