Collection: Mystery, Thrillers, & Crime

After Q and Angela help foil a Ghost Cell plot in San Antonio, they head to Chicago, the next stop on the Match tour. Since they've been busy fighting international terrorism, they're behind on their school assignments. Their parents tell them if they don't get caught up, it's off to boarding school. But who can concentrate on homework when there is a mystery to solve and international terrorism to thwart? Angela is obsessed with finding out more about the mysterious Boone. Q is more interested in not going to boarding school. But when Boone and his SOS crew are ambushed on their way to Chicago, it becomes abundantly clear. Someone inside their inner circle is feeding the Ghost Cell information. As they dig ever deeper to learn the identity of the mole, Angela and Q uncover the Ghost Cell's next plot. And it's much, much worse than a car bomb. They plan to unleash a chemical weapon over the skies of Chicago. And it's up to Angela and Q, along with Boone and Croc, to stop them.

"A perfectly paced and tautly plotted thriller...and an incredibly accomplished debut" (Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Girl on the Train and Into the Water), about a beloved high schooler found murdered in her sleepy Colorado suburb and the secret lives of three people connected to her.How can you love someone who's done something horribly, horribly wrong? When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her community is untouched--not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters--Cameron, Jade, and Russ--must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both. In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory. "A sensational debut--great characters, mysteries within mysteries, and page-turning pace. Highly recommended" (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher novels). Hailed as "Gillian Flynn of 2017" (Yahoo! Style), compulsively readable and powerfully moving, Girl in Snow is "engagingly told... its endearing characters' struggles linger in memory after this affecting work is done" (The Wall Street Journal).

#1 bestselling author Patricia Cornwell returns to the world of gutsy medical examiner Kay Scarpetta in the third suspenseful novel in the forensic thriller series that begins with Postmortem.

In Richmond, Virginia, young lovers are dying. So far, four couples in the area have disappeared, only to be found months later as mutilated corpses. When the daughter of the president's newest drug czar vanishes along with her boyfriend, Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows time is short. Following a macabre trail of evidence that ties the present homicides to a grisly crime in the past, Kay must draw upon her own personal resources to track down a murderer who is as skilled at eliminating clues as Kay is at finding them...

I had come to terms with my inability to change whatever it was at this point.
It was coming whether I knew how it would happen or not.

What if you knew what year you'd die? Since she could first comprehend the meaning of death Lai has known she'd only live to see eighteen years. In her secluded community, scientists calculate residents' life expectancies at birth and one's place within society is determined based on their lifespan. Tragically, Lai's anticipated Year of Death has defined her as someone with little value to society. When her eighteenth birthday comes and goes, she knows she's living on borrowed time and begins to emotionally withdraw and resign herself to her fate.

That's when Lai discovers something that shocks her to her core and forces her to face the reality that the controlled, peaceful, productive community she knows is hiding something deeply sinister. Set in a speculative society that is so imaginatively conceived we're never quite sure if it's utopian or dystopian, The Quiet Limit gives us a heartbroken protagonist at the most heightened and emotional moment of her life and sets her on an urgent, dangerous quest to find answers before her time is up.

A page-turning debut in the tradition of Michael Crichton, World War Z, and The Martian, Sleeping Giants is a thriller fueled by an earthshaking mystery--and a fight to control a gargantuan power.

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved--its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history's most perplexing discovery--and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Praise for Sleeping Giants

"As high-concept as it is, Sleeping Giants is a thriller through and through. . . . One of the most promising series kickoffs in recent memory, [and] a smart demonstration of how science fiction can honor its traditions and reverse-engineer them at the same time."--NPR

"Neuvel weaves a complex tapestry with ancient machinery buried in the Earth, shadow governments, and geopolitical conflicts. But the most surprising thing about the book may just be how compelling the central characters are in the midst of these larger-than-life concepts. . . . I can't stop thinking about it."--Chicago Review of Books

"A remarkable debut . . . Reminiscent of Max Brooks's World War Z, the story's format effectively builds suspense."--Library Journal (debut of the month)

"This stellar debut novel . . . masterfully blends together elements of sci-fi, political thriller and apocalyptic fiction. . . . A page-turner of the highest order."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Don't miss any of The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel:
SLEEPING GIANTS WAKING GODS ONLY HUMAN

Sad, old Mr. Maximus comes to see Miss Cat at the old dairy she uses as an office. Someone has kidnapped his canary, Harry, his pride and joy. Mr. Maximus begs the detective to help find him.

