Adult

Acclaimed author Randall Silvis is looking for a story --- any story to follow up the series of gripping mystery novels that catapulted him to success. And then, out of nowhere, a story appears. A mysterious stranger named Thomas Kennaday tips Silvis off about a series of murders in a small Pennsylvania town, sending Silvis off on a tentative investigation in hopes of finding material for his next novel. What Silvis discovers is much more than a typical small-town murder case, and it soon becomes clear that Kennaday, who seems to have disappeared into thin air, is somehow pulling the strings of the investigation from behind the scenes.

When a German businesswoman in 1979 San Francisco hires ex-con PI Colleen Hayes to find a missing relative, supposedly in town to visit, she thinks it’s a simple job. But she soon discovers that the “nephew” is linked to an international vigilante group hunting down ex-Nazis. Then the body of a mysterious woman turns up on San Francisco’s Municipal Railway, mirroring a murder committed the week before in Buenos Aires where the “nephew” had just been. Colleen’s search uncovers a World War II banknote and the 1942 SS ID of a German officer long thought dead. When Colleen fails to heed warnings to stop her investigation, her pregnant daughter is attacked.

Discovering a body on her property presents Lady Abigail Worthing with more than one pressing problem. The victim is Juliet, the wife of her neighbor, Stapleton Henderson. Although Abigail has little connection with the lady in question, she expects to be under suspicion. Abigail’s skin color and her mother’s notorious past have earned her a certain reputation among the ton, and no amount of wealth or status will eclipse it. Abigail can’t divulge that she was attending a secret pro-abolition meeting at the time of the murder. To her surprise, Henderson offers her an alibi. Though he and Juliet were long estranged, and she had a string of lovers, he feels a certain loyalty to his late wife. Perhaps together, he and Abigail can learn the truth.

Sage Winters’ twin sister, Rosemary, died from pneumonia six years ago. Their mother perished in a car crash, and Sage’s stepfather, Alan, resents being burdened by a responsibility he never wanted. Yet, despite living as near strangers in their Staten Island apartment, Sage is stunned to discover that Alan has kept a shocking secret: Rosemary didn’t die. She was committed to Willowbrook State School and has lingered there until just a few days ago, when she went missing. With no idea what to expect, Sage secretly sets out for Willowbrook, determined to find Rosemary. What she learns, once she steps through its doors and is mistakenly believed to be her sister, will change her life in ways she never could have imagined.

Formerly a model and photographer trying to make it in New York, Louisa Rader is back in her affluent hometown of Nearwater, Connecticut, where she's married to a successful older architect, raising a preteen daughter, and trying to vitalize the provincial local art center. As the years pass, she's grown restless in her safe and comfortable routine, haunted by the flash of the life she used to live. When intense and intriguing young artist-environmentalist Gabriel arrives in town with his aristocratic family, his impact on the Raders has hothouse effects. As Gabriel pushes to realize his artistic vision for the world, he pulls both Louisa and her daughter, Sylvie, under his spell, with consequences that disrupt the Raders’ world forever.

Detective Tracy Crosswhite has agreed to look into the disappearance of investigative reporter Lisa Childress. Solving the cold case is an obsession for Lisa’s daughter, Anita. So is clearing the name of her father, a prime suspect who became a pariah. After 25 years, all Anita wants is the truth --- no matter where it leads. For Tracy, that means reopening the potentially explosive investigations Lisa was following on the dark night she vanished. As all the pieces come together, it becomes clear that Tracy is in the midst of a case that will push her loyalties and her resilience to the limit. What she uncovers will come with a greater price than anyone feared.

A national treasure hunt with a $2 million prize has driven obsessed fortune seekers to overrun the small town of Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. The hunt’s cryptic clues and the lure of wealth have exposed the desperate side of human greed. Police chief Truman Daly craves peace in his town but has a murder on his hands instead. Now the big prize isn’t the only thing hiding in the pines. So is a killer. When a young boy walks into the local café and claims his mother and baby sister have been missing for weeks, FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick investigates and exposes a disturbing twist in his story. Deep family secrets and lies that started 60 years ago have burst into the present, bringing with them deadly consequences.

On the Fourth of July, Hallie Evers dies at a rooftop party in Las Vegas. Hours later, she wakes up in the hospital, disoriented but alive. Why can’t she find the doctor who revived her? Why do her memories feel both foreign and familiar? Her self-doubt spirals into crippling paranoia. Hallie knows that mental illness runs in her family. But now even Hallie’s dreams are fraught with details that seem like more than imagination --- vivid images of a city she remembers but has never visited in her life. As she embarks on a cross-country search for answers, Hallie catches glimpses of what feel like another person’s memories. It’s a dark, horrifying, tragic vision…of someone else’s murder. But is any of it real?

London, 1940. Bombs fall, and Josie Banks’ world crumbles around her. Her overbearing husband, Stan, is unreachable, called to service. Her home is a ruin of rubble and ash. Evacuated to the English countryside, Josie ends up at the estate of the aristocratic Miss Harcourt, a reluctant host to the survivors of the Blitz. Josie convinces Miss Harcourt to let her open a humble tea shop, seeing it as a chance for everyone to begin again. When Josie meets Mike Johnson, a handsome Canadian pilot stationed at a neighboring bomber base, a growing intimacy brings her an inner peace she’s never felt before. Then Stan returns from the war. Now a threat looms larger than anyone imagined. And a dangerous secret is about to upend Josie’s life again.

Twin sisters Marisa and Clare Stockton were 16 when Clare’s body was found in Virginia’s James River. No arrests were made. Fourteen years later, Marisa’s friends and dedicated career as a photographer help her to cope with the open wound of the past. But she still feels the hurt. A recent car crash has erased 10 days of Marisa’s memories --- a black hole leading up to the accident that’s left her disoriented. Every text and phone call from that crucial missing time has vanished, along with her phone. And there’s the growing fear that her near-fatal accident was no accident at all. As dreams of Clare and nightmares of the crash begin to converge, so do two disturbing puzzles 14 years apart.