Middle Thriller

An urgent phone call from principal/friend Antonio Petrocelli sends retired music teacher Susan Wiles rushing through the doors of Westbrook Middle School, where she discovers a missing bookkeeper and a ransacked office. Eager to keep the break-in quiet, the principal enlists her help. 

Detective Chase Harper discovers there is a connection between the murder of William Carlyle and the pandemic. Dr. Jonathan Delmere, the man in the middle of it all, steps into the media spotlight. Those straddling the middle of the road find themselves having to choose a side. Those who stand on the side of the one who bridges the gap between sinful man and eternal life rise and unite. 

After twenty-one years of being overshadowed by her ex-husband, Winnie Hackleshack never had the opportunity to explore her adventurous side. But what does a forty-something divorced woman do to revitalize her spirit? She gets a rescue dog, buys a motorhome, and sets off for adventures unknown. Except the adventures include getting mixed up in a murder investigation.

Fifties are the new forties and I'm living my best life ever. I may have a few more aches and pains, graying roots, and couple extra pounds, but I also have two quirky best friends who always have my back, business is booming, and my love life has never been better or hotter. That is until my sweetie Ezra Holden invites me home for Christmas to meet his family. The season is full of surprises in Ezra's hometown, like a missing cousin, a case of mistaken identity, and a slew of painful memories—none of them my own.

At the center of Francine Prose's profoundly moving new novel is a young girl facing the consequences of sudden loss after the death of her sister. As her parents drift toward their own risky consolations, 13-year-old Nico is left alone to grope toward understanding and clarity, falling into a seductive, dangerous relationship with her sister's enigmatic boyfriend.

FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are deep into an investigation of COE - Celebrants of the Earth - a violent group known for widespread bombings of power grids and oil refineries. While investigating a tip from a civilian who's overheard about a possible bombing plot, the Bayway Refinery in New Jersey explodes. Nicholas and Mike race to the scene and barely escape being killed by a secondary device.

Christopher Buckley's comic thriller takes readers to the Arab land of Matar, where a philandering emir allays his restless wife by allowing her to start a TV network for Arab women. She is joined in this endeavor by a maverick American State Department officer known as Florence, who wants to use the TV network to start a revolution among Islamic women.

A man named Manton killed his wife and his two children and managed to get away with it. Ten years later he returns to the house where the crime was committed. He is recognized by the locals and he is provoked into a duel which is to be held in the haunted house where Manton killed his family. The locals were aiming to scare Manton away. However, the day after the duel Manton was found dead.

A first-time author. A hotshot book editor. A whirlwind romance and a runaway bestseller nobody saw coming. The meteoric rise and sudden collapse of a cross-platform media empire. All of this - plus a basement full of undiscovered treasures left by former tenants - is thoughtfully unpacked and dusted off in this sideways collection of small, strange fictions. SITM is a light-hearted 44-story collection of mostly free-standing stories surrounding a framed narrative that explores how these tales were created.

Something's brewing at the National Portrait Gallery Museum in Washington DC - 12-year-old Art is sure of it. But his only proof that a grand heist is about to take place is iced mocha, 42 steps, and a mysterious woman who appears like clockwork in the museum. When Art convinces his best friend, Camille, that the heist is real, the two begin a thrilling chase through DC to uncover a villainous scheme that could be the biggest heist since the Isabelle Stewart Gardner Museum theft in 1990.

Strange things are happening at Lovecraft Middle School. Rats are leaping from lockers. Students are disappearing. The school library is a labyrinth of secret corridors. And the science teacher is acting very peculiar - in fact, he just might be a monster-in-disguise. Twelve-year-old Robert Arthur knew that seventh grade was going to be weird, but this is ridiculous! Professor Gargoyle (Volume I in the Tales from Lovecraft Middle School series) is full of bizarre beasts, strange mysteries, and nonstop adventure.

Three people. Three stories. And a desperate race for survival in a country in the midst of war. Nick Scott fought in the SAS during the first Gulf War. Captured and tortured, he was left a broken man. His daughter Sarah Scott is a beautiful young scientist who has cracked one of the scientific secrets of the age. Now, she has vanished.

Griffith, Graham, and Ruby's father passed away in the war. And now they must join their mother and their father's wartime traveling baseball team, The Travelin' Nine, on a a tour of America to raise money. No one will tell the kids why the team needs money so badly. Their only clue is a baseball with a hole the size of an acorn in it that their Uncle Owen gave to them the night of their father's funeral. When all three kids hold the ball, strange things begin to happen.

College student Brock Clouser is working a summer job delivering pizzas. During a run to the outskirts of Harrington, Indiana, he wrecks his car at an isolated country home. Though most everyone there has been violently murdered, he's not alone.

Bo Carmichael thought Echo Valley, New Hampshire, was in her rear view mirror. Circumstances lead her straight back. Now, the one-time aspiring doctor is raising a son she never planned on having and toiling away as a hairdresser to pay the bills. When her boss hands her a plum assignment - preparing the family of a leading presidential candidate for a photo shoot - Bo unwittingly stumbles into a scandalous encounter between the happily-married senator and his exquisite female staffer.

For my birthday, my best friends Gilly and Pippa signed us up for a weekend at the Central Midwest Spa Convention. Yay. Massages, fine dining, maid service, and best of all, as long as we attend a few workshops, the weekend is a tax write-off. It should be all sunshine and roses, right? Wrong. My former intern at Belliza Beauty aka the Job Stealer, Carmen Carraway, is a featured presenter. Yuck. Throw in an ex-boyfriend, a number one fan, a brewing scandal, and a dead body, and my relaxing birthday weekend is DOA.

It is the year 1915, and the British and Ottoman Empires clash in a deadly struggle in the Middle East. Tasked with keeping the Ottomans out of Suez Canal, Major Andrew Selkirk discovers that his real assignment is to retrieve a Bengali spy working for those who vow to see British rule out of India. After landing on the west coast of Palestine, Selkirk discovers the Ottomans have taken the spy captive. Even more troubling are the plans by Ottomans and Germans to draw Afghanistan and Persia into the war against Great Britain.

When gumshoe detective, Daxon Steele, finds he’s ankle deep in more than a chewed up wad, he quickly uncovers a sinister plot that sets out to exploit and destroy not just the skink-pushers who hide in the shadows of the Flatpack District, not just the poor guys, gals and others shaking their hips at Shooters & Hooters Club, but the entire population of Bryunsville. Will Dax overcome his prejudice and accept Gaz, a former stripper-bot, as his partner?