Adult

When a vicious murderer resurfaces and starts a killing spree to wipe out those who put him behind bars, one thing becomes clear: defense attorney Brynn Holloran, who helped prosecute him, needs to run for her life. When the police come up empty-handed, Brynn turns to a private security firm for protection. But when she defies advice and gets involved in the investigation, even the former Secret Service agent assigned to protect her may not be able to keep her safe. With every new clue she discovers, Brynn is pulled back into the vortex of a disturbing case from her past. As the clock ticks down on a manhunt, Brynn’s desperate search for the truth unearths long-buried secrets and reignites a killer’s fury.

Cleveland, 2003. A young man is just a college freshman when he meets Emily. They share a passion for Edward Albee and Ecstasy, and fall hard and fast in love. But soon Emily has to move home to Elba, New York, and he flunks out of school and joins the Army. Desperate to keep their relationship alive, they marry before he ships out to Iraq. But as an Army medic, he is unprepared for the grisly reality that awaits him. He and Emily try to make their long-distance marriage work, but when he returns from Iraq, his PTSD is profound. The opioid crisis is beginning to swallow up the Midwest. Soon he is hooked on heroin, and so is Emily. With their money drying up, he turns to the one thing he thinks he could be really good at --- robbing banks.

If you like mysteries and you like books, what could be better than combining both worlds, with mysteries set against a background involving books? This collection of crime for bibliophiles includes stories about rare books, bookshops, libraries, manuscripts, magical books, collectors --- in short, the wonderful universe that makes this precious object we all love so important and priceless. Whether your taste is for the traditional mystery, something a little more hard-boiled, or the bizarre and humorous tale, you will find exactly your cup of tea in this collection of 15 stories by the most distinguished mystery writers working today.

It's late summer, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest. As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde comes to lean on Jean-Philippe, true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined. Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind slowly unveil the true story.

Key West, 1936. Headstrong, accomplished journalist Martha Gellhorn is confident with words but less so with men when she meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they’re covering the Spanish Civil War. Martha reveres him. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha. And as Hemingway tells her, the most powerful love stories are always set against the fury of war. With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world’s foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Imagine your closest friend utterly betraying you. Years later, when she seeks forgiveness, you invite her to your engagement party as a gesture of reconciliation. But seething hostilities rise to the surface, ruining everyone’s evening. After an awful night, your friend’s battered, lifeless body is found at the bottom of a rocky cliff. Newly engaged Marissa Parlette is living this nightmare. Desperate for answers, Marissa digs deep into the events of the party. But what she remembers happening after nightfall now carries sinister implications. The more she investigates, the more she questions everything she thought she knew about her friends, the man she once trusted, and even herself.

Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, BLACK FLAGS, BLUE WATERS reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” --- spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s --- when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them.

The American experiment rests on three ideas --- "these truths," Jefferson called them --- political equality, natural rights and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Jill Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? THESE TRUTHS tells this uniquely American story, beginning in 1492, asking whether the course of events over more than five centuries has proven the nation’s truths, or belied them. To answer that question, Lepore traces the intertwined histories of American politics, law, journalism and technology.

Thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt, abandoned by his mother, follows his father to sun-splashed California in search of a dream. Suddenly forced to fend for himself, Russell struggles to survive in Marshfield, a dilapidated town haunted by a sadistic animal killer and a ring of malicious boys who bully Russell for being “queer.” Rescued from his booze-swilling father by Wen and Jian Mah, a Chinese immigrant couple who long for a child, Russell betrays their generosity by running away with their restaurant’s proceeds.

In a crooked house in South London, Melissa feels increasingly that she’s defined solely by motherhood, while Michael mourns the former thrill of their romance. In the suburbs, Stephanie’s aspirations for bliss on the commuter belt, coupled with her white middle-class upbringing, compound Damian’s itch for a bigger life catalyzed by the death of his activist father. Longtime friends from the years when passion seemed permanent, the couples have stayed in touch, gathering for births and anniversaries, bonding over discussions of politics, race and art. But as bonds fray, the lines once clearly marked by wedding bands aren’t so simply defined.