In the summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren's new home is on the verge of monumental change. The interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany. Warren has barely unpacked when he's called up to a remote farm on Agony Hill. Former New Yorker and Back-to-the-Lander Hugh Weber seems to have set fire to his barn and himself, but things aren’t adding up for Warren. The people of Bethany clearly have secrets they’d like to keep, but Warren can’t tell if the truth about Weber’s death is one of them.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges --- Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

When criminal lawyer Justine Stone is handed the lead on her first murder case, she’s thrilled at the chance to enter the big leagues --- until she discovers that she recognizes the man on the stand: Jake Reynolds, her first love who abruptly disappeared from her life years ago and is now facing charges for a grisly double homicide. If she’s going to send Jake to prison for murder, she has to be sure, and that means heading back to their hometown to seek answers. Back home after almost two decades, Justine is haunted by memories, not only of the idyllic love she shared with Jake, but darker recollections of the death of her beloved father and the weight of the small town’s expectations. When her older brother, Max, goes missing, she starts to suspect that everything is connected.

His passport read Giovanni Rossi. But decades ago, during the Urban Wars, he was part of a small, secret organization called The Twelve. Responding to an urgent summons from an old compatriot, he landed in New York and eased into the waiting car. And died within minutes. The Rossi case is frustrating to Lieutenant Eve Dallas. But when she finds a connection to the Urban Wars of the 2020s, she thinks that Summerset --- the man who had rescued her husband from the Dublin streets --- may know something from his stint as a medic in Europe back then. As Summerset eventually reveals, he himself was one of The Twelve. It’s not a part of his past he likes to revisit. But now he must --- not only to assist Eve’s investigation, but because a cryptic message from the killer has boasted that others of The Twelve have also died.

Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge’s wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband recently has received, so she seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector. Meanwhile, Miss Caroline Silvius is disturbed after a recent visit to her brother Victor, convinced that he isn’t safe at The Grange. Someone is trying to kill him, and she suspects that the judge, who already has made Silvius’ life a living hell, may be behind it. Caroline hires Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard to investigate. The two cases collide at Marchbanks, the Drury family seat of over 400 years, where a series of unnerving events interrupt the peace and quiet of the snowy countryside.

It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas, and Millie Cousins --- a super-senior resident assistant at Belgrade Dormitory --- just wants to graduate, get a job and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a writer and visiting professor itching for her next big topic, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity for them to help each other further their own interests, Millie naturally jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle quickly becomes jeopardized by a lonely transfer student, unruly residents and illicit intrigue. Both Millie and Agatha are forced to question just how much of themselves they are willing to trade to get what they want.

CREATION LAKE is about a secret agent --- a 34-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions and clean beauty --- who is sent to do dirty work in France. “Sadie Smith” is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the reader. Sadie has met her love, Lucien, a young and well-born Parisian, by “cold bump” --- making him believe the encounter was accidental. Like everyone Sadie targets, Lucien is useful to her and used by her. In this region of centuries-old farms and ancient caves, Sadie becomes entranced by a mysterious figure named Bruno Lacombe, a mentor to the young activists who communicates only by email. Bruno believes that the path to emancipation from what ails modern life is not revolt, but a return to the ancient past.

Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime. To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she's done. But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night. Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn't the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

The Tara Foundation has been retired lawyer Andy Carpenter’s calling, even as he is pulled into representing clients in court. His investigator, Marcus Clark, has been at his side for a long time. Even though they've known each other for years, Marcus keeps his personal life a mystery. So it’s a shock when Marcus arrives at the Tara Foundation with two strangers in tow. It turns out that Marcus takes disadvantaged young men under his wing. He gets them jobs, a place to live, and a chance at a different life. One of the young men, Nick Williams, instantly falls in love with one of the dogs, Daisy. When there’s a mass shooting at Nick’s work, leaving six dead, all signs point to Nick. Marcus asks Andy for help. Despite Nick's troubled background, Andy trusts his friend and takes the case.

