Esteemed crime fiction writer George Pelecanos has penned four blistering novellas, drawn together by themes of strife, violence and humanity. When the son of the Carusos is involved in a hold-up, the family home comes under siege in the form of a no-knock warrant. Months after the cops destroyed their home, the Carusos struggle to return to normal. Elsewhere, two former inmates reunite by chance on the set of a TV production. Both have found their way on the straight and narrow path, until one sees the potential for an easy grift. A teenage boy must step into the man he'd like to be as a hostage crisis grips his hometown. A woman adrift meets a man tied to her grandmother's past, an encounter that awakens her to a bloody history that undergirds the place she grew up.

One week into the COVID-19 shutdown, tenants of a Lower East Side apartment building in Manhattan have begun to gather on the rooftop and tell stories. With each passing night, more and more neighbors gather, bringing chairs, milk crates and overturned pails. Gradually the tenants --- some of whom have barely spoken to each other --- become real neighbors. In this DECAMERON-like serial novel, general editors Margaret Atwood and Douglas Preston and a star-studded list of contributors create a beautiful ode to the people who couldn’t escape when the pandemic hit. A dazzling, heartwarming and ultimately surprising narrative, FOURTEEN DAYS reveals how beneath the horrible loss and suffering, some communities managed to become stronger.

Lewis has helped Peter Ash out of more trouble than Peter cares to remember, so he doesn’t hesitate when Lewis asks for a favor in return. Lewis has left his criminal past behind, but he and Peter must drive into a blizzard to help a former associate. They learn that someone has stolen notebooks full of incriminating secrets about Lewis' long-ago crimes, and they realize the situation is much worse than they'd thought. To save Lewis’ wife and two boys, Lewis and Peter must find the notebooks. With Peter's longtime girlfriend, they begin the search --- facing ruthless and violent foes at each turn, including one powerful person who will stop at nothing for revenge. Will Lewis and Peter be able to keep that dark past buried? Or will they need to step into the darkness to save the people they love most?

Across Italy there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild --- selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years. It’s a no-brainer for American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi. Both work remotely, and Becchina is the home of Tommy’s grandparents, his closest living relatives. It feels like a romantic adventure, an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought.

Justine Poole provides security for wealthy and high-profile Hollywood stars. When she prevents a brazen robbery at the Beverly Hills home of two of her clients --- killing two of the five armed robbers in the process --- she is initially lauded in the media as a local hero. But the spotlight soon puts her in the crosshairs of the crime kingpin behind the burglaries. Unable to stand the embarrassment of his lackeys having been defeated by a lone woman, Mr. Conger puts in a call to the one man who can make his problems disappear. Known for his swiftness and subtlety, Leo Sealy will kill anyone for a price. But he isn’t prepared for just how quick and resourceful Justine can be. So begins a cat-and-mouse game between two people who know more about how to take down one’s enemies than anyone else in the business.

Fifteen-year-old Ámbar has never known any parent other than her father, Víctor Mondragón, nor any life other than his. On any given Friday night, Ámbar longs to be at the arcade or a rock concert, but she’s more likely to be patching up Víctor’s latest bullet hole in a dingy motel or creating a new set of fake identities for the both of them. When a tattooed mercenary kills Víctor’s best friend and vows that Víctor is next, father and daughter set off on a joyride across Argentina in search of bloody retribution. But Ámbar’s growing pains hurt worse than her beloved sawed-off shotgun’s kickback as she begins to question the structure of her world. How much is her father not telling her? Could her life ever be different? And will she survive long enough to find out?

Benny Catspaw’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée and his favorite chair. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time. Stranger yet is what’s inside the crate. He’s a seven-foot-tall self-described “bad weather friend” named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. He’ll find Benny’s enemies and deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike wasn’t such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation. In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress-cum-PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure.

This collection of three interconnected novellas follows each generation of the iconic Swagger family. In “City of Meat,” Charles Swagger is on the hunt for notorious bank robber Baby Face Nelson when he traces a tip to the Chicago stock yards. While there, he’s brutally assaulted and discovers that the madman who attacked him is involved in a nearby narcotics ring. Earl Swagger investigates a violent bank robbery in “Johnny Tuesday” that left two dead and a fortune missing in small-town Maryland. At every turn, however, he’s met with silence and hostility from the townsfolk. Finally, in “Five Dolls for the Gut Hook,” a 32-year-old Bob Lee Swagger is back from Vietnam nearly broken over good men lost for nothing. But one afternoon he’s wakened from his nightmares by two men with a problem.

Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Especially for shy, unassuming Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. But when Lucy asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no. And so she finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls: Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered...and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.

Jack Swyteck’s latest client, Imani Nichols, is a Grammy-winning pop star whose career has skyrocketed. Despite her success, she’s the most underpaid superstar on the planet because of an onerous record contract she signed as a teenager with her now ex-husband, Shaky Nichols. Preferring to see thieves profit from her music than let her ex-husband pocket one more dime, Imani takes to social media and tells her millions of fans to “go pirate” and download her music illegally. Her hardball tactic leads to scorched-earth litigation, and now she needs Jack’s help. The case takes a deadly turn when salacious allegations of infidelity send Imani and Shaky down a path of mutual assured destruction, each implicating the other in the unsolved murder of Imani’s extramarital lover 12 years ago.