Adult

On May 19, 1942, a U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico stalked its prey 50 miles from New Orleans. Captained by 29-year-old Iron Cross and King's Cross recipient Erich Würdemann, the submarine set its sights on the freighter Heredia with 62 souls on board. Most were merchant seamen, but there were also a handful of civilians, including the Downs family. Fast asleep in their berths, they had no idea that two torpedoes were heading their way. When the ship exploded, chaos ensued --- and each family member had to find his or her own path to survival.

When Spark --- the rakish prodigal son --- returns unannounced to the dilapidated family home, his arrival launches an unforgettable summer on Monhegan Island. During his absence, his gentle brother and shrewd, fork-tongued father, Pastor Ragnar, have been caring for Spark’s son, Hally. A temperamental adolescent emboldened by tales of his father’s mischief, Hally is careening through an identity crisis when he stuns his family by claiming to have had a spiritual vision. Though Spark is permanently dubious, Pastor Ragnar pounces on the chance to revitalize his flagging church. Hally is shoved into the spotlight, and in the frenzy that follows, this fragile family is pushed to the brink.

Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability. By tracing paper’s evolution from antiquity to the present, with an emphasis on the contributions made in Asia and the Middle East, Mark Kurlansky challenges common assumptions about technology’s influence, affirming that paper is here to stay.

Charlotte Maynard rarely leaves her mother’s home, the sprawling Connecticut lake house that belonged to her late stepfather, Whit Whitman, and the generations of Whitmans before him. While Charlotte and her sister, Sally, grew up at “Lakeside,” their stepbrothers, Spin and Perry, were welcomed as weekend guests. Now the grown boys own the estate. When Spin brings his fiancé home for the summer, the entire family is intrigued. The beautiful and accomplished Laurel Atwood breathes new life into this often comically rarefied world. But as the wedding draws near, and flaws surface in the family’s polite veneer, an array of simmering resentments and unfortunate truths is exposed.

Once a century, for only six days, the bay around a small Washington island glows like a water-bound aurora. Dr. Rachel Bell, a scientist studying the 100-Year Miracle and the tiny sea creatures that create it, knows a secret about the phenomenon that inspired the region’s myths and folklore: the rare green water may contain a power that could save Rachel's own life. But the Miracle does things to people. Strange and mysterious things. And as these things begin to happen, Rachel has only six days to uncover and control the Miracle's secrets before the waters go dark for another hundred years.

Los Angeles, 1937. Lillian Frost has traded dreams of stardom for security as a department store salesgirl...until she discovers she's a suspect in the murder of her former roommate, Ruby Carroll. Party girl Ruby died wearing a gown she stole from the wardrobe department at Paramount Pictures, domain of Edith Head. Edith has yet to win the first of her eight Academy Awards; right now she's barely hanging on to her job, and a scandal is the last thing she needs. To clear Lillian's name and save Edith's career, the two women join forces.

ZIGZAG includes two novellas and two short stories featuring Bill Pronzini's iconic Nameless Detective. “Zigzag” is an original novella, in which a safe and simple accident investigation becomes the unraveling of a twisted murder scheme. “Grapplin” deals with the kind of missing person case that can end in only one of two ways: closure or heartbreak. In the second short, “Nightscape,” readers discover how, indeed, one thing just leads to another. The final work, “Revenant,” is another original novella and entangles Nameless in a weird crime with fearful occult overtones.

Elizabeth Jarrod is driven to despair by the disgusting rumors spreading online and bullying texts. When Heath finds her teenage daughter in the midst of an unsuccessful suicide attempt, she reaches out to her aunt Gwen and her friend, Anna Pigeon. Since Anna is about to start her new post as Acting Chief Ranger at Acadia National Park in Maine, the three will join her and stay at a house on the cliff of a small island near the park, Boar Island. But the stalker has followed them east. And Heath (a paraplegic) and Elizabeth aren't alone on the otherwise deserted island. At the same time, Anna has barely arrived at Acadia before a brutal murder is committed by a killer uncomfortably close to her.