Adult

At 73, Norbert Zelenka is broke and alone except for the company of a Chihuahua. But when “Carlotta’s Club” --- three strong-willed seniors --- decides to make Norbert their latest project, he reluctantly agrees to their scheme: establishing himself as the town’s fortune-teller. Soon his life begins changing in unexpected ways. It turns out that years of observing other people make Norbert an excellent card reader. As Norbert’s lonesome world expands with new friendships and a newfound self-confidence, he finally finds himself in a place where he belongs. But when a troubled young woman goes missing after a bad reading, Norbert must find a strength beyond the cards to bring her home safely.

I BRING SORROW is a collection of stories from Edgar and Anthony Award nominee Patricia Abbott that explores the dark side of human behavior. A daughter finds a way to save a mother who no longer knows her name. A father eases his grief through an act of kindness that few will judge kindly. A savvy realtor closes her deal in an unexpected way. A society of women fares little better than their forbearers. An uxorious husband finds the limits of his love. These and more stories will bring you into the deepest, darkest corridors of the heart.

Mags doesn't believe her brother's fall was an accident. In that 40-foot stairwell, he didn't just slip over the edge. But there is only one witness, Jody, the girlfriend grieving at his bedside. Which is another story Mags doesn't believe. Because Jody likes telling stories, and this may be her most twisted one yet. As Mags begins to unearth the secrets hidden in her brother's wake, she finds she isn't just looking for the truth. For Mags, this is more than a simple tragedy. This is an opportunity for revenge.

A pair of British officers insist that Maharaja Sikander Singh of Rajpore accompany them to the British Encampment. To his surprise, they take him to the King Emperor's quarters where Sikander's old school friend, Malik Umar Hayat Khan, awaits. Malik Umar is serving Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy and the highest-ranked Englishman in the country. Lord Hardinge, overruling several subordinates, tells Sikander that his services as a sleuth are needed by King and country. Sworn to secrecy, Sikander is ushered into George V's personal chambers. And there he finds an exquisite nautch-girl, hanged until dead. Sikander examines the scene and demonstrates the girl was not a suicide, but murdered.

When eight-year-old Daisy Mason vanishes from her family’s Oxford home during a costume party, Detective Inspector Adam Fawley knows that nine times out of 10, the offender is someone close to home. And Daisy’s family is certainly strange --- her mother is obsessed with keeping up appearances, while her father is cold and defensive under questioning. And then there’s Daisy’s little brother, so withdrawn and uncommunicative. DI Fawley works against the clock to find any trace of the little girl, but it’s as if she disappeared into thin air --- no one saw anything; no one knows anything. But everyone has an opinion, and everyone, it seems, has a secret to conceal.

Ninety-nine-year-old heiress Josephine Bettendorf Warrick summons attorney Brooke Trappnell to her 20,000-acre barrier island home. She is hiring Brooke for two reasons: first, to protect her island from those who would despoil her land, and second, to help her make amends with the heirs of the women who were her closest friends, the girls of The High Tide Club. To fulfill a dying woman’s wishes, Brooke must find Josephine’s friends’ descendants and bring them together on Talisa for a reunion of women who've actually never met. But in doing so, Brooke unleashes the makings of a scandal that could make someone rich beyond their wildest dreams…or cause them to be in the crosshairs of a murderer.

It happened the night Maggie Wilbourne was to be put to death, the first woman executed by the state of Pennsylvania in modern times. That was when a group of women passionately protesting Maggie’s imprisonment struck. They blew up a local dam, flooding the town of Everton and indirectly inspiring a hellish night of crime and chaos. Fourteen of today’s new and most exciting contemporary crime writers will take you to the fictional town of Everton, with stories from criminals, cops and civilians that explore the thin line between the rich and the poor, the insider and the outsider, the innocent and the guilty.

Summer, 1984. For Richie Lionetti and his gang of friends, their years as teenagers are coming to an end. At a crossroad in their lives as petty criminals and thugs on the mean streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, they have one final summer, one last chance to fall in love, brawl for their turf, rob and pillage, and one last chance to make a move and pull a job that could change their lives forever. As a series of brutal heatwaves hit southeastern Massachusetts, the city boils, and everyone is on edge. In the hopes of finding something better, Richie desperately searches for meaning in all the violence, sex and degradation that is his daily life. But at what price?

Tough, capable Kellen Adams takes a job as assistant manager of a remote vacation resort on the North Pacific Coast. There, amid the towering storms and the lashing waves, she hopes to find sanctuary. But when she discovers a woman's dead and mutilated body, she's soon trying to keep her own secrets while investigating first one murder, and then another. Now every guest and employee is a suspect. Every friendly face a mask. Every kind word a lie. Kellen is driven to defend her job, her friends and the place she's come to call home. Yet she wonders --- with the scar of a gunshot on her forehead and amnesia that leaves her unsure of her own past --- if the killer could be staring her in the face.

Dr. Noah Alderman has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn’t seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she’s even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she'd lost forever: her only daughter, Anna. But events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered, and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna's murder may have been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she ever could have imagined.