Fall/Winter 2013/2014

The Thicket

Joe R. Lansdale

In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure set at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom, the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review)

Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.

Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot).

In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.

In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me - - the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review).

Darwin's Blade

Dan Simmons

Darwin Minor travels a dangerous road. A Vietnam veteran turned reluctant expert on interpreting the wreckage of fatal accidents, Darwin uses science and instinct to unravel the real causes of unnatural disasters. He is very, very good at his job.

His latest case promises to be his most challenging yet. A spate of seemingly random high-speed car accidents has struck the highways of southern California. Each seems to have been staged-yet the participants have all died. Why would anyone commit fraud at the cost of his own life? The deeper Darwin digs, the closer he comes to unmasking an international network specializing in intimidation and murder, whose members will do anything to make sure Darwin soon suffers a deadly accident of his own.

"A literary thriller like no other...A hard-charging, edge-of-the-seat tale."-Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

S.

J. J. Abrams

This one-of-a-kind bestseller from J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst captures the excitement of solving a mystery like no other book: "Both as literature and as a physical object, S. is a profound and tremendous work of art" (Miami Herald). 

One book. Two readers. A world of mystery, menace, and desire.

The chronicle of two readers finding each other, and their deadly struggle with forces beyond their understanding — all within the margins of a book conceived by Star Wars director J.J. Abrams and written by award-winning novelist Doug Dorst.

The book: Ship of Theseus, the final novel by a prolific but enigmatic writer named V.M. Straka, in which a man with no past is shanghaied onto a strange ship with a monstrous crew and launched onto a disorienting and perilous journey.

The writer: Straka, the incendiary and secretive subject of one of the world's greatest mysteries, a revolutionary about whom the world knows nothing apart from the words he wrote and the rumors that swirl around him.

The readers: Jennifer and Eric, a college senior and a disgraced grad student, both facing crucial decisions about who they are, who they might become, and how much they're willing to trust another person with their passions, hurts, and fears.

S. contains 22 inserts and will be delivered in a sealed slipcase. 

"The best-looking book I've ever seen." —The New Yorker 

The Lost Girls of Rome

Donato Carrisi

A grieving young widow, seeking answers to her husband's death, becomes entangled in an investigation steeped in the darkest mysteries of Rome.

Sandra Vega, a forensic analyst with the Roman police department, mourns deeply for a marriage that ended too soon. A few months ago, in the dead of night, her husband, an up-and-coming journalist, plunged to his death at the top of a high-rise construction site. The police ruled it an accident. Sanda is convinced it was anything but.

Launching her own inquiries, Sanda finds herself on a dangerous trail, working the same case that she is convinced led to her husband's murder. An investigation which is deeply entwined with a series of disappearances that has swept the city, and brings Sandra ever closer to a centuries-old secret society that will do anything to stay in the shadows.

SEAL Team Six: Hunt the Falcon

Don Mann

SEAL Team Six and Thomas Crocker are back hunting their most elusive adversary yet: The Falcon.

SEAL Team Six operative Thomas Crocker is no stranger to missions of the highest national importance and the gravest danger. But this time, the mission hits close to home. The Iranian terrorist he and his squad are chasing is the same man who kidnapped his wife months before -- the Falcon, who has been stealing Libyan nuclear material and is laying plans for a devastating attack against America. The hunt takes the team from Bangkok to Caracas in hot pursuit of the Falcon and his forces.

Meanwhile, Corcker's estranged father -- a former firefighter and hell-raiser who was kicked out of the Nacy as a young seaman -- reappears, forcing Crocker to acknowledge his life outside the shadows of SEAL operations. Doing so isn't easy when duty calls over three hundred days of the year, and when it's this essential to take an enemy down.

Hunt the Falcon ups the ante for Crocker and the rest of SEAL Team Six as never before. The bullets fly, the action is relentless, and by the end Crocker and his crew will be put to the ultimate test: surviving captivity under the most depraved of men and taking the fight to the Falcon's doorstep, deep in the heart of Iran.

Dominion

C.J. Sansom

C.J. Sansom rewrites history in a thrilling novel that dares to imagine Britain under the thumb of Nazi Germany.

1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany. The global economy strains against the weight of the long German war against Russia still raging in the east. The British people find themselves under increasingly authoritarian rule -- the press, radio, and television tightly controlled, the British Jews facing ever greater constraints.

But Churchill's Resistance soldiers on. As defiance grows, whispers circulate of a secret that could forever alter the balance of the global struggle. The keeper of that secret? Scientist Frank Muncaster, who languishes in a Birmingham mental hospital.

Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, a spy for the Resistance and University friend of Frank's, is given the mission to rescue Frank and get him out of the country. Hard on his heels is Gestapo agent Gunther Hoth, a brilliant, implacable hunter of men, who soon has Frank and David's innocent wife, Sarah, directly in his sights.

C.J. Sansom's literary thriller Winter in Madrid earned Sansom comparisons to Graham Greene, Sebastian Faulks, and Ernest Hemingway. Now, in his first alternative history epic, Sansom doesn't just recreate the past -- he reinvents it. In a spellbinding tale of suspense, oppression and poignant love, Dominion dares to explore how, in moments of crisis, history can turn on the decisions of a few brave men and women -- the secrets they choose to keep and the bonds they share.

She's Leaving Home

William Shaw

London, 1968: The body of a teenage girl is found just steps away from the Beatles' Abbey Road recording studio.

The police are called to a residential street in St John's Wood where an unidentified young woman has been strangled. Detective Sergeant Cathal Breen believes she may be one of the many Beatles fans who regularly camp outside Abbey Road Studios. With his reputation tarnished by an inexplicable act of cowardice, this is Breen's last chance to prove he's up to the job.

Breen is of the generation for whom reaching adulthood meant turning into one's parents and accepting one's place in the world. But the world around him is changing beyond recognition. Nothing illustrates the shift more than Helen Tozer, a brazen and rambunctious young policewoman assisting him with the case. Together they navigate a world on edge, where conservative tradition gives way to frightening new freedoms -- and troubling new crimes.

The Stolen Ones

Richard Montanari

In Richard Montanari's chilling new suspense novel, a sealed-off network of secret passages connects all of Philadelphia to the killer hidden within.

Luther Wade grew up in Cold River, a warehouse for the criminally insane. Two decades ago the hospital closed it doors forever, but Luther never left. He wanders the catacombs beneath the city, channeling the violent dreams of Eduard Kross, Europe's most prolific serial killer of the 20th century.

A two-year-old girl is found wandering the streets of Philadelphia in the middle of the night by detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. She does not speak, but she may hold the key to solving a string of murders committed in and around Priory Park. As the detectives investigate, more bodies are found at Priory Park, and they're drawn closer and closer to the doors of Luther's devious maze and the dark secrets of Cold River.

We Are Here

Michael Marshall

An intelligent and page-turning thriller from the international bestselling author of Killer Move.

It should've been the greatest day in David's life. A trip to New York, wife by his side, to visit his new publisher. Finally it looks as though the gods of fate are going to lift him from schoolteacher to writer. But on his way back to Penn Station, a chance encounter changes all of that.

David bumps into a stranger who covertly follows him, and then, just before they board the train home, passes him by close enough to whisper: "Remember me." The stranger follows them back to where they live, and it isn't long before David realizes that this man wants something from him . . . something very personal, that he may have no choice but to surrender.

I'll Be Watching You (previously published as Watching You)

Leslie A. Kelly

In the first book of a thrilling new romantic suspense trilogy, USA Today bestselling author Leslie A. Kelly shows just how hot - and how dangerous - Hollywood can be.

In the shadows, someone is always watching
Aspiring screenwriter Jessica Jensen grew up on movies starring heartthrob Reece Winchester, the eldest brother of a Hollywood dynasty. She never thought she'd meet the man in person, though. Actor, director, millionaire, and gorgeous mystery man--he's every woman's fantasy.

Reece wants Jessica the moment he sees her, and he's a man who always gets what he wants. At first he was only after a night in her bed, but as he comes to know the smart, confident woman beneath the stunning exterior, he realizes once will never be enough.

Unfortunately, Jessica's real-life Cinderella story is about to take a deadly turn...

Reece's world is filled with fierce ambition and dark family secrets the Winchesters desperately want to hide. But he and his brothers aren't the only ones who know those secrets. Someone else is out there, waiting to strike. Waiting-and always watching.

When danger finally steps out of the shadows, Reece will have to face his past. And Jessica will have to decide just how far she can trust the man she loves with her heart...and her life.
"Kelly hits all the right notes here and balances the romance with suspense to very nice effect, making this a must read for readers who like a bit of danger with their love story. Recommended." --Library Journal
"The romance between this pair was hot and exciting, but it was the ending that I really liked because it had me on the edge-of-my-seat. ...I would recommend Watching You by Leslie A. Kelly, if you enjoy romantic suspense, the opposites attract trope, or books by authors Susan Stoker, Cora Brent, Kaylea Cross and Laura Kaye." -- Harlequin Junkie