Janie Klassyn was only 14 years old when she made the blood pact with her friends. She could never imagine she was setting in motion the horrifying crime that would tear her peaceful prairie town apart. Twenty years later in California, school counselor Emma Grant struggles to keep her past buried. But when she finds a note on her car threatening to reveal her secret, it becomes harder to keep up the deception. Even her teenage stepdaughter suspects that Emma is hiding something.

Cal Hudson knows the world can be an ugly place. As a reporter for a big Chicago newspaper, he's journeyed into the darkest corners to expose the vilest crimes, but the world he and his devoted wife, Faith, share is much nicer. They've made sure of it, creating a tranquil haven in suburban River Ridge to protect their precious nine-year-old son. But then the unthinkable happens: he vanishes. In a split second at a local carnival, their storybook world begins unraveling.

Jason Wade struggles with his haunting past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish? Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding's disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him.

Life can change in an instant. For Ryan and Karen Lane, it happens on the morning they discover their 12-year-old daughter’s window open, their beloved Maddie missing from her bed. Police investigate. Suspicions swirl. A teenage boy admits he was outside her bedroom window the night she disappeared. A halfway house for convicts recently opened in the neighborhood. The Lane family is thrown into turmoil, and then the detectives turn their sights on them.

Perfect wife. Doting mom. Jennifer Griffin was loved by everyone, including the women in her suburban-neighborhood book club. Their meetings sometimes went late, but Jenn always came home. Until that night. When Greg Griffin wakes to find his wife is not in bed, his blood runs cold. Her book club friends say Jenn left for home hours ago. But she’s missing. Greg tells detectives their marriage is good, but his alibi is razor-thin. With their young son away at a sleepover, Greg had all night to commit a crime. And there are scrapes on his hands…

Jeff Griffin, a mechanic, and his wife, Sarah, travel from Montana to Manhattan to give their nine-year-old son, Cole, his dream vacation as they secretly face the heart-wrenching turmoil that has them teetering on divorce. In the wake of their heartbreak, a mother and son disappear. While sightseeing near Times Square, Jeff steps into a store to buy batteries for their camera - but upon returning to the street he finds that Sarah and Cole have vanished. Battling his anguish and police suspicions, Jeff fights to rescue them.

When a teen falls while taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff, the last thing she sees before plummeting to her death is Katie Harmon, the nine-year-old girl she was babysitting, looking down at her. Investigators gather at the scene, and Katie’s mother, Sara, rushes to comfort her daughter. Yet there’s a small, secret ping of alarm in Sara’s heart that she cannot share—though rookie detective Kim Pierce senses it. For years, others have tried to unravel this secret. Now, Sara is consumed by her darkest fear—that the babysitter’s death was not an accident.

Into the Fire introduces Ray Wyatt, a veteran reporter grappling with the tragic loss of his wife and son while searching for answers in the crime stories he covers. Hikers find a traumatized boy wandering in a remote corner of New York's Adirondack Mountains. Retracing his steps to a cabin, they make a terrifying discovery that leads to an investigation entangling crime reporter Ray Wyatt and FBI Special Agent Jill McDade. Wyatt is dispatched to cover the disturbing case, while still haunted by the loss of his son and wife years earlier.

When Agent Nadine Finch gets the call about the broken body of a young woman found drifting in Sarasota Bay, Florida, she pretends it’s just another case: but deep down, she’s lying to herself. Even though she changed her name, Nadine has always known her family’s dark past would catch up with her eventually.

I’d heard of the Baby Caroline case, of course. When a baby is snatched from her mother’s arms, the whole country knows about it. I knew about the parents left lying by the swimming pool, the open window in the nursery. But I never dreamed it had anything to do with me. Today, my beautiful daughter turned one. We were unwrapping gifts and blowing out candles when the knock came at the door, and they took my mother away. The police say she’s not really my mother. That she stole me, 30 years ago.

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will - searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier.

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 does her head feel crowded and loud? Why do her memories feel both foreign and familiar? Her self-doubt spirals into crippling paranoia.

Rose Dennis wakes up in a hospital gown, her brain in a fog, only to discover that she's been committed to an Alzheimer's unit in a nursing home. With no memory of how she ended up in this position, Rose is sure something is very wrong. When she overhears one of the administrators saying about her that she's "not making it through the week", Rose is convinced that if she's to survive, she has to get out of the nursing home. She avoids taking her medication, putting on a show for the aides, then stages her escape. But how does she convince anyone that she's not actually demented?

