Detective Annalisa Vega hasn’t forgiven her brother for his role in a murder, and he hasn’t forgiven her for turning him in. So she’s surprised when he asks her to visit him in prison. One of his fellow inmates, Joe Green, may be innocent of the murder that landed him behind bars. Joe is doing hard time for killing his ex-wife’s lawyer, but an anonymous letter sent to the prison warns that the eyewitness in Joe’s trial made up her story. With her private investigation business foundering, Annalisa is desperate enough to start poking around into Joe’s meager case. She immediately finds two problems: the eyewitness definitely lied about what she saw the night of the murder, and Annalisa’s husband, Nick, was the cop who arrested Joe. Annalisa’s search for the truth will test the bounds of her marriage, her family and her own sense of justice.

Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband, Isaad, seems unconcerned. Sabera's closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three-year-old daughter, Zahra. At her insistence, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search. Just in time for a video of the young mother to surface --- showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder. Frankie quickly realizes there's much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra's life, Frankie realizes that she quickly must crack the code of this family's horrific past.

On a clear October day, the American skies empty after hundreds of pilots refuse to fly, triggering a complete ground stop as authorities seek to explain an act of baffling coordination that the pilots insist was anything but planned. The pilots received disturbing, middle-of-the-night calls from their mothers, and each mother had a simple and urgent request: Do not fly today. But none of the mothers remember making them --- and some of them are dead. While the nation’s military chiefs and artificial intelligence experts mobilize in search of answers, a 16-year-old girl named Charlie on the coast of Maine watches a strange, silvery balloon drift across the water and toward her home. Her father’s dream of opening a craft brewery on an old airfield has been a disaster, and all she wants is an escape back to Brooklyn. She’s about to get much more than that.

Tasha and her older sister, Alice, may look alike, but they couldn’t be more different. Tasha is married with two children and still lives in their hometown near Bristol. Alice is a high-flying scientist who travels the world with her equally successful husband. Yet each sister would trust the other with her life. When Tasha and her husband, Aaron, need a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids, Tasha knows her family is in safe hands. She couldn’t be more wrong. The call from home is devastating. Alice and her husband, Kyle, have been attacked, leaving Alice in intensive care and Kyle dead. Rushing to the hospital, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together. She can’t think why anyone would attack her sister. Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha: It was supposed to be you.

Special Agent Rae Johnson grew up on football fields alongside her father, a national-championship-winning coach. Which is exactly why, fresh out of Quantico, she’s sent down to Compson, Mississippi, to investigate the illicit money flowing into a bustling football program in the heart of the Delta. But two days into the assignment, things take a dire turn when UCM’s star quarterback is flung from the roof of a college bar, lands on a bag of money, and dies. Hoping to turn a routine fraud case into a career-defining bust, Rae ingratiates herself with the fans, coaches, players and politicians who make up the university’s complex social hierarchy. With rumors of corruption rustling through the kudzu vines, Rae soon realizes there’s more to the game than what she’d learned as a child.

Welcome to North Falls, a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help --- and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?

Philomena McCarthy has defied the odds to become a young officer with the Metropolitan Police despite her father and her uncles being notorious London gangsters. On patrol one night, Philomena finds a barefoot child, covered in blood, who says she can’t wake her mother. Meanwhile, three miles away, a London jeweler has a bomb strapped to his chest in his ransacked store and millions are missing. These two events collide and threaten Philomena’s career, her new marriage, and her life. In too deep, and falling further, Phil must decide who she can trust --- her family or her colleagues --- and on what side of the thin blue line she wants to live.

London, June 1814: On a day out in Hyde Park to celebrate the peace treaty with France, Mary Godwin and Jane “Claire” Clairmont are less than charmed by their brother Charles’ courtship with a girl from the local cheese shop. When Miss Winnet Davies is not swooning from the heat, she’s imploring Charles to buy her a pretty dress. But he hasn’t a tuppence --- nor have they, as their father, philosopher William Godwin, is facing the prospect of debtor’s prison. When a constable arrives at the Godwin home the following day, looking for Charles, Mary and Jane learn that the lifeless body of Miss Davies was found hanging from a tree branch and an examination revealed she was with child. Their stepbrother has gone missing. Mary assumes that he too is dead, but her stepmother admonishes her and insists the sisters find their brother.

Edited by Don Bruns, this fourth installment in the Music and Murder Mystery series is a nonstop thrill ride of engrossing mysteries from some of the best authors in the business. It includes a brand-new Jack Reacher story from Andrew Child and a never-before-seen Pignon Scorbion prequel from Rick Bleiweiss, as well as exciting new mysteries from Heather Graham, Don Bruns, John Gilstrap, Dave Bruns, C. J. Kudlacz and Charles Todd. Whether you are familiar with the series or encountering it for the first time, BAT OUT OF HELL has something for everyone.

Halley James knows her marriage is over. But she’s not prepared for the rest of her life to fall apart too. She just lost her job at the forensics lab. Her dad needs emergency surgery. But the biggest blow comes back home in Marchburg, Virginia, where she discovers her mother didn’t actually die in a car crash. Her mom was murdered --- and her father lied about it all these years. Desperate for the truth, Halley chases down a lead in Brockville, Tennessee. But all there is not as it seems. Brockville’s utopian charm hides a chilling darkness. And Halley’s search for answers threatens to expose an unspeakable reality.