Adult

Robert de La Rochefoucald was a scion of one of the most storied families in France. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combat from the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies who altered the war in Europe with tactics that earned it notoriety as the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germans’ war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. THE SABOTEUR recounts La Rochefoucauld’s enthralling adventures.

King Edward of York has been driven out of England. Queen Elizabeth and her children tremble in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. The House of Lancaster has won the crown, but York will not go quietly. Desperate to reclaim his throne, Edward lands at Ravenspur with a half-drowned army and his brother Richard at his side. Every hand is against them, every city gate is shut, yet the brothers York go on the attack. But neither sees that their true enemy is Henry Tudor, now grown into a man. As the Red Dragon --- “the man of destiny” --- his claim to the throne leads to Bosworth Field and a battle that will bring an end to the Wars of the Roses.

Bernt Lund is a monster, an unrepentant child molester and serial killer. In the mind of society, in the minds of his nine-year-old victims' parents, and in the minds of his fellow inmates, he is a waking nightmare. And now he has escaped from custody. Detective Superintendent Ewert Grens is about to encounter the most profoundly appalling case in his career, and perhaps in Stockholm's history. During the course of one long, hot summer, Sweden will face an explosive series of events that spread across the country like wildfire, events that call into question the very nature of humanity, duty, forgiveness and self-defense. And justice.

An overlooked pianist who finally receives fraught success after decades of disappointment. An elusive dancer whose untimely death her fiancé is desperate to untangle. A mysterious patient who is comatose after a violent accident. These are the three women who animate ONE STATION AWAY. Magnus, a New York neurologist --- son to one, lover to another, and doctor to a third --- is the thread that binds these women’s stories together as he navigates relationships defined by compromise and misunderstanding, guilt and forgiveness, and, most of all, by an obsessive attempt to communicate --- to understand and to be understood, to love and to be loved.

Fourteen people are trapped on Skek, a barren island in the middle of the North Sea somewhere between the coasts of the UK and Denmark. Over the years this place has served many purposes, but one by one its inhabitants have abandoned its inhospitable shores. Today it’s home to Hazleton Adventure Experiences, an extreme sports company specializing in corporate team building events. A momentary lapse leads to a tragic accident, but when the body count quickly starts to rise, questions are inevitably asked. A horrific discovery changes everything, and a trickle of rumors becomes a tsunami of fear. Is this the beginning of the end of everything, or a situation constructed by the mass hysteria of a handful of desperate and terrified people?

NOT SAFE AFTER DARK is a collection of 20 stories that explores the darkest edges of humanity in which everyday people must commit desperate acts as they face fear, temptation and impulses too irresistible to control. In “Going Back,” Inspector Banks’ trip to celebrate his parents’ Golden Anniversary reveals how evil can wear many disguises. In the Edgar Award-winning “Missing in Action,” the disappearance of a young boy in the early days of WWII sparks a mob mentality with chilling results. “Innocence” captures the desperate plight of a man trapped by a set of coincidences that derail his life and lead him down a path he was destined to travel. The title story is an exhilarating tale with a sudden conclusion that will leave readers’ hearts pounding.

In IMPROV NATION, Sam Wasson charts the meteoric rise of improv from its unlikely beginnings in McCarthy-era Chicago. We witness the chance meeting between Mike Nichols and Elaine May, hang out at the after-hours bar where Dan Aykroyd hosted friends like John Belushi, Bill Murray and Gilda Radner, and go behind the scenes of cultural landmarks from The Graduate to “The Colbert Report.” Along the way, we befriend pioneers such as Harold Ramis, Chevy Chase, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Alan Arkin, Tina Fey, Judd Apatow and many others. Wasson shows why improv deserves to be considered the great American art form of the last half century.

Johnny MacKinnon might be on the verge of losing it all. The ice factory he married into, which he’s run for decades, is facing devastating OSHA fines following a mysterious accident and may have to close. The only hope for Johnny’s livelihood is that someone in the community saw something, but no one seems to be coming forward. He hasn’t spoken to his son Corran back in Scotland since Corran’s heroin addiction finally drove Johnny to the breaking point. And now, after a collapse on the factory floor, it appears Johnny may have a brain tumor. But this may be his last chance to bridge the gap with Corran --- and to have any sort of relationship with the baby granddaughter he’s never met.

In 1924, two brothers both loved Eleanor Raines, a promising young actress from the East End of London. She disappeared during the filming of Alfred Hitchcock’s debut, Number 13, which itself is now lost. It was the crime of the age, capturing the imagination of the city. Generations have passed. Everyone involved is long dead. But even now their dark, twisted secret threatens to tear the city apart. Joshua Raines is about to enter a world of macabre beauty, of glittering celluloid and the silver screen, of illusion and deception, of impossibly old gangsters and the fiendish creatures they command, and most frighteningly of all, of genuine magic. He is about to enter Glass Town. 

Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Her gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko --- Frost, the winter demon from the stories --- and together they saved her people from destruction. But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch. So Vasilisa opts to dress herself as a boy and sets off astride her magnificent stallion. But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, the Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits. Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues, Vasilisa will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself.