The neon “Strange Investigations” sign may be flickering in disrepair outside his office, but private investigator Derek Strange is still accepting new cases. When a flashy drug lawyer hires him to prove an alibi for an accused murderer, Strange can’t help getting drawn into the darkness. In his hunt for answers, he stands his ground against some of Washington, D.C.’s most dangerous criminals, and a police department that doesn’t entirely welcome his interference. As the violence escalates and claims another victim, the raised stakes force Strange to question his own moves. Are his instincts still intact?

An alien ship crashed into Alaska’s Mendenhall Glacier 150,000 years ago and froze within the ice...until glacial melting thawed out its deadly inhabitants in the present day. Kai and Jules Bevins, both professors of astrobiology at Caltech, are roused from their home and whisked away to the site where a special division of the army has taken charge. But not before something escaped through a breach in the hull. Thousands of miles away in Pakistan, the Nine --- a team of superbeings placed on Earth a million years ago by intergalactic colonizers that seeded our planet to create human life --- are lifted from their long slumber. This all leads to a confrontation on a volcanic island that will determine the fate of civilization, even as the Nine uncover the shattering truth behind their own tragic paths and learn of a much greater battle to come.

1978: Temperatures are flirting with 90 on an August day when 18-year-old Mira Winston drives a golf ball from her tee toward the practice net near the clubhouse and caddy shack. The golf ball tears through the net, traveling 150 miles per hour, and slams into the temple of high school junior Kenny Foster, rupturing an artery and unleashing a torrent of blood. He’s dead before the ambulance even arrives. In the wake of this terrible accident, Mira looks for comfort in all the wrong places. But when the investigators look more closely at the torn net, when a detective recalls Mira’s history of recklessness, and when Kenny’s father spies Mira with her married lover, the affluent and mannered community turns on this once-promising young woman.

Jeffery Deaver returns with a devious collection, featuring two never-before published stories in which fan favorites Colter Shaw and Lincoln Rhyme are united by the layers of deception taking over New York City. A murder at a crime writers' conference. The method is entirely literary, and the motive seems obvious. But can the detective who was first on the scene puzzle out what needs reading between the lines? A mysterious woman has gone into hiding, and Colter Shaw is tasked with bringing her to a safe house. But with a hitman on his trails, the race toward safety takes on a whole new meaning. A serial killer with a motive never before seen in the history of crime challenges Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs to rethink everything they know about the nature of evil --- and the evidence its perpetrators leave at the scenes. 

Struggling actress Marin Keane is shocked when she lands a role in a major motion picture about the unsolved mystery of New Avalon, an island on sprawling Lake Faraday in Vermont. She’s even more surprised when she learns that the role requires a weeklong research trip to that very spot. A century ago, New Avalon was a commune for spiritual mediums --- until they all vanished in 1926. The only trace of them was five dresses hanging from the branches of an old oak tree in the middle of the island. Not long after arriving, Marin and her castmates --- including legendary actress Violet Wright and white-hot director Ronan Peters --- begin to realize that all is not right with New Avalon. And after a sudden health emergency leaves Marin, Ronan and the other actors stranded on the island, the disappearances begin again.

Raquel, a renowned interior designer, and Theo, a brash financial wizard, met and married in a matter of months, only to confront a terrible tragedy. Now, they’ve come to a remote town in New Hampshire to begin anew. Perched on a ledge with stunning views, the Dixons’ family lodge was once a crown jewel of the mountains. Until late one August night, when both parents and their four children vanished, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints and a mystery that has endured for 30 years. Its latest occupants, Raquel and Theo, are arriving, and the former grand lodge is once more stirring to life. When a stray dog leads to the discovery of a skeleton on the property, Raquel and Theo face a daunting choice of what to believe, who to trust, and how to survive.

Frances believes she has found a ticket to paradise when a wealthy couple hires her for the summer as their mother’s helper at their lakefront summer home in Maine. Best of all, she gets to spend the summer with Forrest Emerson, her father's charismatic childhood friend who escaped their neighborhood when he married into money. But below the glittering surface of Lake Catherine, nothing is what it seems. When Forrest’s wife, Regina, pulls Frances into her private obsession, the girl finds herself witness to the intimate secrets of adult lives. As the summer heat builds, so do the tensions within Wonderland’s walls. By Labor Day, a death will shatter the seemingly perfect family, leaving Frances to question everything she thought she knew about privilege, power and the price of belonging.

Fred and Thea Morgan-Lane coauthor the wildly successful Death Takes a Holiday series, and they’ve been invited to the Italian castle where it all began for a mystery conference celebrating their first novel, Death Takes the Castle. But 20 years and 20 books after they met, Thea wants out. Shortly after their arrival at the beautiful Castellarosa, a shocking death takes place when the wrong person drinks a cocktail meant for Thea. Could someone be trying to kill her? When a second death occurs, a disturbing pattern emerges. These deaths aren’t random --- they’re following the murders in Death Takes the Castle exactly. In order to save the day --- and maybe even their marriage --- the unhappy couple will have to work together to figure out who is using their book as a blueprint for a killing spree.

The Shadow Step: One taken simultaneously by a pair of dancers facing the same direction, one of them behind and slightly shifted leftwards ("in the shadow"). A perfectly executed shadow step demonstrates synchronized elegance. It showcases a couple in near telepathic harmony with one another. It normally does not end with someone stone-dead in a lake. DS Declan Miller is a magnet for strange cases, but an innocent man confessing to the crime? That’s a first. Things rapidly escalate when the murder that isn’t really a murder attracts the unwanted attention of a drug Queenpin, a deranged ex-squaddie, and a lovesick gangland enforcer. And when a real murder follows --- and a student is kidnapped --- all evidence points back to the same innocent man.

A disgraced intel officer anxious to redeem herself after a disastrous mission, January Holte vows to uncover the identity of a traitor who is selling her agency's secrets. The few clues she's found have led her to a sleepy river town: Lethey, Texas --- and to Bill Connors, the one man who might know the truth. July Whitlock, a rookie bodyguard, searches for his one and only client, who has suddenly disappeared. He follows a trail to Lethey to find his missing protectee: Bill Connors. But Bill's friends and enemies in Lethey have secrets of their own. And as January and July ask questions no one wants to answer, they find a tangled web of murder, greed and ambition --- one that will kill anyone who tries to unravel its mysteries.