"Serial killer James Michael Barrett leads a grim parade of police officers, FBI agents, and forensics into the woods of Pine Valley, forty-five miles east of San Diego. At the end of the second week of his high-profile murder trial, he has struck a plea deal with the prosecution: he'll reveal the location of his last victim's body in exchange for the D.A. taking the death penalty off the table. As they reach the site, a light rain begins to fall,...

"In southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to a close. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. "Issues" is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether a local reporter should die. And the vote is four to one in favor. Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is doing a favor for a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning...

Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, Medical Examiner Claire Washburn, Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano, and crime writer Cindy Thomas are gathered at one of San Francisco's finest restaurants to celebrate a birthday and a wedding. Before they can raise their glasses, a violent assault breaks out. Claire examines the victim. Lindsay makes an arrest. Yuki takes the case. Cindy covers it. The legal strategy is complicated by gaps in the plaintiff's...

California, 1985. Four children, running through the woods after school, stumble upon a partially buried female body, eyes and mouth glued shut. Close behind the children is their teacher, Anne Navarre, shocked by this discovery and heartbroken as she witnesses the end of their innocence. What she doesn't yet realize is that this will mark the end of innocence for an entire community, as the ties that bind families and friends are tested by secrets...

"Dana Catrell is shocked when her neighbor Celia is brutally murdered. To Dana's horror, she was the last person to see Celia alive. Suffering from mania, the result of her bipolar disorder, she has troubling holes in her memory, including what happened on the afternoon of Celia's death. Her husband's odd behavior and the probing of Detective Jack Moss create further complications as she searches for answers. The closer she comes to piecing together...

"In the latest installment of the Killer Instinct series, seventeen-year-old Jenny is abducted in broad daylight and taken to a dilapidated, isolated house where she is chained and caged along with several other girls. Their captor is unpredictable, and as wily as he is cruel: he foils every one of their desperate attempts to escape... and once caught they rarely survive their punishment. Five years later, Jenny is found dead in a public park, and...

"Of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Sue Grafton, NPR's Maureen Corrigan said, "Makes me wish there were more than 26 letters." With only two letters left, Grafton's many devoted readers will share that sentiment. X: The number ten. An unknown quantity. A mistake. A cross. A kiss. X: The shortest entry in Webster's Unabridged. Derived from Greek and Latin and commonly found in science, medicine, and religion. The most graphically dramatic...

Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial discover that two seemingly unrelated cases--a hit-and-run "accident" and a celebrity killed during a fling with a prostitute--have a bizarre connection to a brutal crime from Las Vegas's shady past.

In a small Florida town, a young lawyer is shot to death. A young black man, a former client, named Quincy Miller is charged and convicted. For 22 years, Miller maintains his innocence from inside prison. Finally, Guardian Ministries takes on Miller's case, but the Episcopal minister in charge gets more than he bargained for as powerful people do not want Miller exonerated.

A female thief, with four husbands, a lover and, reportedly, over twelve children, is arrested and tried for the murder of her step-son in 1872, turning the small village of West Auckland in County Durham upside down. Other bodies are exhumed and when they are found to contain arsenic, she is suspected of their murder as well. The perpetrator, Mary Ann Cotton, was tried and found guilty and later hanged on 24 March 1873 in Durham Goal. It is claimed...