In 1955, a 14-year-old black boy named Emmett Till was murdered by a group of white men. He had gone into a small country store a few days earlier and made flirtatious remarks to a white woman, 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant; Bryant’s husband and brother-in-law were two of Till’s attackers. THE BLOOD OF EMMETT TILL revises the history of the Till case, not only changing the specifics that we thought we knew, but showing how the murder ignited the modern civil rights movement. Timothy Tyson uses a wide range of new sources, including the only interview ever given by Carolyn Bryant; the transcript of the murder trial, missing since 1955 and only recovered in 2005; and a recent FBI report on the case.

Nothing stops former Navy SEAL and Tier One operator John Dempsey from answering the call of duty --- including a mission with the highest stakes he’s ever faced. When one of the most brazen and lethal acts of terrorism rocks American and Israeli intelligence forces at the highest levels, Dempsey’s ultracovert antiterror unit, Ember, mobilizes. But this operation isn’t just a retaliatory strike by Ember; it’s a mission of vengeance for Dempsey --- against the Iranian terrorist mastermind who slaughtered Dempsey’s Tier One comrades. Racing from Tel Aviv to Tehran, the elite American warrior and his formidable Israeli counterpart must forsake their backup in a capture-or-kill gambit that could turn into a suicide run.

January 1946: Two WACs leave an officers’ club in Munich, and four Soviet NKGB agents kidnap them at knifepoint in the parking lot and shove them in the back of an ambulance. That is the agents’ first mistake, and their last. One of the WACs, a blond woman improbably named Claudette Colbert, works for the new Directorate of Central Intelligence, and three of the men end up dead and the fourth wounded. The “incident,” however, will send shock waves rippling up and down the line and have major repercussions not only for her, but for her boss, James Cronley, Chief DCI-Europe, and for everybody involved in their still-evolving enterprise.

Gavin Cain, an SFPD homicide inspector, is in the middle of an exhumation when his phone rings. San Francisco’s mayor is being blackmailed and has ordered Cain back to the city; a helicopter is on its way. The casket, and Cain’s cold-case investigation, must wait. At City Hall, the mayor shows Cain four photographs he’s received: the first, an unforgettable blonde; the second, pills and handcuffs on a nightstand; the third, the woman drinking from a flask; and last, the woman naked, unconscious and shackled to a bed. The accompanying letter is straightforward: worse revelations are on the way unless the mayor takes his own life first.

One-time lieutenant of the evil Emperor Jagang, known as “Death’s Mistress” and the “Slave Queen,” the deadly Nicci captured Richard Rahl in order to convince him that the Imperial Order stood for the greater good. But it was Richard who converted Nicci instead, and for years thereafter she served Richard and Kahlan as one of their closest friends --- and one of their most lethal defenders. Now, with the reign of Richard and Kahlan finally stabilized, Nicci has set out on her own for new adventures. One of her jobs will be to keep her travelling companion, the unworldly prophet Nathan, out of trouble. But her real task will be to scout the far reaches of Richard Rahl’s realm.

Television correspondent Alix Phillips dodges bullets and breaks rules to bring the most important news to the world --- from riots in America to protests on the streets of Tehran. With her daughter in college, and working alongside cameraman Ben Chapman, a deeply private ex–Navy SEAL, Alix revels in the risks and whirlwind pace of her work. But her latest assignment puts her at the center of an explosive story that will reshape many lives, including her own: investigating damning allegations involving the Vice President of the United States, Tony Clark.

Former con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn vowed never to set foot in a courtroom again after a case went disastrously wrong. But today Eddie doesn’t have a choice. Because this time, it’s personal. The head of the Russian mob in New York City, on trial for murder, has kidnapped Eddie’s beloved 10-year-old daughter. Now Eddie has exactly 48 hours to draw upon his razor-sharp instincts and use every con, bluff, grift and trick in the book to defend an impossible trial and save his daughter --- or die trying.

