Modern Thrillers

When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flaky crust. But her pies aren't just delicious. They're having magical effects on the people who eat them, and the public is hungry for more. Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe.

When Grace Wheaton's former professor calls to warn her that there have been a rash of thefts at various historical sites, Grace isn't surprised, because Marshfield Manor has been targeted, too. She wonders if it has something to do with the film crew roaming the grounds, digitally immortalizing the manor, but then she gets distracted by an incident much more dire: the shooting of one guest and the murder of another.

Everyone - including mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance - loves Arsenic and Old Lace. But something wicked has poisoned a local summer stock production: The star, aging Hollywood beach-blanket hunk Shane Petree, butchers his lines - while getting top billing in bed with wives and teenage daughters around town. No wonder somebody wants to draw his final curtain. A pompous prosecutor tries to pin a murder on Max, Annie's own leading man. Unless Annie can prove her darling's innocence, their wedding date's off!

At Annie Laurance's Death on Demand bookstore on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, murder suddenly isn't confined to the well-stocked shelves. Author Elliot Morgan's abrupt demise during a weekly gathering of famous mystery writers called the Sunday Night Regulars is proof positive that a bloody sword is sometimes mightier than a brilliant pen. With Annie in the unenviable position of primary police suspect, the pretty young mystery maven and her wealthy paramour, Max Darling, embark on an investigation into a classic locked-room mystery with high stakes.

It is only the beginning of May, but in Oslo a brutal heat wave has coincided with an alarming increase in violent crime. In the latest instance, police investigator Hanne Wilhelmsen is sent to a macabre crime scene on the outskirts of town. An abandoned shed is covered in blood. On one wall an eight-digit number is written in blood. There is no body - nor any sign of a victim. Is it a kid’s prank or foul play? Is it even human blood? As more bloody numbers are found in isolated locations throughout Oslo, Hanne’s colleague Håkon Sand makes a startling discovery: The digits correspond to the filing numbers of foreign immigrants.

Detective Matt Cordell was happily married once, and gainfully employed, and sober. But that was before he caught his wife cheating on him with one of his operatives. Now Matt makes his home on the streets of New York and his only companions are the city's bartenders. But trouble still knows how to find him, and when Johnny Bridges shows up from the old neighborhood, begging for Matt's help, Cordell finds himself drawn into a case full of beautiful women and bloody murder.

I go by Crowley, no last name. The Fae took that from me when they tore me from my crib and turned me into a creature of blood and shadow. My kidnappers raised me, taught me magic, and made me their Hound. For years I served them, but a cur can only be brought to heel for so long. I've broken my chains by betraying my adoptive mother, the powerful sorceress Fuamnach. Since then, her assassins have been hunting me - but I’ll cut a swathe of destruction through them if it means gaining back a piece of the humanity they stole from me. Vengeance will have to do.

Stained glass artist Juno McKay is forced to confront the events that shattered the intense friendship between herself, her best friend, Christine, and her husband, Neil, when she discovers, after years of absence, that Christine is to deliver a lecture at their college reunion. Despite her misgivings, Juno finds herself compelled to attend the lecture about the history of one of Penrose College's most hallowed works of art.

As long as Newark Eagle-Examiner reporter Carter Ross turns in his stories on deadline, no one bats an eye if he doesn't wander into the newsroom until 10 or 11 in the morning. So it's an unpleasant surprise when he's awakened at 8:38 by a phone call from his boss, telling him a local policeman was killed and Carter will be covering the story, starting immediately. He's baffled when, hours later, there are still no other reporters at the widow's house. And then he gets another call from his boss: the story's off, the cop committed suicide.

Jordan Bingham works hard to improve Vera Van Alst's collection of classic detective stories. So when Chadwick Kauffman - heir to the Kauffman fortune - offers a very good price on a fine collection of Ngaio Marsh first editions owned by his recently deceased stepfather, she is thrilled to meet with him at his fabled summer estate, Summerlea. The next day Jordan and Vera are shocked to read that Chadwick has died in a fall from the grand staircase at Summerlea.

USA Today best-selling author Mary Daheim’s juicy mysteries are quickly climbing every fan’s list of favorites. This madcap romp features Judith McMonigle Flynn, amateur sleuth and proprietress of Hillside Manor - an historic suburban inn that plays host to more than its fair share of murder and mayhem. Kirkus Reviews calls the series “absolutely intoxicating.”

In this eagerly anticipated, brand-new Nina Reilly thriller, Perri O'Shaughnessy takes listeners back to Nina's first murder investigation, to the case that ignites her passionate commitment to fighting for justice. Working as a paralegal and attending law school at night, Nina has her hands full. She's fighting for custody of her young son Bob and overseeing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her mother, Virigina Reilly, whose health is rapidly declining after she suffered complications from an acupuncture procedure.

When her part-time reporting gig gives Lucy the opportunity to attend a Boston newspaper conference, she looks forward to the vacation from domestic bliss. But upon leaving Tinker's Cove, she quickly discovers that alone time can be kind of...lonely. But when Luther Read, head of a nearly bankrupt newspaper dynasty, suddenly drops dead, Lucy discovers something to take her mind off of being lonely. Murder, for instance. Lucy vows to investigate and can't help wondering if her name will end up on a byline or in an obituary.

When Lew Archer is hired to get the goods on the suspiciously suave Frenchman who's run off with his client's girlfriend, it looks like a simple case of alienated affections. Things look different when the mysterious foreigner turns out to be connected to a seven-year-old suicide and a mountain of gambling debts.

Abandoned by his parents as an infant, Scully was reared in an orphanage, Huntington House. The only positive thing in his young life was the attention of the Home’s director, Walter “Pop” Dix. Pop, an avid surfer, would take a small group of kids for early morning surfing. He was the father none of them ever had. That was 30 years ago. Now, Shane is forced to revisit these memories when Pop is found dead, the victim of an apparently self-inflicted shotgun blast.

As a mysterious fire rages through the hills above a privileged town in Southern California, Lew Archer tracks a missing child who may be the pawn in a marital struggle or the victim of a bizarre kidnapping. What he uncovers amid the ashes is murder - and a trail of motives as combustible as gasoline. The Underground Man is a detective novel of merciless suspense and tragic depth, with an unfaltering insight into the moral ambiguities at the heart of California's version of the American dream.

While on a transatlantic hunt for some authentic wares to sell at her shop, Peggy is looking to forget her troubles by digging through the hidden treasures of the Scottish Highlands. With so many enchanting items on sale, Peggy can't resist buying a beautiful, old tartan shawl. But once she wraps it around her shoulders, she discovers that her purchase comes with a hidden fee: the specter of a 14th-century Scotsman.

Lew Fonesca is a Sarasota part-time process server still mourning his dead wife and trying to get through life without any complications. But his life is full of them. His shrink wants him to dump his grief so he can have more of a life; a pretty social worker who has helped him in the past wants to "deepen" their friendship; and his big heart prevents him from saying no to people who need his help.

While swimming along the Sicilian shore, Inspector Montalbano discovers a corpse. His pursuit of the cause of death intersects with the inquiry into a hit-and-run accident that claimed the life of a young boy who may have been victimized by human traffickers. The buying and selling of immigrant children, for slave labor, sex, and as a source of illegal organ transplants, is part of the evil underside of the opening of Europe's borders.

Claire and Terry Goodman seem to have everything. Successful business. Son at Oxford. New mansion right on the River Thames. And seemingly - plenty of money to spend. But when Jack and Sarah are asked to investigate an odd robbery at their home, secrets start to emerge. And as the truth is revealed, for someone it will be too much to bear, and murder may be the only way out.