Town Mystery

When Jennifer Smiley’s grandmother, Ginny, leaves her an old farmhouse on Edgewater Road in seemingly quiet Ross County, Ohio, Jennifer can’t pass up the opportunity for a new beginning. Almost immediately, she meets a group of men who generously help her move in. When she realizes that they work for Lincoln Bennett, her next-door neighbor, she’s intrigued. Lincoln is gorgeous and has dark lapis-blue eyes she could get lost in...but he doesn’t seem all that friendly. She’s torn between getting to know him and sticking with the solitude she knows so well.

Cat and the members of her writers' retreat have just arrived in Outlaw, Colorado, an "Old West" tourist town complete with inhabitants dressed up as famous figures from history. But this authentic slice of Americana takes a murderous turn when a college student masquerading as a 19th-century saloon girl becomes history herself. Was she the intended target? Or did she take a hit meant for someone else? With a cast of suspects to choose from, Cat must unhorse the real culprit before a real-life ghost story is given a killer twist

Welcome to Jewell, North Carolina, a small strip of land on the Crystal Coast with no stop signs or traffic lights, but it's got a whole lot of magic. Ruby Mae Jewell helps run the family business of selling antiques and refurbished goods. But with old objects, you never know when one of them possesses more than just dust and cobwebs. When Rue hits up a flea market, she gets more than she bargained for. Finding a potentially dangerous magical object, she has to get it off the market and out of mortal hands.

Miles de Cogan thought that he was set to live out a simple life with a cantankerous old lady for his landlord, but this is all turned on its head with a phone call. Inheriting a prosperous estate called County Wicklow and the title to go along with it, Miles learns of the death of his cousin, a baronet.

Cujo is a 200-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats. What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written.

When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night - dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows her. Margo’s always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she’s always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q...until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they’re for Q.

Fall has arrived in the tiny town of Divine, Kansas, and the area residents are gearing up for the annual fall festival including Delta, who is determined to win the baking contest and beat last year's reigning champion. Meanwhile, one of Joanna Pepperdine's Second Chance residents, Sherry Marshall, is hired as a server at Divine Delicatessen. Not everyone is thrilled with the new employee, and soon after, the person tasked with training her is murdered, and Sherry becomes the prime suspect.

Welcome to Wayward Pines, the last town. Secret Service agent Ethan Burke arrived in Wayward Pines, Idaho, three weeks ago. In this town, people are told who to marry, where to live, where to work. No one is allowed to leave; even asking questions can get you killed. But Ethan has discovered the astonishing secret of what lies beyond the electrified fence that surrounds Wayward Pines and protects it from the terrifying world beyond. And now that secret is about to come storming through the fence to wipe out this last, fragile remnant of humanity.

In Archer Mayor’s intriguing new Vermont-based mystery, The Orphan’s Guilt, a straightforward traffic stop snowballs into a homicide investigation after Joe Gunther and his fellow investigators peel back layer upon layer of history and personal heartbreak to learn a decades-old hidden truth.

Two lonely towns in Colorado: Hope and Despair. Between them, 12 miles of empty road. Jack Reacher never turns back. It's not in his nature. All he wants is a cup of coffee. What he gets is big trouble. So in Lee Child’s electrifying new novel, Reacher - a man with no fear, no illusions, and nothing to lose - goes to war against a town that not only wants him gone, it wants him dead. It wasn’t the welcome Reacher expected. He was just passing through, minding his own business. But within minutes of his arrival a deputy is in the hospital and Reacher is back in Hope.

New York Times best-selling author Margaret Maron’s meticulously crafted Judge Deborah Knott mysteries display the work of a master. In the series’ 17th entry, Deborah and Sheriff’s Deputy Dwight Bryant are on their way to New York City for a belated honeymoon. Once in the city, however, they get swept up in a mystery involving a stolen package and a murdered doorman.

Plans for a town pantomime are thrown in the air after one of the actors is murdered. The victim is local gossip, nosy parker and aspiring manipulator Ivor Gladwin. Reviled by many and ignored by more, the list of people who could have wanted rid of him seems to grow by the minute. Despite having overstepped the mark in past cases, because of her familiarity with the individuals involved, ex police officer Fabia Havard is actually tasked by her boyfriend, and serving DCI, to look into the matter on the side.

Defense attorney Leland Monroe lost it all: his big-city job, his reputation, and, worst of all, his loving wife. Now he’s back in his hometown to hit restart and repair the relationship with his troubled son. But the past is always present in a small town. Leland returns to find his high school sweetheart hasn’t had the easiest of lives - especially now that her son faces a death sentence for murdering his father.

When Elizabeth Keane returns to Ireland after her mother’s death, she’s focused only on saying goodbye to that dark and dismal part of her life. Her childhood home is packed solid with useless junk, her mother’s presence already fading. But within this mess, she discovers a small stash of letters — and ultimately, the truth. Forty years earlier, a young woman stumbles from a remote stone house, the night quiet except for the constant wind that encircles her as she hurries deeper into the darkness away from the cliffs and the sea.

On New Year’s Day, Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance. The body is found close to the home of a lonely outcast and local suspicion falls firmly on him. But when Inspector Jimmy Perez insists on broadening the search for suspects, a veil of distrust and fear is thrown over the entire community.

While New Bern, Connecticut, lies under a blanket of snow, Cobbled Court Quilts remains a cozy haven for its owner, Evelyn Dixon, and her friends. Evelyn relishes winter’s slower pace—besides, Internet sales are hopping, thanks to her son Garrett’s efforts. In addition to helping out at the shop, Garrett has also been patiently waiting for his girlfriend, Liza, to finish art school in New York City.

Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives at the idyllic getaway, she’s pleased to find that the owner is a handsome man by the name of Calvin Wells—and he’s eager to introduce her to his easygoing way of life. But there are things Grace discovers that she’s not too pleased about: A lack of cell phone service. A missing woman. And a feeling that something isn’t right with the ranch.

When Louise Root, a new client of Cecil Younger, is found murdered, the private investigator finds himself in the middle of an environmental law violation that has deadly repercussions. Cecil finds he is unable to leave behind Root, especially after her ex-lover Hannah asks him for help. On top of it all, Global Mining, the company that runs the gold mine where Root's body was found, hires Younger to get the dirt on an environmentalist who has a connection to the victim. In the midst of all this, Cecil's personal life is fraying.

He's 93-years-old, in retirement in Sussex, beginning to lose his memory, and subject to emotions he has resisted all his life. His name is Sherlock Holmes.

A body is found by an early morning dog walker on the common outside Rosebank, a care home for troubled teens. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who never showed up to work. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate. Her only clue is the disappearance of fourteen-year-old resident Chloe. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.