Adult

Delilah Winter is one of the hottest pop stars on the planet, so how in the world was she kidnapped right in the middle of a show at the famous Hollywood Bowl? If anyone can figure it out, it's Dr. Kendra Michaels, who works with local and federal authorities on only the most impossible cases. She agrees to lead the race to rescue the young singer before time runs out. Joined by Jessie Mercado, the singer's former bodyguard and a military hero, Kendra closes in on the hideout location but not before casualties mount up. Desperate for leads, Kendra must set aside her personal feelings when agent-for-hire Adam Lynch also volunteers his special skills to aid in the search. But as the abductor's true purpose becomes clear, the trio uncover a plot they never could have imagined --- leading to a showdown they won't soon forget.

From the world-famous creator of Perry Mason, Erle Stanley Gardner --- at his death the best-selling American writer of all time --- comes another baffling case for the Cool & Lam detective agency. Return to the 1960s as a simple insurance investigation into a car accident puts Bertha Cool and Donald Lam on the trail of murder --- and Donald hip-deep in danger when he poses as an ex-con to infiltrate a criminal gang. It's Gardner's twistiest caper ever, and a fitting conclusion to Hard Case Crime's revival of this classic (and long unavailable) detective series.

Vera's wealth cannot protect her or her four-year-old-daughter, Lucie, once the Nazis occupy France. Ordered to report to an internment camp, Russian Jewish Vera must make an impossible choice: bring Lucie with her, or put her into hiding. Believing the war will end soon, Vera chooses to leave Lucie in safety. She cannot know that she and her husband will have an opportunity to escape, to flee to America. She cannot know that Lucie will be too far to reach in time. And so begins a heartbreaking separation and journey, a war and a continent apart. Vera's marriage will falter under the surreal sun of California. But her determination to return to France and find Lucie will only grow. Then she meets Sasha, a man on his own search for meaning. Together, they will travel to France in search of Lucie.

Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel. Elin Warner has taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept. Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge --- there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her.

In the 21st century, a unique government initiative has been born. Five ordinary people have been selected to become Minders, the latest weapon in thwarting cyberterrorism. Transformed by a revolutionary medical procedure, the country's most classified information has been taken offline and turned into genetic code implanted inside their heads. Together, the five know every secret --- the truth behind every government lie, conspiracy theory and coverup. In return, they're given the chance to leave their problems behind and a blank slate to start their lives anew. But not everyone should be trusted, especially when they each have secrets of their own that they'll do anything to protect.

Intelligence operatives around the world are disappearing. When a missing American agent reappears in Venezuela, Court Gentry, the Gray Man, is dispatched to bring him in, but a team of assassins has other ideas. Court escapes with his life and a vital piece of intelligence. Meanwhile, CIA agent Zoya Zakharova is in Berlin. Her mission: to infiltrate a private intelligence firm with some alarming connections. The closer she gets to answers, the less likely she is to get out alive. Court and Zoya are just two pieces on this international chessboard, and they're about to discover one undeniable truth --- sometimes capturing a king requires sacrificing some pawns.

From her downstairs apartment in suburban London, Emma has often overheard the everyday life of the seemingly perfect family upstairs --- Steph, Paul and teenage daughter Freya --- but has never got to know them. Until one day, she hears something that seizes her attention: Freya has vanished, and the police are questioning Steph and Paul about their life. Do either of you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to harm or threaten you? The effects of Freya's disappearance ripple outward, affecting not just her parents, but everyone who lives in the building, including Emma and local driving instructor Chris, who was the last person to see the teenager before she went missing.

A woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world. She must navigate the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats --- from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness --- begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong" and "How soon can you get here?"

George Washington's rise constitutes one of the greatest self-reinventions in history. In his mid-20s, this third son of a modest Virginia planter had ruined his own military career thanks to an outrageous ego. But by his mid-40s, that headstrong, unwise young man had evolved into an unassailable leader chosen as the commander in chief of the fledgling Continental Army. By his mid-50s, he was unanimously elected the nation's first president. How did Washington emerge from the wilderness to become the central founder of the United States of America? Award-winning historian David O. Stewart unveils the political education that made Washington a master politician --- and America's most essential leader.

Bennett Driscoll is a Turner Prize-nominated artist who was once a rising star. Now, at age 55, his wife has left him, he hasn't sold a painting in two years, and his gallery wants to stop selling his work, claiming they'll have more value retrospectively...when he's dead. So, left with a large West London home and no income, he's forced to move into his artist's studio in the back garden and list his house on a popular vacation rental site. A stranger now in his own home, with his daughter, Mia, off at art school, and any new relationships fizzling out at best, Bennett struggles to find purpose in his day-to-day. That all changes when three different guests unwittingly unlock the pieces of himself that have been lost to him for too long.