When police investigator Susan Adler is called to the roadside murder of a fellow state trooper, she is tasked with finding the people responsible for the cold-blooded act caught on the trooper’s dashboard cam. She traces the car to a nurse who, along with her elderly patient, has been missing for days. At the old man’s house, she finds disturbing evidence that instantly revives two cold cases involving long-missing children. The investigation takes a chilling turn when people involved with both the nurse and the old man begin to turn up dead, and Susan enlists the help of her friend and forensic investigator Liam Dwyer. Together they must untangle the threads of this ever-more-complicated case --- and stay ahead of whoever is trying to slash their progress.

In "Arctic Lizard," a young boy narrates a post-apocalyptic version of the world where a youth army wages an unending war, rewarded by collecting prizes. A father tries to shield his son from the inevitable in "Fly Already." In "One Gram Short," a guy just wants to get a joint to impress a girl and ends up down a rabbit hole of chaos and heartache. And in the masterpiece "Pineapple Crush," two unlikely people connect through an evening smoke down by the beach, only to have one of them imagine a much deeper relationship. The thread that weaves these pieces together is our inability to communicate, to see so little of the world around us and to understand each other even less.

Once upon a time, Emily Bennett was part of a middle school clique called the Harpies --- six popular girls who bullied the new girl to her breaking point. The Harpies took a blood oath: never tell a soul what they did to Grace Farmer. Now, 14 years later, it seems karma has caught up to them when one member of that vicious circle commits suicide. But when a second Harpy is discovered dead shortly after, also from an apparent suicide, the deaths start to look suspicious. And when Emily begins seeing a woman who looks a lot like Grace Farmer lurking in the shadows, she is forced to wonder: Is Grace back for revenge? Or is Emily’s guilt driving her mad?

Renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to promote his books, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Historical Museum with his wife, Yoel stumbles upon footage portraying prewar Dutch Jewry and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with his father, his older sister...and an infant he doesn’t recognize. This unsettling discovery launches him into a fervent search for the truth, shining a light on Amsterdam’s dark wartime history --- the underground networks that hid Jewish children away from danger and those who betrayed their own for the sake of survival.

In the middle of the night, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’ parents and load him into a black SUV. Luke wakes up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents --- telekinesis and telepathy --- who got to this place the same way Luke did. They are all in Front Half, while others graduated to Back Half. In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

The murder of an Ivy League professor reunites Dr. Dylan Reinhart with his old partner, Detective Elizabeth Needham. As the worst act of terror since 9/11 strikes New York City, a name on the casualty list rocks Dylan's world. Is his secret past about to be brought to light? As the terrorist attack unfolds, Elizabeth does something courageous that thrusts her into the media spotlight. Thanks to the attention, she becomes a prime target for the ruthless murderer behind the attack. Dylan literally wrote the book on the psychology of murder, and he and Elizabeth have solved cases that have baffled conventional detectives. But the sociopath they're facing this time is the opposite of a textbook case.

Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Keith Hernandez, Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, Howard Johnson, Doug Sisk, Rafael Santana, Bobby Ojeda, Wally Backman, Kevin Mitchell, Ed Hearn, Danny Heep and the late Gary Carter were all known for their heroics on the field. For some of them --- known as the “Scum Bunch” --- their debauchery off the field was even more awe-inspiring. But when the 1986 season ended with a World Series championship for the Mets, so did their aura of invincibility. Some faced battles with addiction, some were traded, and others struggled just to keep their lives together. Through interviews with these legendary players, Erik Sherman offers fans a new perspective on a team that will forever be remembered in sports history.

Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. But then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal, and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help. Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family, and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other --- and stay cool --- while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband.

Jenna is a wife, a mother and a doctor. She is also the victim of a stalker. Frightening "gifts" are left on her doorstep, her home is broken into, and when she leaves her house to take her children to school, he’s waiting. She feels powerless, and the police are unable to help. Then her stalker is brought into the emergency room after a terrible accident, and she has to treat the man who’s been tormenting her for months. With her stalker in a coma, Jenna is desperate to understand the life of this seemingly normal man. When she finds startling images on his phone, she is consumed by her need for answers --- and her own obsession leads her down a twisting path of destruction. Just how far is Jenna willing to go to take back control of her life?

