Adult

It’s the murder trial of the century --- and Joshua Kane has killed to get the best seat in the house. He has done everything in his power to make sure the wrong man goes down for the crime. Because this time, the killer isn’t on trial. He’s on the jury. But there’s someone on his tail. Defense lawyer and former conman Eddie Flynn doesn’t believe that his movie-star client killed two people. He suspects that the real killer is closer than they think. But who would guess just how close?

This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove --- bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett --- she's keeping something secreted in the woods. The couple at the altar are the Nickels --- the bride is emphatic about changing her name, as there is plenty about her old life she is ready to forget.

Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth, she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines --- turning Ginny into a fugitive.

Rachel Klein never meant to kiss her creative writing professor, but with his long eyelashes, his silky hair and the sad, beautiful life he laid bare on Twitter, she does, and the kiss is very nice. Zahid Azzam never planned to become a houseguest in his student's sprawling Connecticut home, but with the sparkling swimming pool, the endless supply of Whole Foods strawberries and Rachel's beautiful mother, he does, and the home is very nice. Becca Klein never thought she'd have a love affair so soon after her divorce, but when her daughter's professor walks into her home, bringing with him an apricot standard poodle named Princess, she does, and the affair is...a very bad idea.

Deep in the woods just outside Acker's Gap, West Virginia, rises a ragged chunk of what was once a high stone wall. This is all that remains of Wellwood, a psychiatric hospital for the poor that burned to the ground decades ago. And it is here that Bell Elkins --- prosecutor turned private investigator --- makes a grim discovery while searching for a missing teenager: a dead body, marred by a ghastly wound that can only mean murder. To solve the mystery of what happened in these woods, Bell and her partners --- former sheriff Nick Fogelsong and former deputy Jake Oakes --- must confront the tangled history of Wellwood and its dark legacy, while each grapples with a private torment.

During the worst blizzard in memory, an FBI agent in a moving SUV in New York City is killed by a nearly impossible sniper shot. Unable to pinpoint where the shot came from, the agent-in-charge, Brett Kehoe, turns to the one man who might be able to help them --- former FBI agent Lucas Page. A university professor and bestselling author, Page left the FBI years ago after a tragic event robbed him of a leg, an arm, an eye and the willingness to continue. With a new wife and family, Page has no interest in helping the FBI --- except for the fact that the victim was his former partner. Agreeing to help for his partner’s sake, Page finds himself hunting a killer with an unknown agenda and amazing sniper skills in the worst of conditions.

Law student Rachel North will tell you, without hesitation, what she knows to be true. She's smart, she's a hard worker, she does the right thing, she's successfully married to a faithful and devoted husband, a lion of Boston's defense bar, and her internship with the Boston DA's office is her ticket to a successful future. The problem is, she's wrong. And in this cat-and-mouse game, the battle for justice becomes a battle for survival.

HUNTER’S MOON is set in Michigan’s wild, starkly beautiful Upper Peninsula, where a cast of recurring characters move into and out of each other’s lives --- building friendships, facing loss, confronting violence, trying to bury the past or seeking to unearth it. Once-a-year lovers, old high-school buddies on a hunting trip, a college professor and his wayward son, a middle-aged man and his grief-stricken father, come together, break apart and, if they’re fortunate, find a way forward.

Rachel Cusk redrew the boundaries of fiction with the Outline Trilogy, whose narrator, Faye, perceives the world with a glinting, unsparing intelligence while remaining opaque to the reader. Now, in COVENTRY, Cusk gathers a selection of her nonfiction writings that both offers new insights on the themes at the heart of her fiction and forges a startling critical voice on some of our most urgent personal, social and artistic questions. The book encompasses memoir, cultural criticism and writing about literature with pieces on family life, gender and politics, and on D. H. Lawrence, Françoise Sagan and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Former sheriff’s investigator Cassie Dewell is asked by a friend to help exonerate a man accused of assaulting a young woman from an influential family. Against her own better judgment, Cassie agrees. But out by the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana, twisted family loyalty runs as deep as the ties to the land, and there's always something more to the story. The Kleinsassers have ruled this part of Montana for decades, and the Iron Cross Ranch is their stronghold. They want to see Blake Kleinsasser, the black sheep of the family, put away forever for the assault. As Cassie attempts to uncover the truth, she must fight against a family whose roots are tangled and deadly --- as well as the ghosts of her own past that threaten to bring her down.