Adult

Twenty years ago, Brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teen boy who ended his life too soon. That's what almost everyone in Tibbehah County, Mississippi, said after his body and hunting rifle were found in the Big Woods. Now two New York-based reporters show up asking Sheriff Quinn Colson questions about the Taylor case. What happened to the evidence? Where are the missing files? Who really killed Brandon? But Quinn is trying to shut down the criminal syndicate that has had a stranglehold on Tibbehah for years, trafficking drugs, stolen goods and young women through the MidSouth. Quinn has been fighting evil and corruption since he was a kid, at home or as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time, evil may win out.

Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the embodiment of Southern contradictions. He was a slave owner who fought and died, at least in part, to perpetuate slavery, yet he founded an African-American Sunday School and personally taught classes for almost a decade. In a deeply religious age, Jackson was revered for a piety that was far beyond the norm. How did one man meld his religion with the institution of slavery? How did he reconcile it with the business of killing, at which he so excelled? In SEARCHING FOR STONEWALL JACKSON, historian Ben Cleary examines not only Jackson's life, but his own, contemplating what it means to be a white Southerner in the 21st century.

Chet the dog and P.I. Bernie are both music lovers. So when Lotty Pilgrim, a country singer from long ago, turns up at a local bar, they drive out to catch her act. Bernie is surprised to see someone who was once so big performing in such a dive, and drops a C-note the Little Detective Agency can’t afford to part with into the tip jar. The C-note is stolen right from under their noses, and before the night is over, it’s stolen again. Soon they’re working the most puzzling case of their career, a case that takes them back in time in search of old border-town secrets, and into present-day danger where powerful people want those secrets to stay hidden.

In the early 1900s, as the oppression of Russia’s imperial rule takes its toll on Finland, the three Koski siblings --- Ilmari, Matti and the politicized young Aino --- are forced to flee to the United States. Not far from the majestic Columbia River, the siblings settle among other Finns in a logging community in southern Washington, where the first harvesting of the colossal old-growth forests begets rapid development, and radical labor movements begin to catch fire. The brothers face the excitement and danger of pioneering this frontier wilderness, while Aino devotes herself to organizing the industry’s first unions. As the Koski siblings strive to rebuild lives and families in an America in flux, they also try to hold fast to the traditions of a home they left behind.

Lydia and Lucas Moore are in their late 20s when a stranger enters their small world on Wolf Island. Lydia, the responsible sister, has cared for her pathologically shy brother, Lucas, ever since their mom’s death a decade before. They live together in their family house by the sea, shadowed by events from their childhood. When Lydia sees the stranger step off the ferry, she feels an immediate connection to him. Lucas is convinced that the man, Cole Anthony, is the reincarnation of their baby brother, who died when they were young. Cole knows their mannerisms, their home, the topography of the island. What else could that mean? To find out, Lydia must finally face her anxiety about leaving the island and challenge Cole’s grip on her family’s past and her brother.

John Reynolds resides in a beautiful mansion with his wife and daughter, and his business is booming, but he remains despondent as his attempts to pivot into producing his own movie projects fail again and again. Depressed and at a creative dead-end, Reynolds has secretly signed up to participate in a weekend-long reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. Just before his departure, an ex-Playmate --- the very centerfold of his adolescent daydreams --- pitches him her idea for a reality TV show. When Reynolds impulsively invites the former Playmate and her best friend, a former Miss Universe, to accompany him to the reenactment, his plans for a solitary weekend of self-discovery run amok.

When struggling perfumer Sophie Duval shelters Grace Kelly in her boutique to fend off a persistent British press photographer, James Henderson, a bond is forged between the two women and sets in motion a chain of events that stretches across 30 years of friendship, love and tragedy. James cannot forget his brief encounter with Sophie. Despite his guilt at being away from his daughter, he takes an assignment to cover the wedding of the century. In Monaco, as wedding fever soars and passions and tempers escalate, James and Sophie --- like Princess Grace --- ultimately must decide what they are prepared to give up for love.

Drawing on her own secrets, Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl --- assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake. Cleo Sherwood was a young African-American woman who liked to have a good time. No one seems to know or care why she was killed except Maddie --- and the dead woman herself. Maddie is going to find the truth about Cleo’s life and death. Cleo’s ghost, privy to Maddie’s poking and prying, wants to be left alone.

It’s been several months since Simon Inescort keeled over the rail of a Nova Scotia–bound ferry, a massive heart attack to blame. Simon's widow, Lorca Pell, has sold their farmhouse to newlyweds Zachary and Muriel --- after revealing that the deed contains a “ghost clause,” an actual legal clause allowing for reimbursement if a recently purchased home turns out to be haunted. In fact, Simon finds himself still at home. He spends time replaying his marriage in his own mind, as if in poignant reel-to-reel, while also engaging in occasionally intimate observation of the new homeowners. But soon the crisis of a missing child threatens the tenuous domestic equilibrium, as the weight of the case falls to a rookie private detective.

Twenty years ago, Abigail Sorenson’s brother, Robert, went missing one day before her 16th birthday, never to be seen again. That same year, she began receiving scattered chapters in the mail of a self-help manual, The Guidebook, whose anonymous author promised to make her life soar to heights beyond her wildest dreams. The Guidebook’s missives have remained a constant in Abi’s life --- through her family’s grief over her brother’s disappearance, a move across continents, the devastating dissolution of her marriage, and the new beginning as a single mother and café owner in Sydney. Now, two decades after receiving those first pages, Abi is invited to an all-expenses-paid weekend retreat to learn “the truth” about The Guidebook.