For the past year, John U. Bacon has received unprecedented access to Jim Harbaugh’s University of Michigan football team: coaches, players and staffers, in closed-door meetings, locker rooms, meals and classes. OVERTIME captures this storied program at the crossroads, as the sport’s winningest team battles to reclaim its former glory. But what if the price of success today comes at the cost of your soul? Do you pay it, or compete without compromising? In the spirit of HBO’s "Hardknocks," Bacon's book follows the Wolverine coaches, players and staffers through the 2018 season, including Harbaugh, offensive stars Shea Patterson and Karan Higdon, NFL-ready defensive standouts Rashan Gary, Devin Bush Jr. and Chase Winovich, and second-stringers striving to find their place on the team.

Paris, 1935. A dark shadow falls over Europe as Adolf Hitler's regime gains momentum, leaving the city of Paris on the brink of occupation. Young Madeleine Levy --- the granddaughter of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish World War I hero --- steps bravely into a new wave of resistance women. When Madeleine meets a young Jewish refugee from Germany, she knows that she cannot stand idly by. She offers children comfort and strength while working with other members of the resistance to smuggle them out of Paris and into safer territories. Amidst the impending horror and doubt, Madeleine and Claude, a young Jewish Resistance fighter who shares her passion for saving children, are drawn fiercely together.

It’s New Year’s Eve, the holiday of forced fellowship, mandatory fun and paper hats. While dining out with her husband and their friends, Binnie Kirshenbaum’s protagonist --- an acerbic, mordantly witty and clinically depressed writer --- fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital, where she refuses all modes of recommended treatment. Instead, she passes the time chronicling the lives of her fellow “lunatics” and writing a novel about what brought her there. Her story is a hilarious and harrowing deep dive into the disordered mind of a woman who sees the world all too clearly.

As RED AT THE BONE opens in 2001, it is the evening of 16-year-old Melody's coming-of-age ceremony in her grandparents' Brooklyn brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, she wears a special custom-made dress. But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody's mother, for her own ceremony --- a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents to show how they all arrived at this moment, Jacqueline Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they've paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history.

A young nun is sent by the Vatican to investigate allegations of misconduct at a Catholic school in Iceland. During her time there, a young student at the school watches the school’s headmaster, Father August Franz, fall to his death from the church tower. Two decades later, the child --- now a grown man --- calls the nun back to the scene of the crime. This trip brings her former visit, as well as her years as a young woman in Paris, powerfully and sometimes painfully to life. In Paris, she met an Icelandic girl who she has not seen since, but whose acquaintance changed her life, a relationship she relives all while reckoning with the mystery of August Franz’s death and the abuses of power that may have brought it on.

With the threat of Mussolini’s army looming, recently orphaned Hirut struggles to adapt to her new life as a maid in Kidane and his wife Aster’s household. Kidane, an officer in Emperor Haile Selassie’s army, rushes to mobilize his strongest men before the Italians invade. Hundreds of thousands of Italians --- Jewish photographer Ettore among them --- march on Ethiopia seeking adventure. When Emperor Haile Selassie goes into exile, Hirut helps disguise a gentle peasant as the emperor and soon becomes his guard, inspiring other women to take up arms against the Italians. But how could she have predicted her own personal war as a prisoner of one of Italy’s most vicious officers, who will force her to pose before Ettore’s camera?

When a young woman is discovered brutally murdered in her own apartment, with an intricate pattern of lines carved into her face, Copenhagen police detectives Jeppe Korner and Anette Werner are assigned to the case. In short order, they establish a link between the victim, Julie Stender, and her landlady, Esther de Laurenti, who’s a bit too fond of drink and the host of raucous dinner parties with her artist friends. Esther also turns out to be a budding novelist --- and when Julie turns up as a murder victim in the still-unfinished mystery she’s writing, the link between fiction and real life grows both more urgent and more dangerous. But Esther’s role in this twisted scenario is not quite as clear as it first seems. Is she the culprit --- or just another victim, trapped in a twisted game of vengeance?

More than 15 years after the events of THE HANDMAID'S TALE, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways. With THE TESTAMENTS, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.

