Adult

The clamorous barking of beagles signals the annual rabbit chase through the central Virginia hills. But the last thing the local beaglers and their hounds expect to flush out is a dead body. Disturbingly, it’s the second corpse to turn up, after that of a missing truck driver too disfigured to identify. The deaths seem unrelated --- until Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen picks up a trail of clues dating back to the state’s post-Revolutionary past. The echoes of the Shot Heard Round the World pale in comparison to the dangerous shootout Harry narrowly escapes unscathed. Next time, it may be the killer who gets lucky. But not if Harry’s furry friends Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker can help it.

Bob Lee Swagger has finally decided to sell the family homestead, but when the developers begin to tear down the house, they uncover a strongbox hidden in the foundation. Enclosed is an array of memorabilia dating back to 1934 --- a much-corroded federal lawman’s badge, a .45 automatic, a mysterious gun part, and a cryptic diagram --- all belonging to Charles Swagger, a World War I hero and sheriff of Polk County, Arkansas. Fascinated and puzzled by these newly discovered artifacts, Bob is determined to find out what happened to his grandfather. But he soon learns that someone is following him and shares his obsession with finding out what Charles Swagger really left behind.

Katarina “Kate” Hollister is a second-generation Foreign Service officer, recently assigned to Kyrgyzstan. U.S. authorities have been negotiating with the Kyrgyz president on the lease of a massive airbase that would significantly expand the American footprint in Central Asia. The negotiations are controversial in the U.S. because of the Kyrgyz regime’s abysmal human-rights record. Amid these events, Kate’s uncle assigns her to infiltrate an underground democracy movement that has been sabotaging Kyrgyz security services and regime supporters. But it soon becomes clear that nothing about Kate’s mission is as it seems --- and that she might need to lay her life on the line for what she knows is right.

Eleanor Oliphant struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Julia Alden has fallen deeply and unexpectedly in love. American obstetrician James is everything she didn't know she wanted --- if only her teenage daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much. Uniting two households is never easy, but when Gwen turns for comfort to James' 17-year-old son, Nathan, the consequences will test her mother's loyalty and threaten all their fragile new happiness.

FitzChivalry Farseer’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside --- a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return. For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with.

It's rare that an actor embodies even one memorable character over the arc of a career. Jeffrey Tambor has managed to create three, beginning with Hank "Hey Now!" Kingsley on "The Larry Sanders Show," the series created by Garry Shandling, Jeffrey’s first mentor in television. He went on to find two more show creators, Mitch Hurwitz of “Arrested Development” and Jill Soloway of “Transparent,” who shared a love of actors and taught him a lot about acting along the way. 

Taking chances is part of life, but when you bet your future against the odds, it’s a high-risk game. Kate Madison’s stylish resale shop has been a big SoHo success, supporting her and her four kids since her husband’s untimely death. Now they are grown and ready to forge lives of their own. And they all choose to play against the odds, to their mother’s dismay. Can the odds be beaten? Not often, as her children have to learn for themselves. For Kate, the hardest lesson will be that she can’t protect the children she loves from the choices they make --- but can only love them as they make them.

First, there was the black swarm that swallowed a man whole, the suspicious seismic irregularities in India that confounded scientists, the nuclear bomb China dropped on its own territory without any explanation. Then, scientist Melanie Guyer's lab received a package containing a mysterious egg sac; little did Dr. Guyer know that, almost overnight, Earth would be consumed by previously dormant spiders that suddenly wanted out. Now, tens of millions of people around the world are dead. According to Dr. Guyer, the crisis may soon be over. But in Japan, a giant, glowing egg sac gives a shocking preview of what is to come, even as survivors in Los Angeles panic and break the quarantine zone.

John F. Kennedy and his young warriors invented modern presidential politics. They turned over accepted wisdom that his Catholicism was a barrier to winning an election and plotted a successful course to that constituency. The last-minute invitation to Lyndon B. Johnson for vice president in 1956 surprised them only because they had failed to notice that he wanted it. They invented The Missile Gap in the Cold War and out-glamoured Richard Nixon in the TV debates. Now acclaimed, award-winning journalists Tom Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie provide the most comprehensive account, based on a depth of personal reporting, interviews and archives.