Matt and Elena Thompson present the picture of perfection. But their enviable life isn’t all it seems. Their marriage is on the rocks, and financial disaster looms. Then Matt is killed in a hunting accident, and the questions and accusations begin to mount.

Steven James' Christy Award-nominated crime thriller pits FBI Special Agent Bowers against a serial killer who enjoys torturing women. After visiting the mountain vistas where the murderer posed his dead victims, Bowers receives a taunting call from the "Illusionist." Although Bowers gets close, his insidious foe continues to elude him.

As a former smokejumper, arson investigator Bri Tucker knows her way around fires. But after a mysterious blaze takes the life of a former colleague, Bri inherits a curious puzzle from him that raises questions about several fiery deaths. Someone, however, doesn’t want her picking up where he left off in search of answers. When she teams up with ATF Special Agent Marc Davis to solve the puzzle, the case heats up—as does the attraction between them.

Everyone, regardless of their background and training, can improve their storytelling abilities. But what is a story? How can you tell it in a way that delights and informs your listeners? Take a journey into the keys to great storytelling with two of the country’s top experts on story presentation and speech writing.

The isolated town of Beldon, Wisconsin, is shocked when a high school freshman’s body is found in Lake Algonquin. Just like everyone in the community, 16-year-old Daniel Byers believes that Emily Jackson’s death was accidental. But at her funeral, when he has a terrifying vision of her, his world begins to rip apart at the seams. Convinced that Emily’s appearance was more than just a mere hallucination, Daniel begins to look carefully into her death, even as he increasingly loses the ability to distinguish fantasy from reality.

One man must uncover the truth - even when others will stop at nothing to keep it buried. While covertly investigating a controversial neurological research program, exposé filmmaker Jevin Banks is drawn into a far-reaching conspiracy involving one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms. Jevin is seeking not only answers about the questionable mind-to-mind communication program but also answers to his own family tragedy.

EMS helicopter pilot Penny Carlton is used to high stress situations, but being forced to land on a mountain in a raging storm with a critical patient - and a serial killer on the loose - tests her skills and her nerve to the limit. She survives with FBI Special Agent Holt Satterfield's help. But she's not out of the woods yet.

Before he was considered a CIA superagent, before he was thought of as a terrorist's worst nightmare, and before he was both loathed and admired by the politicians on Capitol Hill, Mitch Rapp was a gifted college athlete without a care in the world...and then tragedy struck.

No sooner has Alexis Stone been sworn in as the interim sheriff for Russell County, Tennessee, when a serial killer dubbed the Queen's Gambit Killer strikes again—this time in her hometown. Pearl Springs is just supposed to be a temporary stop along the way to Alex's real dream: becoming the first female police chief of Chattanooga. But the killer's calling card—a white pawn and a note with a chess move printed on it—cannot be ignored.

High school teacher Tyson Cooper is just dismissing his class when a student flashes his phone. "Another shooting, Mr. C." And this one is too close to home. Tyson races to Pioneer Square...but he's too late. The light of his life has been snuffed out—and so has his faith. Veteran Portland PD Investigator Wayne Deetz, two years shy of retirement, is charged with leading the interrogations. When he meets 19-year-old shooter Rogan Sneed face-to-face, his life is changed eternally.

Tracy Crosswhite has spent 20 years questioning the facts surrounding her sister Sarah’s disappearance and the murder trial that followed. She doesn’t believe that Edmund House - a convicted rapist and the man condemned for Sarah’s murder - is the guilty party. Motivated by the opportunity to obtain real justice, Tracy became a homicide detective with the Seattle PD and dedicated her life to tracking down killers.

When the long-awaited reunion between Risa and her brother, Trenton, ends in tragedy, Risa is riddled with guilt, unable to cope with the responsibility she feels over his death. On leave from the FBI, Risa returns to her former career as an English teacher at a local college, only to see her past and present collide when one of her students, Carson Mercury, turns in an assignment that reads like an eyewitness account of her brother’s murder, with details never revealed publicly.

The discovery of two teenagers ritualistically murdered in a secluded Austin park outrages a nation already on the brink of tearing itself apart. The victims are the latest in an epidemic of deaths linked to a mysterious, underground virtual game known only as Play Dead. Enter a psychological thriller ripped from tomorrow's headlines that will haunt you until the last line. It is said that nothing is as it seems in the halls of power and that some truths are far too dangerous for the common man. Until now.

Ex-FBI profiler River Ryland still suffers from PTSD after a case went horribly wrong. Needing a fresh start, she moves to St. Louis to be near her ailing mother and opens a private investigation firm with her friend and former FBI partner, Tony St. Clair. They're soon approached by a grieving mother who wants them to find out what happened to her teenaged son, who disappeared four years ago. River knows there's almost no hope the boy is still alive, but his mother needs closure, and River and Tony need a case, no matter how cold it might be.

