Urban Thriller

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

I traded in my life of magic and demon hunting for a quiet one a long time ago. In the space of a couple of nights, I've become homeless, jobless, and I'm now hiding from people who want to open a back door to Hell itself. Things could be worse; I could be alone, too. Instead, I'm rooming up with the sexy mage, Levi, and that's been...interesting. Then one night I get a phone call from out of nowhere, and suddenly we have a lead on the book we've been looking for; or an invitation into a trap. Never one to take my own best advice, I spring into the lead head-on.

As Sarah and Julian begin their quest to uncover the truth surrounding his curse, a new threat arises, endangering not only their lives but the future they hope to build with one another. In order to protect themselves and those they care about the most, Julian and Sarah must use all of the resources at their disposal to neutralize their adversaries.

On a brisk autumn day, a 13-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: His father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America - and into another realm. One of the most influential and heralded works of fantasy ever written, The Talisman is an extraordinary novel of loyalty, awakening, terror, and mystery.

In this third volume, several months have passed, and Roland's two new tet-mates have become trained gunslingers. Eddie Dean has given up heroin, and Odetta's two selves have joined, becoming the stronger and more balanced personality of Susannah Dean. But while battling The Pusher in 1977 New York, Roland altered ka by saving the life of Jake Chambers, a boy who - in Roland's world - has already died. Now Roland and Jake exist in different worlds, but they are joined by the same madness.

The White Council of Wizards has drafted Harry Dresden as a Warden and assigned him to look into rumors of black magic in Chicago. Malevolent entities that feed on fear are loose in the Windy City, but it's all in a day's work for a wizard, his faithful dog, and a talking skull named Bob.

After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad - because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard. He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is Chicago's only openly practicing wizard. He is also dead broke. His vast knowledge and magical skills are unfortunately matched by his talent for making powerful enemies and alienating friends. With little more than his integrity left, he accepts an offer of work from Lt. Karin Murphy of Chicago's Special Investigations Unit. He wants to redeem himself in Murphy's eyes and make enough money to quiet his rumbling stomach.

In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King has returned to the rich landscape of Mid-World. This story within a story within a story finds Roland Deschain, Mid-World’s last gunslinger, in his early days during the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a "skin-man", Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter.

Joe Sunday has been a Los Angeles low-life for years, but his life gets a whole lot lower when he is killed by the rival of his crime boss-only to return as a zombie. His only hope is to find and steal a talisman that he learns can grant immortality. But, unfortunately for Joe, every other undead thug and crime boss in Los Angeles is looking for the same thing.

It starts in a laboratory. A man-made strain of flesh-eating virus. Created by a power-hungry cartel. Capable of turning victims into brain-dead carnivores. Smuggled aboard a cruise ship that's about to set sail . . .One by one, the passengers are exposed. A U.S. senator. A young couple. An undercover agent. A beautiful assassin. Some will be infected. Others will survive. But no one will be spared if the outbreak isn't contained and the dead outnumber the living.

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden has had a rough couple of weeks. As the only openly practicing professional wizard in the Chicago area, he has squared off against a multitude of supernatural bad guys. Harry has won the day against demons, poltergeists, sorcerers, trolls, vampires, werewolves, and even an evil faerie godmother. You might think nothing could spook him. You would be wrong.

It began on New Year’s Eve. The sickness came on suddenly, and spread quickly. The fear spread even faster. Within weeks, everything people counted on began to fail them. The electrical grid sputtered; law and government collapsed - and more than half of the world’s population was decimated. Where there had been order, there was now chaos. And as the power of science and technology receded, magick rose up in its place.

Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now Lestat is a rockstar in the demonic, shimmering 1980s. He rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his terrifying exsitence. His story, the second volume in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles, is mesmerizing, passionate, and thrilling.

In this second volume, Roland encounters three mysterious doorways on a deserted beach along the Western Sea. Each one enters into a different person's life in New York - here, he joins forces with the defiant young Eddie Dean and with the beautiful, brilliant, and brave Odetta Holmes in a savage struggle against underworld evil and otherworldly enemies. They also become the companions, forming a ka-tet, who will assist him on his quest to save the Dark Tower.

After a reunion with an old friend goes wrong in a Long Island nightclub, Kasheef Williams is forced to protect himself by any means necessary. The only problem is that prying eyes see everything. Those eyes belong to Alija Bell. She runs, but Kasheef sees her face, and he tells her that it's best for her to get temporary amnesia. Afraid for her life and the safety of her daughter, she keeps her mouth shut, but when a tape of the murder surfaces, the only face that is visible is Alija's. Now the police are looking for their eyewitness.

Being a mermaid does help Fred when she volunteers at the New England Aquarium. But, needless to say, it's there that she gets involved in something fishy. Dangerous levels of toxins have been found in the local seawater. A gorgeous marine biologist wants her help investigating. So does her merperson ruler, the High Prince of the Black Sea. You'd think it would be easy for a mermaid to get to the bottom of things. Think again...

When a killer vampire threatens to destroy head of Special Investigations Karrin Murphy's reputation, unless Harry delivers the powerful Word of Kemmler to her, he has no choice. Now Harry is in a race against time to find the Word before Chicago experiences a Halloween night to wake the dead.

Back when Harry Bosch was just a rookie homicide detective, he had an inspiring mentor who taught him to take the work personally and light the fire of relentlessness for every case. Now that mentor, John Jack Thompson, is dead, but after his funeral his widow hands Bosch a murder book that Thompson took with him when he left the LAPD 20 years before - the unsolved killing of a troubled young man in an alley used for drug deals.

My life was going just fine by most standards. I ran a successful business in a tight-knit magical community, and lived just blocks from a beautiful lake and series of hiking trails. Then Selene showed up. According to some magical code I inherit my aunt's ancient familiar; a grumpy ten-pound cat with a broken filter. She fancies herself something of a saber-toothed tiger, and claims to have wrestled the thread of her ninth life from the hands of the Fates themselves—although, I'm pretty sure that last part isn't true. Almost positive.