Adult

Detective Evan Bolton is gutted by his latest investigation. His friend and mentor, retired detective Rod McLeod, has been murdered, his body left in the trunk of a junkyard car. When McLeod’s daughter and grandson abruptly vanish, Evan knows it’s not a coincidence. Search-and-rescue canine specialist Rowan Wolff agrees as she and her dog, Thor, track the missing family. The two cases converge in a puzzling twist. Evan discovers that McLeod has been reinvestigating old crimes --- solved but not forgotten. Evan takes them on, one by one, and a disturbing suspicion forms that someone in law enforcement has something to hide and would do anything to keep those secrets buried. But Evan and Rowan’s time is slipping away. They have to find the killer now. Before someone else disappears. Before someone else dies.

Unwanted and neglected from birth, Barbara Graham had to overcome the odds just to survive. Her record of petty crimes spoke to a life that constantly teetered on the brink of disaster. But in 1953, when a robbery spiraled out of control and escalated into a brutal murder, Barbara became the centerpiece of a media circus. Her beauty enraptured the press, and they were quick to portray her as a villainous femme fatale despite abundant evidence to the contrary --- a fiction the prosecution eagerly promoted. The frenzy of public interest and willful distortion paved a treacherous path for Barbara Graham. In TRIAL BY AMBUSH, Marcia Clark investigates the case, exposing the fallacies in the demonizing picture they painted and the critical evidence that was never revealed.

STORIES I LIVED TO TELL is more than a selection of stories from revered mountain storyteller Gary Carden. It is a testimony of a distinguished culture, sense of place and spirit of community that connects the Appalachian past to its present. This memoir-in-stories invites the reader to move beyond stereotypes to experience the scenes, characters and community of the author's childhood and formative years, intersecting with the regional folktales and mythologies that fired his imagination. It is not only a fascinating window into an Appalachian community in the middle of the 20th century but also an insightful reminder of who that community is today, in spite of the external changes.

Iðunn is in yet another doctor's office. She knows her constant fatigue is a sign that something is not right, but practitioners dismiss her symptoms and blood tests haven't revealed any cause. When she talks to friends and family about it, the refrain is the same: Have you tried eating better? Exercising more? Establishing a nighttime routine? She tries to follow their advice, buying everything from vitamins to sleeping pills to a step-counting watch. Nothing helps. Until one night Iðunn falls asleep with the watch on and wakes up to find she has walked over 40,000 steps in the night. What is happening when she’s asleep? Why is she waking up with increasingly disturbing injuries? And why won’t anyone believe her?

Quill has lived on the Red Pine reservation in Minnesota her whole life. She knows what happens to women who look like her. Just a girl when Jimmy Sky jumped off the railway bridge and she ran for help, Quill realizes now that she’s never stopped running. As she trains for the Boston Marathon early one morning in the woods, she hears a scream. All she finds are tire tracks and a single beaded earring. When she hears that a second woman has been stolen, she is determined to do something about it. As Quill closes in on the truth about the missing women, someone else disappears. In her quest to find justice for all of the women of the reservation, she is confronted with the hard truths of their home and the people who purport to serve them. When will she stop losing neighbors, friends and family?

Award-winning fantasy editor Paula Guran invites you to join an array of accomplished authors on an extraordinary and enchanting expedition. Seventeen fantastical stories weave a wonderful web of magic, revelation and, of course, adventure. The third volume of The Year's Best Fantasy explores alternative realities that mirror a world much like our own, yet push the limits of one’s imagination. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! This is a collection of tales that fantasy fanatics won’t want to miss.

Ottanger is a rebel and mutant on an Earth governed by a ruthless Committee. But after its Inspectorate experiments on him, Ottanger realizes the mutation allows him to reach alternate worlds. The multiverse is revealed in all its glory and terror --- and he understands that he finally can flee his timeline. Then Ottanger meets the Fenris, an evolved human, visiting his Earth from the far future. He’d engineered the original world-walking mutation, so those altered could escape the Committee’s nightmarish regime. Yet this only worked for a few, and millions continued to suffer. And Ottanger sees that that Committee will become unstoppable if not destroyed. However, the Fenris has drawn yet another threat to Ottanger’s Earth. With the power of its trillion linked minds, it craves world-walking biotech and will do anything to get it.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career. He’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house --- the smartest of smart homes --- Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover that the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.

Chester Newton has built his fortune organizing racehorse syndicates, where top horses are co-owned and managed by several parties. These joint enterprises are high risk and high reward --- and for Chester, it’s almost always been reward. The stakes only get higher as the syndicates grow larger, and every race means the possibility of complete failure --- or ecstatic success. After an anxious morning waiting for the results of the Epsom Derby, the premier flat race in the UK, Chester has an afternoon of explosive triumph --- and an evening of total terror. Someone tries to take over one of his syndicates by force --- and by threats of serious harm to him and his family. For the first time in Chester’s life, it’s not just a horse race or money at stake --- it’s his life and the lives of his loved ones.

Arthur Parnassus is the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there. He works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve. And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home --- one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from --- Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.