As the Big Island of Hawaii faces an eruption of unprecedented intensity, the U.S. military contends with the consequences of a long-held doomsday secret. ERUPTION is the passion project that Michael Crichton, the creator of Jurassic Park, “ER,” Twister and Westworld, had been pursuing for years ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. After discovering his notes and the partial manuscript, his wife, Sherri Crichton, searched for more than a decade until she found the perfect partner: James Patterson, the world’s most popular storyteller.

Southern mythology and personal reckoning collide in this sweeping story inspired by the little-known history of Cumberland Island when a once-in-a-century storm threatens the natural landscape. Faced with a changing world, two timelines and the perspectives of three women intersect where a folktale meets the truth to reveal what Cumberland Island has hidden all along.

Dead women should not show up in photos 14 years beyond the grave. But if anyone is likely to recognize Claire Lidman, it's her husband, Samuel. He brings the photo to Hans Rekke and Micaela Vargas. Their initial skepticism gives way to cautious belief. But where will this case lead them? Meanwhile, Rekke's daughter, Julia, has a new boyfriend she's determined to keep secret. When word gets out, Micaela's world collapses around her, and Rekke is forced to confront a nemesis from his youth. Plunging us back into the political upheaval and financial crisis of the 1990s, as the Iron Curtain is finally lifted, the second Rekke and Vargas investigation sees our heroes grapple with a fiendish case that affects them both in profoundly personal ways.

These new, recent and reformulated stories by Joyce Carol Oates, collected here for the first time, showcase a wide range of crime fiction and psychological suspense. A young, insecure woman finds her relationship changing as she grows more and more dependent on a man who likes to take her on long walks beside a dangerously roaring creek. Another woman, nervous around men, not quite knowing how to act when paid a compliment, becomes flustered when a doctor suggests they go out for coffee, or possibly a drink. She finally decides that she will join him when he suggests they meet at his home. A man is so forgetful that his wife panics and yells into his phone, asking where their daughter has gone. A woman resents that a colleague has achieved greater success and thinks she ought to do something about it.

After 10 years on the force, LAPD cop Sonny Rush relocates with her elderly mother to peaceful Haven, California, to join her godfather’s burgeoning PI business. Sonny’s first case: find Figgy, a missing goldendoodle last seen sporting a Versace collar. At least scouting out a dognapper gives Sonny a chance to get to know her new neighbors. Forty-eight hours in town and Figgy’s disappearance entangles Sonny in an unwelcome reunion with her ex, one of Haven’s wealthiest citizens. And when the body of a teenage boy is found along a popular hiking trail, Sonny is drawn into a web of strange beyond anything she ever saw in LA. Then comes a local’s warning: question everything. Haven hides secrets that could destroy its idyllic facade. Or destroy Sonny first.

A local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, Granite Harbor’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen is the town’s sole detective, and this is his first murder case. Isabel, a single mother attempting to support her family while healing from her own demons, finds herself in the middle of the case when she begins working at the Settlement. Her son, Ethan, and Alex’s daughter, Sophie, were best friends with the victim. When a second teenager is found murdered, the body left in the same manner as the first victim, both parents are terrified that their child may be next. As Alex and Isabel race to find the killer in their midst, the town’s secrets --- past and present --- begin bubbling to the surface, threatening to unravel the tight-knit community.

Flight attendant Allegra Patel loves her job, but today is her 28th birthday and she’d rather not be placating a plane full of passengers unhappy about a long delay. There’s the well-dressed man in seat 4C desperate not to miss his daughter’s musical. A harried mother frantically tries to keep her toddler and baby quiet. Honeymooners still in their wedding finery dream of their new lives, while a chatty emergency room nurse dreams of retirement. Suddenly, a woman traveling alone stands. She walks down the aisle making predictions about how and when passengers will die. Some dismiss her, they don’t believe in psychics. Some are delighted with her prophecies. Their lives supposedly will be long. Others are appalled. Then, a few months later, the first prediction comes true.

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA. As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her, and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.

