School Thrillers

With her phenomenally popular Miss Julia series, author Ann B. Ross has graced the New York Times and other best seller lists on her way to capturing the hearts of her many dedicated fans. Miss Julia, a graceful Southern lady with impeccable manners and a penchant for problem solving, has become a beloved heroine for countless admirers.

Every year, the reputable Queensland institution of St. Ignatius, affectionately called Iggy, hosts a Gala Day. This battle of brains and brawn, where eleven-year-olds vie for a spot inside those hallowed ivory walls, directly affects admissions and determines the path of each and every candidate. But in the cutthroat environment of elite academia, three mothers will stop at nothing to see their boys succeed.

Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson finally have a chance to start over. With all the freedom their precollege summer program provides and no one on their tail, the only mystery they need to solve, once and for all, is what they are to each other. But upon their arrival at Oxford, Charlotte is immediately drawn into a new case: a series of accidents befell the theater program at Oxford last year, culminating in a young woman going missing on the night of a major performance.

Ted Hammond loves a good mystery, and in the spring of his fifth-grade year, he's working on a big one. How can his school in the little town of Plattsford stay open next year if there are going to be only five students? Out here on the Great Plains, in western Nebraska, everyone understands that if you lose the school, you lose the town.

Prep school sweethearts Ian and Andi Copeland are envied by everyone they know. They have successful businesses, a beautiful house in St. Louis, and their eldest daughter, Cassidy, is following in their footsteps by attending prestigious Glenlake Academy. Then, a submerged car is dredged from the bottom of a swimming hole near the campus. So are the remains of a former writer-in-residence who vanished 20 years ago - during Ian and Andi’s senior year.

Handsome teacher Ashley Dean is brutally murdered at Hope Academy. It’s known as a rough place, but gossip blames the violence on a deranged intruder. DI Markham’s instincts say otherwise. Could this brutality have been the work of a student? Could there even be a connection with the staff? It seems unthinkable. After all, DI Gilbert Markham’s girlfriend Olivia teaches English at the school. Markham’s team probes deeper, and the local community begins to turn against Markham. Somebody in a position of power is hiding appalling information.

Kidnapped by a cult of religious fanatics, an Austin school bus driver and 11 of his young charges have been held underground at the group's highly fortified compound for 46 days. While a team of federal negotiators begins to lose all hope of rescuing the hostages, crime reporter Molly Cates sets out to discover everything she can about the cult's iron-willed leader, Samuel Mordecai.

Aspiring artist Fanny Price is an unwelcome guest at her uncle Sir Thomas Bertram’s estate. It’s his affection for Fanny that’s keeping her from being forced out by her cousins Tom and Maria and nasty Aunt Norris, back to a home to which she never wants to return. But then Sir Thomas dies in a tragic accident inside his art emporium, and Fanny finds evidence of foul play that, if revealed, could further jeopardize her already precarious position. Edmund, her best friend and secret crush, urges Fanny to keep quiet about her discovery, but Fanny can’t ignore the truth: a murderer is among them.

Lovely young Kay Crandall has come back for the reunion of a high school where she once taught. But Kay cannot guess that the happy occasion is about to turn into a nightmare - as she falls into the hands of a madman who wants to make her into his wife - and his victim. From The Anastasia Syndrome, Mary Higgins Clark's best-selling collection of short fiction, Terror Stalks the Class Reunion is a riveting, unabridged audio production.

Sixteen-year-old Alison wakes up in a mental institution. As she pieces her memory back together, she realizes she's confessed to murdering Tori Beaugrand, the most perfect girl at school. But the case is a mystery. Tori's body has not been found, and Alison can't explain what happened. One minute she was fighting with Tori. The next moment Tori disintegrated into nothing.

Allie Sheridan's world is falling apart. Her brother's run away from home. Her parents ignore her. And she's just been arrested. Again. This time, her parents have had enough. They send Allie to Cimmeria Academy - far away from her London friends. The school is beautiful - filled with gorgeous, ultra-wealthy teens who travel by private jet and were raised by nannies. Allie has never felt more of an outsider. Instead of hating boarding school though, Allie begins to feel happy. She's slowly making friends. And there's Carter, a brooding loner with whom she feels an instant connection.

Something is rotten at the Oakton Academy for Distinguished Young Gentlemen. With rumors of fighting, cheating, and all-night parties—and that’s just the teachers—the headmaster is losing control of the school. When a body is discovered, bludgeoned to death with a monkey statue on the last day of term, renowned detective Lord Edgington and his bumbling grandson Christopher are on hand to search for the killer.

This may be the scariest summer of their lives. Worse than going to summer school or working a job that doesn't pay. Even worse than attending their parents' old sleep away camp. The foursome must face their phobias as students at the exclusive and elusive School of Fear. Run by former beauty queen, Mrs. Wellington, the school is unusual, to say the least. But terrifying would be a more accurate description.

The Pothunters was Wodehouse's first published novel and the first of a number of early school stories. Life at the fictional St. Austin's public school is thrown into confusion when the cricket pavilion is burgled, and two of the school's silver sports trophies (or "pots" in the language of the schoolboys) are stolen. The hunt for the missing trophies piques the interest of the boys, their school masters, and even a Scotland Yard detective, and is played out against the idyllic background of Edwardian public school life.

A bomb goes off with the noon lunch bell, but not before all the kids are safely evacuated, and Carol Crane, the new assistant principal, is hailed as a hero. But days later, Carol is found murdered, and everyone is stunned when the most popular teacher at the school is arrested for the crime. However, not everyone is buying the open-and-shut case, including Lucy Stone, who senses there's more to things than meet the eye. It soon becomes clear that Lucy is flirting with danger, as sizzling secrets and explosive surprises provide a primer for the most diabolical of motives.

To pass the next training phase, Cassandra must kill a certain target, but the line between friend and foe quickly blurs.

Best friends forever. That's the pact you made. You'd do anything for her. And you have. She's always had it all. If you could take it for yourself...would you?

When Raine finds a hidden message in some old yearbooks that can't be ignored, she finds herself racing to solve a deadly puzzle before everyone at her school dies.

A cargo ship is apprehended by the authorities off the coast of Spain, loaded to the gunwales with enough arms and ammunition to start a war. Twenty years later an unknown aggressor seems intent on eradicating those responsible for the treachery one by one. The last victim was brutally tortured with a Black & Decker drill, then shot through the head. And Nick Stone - ex-SAS, tough, resourceful, ruthless, highly trained - is next on the killer's list....

When a school teacher from a small coastal town near La Rochelle asks Maigret to help prove he is innocent of murder, the Inspector returns with him to his insular community and finds the residents closing ranks to conceal the truth.