Kit Darling is a maid with a snooping problem. She’s the “invisible girl,” compelled to poke into her wealthy clients’ closely guarded lives. It’s a harmless hobby until Kit sees something she can’t unsee in the home of her brand-new clients: a secret so dark it could destroy the privileged couple expecting their first child. This makes Kit dangerous to the couple. In turn, it makes the couple—who might kill to keep their secret—dangerous to Kit.

When Nigel Baxter, a middle-aged married banker with an unremarkable past, is found dead in the bath of a plush hotel suite, his wrists slit, it looks as if he's taken his own life. At first. But when Detective Inspector Daniel Riley is assigned to the case, he soon realises all isn't as it first appears to be. When a postmortem shows Baxter was poisoned, Riley suspects foul play. And then there's the odd addition of a teddy bear left at the crime scene....

As raging floodwaters engulf her Louisiana hometown, Nola Landry is stranded on high ground, the unwitting witness to the brutal murder of three fellow survivors. Finally rescued in the aftermath of the storm, no one is willing to believe a story as horrific as hers - until three FBI agents arrive on the scene...one of whom Nola knows very well. Tate Benton has been tracking the so-called Stormchaser serial killer for months, never expecting the trail might lead him home, or to the woman he cannot forget.

Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared 15 years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend, Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he's maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station.

When a local girl falls prey to a sadistic serial killer, Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson and her lover, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, find themselves in a joint investigation pursuing a vicious murderer. The Southern Strangler is slaughtering his way through the Southeast, leaving a gruesome memento at each crime scene – the prior victim’s severed hand.

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She's an officer in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number 17 in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived. When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday - the day she was kidnapped so long ago - Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous.

When a vibrant young woman is found in bed by her hotshot businessman husband, carved from belly to throat with a very sharp knife, the elite Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD responds in full force. Best-case scenario for lead Detective Lena Gamble: Nikki Brant's husband killed her, case closed, and on to the next crime scene before the ravenous Hollywood media can get their lurid tabloid machinery up and running.

For most of his life, William Chance has been the living proof that his grandmother and her fellow missing-persons researchers were right all along about the terror from the stars. Now, he's avoiding the limelight and hiding out from everyone, including his family. He knows he can avoid everything, except for the nightmares: fires, storms, disease, and violence - he dreams of it all. When he's suddenly exposed, he finds that the media, government operatives, and renegade true believers are desperate to find him, but he has another mission.

When district attorney Tory Carson returns home after a long day in court prosecuting a gang leader, she finds her house trashed. Concerned that the vandalism is connected to the trial, the local police chief calls the Texas Rangers...and her former love, Cade Morgan, responds. Tory's history with Cade - and the secret they share - makes her reluctant to let him back into her life. But Tory doesn't want to choose between bringing down a gang leader and protecting her teenage daughter.

A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen. His calling card is a “chestnut man” - a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts - which he leaves at each bloody crime scene. Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery - a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago. A tragic coincidence - or something more twisted? To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues.

There are people in Edgewater, Oregon, who think that twenty years ago, Rachel Gaston got away with murder. But Rachel still has no idea how a foolish teenaged game turned deadly - or who replaced her soft pellet air gun with a real weapon. When a figure jumped out at her from the darkness, she fired without thinking. By the time she recognized her half-brother, Luke, it was too late.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Luke Kingsley’s glory days are behind him. A star on the rise, his life and career imploded after his soul singer wife, Lisa Hayes, disappeared without a trace, silencing a very public and tumultuous marriage. Most people, especially an avenging PI, think Luke got away with murder. The last thing he expects is to be pulled back from the brink by a starstruck stranger.

In less than half a minute, a home-security camera captures the hidden resolve in 14-year-old Carly Liddell as she fends off a vicious attack just inside her own front door. The video of her heroic escape appears Online and goes viral. As the view count climbs, the lives of four desperate people will be forever changed by what’s just barely visible in the corner of the shot. Carly’s stepfather is spurred to protect his darkest secret: how a stolen painting - 400 years old, by a master of the Dutch Golden Age - has come to hang in his suburban foyer.

Anna loves Girls’ Night with her friends. With the kids safely in bed, it’s a chance for the women to let loose, enjoy some wine, and just laugh. But after one lively evening, Anna doesn’t arrive for school drop-off the next morning—or the next, or the next. Everyone, especially her husband and young son, is frantic with worry, but none more so than Grace, her childhood best friend. Grace is certain that someone is hiding the truth about Anna’s unexplained disappearance.

