Adult

A beloved town character lands a front-page obituary. But who was it, exactly, who died? And what about the former mayor who’s still running for office? All this, of course, is but a feather on the wind compared to Muse editor J.C. Hogan’s desperate attempts to find a cure for his marital woes. Twenty minutes from Mitford at Meadowgate Farm, newlyweds Dooley and Lace Kavanagh face a crisis that devastates their bank account and impacts their family vet practice. But there is still a lot to celebrate, as their adopted son, Jack, looks forward to the most important day of his life. Happily, it also will be a day when the terrible wound in Dooley’s biological family begins to heal because of a game --- let’s just call it a miracle --- that breaks all the rules.

We laugh when it pops up in our inbox: the scam letter promising a windfall. We wonder: How does anybody fall for these things? But it is no laughing matter. It is one of the biggest organized crime rackets in the world --- and State Department crisis manager Judd Ryker has fallen right into the middle of it. The disappearance of a young American in London sends Ryker into the heart of a corruption scandal in Nigeria, at the same time his CIA agent wife Jessica finds herself chasing a Russian master criminal known as the Bear. Unknown to either of them, they are pulling at two ends of the same lethal thread, a staggeringly vicious enterprise of piracy, extortion and murder.

In a Copenhagen park, the body of an elderly woman is discovered. The case bears a striking resemblance to another unsolved homicide investigation from over a decade ago, but the connection between the two victims confounds the police. Across town, a group of young women are being hunted. The attacks seem random, but could these brutal acts of violence be related? Detective Carl Mørck of Department Q is charged with solving the mystery. Meanwhile, after an earlier breakdown, their colleague Rose is still struggling to deal with the reemergence of her past --- a past in which a terrible crime may have been committed. It is up to Carl, Assad and Gordon to uncover the dark and violent truth at the heart of Rose’s childhood before it is too late.

In an unspecified future, the United States' borders have receded behind a salt line --- a ring of scorched earth that protects its citizens from deadly disease-carrying ticks. Those within the zone live safe, if limited, lives in a society controlled by a common fear. Few have any reason to venture out of the zone, except for the adrenaline junkies who pay a fortune to tour what's left of nature. Those among the latest expedition include a popstar and his girlfriend, Edie; the tech giant Wes; and Marta; a seemingly simple housewife. Once out of the zone, the group find themselves at the mercy of deadly ticks --- and at the center of a murderous plot.

In 1918, a ransom of enormous size was paid to free the Romanovs from the Bolsheviks. But the Romanovs died anyway. And the ransom? During World War II, the Nazis stole it from the Russians, and after that, it vanished. Until now. When a modern-day kidnapping captures the attention of husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo, the couple soon learn that these long-lost riches may be back in play, held in trust by the descendants of a Nazi guerrilla faction called the Werewolves. It is their mission to establish the Fourth Reich, and their time is coming soon. This quest is greater than anything the Fargos have ever done; it is their chance to make someone answer for unspeakable crimes, and to prevent them from happening again.

Jesse Stone, still reeling from the murder of his fiancée by crazed assassin Mr. Peepers, must keep his emotions in check long enough to get through the wedding day of his loyal protégé, Suitcase Simpson. The morning of the wedding, Jesse learns that a gala 75th birthday party is to be held for folk singer Terry Jester. Jester has spent the last 40 years in seclusion after the mysterious disappearance of the master recording tape of his magnum opus, The Hangman's Sonnet. That same morning, an elderly Paradise woman dies while her house is being ransacked. What are the thieves looking for? And what's the connection to Terry Jester and the mysterious missing tape?

Alex Blum had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a U.S. Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. He poured everything into achieving his dream. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery. Why would he ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way? In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex’s first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process.

The lives of England’s medieval queens were packed with incident, but their stories have been largely obscured by centuries of myth and omission. Now Alison Weir restores these women to their rightful place in history. Spanning the years from the Norman conquest in 1066 to the dawn of a new era in 1154, when Henry II succeeded to the throne and Eleanor of Aquitaine, the first Plantagenet queen, was crowned, QUEENS OF THE CONQUEST brings to vivid life five women, including Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, the first Norman king; Matilda of Scotland, revered as “the common mother of all England”; and Empress Maud, England’s first female ruler, whose son King Henry II would go on to found the Plantagenet dynasty.

When 81-year-old Jay Mendelsohn decides to enroll in the undergraduate ODYSSEY seminar his son teaches at Bard College, the two find themselves on an adventure as profoundly emotional as it is intellectual. For Jay, this return to the classroom is his "one last chance" to learn the great literature he'd neglected in his youth --- and a final opportunity to more fully understand his son, a writer and classicist. But through the sometimes-uncomfortable months that the two men explore Homer's great work together, it becomes clear that Daniel has much to learn, too: Jay's responses to both the text and their travels gradually uncover long-buried secrets that allow the son to understand his difficult father at last.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson. Enter Mia Warren, who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter and rents a house from the Richardsons. But Mia carries a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this community. When family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that divides the town --- and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.