Adult

A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the Laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, and among switchboard operators, struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians.

A beautiful jogger, drained of blood, dismembered, then meticulously reassembled on the grass in Central Park. Subway derailments, plummeting elevators, collapsing construction cranes, apartment explosions --- all creating a bloody, senseless puzzle. Detective Frank Quinn knows that even while the slayer is taunting the cops and the public, he’s also screaming to be caught. But Quinn will have to risk everything he holds precious to bring in this killer.

Jo has been hiding the truth about her role in her high school boyfriend's drowning for 16 years. Then seven-year-old Sara Starr goes missing from the community beach. Rescue workers fail to uncover any sign of her --- but instead dredge up the bones Jo hoped would never be discovered, shattering the quiet lakeside community's tranquility. As Jo’s daughter, Caroline, searches for Sara, she uncovers the secrets her mother has been concealing, unraveling the very foundation of everything she knows about herself and her family.

David Heller has taken a job as a live-in aide to current quadriplegic and former playboy Hans Bromwell --- in part to extend his stay studying abroad, but in truth, he's looking to escape his own family still paralyzed by the death of his younger sister a decade ago. When David moves into the Bromwell house, his life becomes quickly entwined with those of Hans, his alcoholic sister, and her beautiful fatherless daughter. As David befriends the Bromwells, the details behind the family's staggering fall from grace are slowly revealed.

Geologist and adventurer Philip Mercer is visiting an old friend who’s working far down in Minnesota’s Leister Deep Mine. But he arrives too late to save Abe Jacobs and his climate-research team from a shocking, brutal attack. Mercer vows to seek revenge as well as answers, hoping to pick up Jacobs’ search for a cache of the rare crystals known as lightning stones --- rumored to have been aboard Amelia Earhart’s plane when it vanished in 1937. He must race to stay ahead of a team of highly trained assassins --- and to figure out if he’s chasing a rare scientific discovery, or merely a historical fairy tale.

Still mourning the death of his wife, private investigator Mark Novak accepts a case that may be his undoing. On the same day his wife died, the body of a teenage girl was pulled from the extensive and perilous cave system beneath Southern Indiana. Now the man who rescued the girl, who was believed to be her killer, begs Novak to uncover what really happened. Garrison is much like any place in America, proud and fortified against outsiders. For Mark to delve beneath the town's surface, he must match wits with the man who knows the caverns better than anyone. A man who seems to have lost his mind. A man who seems to know Mark Novak all too well.

Royce Dillard doesn't remember much about the day his parents --- and 123 other souls --- died in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. He was only two years old when he was ripped from his mother's arms. But now Dillard, who lives off the grid with only a passel of dogs for company, is fighting for his life one more time: He's on trial for murder. Prosecutor Bell Elkins faces her toughest challenge yet in this haunting story of vengeance, greed and the fierce struggle for social justice.

Joan Didion lived a life in the public and private eye with her late husband, writer John Gregory Dunne. They became wildly successful writing partners and co-wrote screenplays and adaptations together. Didion is well-known for her literary journalistic style in both fiction and nonfiction. Tracy Daugherty takes readers on a journey back through time, following a young Didion in Sacramento, through to her adult life as a writer interviewing those who know and knew her personally, while maintaining a respectful distance from the reclusive literary great.

Mia "Rabbit" Hayes has plans for the world. But the world, it turns out, has other plans for Rabbit: a devastating diagnosis. Rabbit is feisty. And with every ounce of love and strength in her, she promises that she will overcome. She will be with those who love her for as long as she can, and she will live as long as she can with music, love and so much life. And as her friends and family rally around to celebrate Rabbit's last days, they look to her for strength, support and her unyielding zest for life.

Once the thriving attraction of rural Vermont, the Tower Motel now stands in disrepair, alive only in the memories of Amy, Piper, and Piper's kid sister, Margot. The three played there as girls until the day their games uncovered something dark and twisted in the motel's past, something that ruined their friendship forever. Now adults, Piper and Margot have tried to forget what they found that fateful summer, but their lives are upended when Piper receives a panicked midnight call from Margot, with news of a horrific crime for which Amy stands accused.