"Your daughter is dead." When Kat Cavanaugh hears the words every mother dreads, her perfect world shatters. She takes in the beautiful long blonde hair, torn yellow dress, and chipped blue nail-varnish. It can’t be real. And then the police add the word "suicide". But Kat refuses to believe them. Even when they show her the familiar looping handwriting and smudged ink on the note her little girl left behind. She knows her bubbly, vivacious daughter would never take her own life.

She is a stay-at-home mother-of-three with boundless reserves of patience, energy, and love. After being friends for a decade, this is how Liz sees Jess. Then one moment changes everything. Dark thoughts and carefully guarded secrets surface—and Liz is left questioning everything she thought she knew about her friend, and about herself. The truth can’t come soon enough.

Laura has returned to work at Morris and Wood after her maternity leave, only to discover that the woman she brought in to cover for her isn’t going anywhere. Despite her close relationship with the agency’s powerful CEO, she feels sidelined - and outmaneuvered - as she struggles to balance the demands of work and motherhood.

My life has never been better. I have a beautiful little girl, and I am engaged to be married to the man I’ve had a crush on since I can remember. So when Nick, my handsome fiancé, announces that his sister Carla is finally coming home, it’s truly the icing on the cake. That was twelve years ago, and no one has seen her since. Everyone is ecstatic about Carla’s return. But as I spend more time with her, I can't shake the feeling that something isn't right. Her behavior is a little off, her childhood memories don't align with mine, and she's oddly evasive about her lost years.

Detective Jake Jackson left London for a quiet life in Caelum Parvum. The idyllic country village offers the peace he craves—tending to his chickens, swimming in his lake, and spending long, lazy evenings with his new love, Livia. It’s the perfect setting for their relationship to blossom. Then a case from the past re-emerges, shattering the calm and plunging Jake into the shadowy world of No Taboo—a clandestine group which serves the extravagant whims of Britain’s elite.

Your husband was involved in a fatal accident. One horrific sentence, delivered in an impersonal phone call, changes Celine Thompson’s life in a second. But when she’s asked to identify his body, what she discovers sends everything she thought she knew about her life crashing down. This man is not my husband. But who was the man who died driving Tate’s car? How did he have Tate’s possessions and, more importantly, why do they sport identical tattoos?

Jennifer Barnes never expected the shocking news she received at a routine doctor’s appointment: she has a terminal brain tumor - and only six weeks left to live. While stunned by the diagnosis, the 48-year-old mother decides to spend what little time she has left with her family - her adult triplets and twin grandsons - close by her side. But when she realizes she was possibly poisoned a year earlier, she’s determined to discover who might have tried to get rid of her before she’s gone for good.

Deadly fires are lighting up Brighton, and the latest case is alarmingly close to home for DC Eve Starling. The blaze was deliberately set, and a mother and daughter didn’t make it out of the smoke. Eve’s investigation takes her deep into her own uncomfortable past. When her key witness disappears, and with the killer always one step ahead, Eve is desperate to solve the case – whatever the cost. But Eve has no idea how close she is to the flames, and playing with fire can get you burned…

My husband is a doctor. He’s smart and charming, and everybody trusts him. Except me. On the surface, it looks like I have it all–the perfect marriage, the perfect husband, the perfect life. But it’s far from the truth. Doctor Drew Devlin is not the respectable figure he makes out to be. The reason we moved to this beautiful, old property with a gorgeous view of the sea was because we needed to put our past behind us. It should’ve been a fresh start for us both.

A secret government unit is formed under the oversight of Adam Harrison, famed paranormal investigator. The case: In a historic mansion in New Orleans’ French Quarter, a senator’s wife falls to her death from a balcony. Most think she jumped, distraught over the loss of her young son. Some say she was pushed. And yet others believe she was beckoned by the ghostly spirits that inhabit the house - once the site of a serial killer’s grisly work.

For San Francisco’s newest medical examiner, Dr. Jessie Teska, it was supposed to be a fresh start. A new job in a new city. A way to escape her own dark past. Instead, she faces a chilling discovery when an opioid-overdose case contains hints of something more sinister. Jessie’s superiors urge her to close the case, but as more bodies land on her autopsy table, she uncovers a constellation of deaths that point to an elaborate plot involving drug dealers and Bitcoin brokers.

With one unexpected email from her estranged best friend, Lucy, Mina Murray’s carefully curated life is turned upside down. Leaving behind her psychiatric practice in London, along with her routine and the calm it brings, she returns to the windswept shores of Wales. Faced with everything she’s left behind, she soon discovers that Lucy’s symptoms mirror those of her mysterious patient with amnesia hundreds of miles away.