Traveling from farm to farm at the height of the Great Depression, Sam Babb recruited talented, hardworking young women and offered them a free college education if they would come play for his basketball team, the Cardinals. With passion for the sport and heartfelt loyalty to one another and their coach, the Cardinals won every game. For author Lydia Reeder, this is a family story: coach Babb is her great-uncle. When her grandmother handed her a folder that contained newspaper articles, letters and photographs of Sam and the Cardinals, she said, “You might want to tell their story someday.” Now, with extensive research and the gathered memories of the surviving Cardinals, she has.

Since her death in 1979, Elizabeth Bishop, who published only a hundred poems in her lifetime, has become one of America’s best-loved poets. And yet --- painfully shy and living out of public view in Key West and Brazil, among other hideaways— --- she has never been seen so fully as a woman and an artist. Megan Marshall makes incisive and moving use of a newly discovered cache of Bishop’s letters --- to her psychiatrist and to three of her lovers --- to reveal a much darker childhood than has been known, a secret affair, and the last chapter of her passionate romance with the Brazilian modernist designer Lota de Macedo Soares.

The family thought the little house they had made themselves in Elmet, a corner of Yorkshire, was theirs. Cathy and Daniel roamed the woods freely, occasionally visiting a local woman for some schooling, living outside all conventions. Their father built things and hunted, working with his hands; sometimes he would disappear, forced to do secret, brutal work for money, but to them he was a gentle protector. But when a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened. Daddy and Cathy, both of them fierce, strong and unyielding, set out to protect themselves and their neighbors, putting into motion a chain of events that can only end in violence.

Mormon bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim couldn’t be more surprised to learn that her son, Kenneth, is engaged. Kenneth has left the Mormon church and met his fiancée, med student Naomi Carter, at a “Mormons Anonymous” meeting. Naomi was also raised Mormon, but her family belongs to a group that practices polygamy. Naomi’s father, Stephen, invites the Wallheims to visit the family compound. Though Stephen and his five wives seem to live normal, modern lives, Linda can’t shake the feeling that the family dynamics are off. When tensions on the compound escalate to murder, Linda delves into the many Carter family secrets to find the killer.

When dance hall singer Louisa Bell loses her job at the Cat-Eye Saloon, she has nowhere else to go but to her brother, a cavalry soldier stationed in Indian Territory. But he's run afoul of his commanding officer. Unsure what she can do to help him and desperate for a job, she doesn't protest when she's mistaken for a governess at the fort. Major Daniel Adams has his hands full at Fort Reno, especially raising two adolescent daughters alone. Miss Bell bears little resemblance to Daniel's notion of a governess, but he finds himself turning a blind eye to her unconventional methods. Can she keep her act together long enough to help her brother and secure the respectable future she's sought for so long?

There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities. HOMESICK FOR ANOTHER WORLD is a master class in the varieties of self-deception across the gamut of individuals representing the human condition. But part of the unique quality of Moshfegh’s voice is the way the grotesque and the outrageous are infused with tenderness and compassion.

THE KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech --- not evolution --- is responsible for humanity's complex societies and achievements. From Alfred Russel Wallace, the Englishman who beat Darwin to the theory of natural selection but later renounced it, and through the controversial work of modern-day anthropologist Daniel Everett, who defies the current wisdom that language is hard-wired in humans, Tom Wolfe examines the solemn, long-faced, laugh-out-loud zig-zags of Darwinism, old and Neo, and finds it irrelevant here in the Kingdom of Speech.

On June 2, 1894, in the wake of President Marie Francois Sadi Carnot’s assassination, France descends into chaos and riots in the streets of Varbourg. Many lives are lost in the mayhem, but when one lady of the night is found murdered with brutal incisions and no sign of a struggle, it is clear something is amiss. Madeleine Karno must ask herself the terrifying question: Do they have their very own Jack the Ripper in France? Madeleine must do whatever it takes --- investigate the darkest corners of the city and even work undercover --- to track down a murderer at large. But if there’s one thing the press has right about “Mademoiselle Death,” it’s this: it takes a woman to find a killer of women.

