Adult

WINTER OF THE WORLD picks up right where FALL OF GIANTS left off, as its five interrelated families --- American, German, Russian, English and Welsh --- enter a time of enormous social, political and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.

Army Special Agent John Puller is the best there is, and he’s the one the U.S. Army relies on to investigate the toughest crimes. Now he has a new case, but this time, the crime is personal: His aunt has been found dead in Paradise, Florida. Before she died, she mailed a letter to Puller's father, telling him that Paradise is not all it seems to be. What Puller finds convinces him that his aunt's death was no accident but a cold-blooded murder.

For 12 years, he believed she died in an accident. Then, he was told she’d been murdered. Now, FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast discovers that his beloved wife Helen is alive. But their reunion is cut short when Helen is brazenly abducted before his eyes. Pendergast is forced to embark on a furious cross-country chase to rescue --- but what he finds is the origin of a nefarious international plot that he is unwittingly at the heart of.

T. C. Boyle returns to the Channel Islands for his latest work of historical fiction, which is comprised of two short novels. In the first, set in 1888, Marantha Waters moves to the island with her husband and daughter to run a sheep farm, with the hope that the climate will cure Marantha’s consumption. In the second, set in the 1930s, Elise Lester and her husband, the latter shell-shocked during World War I, take over the land.

All over the world, brutal attacks are crippling entire cities. Jackson Oz, a young biologist, watches the escalating events with an increasing sense of dread. When he witnesses a coordinated lion ambush in Africa, the enormity of the violence to come becomes terrifyingly clear. With the help of ecologist Chloe Tousignant, Oz races to warn world leaders before it's too late.

Alex and Leslie Twisden want a child so badly that they will do anything, no matter the cost, to make it happen. When their parental dreams come true, what they end up living is a nightmare with no escape and greater ramifications than anyone ever thought possible. As the Twisden children grow, so do a few parental urges that are absolutely horrifying and very difficult to ignore.

Three years after the disappearance of two teenage girls, a husband and wife are brutally killed in the farmhouse where one of the teens once lived. A troubled young man who can hear voices claims that he saw a girl that night being chased by a snowman. Convinced that at least one of the girls might still be alive, Joe O'Loughlin and Vincent Ruiz race against time to save the girls from someone with an evil, calculating and twisted mind.

A Hollywood movie company has come to Paradise, Massachusetts, and brought with it a huge cast, crew, and a troubled star. Marisol Hinton is scared out of her wits that her estranged husband's jealousy might take a dangerous turn. When she becomes the subject of a death threat, Jesse and the rest of the Paradise police department go on high alert.

Reporter Adam Jordan comes across the biggest story of his life when he is first on the scene of the murder of a beauty pageant contestant on the beach near Atlantic City. The story, set in the pulp world of the early 1950s, is the first published book by mystery writer Joseph Koenig in 20 years.

An airborne virus is unleashed on the patrons of a bar, killing 80 people. Surviving witnesses talk about seeing things, and they describe sudden, overwhelming feelings of fear, rage and paranoia. It appears the bar patrons were exposed to a cocktail of chemicals and illegal drugs that could drive anyone to temporary insanity, if not kill them outright. But that doesn’t explain who would unleash such horror --- or why.