Two beautiful young women are found strangled, their bodies meticulously washed and groomed. The only thing they have in common: Both worked as reporters for local TV stations. A coincidence? Or something more sinister? Rookie Special Agent Shannon Ames is assigned to the case and soon impresses with her brilliant intuition and startling ability to think outside the box. But as Shannon takes a more prominent role in the investigation, she finds herself drawn into a deadly dance with a master of deception.

A young girl, Kasey, is murdered in the woods of northern New York, a strange symbol carved into her stomach. Investigator Reed Raleigh, Major Crimes, is tasked with finding the killer. Reed has his own troubles, but he desperately needs to solve this case—his own stepdaughter vanished when she was a teenager, and Reed knows all about the agony of having no closure. There's no way he's letting Kasey’s mother go through that. But as Reed begins to dig, the case grows ever more complex. Why is Kasey’s boyfriend acting so strangely? And why is her mother lying to the police?

Mike and Callie Simpkins moved north to restart their lives and get their finances back on track. Their son Braxton immerses himself in an online game-world of crime and gangs. When he decides to meet some of the players in the real world, tragedy strikes. Detective John Swift must untangle a web of virtual and real crimes in order to solve this complex mystery. And as the family copes with unimaginable grief, even Braxton’s stepfather, Mike, comes under suspicion.

A woman’s body is found floating in a sultry Florida mangrove. She has no ID, and there is no indication of cause of death. Who is she? Who killed her? Everyone has dark secrets that will be revealed. Rookie Detective Tom Lange couldn’t have landed a more difficult first case. The only thing he has to go on is the woman’s butterfly tattoo. His boss, Lauren Blythe, piles the pressure on, and the medical examiner won’t tell him what he needs to know.

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.

A girl with a secret. Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for the prom. For an athlete, who is smart, pretty and well-liked, this night that should be the highlight of her high school career. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the evening, that secret will be silenced forever. Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains a mystery. Her tight-knit group of friends closed ranks; her respected, wealthy family retreated inwards; the small town moved on from her grisly attack. But all that’s about to change.

In the remote forests of Stillwater, Minnesota, you can scream for days and no one will hear you. So when the bodies of two 15-year-old girls are discovered frozen in the snow, Special Agent Nikki Hunt is sure the killer is local: Someone knew where to hide the girls and thought they would never be found. Though Nikki hasn’t been home in 20 years, she knows she must take over the case.

Lily Bradley is a respected psychotherapist married to a distinguished professor. They live in a dream house with their two children in close-knit Story Cove. Lily lives a well-ordered life. Or so it seems. As a therapist, she knows everyone keeps things hidden. Even her. Then sensual and free-spirited Arwen Harper rolls into town in her hand-painted VW van, her sixteen-year-old son riding shotgun. Overnight, Story Cove’s secrets are no longer safe. Because Arwen might know her new neighbors better than they know themselves.

When actress and model Allison Langley leaves her former rockstar husband in the middle of the night, it’s all her Oak Hill neighbors can talk about. But the gossip comes to an abrupt halt when five-year-old Billy Barnes goes missing on his walk home from kindergarten. Billy’s mother, Rachel, blames herself for being at work and letting her only child walk alone. Cassidy, Billy’s teenage babysitter, was also late to arrive on the afternoon he disappeared and blames herself for his disappearance.

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.

Thomas Austin was once a prominent NYPD detective, known for locking up a psychopathic serial killer dubbed "The Holiday Baby Butcher". Now retired in a small beach town in the Pacific Northwest, Austin runs a little café, trying to overcome the loss of his wife, a DA who was gunned down only one year ago.

Amos Decker's life changed forever - twice. The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good and left him with an improbable side effect - he can never forget anything.

Former Super Bowl MVP quarterback Zach Bridger hasn’t seen his ex-wife, Rebecca Pratt, for some time—not since their volatile marriage imploded—so he’s shocked to receive a life-altering call about her. Rebecca has been placed on life support after a violent assault, and he—despite their divorce—has medical power-of-attorney. Zach is asked to make an impossible choice: keep her on life support or take her off of it. Buckling under the weight of the responsibility and the glare of public scrutiny, Zach ultimately walks away, letting Rebecca's parents have the final say.

Was the biggest case of his career the worst mistake he ever made? Ten years ago, DCI Jack Logan stopped the serial child-killer dubbed "Mister Whisper", earning himself a commendation, a drinking problem, and a broken marriage in the process...When another child disappears a hundred miles north in the Highlands, Jack is sent to lead the investigation and bring the boy home. But as similarities between the two cases grow, could it be that Jack caught the wrong man all those years ago?

Some mistakes can change your life forever. For Matt Hunter, that mistake came in one terrible moment when his attempt to help a friend and stop a fight resulted in an accidental death. Matt was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison. Time that his peers spent in college, Matt endured behind bars.

Mike and Callie Simpkins moved north to restart their lives and get their finances back on track. Their son Braxton immerses himself in an online game-world of crime and gangs. When he decides to meet some of the players in the real world, tragedy strikes. Detective John Swift must untangle a web of virtual and real crimes in order to solve this complex mystery. And as the family copes with unimaginable grief, even Braxton’s stepfather, Mike, comes under suspicion.