Following the trail of the missing canary, Miss Cat encounters the alluring Doris and aggressive Wolfgang, her talking dog. What could they be trying to hide? And could the elderly Maximus and the dashing Mixus the Magnificent--a magician with extraordinary powers--actually be the same person? Miss Cat must uncover the truth and get everything back to normal!

With a Scandi noir atmosphere, Miss Cat: The Case of the Curious Canary is a gripping graphic novel that will make young readers eager for the next installment.

From Jeff VanderMeer, the author of Borne and Annihilation, comes the paperback reissue of his cult classic Finch.

In a deserted tenement in an occupied city, two dead bodies lie on a dusty floor as if they have fallen out of the air. One corpse is cut in half, the other is utterly unmarked. One is human, the other isn't. The city of Ambergris is half ruined, rotten, its population controlled by narcotics, internment camps, and acts of terror. But its new masters want this case closed, urgently. Detective John Finch has just one week to solve it or be sent to the camps. With no ID for the victims, no clues, no leads, and precious little hope, Finch's fate hangs in the balance.

But there is more to this case than meets the eye. Enough to put Finch in the crosshairs of every spy, rebel, informer, and traitor in town. Under the shadow of the eldrich tower the occupiers are raising above the city, Finch is about to come face-to-face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever. Why does one of the victims most resemble a man thought to have been dead for a hundred years? What is the murders' connection to an attempted genocide nearly six hundred years ago? And just what is the secret purpose of the occupiers' tower?

A psychic travel agent and a Seattle PD detective try to solve a murder in this "ebullient tap dance of a mystery" (Christopher Moore, New York Times bestselling author)--perfect for fans of Lisa Lutz's The Spellman Files and Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan series.Meet Leda Foley: devoted friend, struggling travel agent, and inconsistent psychic. Impulsively re-booking Seattle PD detective Grady Merritt's flight, she has no idea that her life is about to change in ways she could have never foretold. When his original plane blows up on the runway, Grady begins to suspect that Leda's special abilities could help him with a cold case he just can't crack. Despite her scattershot premonitions, she agrees to join the investigation for a secret reason: her fiancé's murder remains unsolved. Leda's psychic abilities couldn't help that sad case, but she's been honing her skills and drawing a crowd at her favorite bar's open-mic nights, where she performs her klairvoyant karaoke--singing whatever song comes to mind when she holds people's personal effects. Now joined by a ragtag group of bar patrons and pals, Leda and Grady set out to catch a killer--and learn how the two cases that haunt them have more in common than they ever suspected.

An Agent turned rogue poses an apocalyptic threat to the Division, unless her former friends can eliminate her first, in this rip-roaring instalment of the Operation Crossroads series.

Division agent Maira Kanhai is alive. Maira Kanhai has gone rogue. When Brenda Wells learns that her old recruit's - and close friend's - watch has turned red, she refuses to believe it. Yet the agents sent to track Maira down have irrefutable evidence saying otherwise. With the threads holding the Division together fraying under heavy assault, Brenda desperately assembles a specialized Division cell and heads out to learn the truth. In the blistering heat of the American Southwest, they face grave danger at every turn. There they learn that other deadly parties are stalking Maira too, hoping to use her to destroy the Division once and for all.

Inspired by a chilling true story...

It's the day of his ex-wife's wedding when Dan makes the winding mountain journey to a remote cabin for an escape from the life that another man has stepped into.

Less than 48 hours into his reprieve, the forest tranquility is shattered when he looks through a telescope and witnesses the violent abduction of a young woman.

Dan springs into action, but there's no evidence of an abduction nor reports of a missing woman.

That is, until Dan sees the missing person's poster for Ivy Trent.

He's sure it's the woman he saw get kidnapped just days before. There's only one problem. Ivy disappeared ten years ago.

If you're searching for a paranormal thriller that you'll be reading with the lights on, grab Troubled Spirits today-the first in a series of stand-alone haunted mysteries inspired by true stories.

Curiosity didn't kill the cat. It mutated it into a vigilante crime fighter.

