Adult

In the fall of 2016, authorities in Ashland, Ohio, arrested serial killer Shawn Grate on kidnapping charges. Grate immediately latched onto Detective Kim Mager, an experienced sex offenses specialist assigned to his case, and repeatedly demanded to speak with her, perhaps convinced that he could control her like he controlled his victims. But he was wrong. For eight days of brutal interviews, Detective Mager successfully elicited Grate's damning confessions to five murders. These recorded conversations would be key to his later conviction and death sentence. A HUNGER TO KILL reveals the psyche of one of the most brutal serial killers in American history from the woman who took him down in collaboration with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Pulitzer.

Greek myths have fascinated people for millennia, seeing in them lessons about fate and hubris and the contingency of existence. Mark Haddon digs into the heart of these ancient fables and sees them anew. These tales cover a vast range, from the mythic to the domestic, from ancient Greece to the present day, from stories about love to stories about cruelty, from battlefields to bed and breakfasts, from dogs in space to doors between worlds --- all of them bound together by a profound sympathy and an understanding of how human beings act, think and feel when pushed to the very edge.

Glory Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age 30, eventually reaching a community of half a million readers. But her own love of books stretches far back. Edim’s father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, marking the beginning of a series of traumatic changes and losses for her family. What became an escape, a safe space and a second home for her and her brother was their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older she discovered authors and ideas that she wasn’t being taught about in class. Reading wherever and whenever she could, be it in her dorm room or when traveling by subway or plane, she found the Black writers whose words would forever change her life.

Detroit, 1960. Lila Pereira is two years old when her angry, abusive father has her mother committed to an asylum. Lila never sees her mother again. Three decades later, Lila rises to the pinnacle of American media as the powerful, brilliant executive editor of The Washington Globe. Lila leaves the rearing of her daughters to her generous husband, Joe. Grace, their youngest daughter, feels abandoned. She wishes her mother would attend PTA meetings, not White House correspondents’ dinners. As she grows up, she cannot shake her resentment. She wants out from under Lila’s shadow, yet the more she resists, the more Lila seems to shape her life. Grace becomes a successful reporter, even publishing a bestselling book about her mother. In the process of writing it, she realizes how little she knows about her own family.

Jack Reacher wakes up alone, in the dark, handcuffed to a makeshift bed. His right arm has suffered some major damage. His few possessions are gone. He has no memory of getting there. The last thing Reacher can recall is the car in which he hitched a ride getting run off the road. The driver was killed. His captors assume Reacher was the driver’s accomplice and patch up his wounds as they plan to make him talk. A plan that will backfire spectacularly.

Hailey Morgan’s life has always revolved around music. She once had big dreams of becoming a professional songwriter, but the reality of life has led her to working as an assistant high school band teacher. As the holidays approach, Hailey dreads the annual tradition of spending Christmas with her family and dodging her mother’s meddling questions about her love life. When Hailey’s close friend offers her the use of her family’s empty cabin for a rejuvenating solo holiday retreat, she finally decides to do something to make herself happy. However, her arrival in the small town of Podunk, Oregon, is anything but peaceful when she discovers the cabin has been invaded by several wild animals. Luckily, Jay, the son of the town’s main store proprietor --- and a former musician to boot --- is more than willing to help.

Dave Win, the son of a Burmese man he’s never met and a British dressmaker, is 13 years old when he gets a scholarship to a top boarding school. With the doors of elite English society cracked open for him, heady new possibilities emerge, even as Dave is exposed to the envy and viciousness of his wealthy classmates. OUR EVENINGS follows Dave from the 1960s on --- through the possibilities that remained open for him, and others that proved to be illusory: as a working-class brown child in a decidedly white institution; a young man discovering queer culture and experiencing his first, formative love affairs; a talented but often overlooked actor, on the road with an experimental theater company; and an older Londoner whose late-in-life marriage fills his days with an unexpected sense of happiness and security.

For most of its 45-year history, The Mysterious Bookshop --- the oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world --- has commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store and never published elsewhere, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. The prompt for the story requires three elements: that it be set at Christmastime, that it involve a crime of some kind, or the suspicion of one, and that it be set at least partially in the bookstore. And from these loose structural guidelines, diverse tales took flight. The dozen tales included in this volume are among the finest to be produced in this annual tradition, sure to charm any reader looking for a holiday-themed escape.

Cameron Winter is troubled in heart and mind. He’s plagued by memories of his time as a government operative investigating a notorious Turkish sex trafficker. The fact that the mission was left unfinished still haunts him and threatens to tear him apart. In the midst of his painful soul-searching, Winter crosses paths with an ex-flame --- his first love --- and the chance encounter ignites a passion he thought was long lost. But just as soon as she wanders back into Winter’s life, the woman vanishes, leaving Winter scrambling to track her down. His pursuit takes him deep into a world rent by partisan violence, where extremists clash and Winter sides with no one. As he faces his most dangerous case yet, victory might simply mean getting out alive.

Johnny-Boy is a killer. He lives for the thrill of the hunt, the stalking of human prey. Fittingly, he works as a hitman but always finds time for extracurricular activity on the side. When a new assignment sends him to Baxter, a depressed Rust Belt town experiencing a chaotic upheaval at the dawn of a new economic beginning, Johnny-Boy plans to keep things professional. But when he realizes that the streets are awash with drug activity, small-time mobsters, and loads of transitory laborers in town to construct a new car plant, Johnny-Boy sees an opportunity to have a little fun while he’s there. The work of cleaning up a town of lowlifes and criminals is a never-ending slog for Delia Mariola, Chief of Detectives. But when a young teenager --- nearly the same age as her own son --- is found tortured to death, the stakes suddenly feel higher than ever.