Occult Thriller

They've been with us forever - prowling the smoky roadhouse dives that are their watering holes and hunting grounds. Predators, lurking amidst the human herd. Changing shape at will. Lusting for blood and meat they are gods in the wild. Gods in disguise. And they feed on the spark inside each of us. Syd was just another lonely working class guy singing the steel-town blues. Then he met Nora. She's sensual, Erotic. Amoral.

Despite his troubled past, Jonah Miller is one of the best. But while reviving the victim of a brutal murder, he encounters a terrifying presence. Something is watching. Waiting. When long-hidden secrets are uncovered, Jonah is forced to come to a chilling conclusion: An ancient evil is coming - and Jonah may be all that stands in its way....

With a fast-paced plot that twists, turns, and shocks, vibrant characters who pack an emotional punch, and plenty of dark humor, Play Dead is a compulsively readable thriller that reflects the national obsession with football and the growing fascination with the undead.

Jack is hired to find a legendary Japanese sword, a katana stolen from the Hiroshima Peace Museum and brought to New York City. Central characters include the members of a weird Japanese cult, a young Japanese businessman (who is the brother of a character killed in Legacies) and his three Yakuza bodyguards, plus Hank Thompson, the Kicker cult leader from Bloodline. The cult, the businessman, the Yakuza, and the Kickers are looking for the sword as well.

On September 11, 2001, a man drifts in a boat off lower Manhattan as the twin towers burn. He removes a small box from his pocket and presses a button. As he waits for the south tower to collapse, he thinks: The vast majority will blame the collapse on the crazy Arabs who hijacked the planes and the Islamic extremists who funded them - the obvious choice. A few will notice inconsistencies and point fingers elsewhere, blaming the government or Big Oil or some other powerful but faceless entity. No one - absolutely no one - will guess the truth behind the who and why of this day.

Rachel was relieved that Peter had lost interest in the antique shop after his last trip. She thought that now, perhaps, they could keep the place out of their minds and get on with their lives. But it was not to be. Dreams about a medieval nun were plaguing them both, and it seemed the shop itself was calling to them. They would know no peace until they had discovered what it wanted.

Ever since a close call with death, FBI agent Anna McBride has been having strange visions of a kidnapped little girl... a little girl who is about to be murdered. Is Anna going crazy? When she's assigned to a multiple homicide case, Anna's visions recur with even fiercer frequency, and she can't shake the feeling that what she's seeing is somehow connected to this latest grisly crime....

Naked. Incoherent. Covered with blood. That's how Detective Frank Blackburn finds her - a beautiful Jane Doe brandishing a pair of scissors near the scene of a brutal murder. Is she the perpetrator? Or is she the only eyewitness to the handiwork of Vincent Van Gogh, a twisted serial killer with an "artistic" bent? To find out, Blackburn takes her to renowned psychiatrist Dr. Michael Tolan. But Tolan has problems of his own. One year ago today, his beloved wife, Abby, was savagely slaughtered by the very same serial killer.

The destruction of the Dark Room has locked away the Eldest forever… or so it seems. The Boneyard discovers a bloodthirsty cult desperate to bring back the Old Ones, and Dustin Graves rescues the strangest of sacrifices: a Welsh corgi.

Paloma is dead. But before she was murdered, before she was even Paloma, she was a traditional healer named Gaspar. Before she was murdered, she taught her cousin Feliciana the secrets of the ceremonies known as veladas, and about the Language and the Book that unlock their secrets.

It’s late December between Ground Zero and Fatal Error, a winter of discontent for Jack who’s perhaps spending too much time hanging at Julio’s. An old contact, Edward Burkes, convinces him to take on a missing-person fix. As usual, nothing is as it seems, and the missing person isn’t exactly a person. In fact, it’s like nothing anyone has ever seen. And in the middle of all this, the mysterious Madame de Medici hires him to safeguard a valuable object. Simple, right? Not even close. Yep, Jack is back and, as usual, weird trouble is on his heels.

When guests arrive at a séance to contact a man's lost sons, it becomes clear that everyone has dark secrets - secrets that result in the death of a guest.

Professional psychic and FBI consultant Abby Cooper has used her inner visions to get her out of many a scrape - and solve many a crime - but she's about to face a murder scene that will put all her powers to the test. Abby's husband, Dutch, has a side business providing security and building panic rooms for wealthy clients. One morning, one of Dutch's partners, Dave, goes missing on his way to meet a client. Abby's intuition tells her something terrible has happened to him.

Lily would like nothing better than to relax, enjoy her friends, and take care of business at her store, which is booming thanks to San Francisco's upcoming Summer of Love Festival. But as the unofficial witchy consultant to the SFPD, she is pulled into yet another case.

With her vintage clothing store taking off, Lily Ivory is finding that life in San Francisco suits her just fine. But her ability to sense vibrations from the past, so useful in locating secondhand gems, has landed her in the middle of a new mystery.... Lily gets called away from Aunt Cora's Closet when the police need a witch's take on a strange case. Malachi Zazi was stabbed to death in his apartment.

Jacqueline Carey is the New York Times best-selling author of the award-winning Kushiel's Legacy series. Dark Currents introduces Daisy Johanssen, a hell-spawn living in a Mid-west resort town that also boasts fairies, vampires, and a Norse goddess. As police department liaison for the paranormal, Daisy takes notice when a drowning victim shows signs of eldritch involvement. Paired with officer - and werewolf - Cody Fairfax, she must solve the case before tourist season is ruined.

When Aidan Lloyd's bleak funeral is followed by a nocturnal ritual in the fog, it becomes all too clear that Aidan, son of a wealthy farmer, will not be resting in peace. Aidan's hidden history has reignited an old feud, and a rural tradition begins to display its sinister side. It's already a fraught time for Merrily Watkins, her future threatened by a bishop committed to restricting her role as diocesan exorcist for Hereford.

It's February 1991. Desert Storm is raging in Iraq but 22-year-old Jack has more pressing matters at home. His favorite bar, The Spot, is about to be sold out from under his friend Julio. No longer merely reactive, Jack takes the fight to his enemies and demonstrates his innate talent for seeing biters get bit. With a body count even higher than in Cold City, Dark City hurtles Jack toward the climax of this formative New York odyssey in which all scores will be settled, all debts paid.

When Lily arrives at an antique jewelry fair, her bargain sensors go off left and right - but she also picks up a faint vibration of magic. Could the hard-bargaining merchant Griselda be a fellow practitioner? It certainly seems that way when a sudden fire sends panic through the crowd, and Lily discovers Griselda murdered in a way that nods to an old-fashioned witch hunt. A crime that hits close to home turns into an unwelcome flash from the past when the police bring in their lead suspect - Lily's estranged father.

Hard-boiled police detective Richelle Dadd is back. And in a whole world of fresh trouble. Still...well, dead as the result of a Gypsy curse, she must now face life as a single mom. Not only does Richelle have to worry about all the usual stuff - her baby's health and well-being and keeping a roof over their heads by working a precarious dead-end job - there's also her homicidal ex-boyfriend to fear, the father of her child, stalking them both day and night with the avowed intent of kidnapping baby Tamara.