That elusive Holy Grail of modern physics, A Theory of Everything (ToE), would explain the universe in a single set of equations. Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking tackled the problem during their lifetimes, and the quest continues today in laboratories around the world. Leaving string theory, galaxy clusters and supersymmetry to the Quantum Computer and Hadron Collider crowd, Laura Pedersen has taken up the rest --- that is, A Theory of Everything Else (ToEE), based on her own groundbreaking experiences as a dog walker, camp counselor and Bingo caller. Pedersen’s essays are a series of colorful helium balloons that entertain as well as affirm and uplift.

Mma Ramotswe has reconnected with an old friend who has been having problems with her daughter. Though Precious feels compelled to lend a hand, she discovers that getting involved in family affairs is always a delicate affair. The young woman appears to be involved with a charismatic preacher. But are his ministrations entirely of a godly nature? Elsewhere, Charlie is also struggling with a tricky matter of the heart. He wishes to propose to his girlfriend, Queenie-Queenie, but he's struggling to come up with a bride price that will impress her father. When Queenie-Queenie's brother offers to help by giving him a job, the offer may not be quite what Charlie expected.

Meet James Samuel Vincent, an affluent Manhattan attorney who shirks his modest Irish American background but hews to his father’s meandering ways. James muddles through a topsy-turvy relationship with his son, Rufus, which is further complicated when Rufus marries Claudia Christie. Claudia’s mother, Agnes Miller Christie, is a beautiful African American woman who survives a chance encounter on a Georgia road that propels her into a new life in the Bronx. Soon after, her husband, Eddie Christie, is called to duty on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam, where Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” becomes Eddie’s life anchor, as he grapples with mounting racial tensions on the ship and counts the days until he will see Agnes again.

Cassidy Holmes isn't just a celebrity. She is “Sassy Gloss,” the fourth member of the hottest pop group America has ever seen. Fans couldn't get enough of them, their music, and the drama that followed them like moths to a flame --- until the group’s sudden implosion in 2002. And at the center of it all was Sassy Cassy, the Texan with a signature smirk that had everyone falling for her. But now she's dead. Suicide. The world is reeling from this unexpected news, but no one is more shocked than the three remaining Glossies. Before the group split, they each had a special bond with Cassidy --- truths they told, secrets they shared. But after years apart, each of them is wondering: What could they have done?

Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood seems to change every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block --- her neighbor Theo. But Sydney and Theo’s deep dive into history quickly becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. Their neighbors may not have moved to the suburbs after all, and the push to revitalize the community may be more deadly than advertised.

Instead of focusing on actually finding some health coach clients, Noreen is dividing her time between sabotaging her relationship with Rick and disaster-fantasizing about ending up living in a tent by the side of the road. Tess is ready to downsize, but can she really figure out how to move on and live small? Rosie is completely overwhelmed with life on the lavender farm, and it doesn’t help matters that Rosie’s dad and Noreen’s mom are conducting most of their romantic interludes at her house. They thought they’d have their lives all figured out by now. But change is blowing in along with the crisp fall air, and they’re finding out that life for 40-to-forever women is not for sissies. Hitting the road again might be just what The Wildwater Walking Club needs.

At the time when the world changed, Hanni Kohn knows she must send her 12-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. Her desperation leads her to Ettie, the daughter of a rabbi whose years spent eavesdropping on her father enables her to create a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Hanni’s daughter, Lea. Once Ava is brought to life, she, Lea and Ettie become eternally entwined, their paths fated to cross, their fortunes linked. What does it mean to lose your mother? How much can one person sacrifice for love? In a world where evil can be found at every turn, we meet remarkable characters who take us on a stunning journey of loss and resistance, the fantastical and the mortal, in a place where all roads lead past the Angel of Death and love is never-ending.

Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, in which she debates intellectual grifters and spars with the likes of a postmodern Cheshire Cat. Then, in February 2016, a surreal lunar year begins, bringing unexpected turns, heightened mischief and inescapable sorrow. For Smith --- inveterately curious, always exploring, always writing --- this becomes a year of reckoning with the changes in life’s gyre: with loss, aging and a dramatic shift in the political landscape of America.