NOT SAFE AFTER DARK is a collection of 20 stories that explores the darkest edges of humanity in which everyday people must commit desperate acts as they face fear, temptation and impulses too irresistible to control. In “Going Back,” Inspector Banks’ trip to celebrate his parents’ Golden Anniversary reveals how evil can wear many disguises. In the Edgar Award-winning “Missing in Action,” the disappearance of a young boy in the early days of WWII sparks a mob mentality with chilling results. “Innocence” captures the desperate plight of a man trapped by a set of coincidences that derail his life and lead him down a path he was destined to travel. The title story is an exhilarating tale with a sudden conclusion that will leave readers’ hearts pounding.

William Fawkes, a controversial detective known as The Wolf, has just been reinstated to his post after he was suspended for assaulting a vindicated suspect. Still under psychological evaluation, Fawkes returns to the force eager for a big case. When his former partner and friend, Detective Emily Baxter, calls him to a crime scene, he’s sure this is it: the body is made of the dismembered parts of six victims, sewn together like a puppet --- a corpse that becomes known as “The Ragdoll.” Fawkes is tasked with identifying the six victims, but that gets dicey when his reporter ex-wife anonymously receives photographs from the crime scene, along with a list of six names, and the dates on which the Ragdoll Killer plans to murder them. The final name on the list is Fawkes.

A football hero and homecoming king with plenty of scholarship offers, Alex Chin’s future looks bright. His tutor, Samantha Dixon, is preparing to graduate high school at the top of her class. When a football accident lands Alex in the hospital, his world is turned upside down. His doctor is murdered, followed by his parents. Death seems to follow him wherever he goes, and now it's after him. The two race desperately to stay ahead of Alex's attackers long enough to figure out why they are hunting him in the first place. The answer lies with a secret buried deep in his past, a secret his parents died to protect.

After her mother's suicide, 15-year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran. Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long-ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

Judge Scott Sampson doesn’t brag about having a perfect life, but the evidence is clear: A prestigious job. A loving marriage. A pair of healthy children. Then a phone call begins every parent’s most chilling nightmare. Scott’s six-year-old twins, Sam and Emma, have been taken. The judge must rule exactly as instructed in a drug case he is about to hear. If he refuses, the consequences for the children will be dire. For Scott and his wife Alison, the kidnapper’s call is only the beginning of a twisting, gut-churning ordeal of blackmail, deceit and terror. Through it all, they will stop at nothing to get their children back, no matter the cost to themselves…or to each other.

One sunny summer morning, a young woman and her six-year-old daughter are run over by a car. Both are killed immediately. Is it an accident, or did someone kill them on purpose? The same morning, the husband of the deceased young woman disappears. During the police investigation, it turns out that the husband had recently bought a property that nobody knew anything about. A few days later, a macabre discovery is made in a forest nearby.

Master grifter Billy Cunningham has built a lucrative career conning a long list of Las Vegas casinos. In fact, he’s never walked into one he couldn’t rip off. Now he’s scheming a “super con” with a gang of high-profile cheats --- a one-time-only scam that could rake in a cool multi-million-dollar payday. All goes as planned until Chinese crime lord Broken Tooth strong-arms Billy into rigging the Super Bowl, too. Billy has no choice but to play ball. Broken Tooth has a special edge on him: blackmail. When someone on his own team betrays Billy, all bets are off. Both the super con and Super Bowl gambits are in jeopardy. And just who’s scamming who?

As he struggles to cope with a trait he’s buried since childhood, 40-year-old cattle rancher Aiden Delacorte falls in love with Gwen, a single mother whose young son bears a burden of his own. Sullen and broken from his experiences with an abusive father, Milo has turned to acting out in violent and rebellious ways. Aiden can feel the boy’s pain, as well as that of his victims. Now he and Milo must sift through their pasts to find empathy with the innocent as well as the guilty, to come to terms with their deepest fears, and to finally discover the compassionate heart of a family.

Drawing on previously hidden historical documents and interviews with the long-silent "illegitimate" branch of the Roosevelt family, William J. Mann paints an elegant, meticulously researched and groundbreaking group portrait of this legendary clan. Mann argues that the Roosevelts’ rise to power and prestige was actually driven by a series of intense personal contests that at times devolved into blood sport. THE WAR OF THE ROOSEVELTS is the story of a family at war with itself, of social Darwinism at its most ruthless --- in which the strong devoured the weak and repudiated the inconvenient.