When Jace Montgomery comes home late from entertaining clients, he discovers that his wife, Tessa, is missing. There’s broken glass at the back door. Clumps of her hair. Blood. The cops in their small New Jersey town have him pegged as a suspect, especially after he explodes at a reporter during a press conference. Jace maintains his innocence despite the mounting evidence against him, but when a coworker he’s accused of having an affair with also disappears and a search warrant turns up an illegal gun in Jace’s home, all signs point to him as the culprit.

New Orleans Detective Quinn Conners is haunted by her father’s whiskey-soaked, last words—that he solved the Hudson murder and kidnapping. It wasn’t the first time he’d made that drunken claim, and she didn’t believe him. Twenty-four hours later she found him dead by his own hand.

When Tess Porter agrees to pick up her boyfriend’s college pal at the airport on a snowy December night, she has no idea she’s about to embark on the most dangerous ride of her life. Two days later, the seventeen-year-old wakes up in a hospital with broken bones, unable to remember how she got there. Her parents are acting strange, and neither James, her boyfriend, nor her best friend, Izzy, has visited. As she struggles to physically recover, Tess wrestles with haunting questions: What happened? Will her memory ever return? And what if she’s better off not recalling any of it?

On the surface, Delilah Reddick’s life looks perfect. Her husband is a pillar of the community, and with her as his quietly supportive wife, they appear to be the picture of success and happiness. But there are deep cracks in the foundation, dark secrets Delilah has never shared with anyone. Delilah knows what her husband is capable of when the evil inside him finds its way to the surface. In her quest to save her son, Delilah sets off a chain of events that could rock the community and reveal the darkest secret of them all.

If you’re a fan of Twilight Zone and Black Mirror, then you’ll love this bended and twisty psychological thriller! **Newly Edited** A movie producer… His beautiful yet barren wife… And one adopted child who turns his life into a terrifying nightmare! Russell Paraday lived a life many would admire. But as perfect as things looked from the outside, he and his wife lived a tormented life that threatened to destroy their precious bond. Unable to have children after a tragic miscarriage, the Paraday's try to cope with life as a childless couple. Wife Anne wants a complete family. Russell...

When Dionne married a nightclub owner, Luke Mason, a whisper in her ear told her she would have it all - the money, the house and the luxury lifestyle. But she never expected her life to turn upside down the day they became parents to twins....

Lily grew up on a farm and always considered herself resilient. But when the small town’s high school football hero is arrested and convicted for the attack, Lily and her family suffer retaliation from some of the community, enticing Lily to wrap herself in an opioid cloud. When she puts her daughters’ lives in jeopardy, the wake-up call motivates Lily to flush the narcotics and clean up her life. But the clarity she expects is overshadowed by unnerving memory lapses.

To anyone on their flight out of New York, they appear to be five best friends excited for a destination wedding in Miami. No one would guess that each of them has a reason to want the groom dead. Trevor Vaughn, the groom in question, wooed his bride-to-be by first becoming close with her friends—which is to say that he learned all of the five’s darkest, most dangerous secrets and blackmailed them into convincing Fiona to say “I do”. The friends were forced to convince a doubting Fiona to go through with the wedding, no matter what, and now the charade is set to continue.

Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, international bestseller and MWA Grandmaster Sara Paretsky has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.

Liam finally popped the question, and Emily said yes. But that very same night, Liam gets abducted . . . and wakes up to a nightmare. On a large estate in the middle of nowhere, Liam finds himself the object of a woman's twisted affections—and confined to a stone cell. A servant ignores him. A guard watches over him. Meanwhile, Emily struggles to take care of their newborn child and tries to find the strength to move on. Can Liam ever escape and recover the life that was stolen from him—or will this bizarre prison be the last place he ever sees?

Michael Flint promises he can find anyone, anytime, anywhere–dead or alive. Now he’s forced to prove it. More than $50 million in mineral royalties are up for grabs. The legal heir has disappeared. Two Texas oil barons who will stop at nothing to win their bitter rivalry desperately need to locate her before it’s too late. In a hunt stretching from dusty, hot West Texas to snowy Saskatchewan, Flint finds himself caught in the crossfire between dueling tycoons and greedy mercenaries out for their own piece of the pie.

Laura Swallow is dead. A life cut tragically short, says the newspaper obituary. But that's a lie. Estate agent Laura did not die in a car accident. She is alive and well. At first, Laura thinks it's a sick joke. But multiple announcements of her death are followed by increasingly sinister real-life events. Already fragile, struggling to recover from a recent divorce, Laura is plunged into a living nightmare. Who can she trust? Her new lover? Her clients and work colleagues? What about her ex-husband and his smug fiancee? Can Laura even rely on her best friends?

When Emma meets Matthew, a kind, handsome widower, he seems to be just what she needs. Yet as their relationship moves fast, Emma’s friends worry she might be exploited. She’s a rich woman after all. Emma doesn’t care Matthew has no money. But as the memory of his perfect first wife hangs over them, Emma does have one tiny doubt. If Matthew’s wife hadn’t died, he wouldn’t be with her. And Emma wonders if she’s second best. Can she ever fill the dead woman’s shoes?

When Julie Buckley, a successful mystery writer, suspects her husband of cheating, she turns to her best friend, Darby, for advice. When Darby suggests couples therapy, Julie and Oliver find themselves discussing Oliver’s betrayal with their new therapist, Liza. Liza is competent and reassuring, and her advice and Oliver’s openness to change seem to be helping the couple rebuild their relationship.