When Mia Blackburn returns to Shadow Lake to inherit her uncle’s property, she doesn’t expect a threatening warning before she even reaches the rustic resort. And when a fire traps her in the burning barn that very day, she fears she won’t get out alive. Just in time, Ryan Maddox, her ex-boyfriend and Shadow Lake Survival owner, rescues her from the deadly blaze. She’s thankful for his rescue, but after their tumultuous breakup, he’s the last person she wants to see.

This original short story takes us back in time to show us how it all began. On a whirlwind, action-packed thriller ride through Italy, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, it shows us the beginning of CIA operative Agent Zero's career - and brings us up to the fateful moment when his memory came to be lost.

After years of paying her dues on the force, Beth Sturgis has earned her place as a detective for the Robbery-Homicide division of the Atlanta PD. Now, she's heading up a major manhunt for a potential serial killer who's working his way inward from the outskirts of the city. The copycat elements in the first crime scene lead Sturgis to retired FBI agent Jack Kale, who was responsible for apprehending and nearly killing the murderer known as the Scarecrow, the same Scarecrow who appears to be this new killer's terrible inspiration.

Matthew Riker keeps to himself, doesn't cause trouble, and never talks about his past. But after a chance encounter with a woman and a small child on the run, Riker will have to make a choice: use his hard-won skills to protect two innocent victims, or stay in the safety of his quiet life. What follows is an adrenaline-soaked thrill ride that will take Riker on a cross-country chase, through the seedy underbelly of a New York criminal empire, and into the darkest places of the human heart.

As an employee of MacBain Securities and Solutions, Claire Kelly can certainly hold her own. Armed with an impressive set of covert skills, she’s more than prepared to tackle any job that comes her way...except one involving Cooper Lockman. Cooper and Claire used to work together before his feelings for her sent him packing to Europe for six long years. But now he’s back and determined to ignore the still-smoldering heat that lingers between them. Their current mission: go undercover together at a California high school to root out the mastermind behind a prostitution ring.

Get ready for triple the excitement, intrigue, and romance with three heart-stopping stories from your favorite romantic suspense authors!

When FBI agent Jack Shannon arrives in Corpus Christi, Texas, he is focused on one thing: finding the man who has been selling encrypted government secrets to the Chinese through online birding chat rooms. But when a senator is shot during a hunting trip and the woman he was with is abducted, Jack agrees to join the search - especially when he discovers that the kidnapping victim is Aubrey Grayson, a woman he was once in love with. As the search continues, it becomes clear the senator may not have been the intended victim....

Steven James' Christy Award-nominated crime thriller pits FBI Special Agent Bowers against a serial killer who enjoys torturing women. After visiting the mountain vistas where the murderer posed his dead victims, Bowers receives a taunting call from the "Illusionist." Although Bowers gets close, his insidious foe continues to elude him.

From the New York Times best-selling author of Comes the Dark, Stealing Faces, The Shadow Hunter, and Last Breath comes psychological thriller Next Victim. This time Prescott really outdoes himself as an FBI agent closes in on the serial killer who murdered her lover - just as the killer gets his hands on a chemical weapon that could raise his body count to thousands of victims.

Harper Winston’s brother has disappeared. Pursuing his dream of sailing the Caribbean, Michael hasn’t responded to texts or emails in days. When even the Coast Guard can’t find him, Harper is forced to take desperate measures. Which means going to Chase Garrett, once her brother’s best friend, now the only man she can trust...or so she hopes.

Meet Jake Oliver. The day will come when he's one of the best cleaners in the business, a man skilled at making bodies disappear. At the moment, however, he's a 22 year old rookie cop, unaware his life is about to change. In a burning barn a body is found--and the fire isn't the cause of death. The detectives working the case have a pretty good idea about what went down. But Officer Oliver thinks it's something else entirely, and pursues a truth others would prefer remain hidden - others who will go to extreme lengths to keep him quiet.

Koenig has been on the run for six years. Now suddenly his face is on every television screen in the country and his cover is blown. A woman has gone missing, and her father will do anything to find her. He wants Koenig to discover what happened, no matter the cost.

I quit my job. I walked away from everything I knew. I couldn't lose anyone else. Not again. Working for James Martin wasn't supposed to be complicated or lethal. Too bad someone wanted him dead, and I was the only thing standing in the way. When eccentric playboy CEO James Martin's life is threatened, he decides to hire Alexis Parker, an attractive, feisty, former federal agent, to be his new security consultant and personal bodyguard.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy, investigative journalist Rooker Lindström finds a grim hideaway from the world. It’s the dilapidated cabin on Minnesota’s Deer Lake bequeathed to him by his late father—one of the most notorious serial killers in the state. If the walls of this murder house could talk, they’d scream. Detective Tess Harlow needs something from Rooker only he can provide: a window into the mind of a murderer. A copycat is on the prowl, following in the footsteps of Rooker’s father.