Beatrice Nilsson is a good lawyer and an even better friend. So when the marriage of her two closest pals ends in divorce, Bea picks a side and storms the office of attorney Nathan Asher to tell him exactly what he can do with his alimony petition. Unfortunately, what should end with a few choice words soon spirals into uncharted territory when Nate shows up at her NYU Law office a few days later as a newly minted adjunct professor --- and her new colleague. Bea still hates Nathan. But between weekly meetings and networking events, walks around Washington Square Park and late-night pizza, that hate begins to feel a lot like something else. And as uncomfortable truths emerge about the divorce that started it all, she might have to choose between her friends’ happily ever after and her own for the very first time.

Agatha Raisin’s private detective agency has their work cut out for them when a series of shop burglaries disturbs their quiet Cotswolds village. When the break-ins take a violent turn and a murder occurs, it's all hands on deck to find the killer. As if that weren't keeping Agatha busy enough, Sir Charles Fraith has called on her to help stage a glamorous promotional extravaganza on the grounds of his ancestral home, Barfield House. When Agatha begins to receive death threats and narrowly avoids being kidnapped, she takes advantage of a previously arranged trip to Mallorca with her recent paramour, former police officer John Glass, to lie low for a while. Can Agatha track down whoever wants her dead, nail the murderer and keep her romance alive too?

Lenny Marks bikes home from work at exactly 4pm each day, buys the same groceries for the same meals every week, and owns 36 copies of THE HOBBIT. The closest thing she has to a friendship is playing Scrabble against an imaginary Monica Gellar while watching “Friends” reruns. And Lenny is very, very good at not remembering what happened the day her mother and stepfather disappeared when she was still a child. The day a voice in the back of her mind started whispering, You did this. Until a letter from the parole board arrives in the mail --- and when her desperate attempts to ignore it fail, Lenny starts to unravel. As long-buried memories come to the surface, Lenny’s careful routines fall apart. For the first time, she finds herself forced to connect with the community around her, and unexpected new relationships begin to bloom.

Stella O'Neill is just your average millennial, working at a public library and worrying about making rent. No one would suspect she's been living under an assumed name or that she was raised in a Vermont commune of "diviners" where, as a 10-year-old, she witnessed her mother’s brutal murder --- a crime that has gone unsolved for years. But her quiet, anonymous existence is upended when a true-crime obsessive posts her current name and location on the internet. Now, Stella has to get out of Boston before her mother’s killer can find her and finish the job he started all those years ago. Fed up with living in fear, she heads to the off-the-grid retreat of her childhood to confront her mother’s unhinged guru who controlled their lives for so long.

Invited to deliver a lecture at the Boston Public Library, Jessica Fletcher excitedly makes plans to see local friends. Naturally that includes dinner at Gilhooley’s with PI Harry McGraw. Harry excitedly talks about his latest client, the CEO of Cure All Pharmaceuticals, who has received anonymous blackmail demands and wants Harry to identify the culprit. Cookie, Gilhooley’s longtime bartender, also has something he wants to tell Jessica: he asked Harry to investigate his daughter Aileen’s boyfriend, who Cookie thinks is too slick by half, but now Harry is too wrapped up in this new case. While Jessica wonders how best to approach Aileen, the young woman stumbles into Gilhooley’s covered in blood. She just discovered her boyfriend’s corpse --- and quickly becomes the chief suspect in his murder.

As one of the top divorce lawyers in Austin, Danica Pierce lets her caseload keep her warm at night and has no problem being married to her job. When the biggest case of her career gives her a shot at making partner, it seems like nothing could possibly stand in her way…except for her infuriating secret: she’s sleeping with the enemy. Ezra Hart is known for charming his way in and out of a courtroom. In the matter of winning Danica Pierce’s heart, however, he’s been far less successful. With her verdict to keep things purely physical with no chance of appeal, Ezra struggles to show Danica he’s more than the insufferable playboy she’s pegged him to be --- especially since they find themselves on opposing sides of Danica’s most important case to date.

Around 1:00 on an early spring morning, two teenage gangs are arrested after clashing violently in one of Venice’s squares. Commissario Claudia Griffoni perhaps ill-advisedly walks the last of the boys home because his father, Dario Monforte, failed to pick him up at the Questura. Coincidentally, Guido Brunetti is asked by a wealthy friend of Vice-Questore Patta to vet Monforte for a job, triggering Brunetti’s memory that 20 years earlier Monforte had been publicly celebrated as the hero of a devastating bombing of the Italian military compound in Iraq. Yet Monforte had never been awarded a medal either by the Carabinieri, his service branch, or by the Italian government. That seeming contradiction, and the brutal attack on one of Brunetti’s colleagues by a possible gang member, concentrate Brunetti’s attentions.

A lifetime ago, Ray “Spike” Thorns was a well-regarded caretaker on a boarding school’s grounds. These days, he lives the life of a recluse in a house rammed with hoarded junk, alone and disconnected from family or anyone he at one time might have considered a friend. When his next-door neighbor drops dead on Spike’s doorstep, a case of mistaken identity ensues. According to the police, the hospital, the doctors --- everyone --- Spike is dead. Spike wants to correct the mistake, but when confronted with those who knew him best, he hesitates, forced to face whatever impression he’s left on the world. It’s a discovery that brings him up close to ghosts from his past, and to the only woman he ever loved.

In a Tennessee prison, Efrem Judah Goode draws haunting portraits of women he claims he has killed. Around the country, desperate families of the missing seek answers in his eerie drawings. And on darkened back roads and New York City streets, a new killer poses duct-taped bodies at the sites of Goode’s murders. Two serial killers are locked in a twisted rivalry. To stop the brutal slayings, FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix must unravel the connection between Goode and the Broken Heart Killer. Their warped competition destroys anyone in their path. Caught between a manipulative psychopath and a ruthless UNSUB, Caitlin has to dive into not one but two dark and twisted minds. She will risk everything, plunging into the depths of their depraved clash, to hunt down an unstoppable killer.

After the violence of Kristallnacht, European Jews, now desperate to emigrate, found the consular doors of the world closed to them. Only one port required no entry visa: Shanghai, a self-governing Western trading enclave in what was technically Chinese territory, a political anomaly that became an escape hatch. Daniel Lohr was one of the lucky ones --- lucky enough to have escaped the Gestapo when his colleagues in the resistance were caught, lucky to have an uncle waiting in Shanghai, lucky to find a casual shipboard flirtation turn unexpectedly passionate. But as Daniel tries to navigate his way through his uncle’s world in Shanghai’s fabled nightlife, he finds himself increasingly ensnared in a maze where politics and crime are two sides of the same shiny coin.

The disappearance of a local politician’s teenage daughter is major news in Minnesota. As a huge manhunt is launched to find her, Cork O’Connor’s grandson stumbles across the shallow grave of a young Ojibwe woman --- but nobody seems that interested. Nobody, that is, except Cork and the newly formed Iron Lake Ojibwe Tribal Police. As Cork and the tribal officers dig into the circumstances of this mysterious and grim discovery, they uncover a connection to the missing teenager. And soon, it’s clear that Cork’s grandson is in danger of being the killer’s next victim.

Fenny has that boss glow. Not only did she just have the best sex of her life, she’s finally about to direct the TV show she’s been a screenwriter on for 10 years. Only one thing could floor her --- finding out she’s been replaced by a hotshot director named Jude. Wait, no. Two things. Jude looks exactly like the guy who just turned her bones to jelly. Same dimples, same eyes, but he looks older and has a sadness Fenny wants to fix. Last weekend, Fenny met Sam when he movie-style rescued her from a storm on Catalina Island. Here he is again, just…different. Can Sam and Jude be the same man? And if they are, will Fenny’s love be enough to put him back together?