Dan's cats are acting weird. One has grown into a strength powerhouse, the other wants to communicate... verbally. And now other kitties have begun to go missing from his quiet suburban street. Could the man in the parka that haunts a nearby industrial estate have answers? Or perhaps it's something to do with the strange disappearing woman in the woods? Can our hero figure out the conspiracy before it turns into a catastrophe?

There's Something Wrong With The Cats is a laugh-out-loud cozy science fiction mystery. If you like zeroes becoming heroes and twists that keep you guessing, you'll love this fun standalone novel.

Book 6 in Southern Beach Cozy Mystery

Sure, folks may say having your house on the Christmas Home Tour is murder.

But until now . . . did they really mean it?

Sophia Island is decked out for the season. White lights line the Centre Street buildings and every branch of the massive live oaks. Crowds prepare to descend on the small Florida island to see four historic houses decked out for the annual Christmas Home Tour.

Jewel Mantelle lives in one of those four homes, and it's her first Christmas on Sophia Island. Everyone says getting ready for the tour has been especially difficult this year. There's a newcomer at the helm of the steering committee who's making life for the selected homeowners miserable.

When a flock of flamingo lawn ornaments shows up on Jewel and Craig's lawn the morning of the tour, everyone is surprised. The flamingos are tacky. They're plastic. They definitely don't match the authentic historic Christmas aesthetic of the tour.

But most surprising? One of the flamingos, complete with Santa hat, is sitting on the chest of a dead person.

In this gripping installment of the Southern Beach Mystery series, join Jewel and her friends as they track down clues, face harrowing danger, and band with allies old and new to find out whodunit in time for the holidays.

December 1703 finds Berry Grigsby fallen victim to Professor Fell's involuntary drug experiments. Her mind is quickly deteriorating under the drug's influence, and the only way to save her is a potion book that was stolen in an attack on the village orchestrated by a mysterious madman going by the name Cardinal Black.

Matthew Corbett has volunteered to travel with Julian Devane, a self-proclaimed "fool and bad man" in the employ of Professor Fell, to hunt down the potion book. They follow the trail to London, where the book will be sold at a secret auction. Matthew and Julian manage to secure a seat at the auction by masquerading as respected and feared underground operatives, but to prevail in their high-stakes mission, they will require help from a very unlikely source. Even if they are successful, their race to save Berry Grigsby will leave a trail of destruction in its wake.

Cardinal Black is another extraordinary achievement from one of America's most skilled authors, and it features some of the most memorable, compelling, and chilling characters in the Matthew Corbett series to date, each with their own competing agendas. This masterful historical adventure is perfectly balanced for long-time fans of the series and new readers alike who are now joining the adventure.

A teen is snatched outside her kung fu class and must figure out how to escape--and rescue another kidnapped victim--in The Girl in the White Van, a chilling YA mystery by New York Times bestselling author April Henry.

When Savannah disappears soon after arguing with her mom's boyfriend, everyone assumes she's run away. The truth is much worse. She's been kidnapped by a man in a white van who locks her in an old trailer home, far from prying eyes.

And worse yet, Savannah's not alone: ten months earlier, Jenny met the same fate and nearly died trying to escape. Now as the two girls wonder if he will hold them captive forever or kill them, they must join forces to break out--even if it means they die trying.

Christy Ottaviano Books

The Forgotten Girls

The body of an unidentified woman has been discovered in a remote forest. A large, unique scar on one side of her face should make the identification easy, but nobody has reported her missing. Louise Rick, the new commander of the Missing Persons Department, waits four long days before pulling off a risky move: releasing a photo of the victim to the media, jeopardizing the integrity of the investigation in hopes of finding anyone who knew her.

The gamble pays off when a woman recognizes the victim as Lisemette, a child she cared for in the state mental institution many years ago. Lisemette was a "forgotten girl", abandoned by her family and left behind in the institution. But Louise soon discovers something even more disturbing: Lisemette had a twin, and both girls were issued death certificates more than thirty years ago.

Louise's investigation takes a surprising when it brings her closer to her childhood home. And as she uncovers more crimes that were committed--and hidden--in the forest, she is forced to confront a terrible link to her own past that has been carefully concealed. Set against a moody and atmospheric landscape, The Forgotten Girls is twisty, suspenseful, emotionally intense novel that secures Sara Blaedel's place in the pantheon of great thriller writers.

This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop--with a fabulous cast of quirky characters.

Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors--many from her grandmother's original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away.

To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win's father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown...