Adult

A dying man enters the office of Éric Besson, a lawyer in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. He is carrying a dilapidated notebook full of meticulous investment records. For decades, he has been helping a cadre of dirty cops launder stolen money. The notebook contains his full confession. He is adamant that Besson get the notebook into the hands of La Proc, Paris’s chief prosecuting attorney, so the corruption can finally be brought to light. But en route to La Proc, Besson’s courier --- his assistant and nephew --- is murdered, and the notebook disappears. Private investigator Aimée Leduc is reluctant to get involved, as her father was a cop and was murdered by the same dirty syndicate the notebook implicates.

Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s in New York, Amanda Stern experiences the magic and madness of life through the filter of unrelenting panic. Plagued with fear that her friends and family will be taken from her if she's not watching, Amanda treats every parting as her last. Shuttled between a barefoot bohemian life with her mother in Greenwich Village, and a sanitized, stricter world of affluence uptown with her father, Amanda has little she can depend on. And when Etan Patz disappears down the block from their MacDougal Street home, she can't help but believe that all her worst fears are about to come true.

It is 1985, and Yale Tishman is the development director for an art gallery in Chicago. As his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying, and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. In these intertwining stories, Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.

For years, Martin Reese has been illegally buying police files on serial killers and obsessively studying them, using them as guides to find the missing bodies of victims. On his latest dig, Martin searches for the first kill of Jason Shurn, who may have been responsible for the disappearance of his wife’s sister. But when he arrives at the site, he finds a freshly killed body lying among remains that were left there decades ago. Someone else knew where Jason Shurn left the corpses of his victims…and that someone isn’t happy that Martin has been going around digging up his work. Hunted by a real killer and by Detective Sandra Whittal, Martin realizes that in order to escape, he may have to go deeper into the killer’s dark world than he ever thought.

The Four Lands are under siege. Wielding a magical ability virtually impossible to combat, mysterious invaders defeat the most fearsome Troll armies, then focus their savagery on the Druid order. Dar Leah, once the High Druid’s Blade, has crossed paths --- and swords --- with their ruthless leader before. So he knows that if any hope exists, it rests in the hands of the Druid Drisker Arc, now trapped inside vanished Paranor. As Drisker races to find the ancient knowledge that could free him, Dar goes in search of Tarsha Kaynin, whose magic could draw Drisker back into the world of the living. But little do they know that what appeared to be a formidable invading force may only be the forerunner of a much larger army --- one intent on nothing less than total conquest.

After months of disturbing behavior, Gardner Quinn has vanished. Her older sister, Fredericka, is desperate to find her, but Fred is also pregnant --- miraculously so, in a near-future America struggling with infertility. So she entrusts the job to their brother, Carter. Just home from war, Carter’s search for his sister is a welcome distraction from mysterious physical symptoms he can’t ignore...and his slightly-more-than recreational drinking. Carter’s efforts to find Gardner lead him into a dangerous underground, where he begins to grasp the risks she took on as a Nurse Completionist. But his investigation also leads back to their father, a veteran of a decades-long war just like Carter himself, who may be concealing a painful truth.

Finn and Layla are driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. When he returns, Layla is gone. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story. Ten years later, Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him, even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her. Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla --- hiding in plain sight. If Layla is alive --- and on Finn’s trail --- what does she want? And how much does she know?

An American diplomat --- reformed alcoholic, unreformed gambler and inveterate smart-ass --- finds himself under threat of disgrace and murder, even as he seeks love and redemption on the strange and spirit-ridden island of Madagascar. Author Stephen Holgate brings the mystery and mysticism of Madagascar to life in his haunting and exciting second novel.

Every other weekend, Hope and Eden wait for their father to pick them up at a strip-mall bus stop. It’s the divorce shuffle; they’re used to it. Only this weekend, he’s forgotten, and their world will irrevocably change when a stranger lures them into his truck. More than 20 years later, Hope is a playwright with only one play produced long ago, newly evicted from an illegal sublet, working a humiliating temp job. Eden has long since distanced herself from her family, and no one seems to know where she is. When the man who abducted them is up for parole, the sisters might be able to offer testimony to keep him jailed. Hope sets out to find her sister --- and to find herself --- and it becomes the journey of a lifetime.