It is 1981 in New York City. While celebrating her 18th birthday, Jenna Kessler tells a story that stays with her for the rest of her life. Growing up in the shadow of an over-protective mother, Chloe Toberman finds freedom in the secrets that she keeps. Deirdre Schein is a doctor, struggling to find her place in her family. Her quiet and stable life is both challenged and made richer by the demands of her flamboyant and unpredictable twin brother. THE TRUTH ABOUT PARALLEL LINES takes place over more than 30 years. It is the story of three women, love after loss, triumph over tragedy, and the friendships that sustain them.

Alfred Hitchcock rigorously controlled his public image, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring out all others. In this gripping short biography, Peter Ackroyd wrests the director’s chair back from the master of control to reveal a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashed a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances throughout Hitchcock’s story, just as the director did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, James Stewart and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren, who endures cuts and bruises from a fearsome flock of real birds.

With a controversial presidential election just weeks away, Quarry is hired to carry out a rare political assignment: kill the Reverend Raymond Wesley Lloyd, a passionate Civil Rights crusader and campaigner for the underdog candidate. But when a hate group out of Ferguson, Missouri, turns out to be gunning for the same target, Quarry starts to wonder just who it is he’s working for.

They were the New York art scene’s golden couple until Amanda Oliver was found murdered, and her husband Philip confessed to shooting her. But was he a continent away when she died? Art dealer Jackson Wyeth sets out to learn the truth, and uncovers the secrets of Manhattan’s galleries and wild parties, a world of beautiful girls growing up too fast and men losing their minds. But even the worst the art world can imagine will seem tame when the final sin is revealed.

Pete Fernandez should be dead. His life --- professional and personal --- is in ruins. His best friend is dead. His newspaper career is past tense. His ex is staying with him as her own marriage crumbles. On top of that, the former journalist finds himself in the eye of a dangerous storm. He's investigating a missing girl with an unexpected partner and inching closer and closer to a vicious, calculating killer cutting a swath of blood across Miami --- while at the same time battling his own personal demons that refuse to be silenced.

Ruined and on the lam, former drug kingpin Max Fisher stumbles upon the biggest discovery of his crooked life: a designer drug called PIMP that could put him back on top. Meanwhile, a certain femme fatale from his past is pursuing a comeback dream of her own, setting herself up in Hollywood as producer of a series based on her and Max’s life story. But even in La-La Land, happy endings are hard to come by, especially with both the cops and your enemies in the drug trade coming after you.

CUT ME IN was a novel originally published by a 29-year-old Ed McBain in 1955 entitled THE PROPOSITION. Literary agent Del Gilbert had a lot of enemies. His partner, Josh Blake, discovers him dead in the office one day next to an open safe. A singed letter worth millions is missing from the safe, forcing Blake to search out a killer.

PROTECTORS 2, edited by Thomas Pluck, is a mammoth anthology of 55 stories and almost 600 pages, with all proceeds going to PROTECT, a nonpartisan pro-child and anti-crime lobby dedicated to the protection of children from physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Contributors include Andrew Vachss, Joyce Carol Oates, David Morrell, Linda Rodriguez, Charles de Lint, Hilary Davidson, Joe R. Lansdale, Joelle Charbonneau, Reed Farrel Coleman, SJ Rozan and Alison Arngrim.

Odie Shanks is the manager of a pizza parlor in Virginia, with dreams of Hollywood fame and stardom. When the establishment is robbed, he see cross-country crime as his ticket to the Big Time. Meanwhile, college student Melinda Kendall is on her own crime spree across the south, on the run from her drug-dealing, angry boyfriend. Eryk Pruitt’s second novel (following DIRTBAGS) is a wild ride across the American South.

Karen Daily, who is recently divorced and starting to date again, lives with her two kids in a suburb of New York City. Mark Berman, Karen’s friend and neighbor, wants out of his unhappy marriage, and so does his wife, Deb, but they have stayed together for the sake of their children. Unbeknownst to Karen, Mark’s obsession with her has grown. And as his rich fantasy life takes on a more sinister edge, rumors begin to spread about Karen and a bigger secret is uncovered. Karen soon finds that Mark is not the only one who has taken an undesired interest in her.