Being on the Murder squad is nothing like Detective Antoinette Conway dreamed it would be. Her partner, Stephen Moran, is the only person who seems glad she’s there. Their new case looks like yet another by-the-numbers lovers’ quarrel gone bad. Aislinn Murray is dead in her living room, next to a table set for a romantic dinner. There’s nothing unusual about her --- except that Antoinette has seen her somewhere before. Other detectives are trying to push Antoinette and Steve into arresting Aislinn’s boyfriend. Is this case another step in the campaign to force her off the squad, or are there darker currents flowing beneath its polished surface?

Faith has never come easy for Brigid Fitzgerald. From her difficult childhood with drug-addled parents to her career as a doctor healing the wounded in Sudan to a series of trials that test her beliefs at every turn, Brigid's convictions and callings have made her the target of all those who fear that the Church has lost its way --- dangerous adversaries who abhor challenges to tradition. Locked in a deadly, high-stakes battle with forces determined to undermine everything she believes in, Brigid must convert her enemies to her cause before she loses her faith...and her life.

Henry Garrick, a local car dealer who was maimed in an accident five months before, has apparently taken his own life. A simple case, it should be wrapped up in a few days. But something doesn’t feel right to Belfast detective Serena Flanagan, despite the fact that there is no evidence of foul play. As she investigates, Flanagan interviews Roberta Garrick, Henry’s widow, who is comforted in her grief by Reverend Peter McKay, rector of the local church and a close family friend. But with the secrets McKay is keeping, he is in no position to help anyone. As Flanagan picks at the threads of the dead man’s life, a disturbing picture emerges, and she realizes that Roberta is not what she seems.

It should have been just a quiet evening with friends. But Francis lost his brother that night in what was ruled a tragic accident. He's tried to move on in the last 23 years, even though his father certainly hasn't. Indeed, his father still blames the lone witness, Sam, the nine-year-old son of friends. Perhaps if Sam would have just said something, anything, about what happened that night, but Sam still seems unable --- or unwilling --- to utter a word about the accident. And now, 23 years later, Sam's own nine-year-old son has disappeared.

Lying at the bottom of his apartment stairs, a postman is found dead. At first glance, his death appears to be a simple fall, a straightforward accident and the perfect case for Detective Chief Superintendent Konrad Simonsen to return to after a severe heart attack. But when he is called to investigate, new forensic evidence comes to light and something doesn't add up. When life-size images of a girl are discovered plastering the walls of the dead man's attic, the case takes a new and sinister turn. Who is she? Could she be alive? Soon members of the homicide team find themselves delving into the past, but as they approach the truth, Simonsen discovers long-hidden skeletons in his own closet.

A 19th-century minister builds an elaborate motor that will bring about the Second Coming. A man with rough hands locks a boy in a room with an albino ape. An apocalyptic army falls under a veil of forgetfulness. The story of Red Riding Hood is run through a potentially endless series of iterations. A father invents an elaborate, consuming game for his hospitalized son. Indexes, maps and a checkered shirt buried beneath a blanket of snow are scattered through these pages as clues to mysteries that may never be solved. A TREE OR A PERSON OR A WALL brings together Matt Bell’s previously published shorter fiction, along with seven dark and disturbing new stories.

With the discovery of a murder at an abandoned construction site, Will Trent of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is brought in on a case that becomes much more dangerous when the dead man is identified as an ex-cop. Studying the body, Sara Linton --- the GBI’s newest medical examiner and Will’s lover --- realizes that the extensive blood loss didn't belong to the corpse. Sure enough, bloody footprints leading away from the scene indicate there is another victim who has vanished and will die soon if she isn’t found. Evidence soon links Will’s troubled past to the case, and the consequences will tear through his life with the force of a tornado, wreaking havoc for Will and everyone around him.

A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For 10 years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend, Win, believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for 10 years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: What can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend?

In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend Henry Standing Bear are called to Hulett, Wyoming to investigate, things start getting complicated. As competing biker gangs; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; a military-grade vehicle donated to the tiny local police force by a wealthy entrepreneur; and Lola, the real-life femme fatale and namesake for Henry's '59 Thunderbird (and, by extension, Walt's granddaughter) come into play, it rapidly becomes clear that there is more to get to the bottom of at this year's Sturgis Motorcycle Rally than a bike accident.

As his ex-wife, Jenn, is about to marry a Dallas real-estate tycoon, Jesse Stone isn’t too sure his relationship with former FBI agent Diana Evans is built to last. But those concerns get put on the back burner when a major Boston crime boss is brutally murdered. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jesse suspects it’s the work of Mr. Peepers, a psychotic assassin who has caused trouble for Jesse in the past. Jesse and Diana head to Dallas for the wedding and, along with the tycoon’s security team, try to stop Peepers before the bill comes due. With Peepers toying with the authorities as to when and where he’ll strike, Jesse is up against the wall.