Attorney Maureen Gould has a dark secret and a hunger for justice. When a powerful movie producer attacks, and then fires, his young female assistant, Maureen sets out to make things right. Enter defense counsel and Maureen's estranged father, Frank Gould, a man more evil than his client. Inside and outside of the courtroom, Frank pulls every dirty trick known and makes up a few of his own.

Seven years ago, everyone in the world went blind in a matter of months. Technology helped people adjust to the new normal, creating a device that approximates vision, downloading visual data directly to people’s brains. But what happens when someone finds a way to hack it and change what people see? Homicide detective Mark Owens has been on the force since before The Blinding. When a scientist is murdered, and the only witness insists the killer was blacked out of her vision, Owens doesn’t believe her—until a similar murder happens in front of him.

In McFalls County, local crime boss Gareth Burroughs runs everything on the mountain. And Nelson “Nails” McKenna has been his enforcer since he was a teenager, though his heart's not really in the dirty work. Then one night in a local roadhouse, Nails goes too far, defending a woman, and even Burroughs’s reach can’t get him out of this one. With a dead body and countless witnesses, Nails and the woman become fugitives on the run, and unlikely partners.

Four years in, Stevie and Nate’s true-crime podcast, All the Gory Details, is forced onto hiatus when their conclusions in their first-ever episode, about the unsolved murder of teenager Lauren in their hometown seventeen years ago, are proven wrong. Their mistake ruined a life, and Stevie and Nate are still reeling from the consequences. Still, when a fresh murder frighteningly similar to Lauren’s is brought to their attention, Nate is adamant that they should resurrect the podcast.

Vivian Parry likes the dark. A former actress, she now works as the junior theater critic at a major Manhattan magazine. Her nights are spent beyond the lights, in a reserved seat, giving herself over to the shows she loves. By day, she savages them, with words sharper than a knife. Angling for a promotion, she reluctantly agrees to an interview, a conversation that reveals secrets she thought she had long since buried. Then her interviewer disappears and she learns―from his devastated fiancée―that she was the last person to have seen him alive.

When Amy moves to Manhattan and starts her dream job at a top advertising agency, she thinks she’s found a perfect new life. But someone is watching her. This mysterious “best friend” sends her creepy text messages…and murders coworkers who stand in her way. As the body count rises, the brutal crimes threaten to expose the deadly secrets of her past. Amy finds an unlikely ally in a handsome executive, but can she trust him, or is he just a pawn in the killer's lethal game?

When she was thirteen years old, Samantha Newsom’s family was murdered and their Catskills farmhouse set ablaze in an unsolved crime that left nothing behind but ashes. Twenty-two years later, Sam is pulled back to her hometown of Carney, New York, under the shadows of the grim tragedy she’s never forgotten or forgiven. Authorities mishandled the evidence, false rumors were seeded about her family, suspects yielded nothing, and the case went cold. Not anymore. Investigator Travis Meacham has been assigned to the case, and he has news for Sam....

Moving from Boston to remote Bearkill, Maine, isn't homicide cop Lizzie Snow's idea of a step up. But breaking away from tragedy and personal betrayal is at least a step in the right direction. Her dead sister's fate still torments her, as does her long-missing niece's disappearance. The town is full of people who see everything, say little, and know more than they'll share with an outsider.

Some doors were never meant to be opened. Some tales were never meant to be set free. When seventeen-year-old Sahara O’Saughnessy discovers a rift into the realm of lore, the most haunting stories she’s been telling her friends come to life, and she must find a way to stop them before they tear her world apart.

The case is a macabre, ritualistic murder—a teen-aged boy from a wealthy family whose body was found without a drop of blood left in it. But the murder is just the start. A high-ranking executive and daughter of one of the richest men in Spain is kidnapped, a crime which is tied to the previous murder. Behind them both is a hidden mastermind with even more sinister plans. And the only person with a chance to see the connections, solve the crimes and successfully match wits with the killer before tragedy strikes again...is Antonia Scott.

In scenic Granite Harbor, life has continued on—quiet and serene—for decades. That is until a local teenager is found brutally murdered in the Settlement, the town’s historic archaeological site. Alex Brangwen, adjusting to life as a single father with a failed career as a novelist, is the town’s sole detective. This is his first murder case and, as both a parent and detective, Alex knows the people of Granite Harbor are looking to him to catch the killer and temper the fear that has descended over the town.

Sir Lawrence Linwood is dead. More accurately, he was murdered—savagely beaten to death in his own study with a mediaeval mace. The murder calls home his three adopted children: Alan, an archeologist; Roger, an engineer; and Caroline, a journalist. But his heirs soon find that his last testament contains a strange proviso—that his estate shall go to the heir who solves his murder.