Thrills Chills Murder and More

A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.

Innocent in Death

By J. D. Robb

Investigating the baffling murder case of an ordinary and much-loved private school teacher, New York City lieutenant Eve Dallas struggles to identify who may have wanted the death of an innocent man.

The Tin Roof Blowdown

By James Lee Burke

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Treasure of Khan

By Clive Cussler

When an oil survey team is abducted after a suspicious accident, Dirk Pitt follows leads to Mongolia, where he learns about a megalomaniac's plot to supply oil to China and to undermine global oil markets. By the author of Black Wind. 500,000 first printing.

Past Perfect

By Susan Isaacs

Having been fired from her CIA dream job without an explanation thirteen years earlier, cable television writer Katie Schottland is enlisted for help by a former colleague who offers insight into the mystery of Katie's dismissal. By the author of Any Place I Hang My Hat. 150,000 first printing.

Promise Not to Tell

By Jennifer McMahon

Returning to her small home town in Vermont to care for her Alzheimer's patient mother, reserved forty-one-year-old nurse Kate finds herself inadvertently drawn into the murder investigation of a young girl, a case that reminds her of the death of an impoverished childhood friend years earlier.

The Overlook

By Michael Connelly

Near Mulholland Drive, Dr. Stanley Kent is found shot twice in the back of the head. It's the case LAPD detective Harry Bosch has been waiting for, his first since being recruited to the Homicide Special Squad. When he discovers that Kent had access to dangerous radioactive substances, what begins as a routine investigation becomes something darker, more deadly, and frighteningly urgent. Bosch is soon in conflict with not only his superiors but the FBI, which thinks the case is too important for just a cop. Complicating his job even more is the presence of Agent Rachel Walling, his onetime lover. Now guarding one slim advantage, Bosch relentlessly follows his own instincts, hoping they are still sharp enough to find the truth--and a killer who can annihilate an entire city.

Scorpion

By Jack Stewart

DEA agent Bill Broxton is assigned to protect the Prime Minister of Trinidad from an assassin. He doesn't know that his fiancée is the killer.

Dead Ringer

By Ken Douglas

"Maggie Nesbitt is pregnant and depressed, because her husband isn't the father of her unborn child. She's thinking about abortion when she's attacked on the beach. She barely gets away, then gets the shock of her life the next morning when she sees that she has been killed on the news and that her nude body had been dumped in the trash behind a beachside bar. She finds out the body behind the bar is the twin sister she'd been told had died when she was two weeks old. She also learns her twin was divorced from a horrid man and that she had an eight-year-old daughter, Jasmine. Maggie, showing a bump on her head she got while getting away from her attackers, claims partial amnesia and steps into her dead twin's life. This way she can have her baby, give it a home, and save Jasmine from having to go and live with her father. But she doesn't know her twin saw someone do murder. And that someone thinks he's killed the wrong woman."--Publisher description

Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Betrayal

By Eric Lustbader

Rescuing a fellow agent who had been tracking shipments of nuclear materials, CIA agent Jason Bourne is plagued by confusing flashbacks of unfamiliar places and events that make him wonder if his memory has been altered. 400,000 first printing.

Act of Treason

By Vince Flynn

When a presidential candidate wins the election through sympathy votes two weeks after a terrorist attack kills his wife, CIA operative Mitch Rapp investigates dangerous allegations about the attack's hidden agenda, a case that threatens the government's stability. By the author of Consent to Kill. 500,000 first printing.

Death's Little Helpers

By Peter Spiegelman

In this masterful follow-up to Peter Spiegelman’s stunning debut Black Maps, private investigator John March finds himself drawn into a web of corruption that extends from the halls of high finance to the dark underworld of organized crime. Gregory Danes, a Wall Street analyst has gone missing, and his ex-wife, a fashionable painter, calls March to track him down. She just wants him to sign her alimony checks, but as March soon discovers, she’s not the only one looking for him. Danes was once an industry hot shot, but has lost his touch. His biggest gains lately, it seems, had been in enemies–including a few members of the Russian mob. When March receives a threat upon his own family, he realizes Danes had been involved in something far more dangerous than insider trading.

Honeymoon

By James Patterson

In his sexiest, scariest novel yet, James Patterson deftly confirms that he always "takes thrills to the next level" (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). When FBI agent John O'Hara first sees Nora Sinclair, she seems perfect. She has the looks. The career. The clothes. The wit. The sophistication. The tantalizing sex appeal. The whole extraordinary package-and men fall in line to court her. She doesn't just attract men, she enthralls them. So why is the FBI so interested in Nora Sinclair? Mysterious things keep happening to people around her, especially the men. And there is something dangerous about Nora when Agent O'Hara looks closer-something that lures him at the same time that it fills him with fear. Is there something dark hidden among the unexplained gaps in her past? And as he spends more and more time getting to know her, is he pursuing justice? Or his own fatal obsession? With the irresistible attraction of the greatest Hitchcock thrillers, Honeymoon is a sizzling, twisting tale of a woman with a deadly appetite and the men who dare to fall for her.

Simple Genius

By David Baldacci

Checking into a psychiatric institution, former Secret Service agent Michelle Maxwell is worriedly monitored by partner Sean King, who distracts himself with a murder investigation at a genius enclave where a sophisticated microprocessor is being develope

Sacred Games

By Vikram Chandra

Receiving an anonymous tip that promises to lead to the capture of a powerful criminal overlord, Bombay police officer Sartaj Singh finds himself nearing his goal when he realizes that he and the crime lord's imminent confrontation is part of a more sinister, global agenda.