Town Mystery

In this riveting account of an area of Appalachia known as the Quiet Zone where cell phones and Wi-Fi are banned, journalist Stephen Kurczy explores the pervasive role of technology in our lives and the innate human need for quiet.

When Nelson Penzell, co-owner of a local art and treasure store in Cabot Cove, is murdered, the nail tech from Jessica Fletcher's favorite beauty parlor is the main suspect. After all, she's the one who ran out of the store screaming, covered in blood, and holding the murder weapon. Jessica is positive that despite the circumstances, Coreen can't possibly be guilty, and she’s determined to prove it.

In this latest installment, prize-winning reporter Jim Qwilleran—along with his lovable Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum—solves a mystery that arises when a local banker dies under suspicious circumstances, leaving behind a flashy young widow, an unfinished house-restoration project, and a trail of clues as elusive as a cat burglar in the night.

Every year, Úna prepares for her father to leave her. He will wave good-bye early one morning, then disappear with seven other men to traverse the Irish countryside. Together, these men form the Butchers, a group that roams from farm to farm, enacting ancient methods of cattle slaughter.

After a flood destroys the historic center of a small Quebec town, a child’s body is discovered. The remains are decades-old and nearly impossible to identify, yet everyone knows at once who they belong to. Nine-year-old Michelle Fortier vanished without a trace in 1979, and her fate has remained unknown—until now. Stephanie O’Malley grew up in her mother’s crumbling trailer listening to stories of Michelle’s disappearance, stories she once tried to turn into a podcast without much success.

In a frigid New Hampshire winter, Jay Porter is trying to eke out a living and maintain some semblance of a relationship with his former girlfriend and their two-year-old son. When he receives an urgent call that Chris, his drug-addicted brother, is being questioned by the sheriff about his missing junkie business partner, Jay feels obliged to come to his rescue. After Jay negotiates his brother's release from the county jail, Chris disappears into the night.

Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is an unsettling thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside when she’s forced to confront the evidence of her husband’s guilt. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives.

A deserted train station: A man waits. A woman watches. Chris is ready to join his wife. He’s planned this moment for nearly a year. The date. The time. The train. But he hadn’t factored in Sarah.So when Sarah walks onto the platform and sees a man swaying at the edge, she assumes he’s just had too much to drink. What she doesn’t expect is to stop a suicide. As Sarah becomes obsessed with discovering the secrets that Chris is clearly hiding, he becomes obsessed with stopping her, protecting her. But there are some secrets that are meant to stay buried....

The town of Marshall, Texas, is the epicenter of intellectual property law in the US—renowned for its speedy trials and massive payouts. One of its best lawyers is James Euchre. His newest client, Amir Zawar, is a CEO forced to defend his life’s work against a patent infringement claim. But when a beloved hometown hero is murdered, all signs point to Zawar, an outsider with no alibi. With the help of a former federal prosecutor and a local PI, Euchre hopes to uncover the truth. In his first criminal case, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

Maud Drennan is a dedicated caretaker, but her sunny, capable disposition and snappy quips mask a deep sadness. A tragic childhood event left her in the company of a cast of patron saints who pop in and out of her life like unwelcome tourists. She tries to find solace in her hard work in London...but then she meets the inimitable Mr. Flood. A menace by all accounts, Cathal Flood is a widower living alone in a Gothic Dorset mansion crawling with collector's items and feral cats.

There are three things you should know about Elsie. The first is that she's my best friend. The second is that she always knows what to say to make me feel better. And the third...might take a little bit more explaining. Eighty-four-year-old Florence has fallen in her flat. As she waits to be rescued, Florence wonders if a terrible secret from her past is about to come to light; and, if the charming new resident is who he claims to be, why does he look exactly like a man who died 60 years ago?

After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.

When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary's star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch - and she was there when he died. Was Daniel's death an accident, revenge, or something more sinister? As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town, culminating in a witch-hunt...and the town becomes no sanctuary at all.

Joan Didion's electrifying first novel is a haunting portrait of a marriage whose wrong turns and betrayals are at once absolutely idiosyncratic and a razor-sharp commentary on the history of California. Everett McClellan and his wife, Lily, are the great-grandchildren of pioneers, and what happens to them is a tragic epilogue to the pioneer experience, a story of murder and betrayal that only Didion could tell with such nuance, sympathy, and suspense.

As a storyteller, Maureen Nash can't help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it's the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop's owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she'll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery.

In the vein of Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone and the works of Ron Rash, a novel set in a tough-and-tumble Mississippi town where drugs, whiskey, guns, and the desire for revenge violently intersect.

Evelyn Peters is desperate. Desperate for a way out of McNair Falls, the dying Southern town that's held her captive since the day she was born. Desperate to protect her little sister from her mother's terrifying and abusive boyfriend. And desperate to connect with anyone, even fallen golden boy Ashton Harper, longtime boyfriend of the girl Evelyn can never stop thinking about - beautiful, volatile, tragically dead Reid Brewer. Until a single night sends Evelyn and Ashton on a collision course that starts something neither of them can stop.

Maisie Cooper is done catching murderers, thank you very much. Having recently brought her brother's killers to justice, she's ready to go back to her glamorous life in Paris. But little does she know that the idyllic Sussex countryside is home to more than one criminal... When Maisie receives a letter asking for her help in the little village of Bunting from the lady of the manor, she is curious enough to accept. She is then shocked to discover that the very woman requesting her assistance is her estranged Aunt Phyllis, who believes that someone is out to kill her.

The cold, blustery Midwest winters don't exactly agree with Betsy Devonshire, but since moving to Excelsior, Minnestoa, she sure has met a lot of warm, friendly people. So she isn't too surprised when the town's most talented needleworkers volunteer to restore a damaged tapestry that was found in the basement of a local church. Betsy even offers to donate materials for the project, thinking that the free publicity will boost sales at her financially troubled needlecraft shop. But soon Betsy is afraid of losing more than her business....

Three months after Detectives Jim North and Kerry Martin failed to recover a missing child, they struggle to come to terms with the child’s death. Since then, twelve more children have been abducted, and the man responsible is still at large. With the abductor taunting the detectives with mysterious texts, they have pushed themselves to the brink, and their obsession of bringing the kidnapper to justice could cost them everything.