Monica Campo is pregnant with her first child when, moments before being wheeled into emergency heart surgery, her mother confesses a long-held secret: Monica’s father is not the man who raised her. But when her mother wakes up and begins having delusional episodes, Monica doesn’t know what to believe --- whether the confession was real or just a channeling of the telenovela her mother watches nightly. In her despair, Monica wants to speak with only one person: her ex-boyfriend of five years, Manny. She can’t help but worry, though, what this says about her relationship with her fiancé and father of her unborn child. Monica’s search for the truth leads her to a new understanding of the past.

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia --- erudite but ruthless --- built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign. From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives. THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop that remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and a harbinger of death, rivers --- the Tigris and the Thames --- transcend history, transcend fate: “Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

An ordinary man wakes one morning to discover he’s a famous reggaetón star. An aging abuela slowly morphs into a marionette puppet. A struggling academic discovers the horrifying cost of becoming a Self-Made Man. In THERE IS A RIO GRANDE IN HEAVEN, Ruben Reyes Jr. conjures strange dreamlike worlds to explore what we would do if we woke up one morning and our lives were unrecognizable. Boundaries between the past, present and future are blurred. Menacing technology and unchecked bureaucracy cut through everyday life with uncanny dread. The characters, from mango farmers to pop stars to ex-guerilla fighters to cyborgs, are forced to make uncomfortable choices --- choices that not only mean life or death, but also might allow them to be heard in a world set on silencing the voices of Central Americans.

The vibrant economy of the new Vietnam is a shiny lure for Western capital. Companies are racing to uncover ideal opportunities. Not wanting to be left behind, Hendley Associates has sent their best analyst, Jack Ryan, Jr., to mine for investment gold. And he may have found some in a rare earth mining company: GeoTech. But a trip with a Hendley colleague to the Highlands to observe the company’s operations takes a treacherous turn when their helicopter is shot down. Some things haven’t changed, and Vietnam is still the plaything of powerful neighbors. The Chinese are determined to keep Jack from finding the truth about what exactly is being processed at the isolated factory. Now Jack is in a race for his life. He has to stay one step ahead of a pack of killers while supporting his wounded friend.

Ye Lian is thriving in Beijing. She’s wanting for nothing --- until her childhood best friend, Luo Wenyu, comes whirling back into her life after a decade in California with seemingly everything. As the two women rekindle their friendship, Wenyu reveals a shocking secret about a past love that pushes Lian to question her own relationship. A few neighborhoods away, aging architect Song Chen is forced to confront his own past and the dissolution of his marriage as he’s tasked with building Wenyu’s dream home. And when the dark side of Wenyu’s enviable life emerges and threatens everything Lian and Wenyu have built for themselves, they must make a choice between the stable known and the frightening unknown that may have devastating and unexpected consequences.

Newly qualified London vet Charlotte Walker has taken up a fellowship on the tiny South Atlantic island of Tuga de Oro to study the endangered gold coin tortoises in the jungle interior. The reality is that she has secretly come to believe that she has her own connection to this remote and eccentric community, and she is finally determined to solve the mystery that has dominated her life. But she will have little time for any of her declared or covert investigations. She is inconveniently attracted to the new island doctor. And not only do Tuga’s tortoises need attention, so too do the island’s dogs, goats and donkeys --- not to mention the islanders themselves, determined to win Charlotte over with cake and homemade jam until she relents and becomes vet to all their animals.

In poetry that is at once bold and lyrical, affecting and devastatingly frank, Miranda Cowley Heller --- the #1 New York Times bestselling author of THE PAPER PALACE --- takes us through childhood, marriage, motherhood and beyond. Suffused with the natural world and the landscape of Cape Cod, where many of the poems are set, WHAT THE DEEP WATER KNOWS contemplates love in all the seasons.

Timed for a trial that will capture national attention, WHEN THE NIGHT COMES FALLING examines the mysterious murders of four University of Idaho students. Having covered this case from its start, Edgar Award-winning investigative reporter Howard Blum takes readers behind the scenes of the police manhunt that eventually led to suspected killer Bryan Christopher Kohberger and uncovered larger, lurid questions within this unthinkable tragedy.