Alex and Susan Wendt are the perfect couple in search of the perfect brownstone-and they find their dream house in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric, and the handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the previous tenants. But the rent is so low, it's too good to pass up!Big mistake: Susan soon discovers that the brownstone is crawling with bedbugs... Or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. Exterminators search the property and turn up nothing. Neighbors insist the building is clean. Susan fears that she's going mad-but as the mysteries deepen, a more sinister explanation presents itself: She may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from hell.An understated horror story filled with loving references to Rosemary's Baby and other classic tales of urban paranoia, Bedbugs will keep your skin crawling into the wee hours of the night.Ben H. Winters is the New York Times best-selling author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Quirk, 2009). His most recent book, the YA novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (HarperCollins, 2010), was nominated for an Edgar Award.

A shocking vision of our future that is one part Minority Report and one part Chinatown.Lazlo Ratesic is 54, a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service, from a family of law enforcement and in a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else. This is how Laz must, by law, introduce himself, lest he fail to disclose his true purpose or nature, and by doing so, be guilty of a lie.Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth—the Objectively So—is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz’s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths—to “speculate” on what might have happened in the commission of a crime.But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.“Golden State is a prescient, devastating commentary on humanity’s disintegrating attachment to reality and truth, expertly told through the prism of a police-procedural, dystopian nightmare. Winters has written a 1984 for the 21st century. Not just a thrilling book, but an important one.”Blake Crouch, author of DARK MATTER and TV series WAYWARD PINES

An anthology of stories edited by Mary Higgins ClarkFrom Wall Street to Harlem, the borough of Manhattan is the setting for all-new stories of mystery, murder, and suspense, presented by best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark and featuring Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, S. J. Rozan, and other top Mystery Writers of America authors.In Lee Child's "The Picture of the Lonely Diner," legendary drifter Jack Reacher interrupts a curious stand-off in the shadow of the Flatiron Building. In Jeffery Deaver's "The Baker of Bleecker Street," an Italian immigrant becomes ensnared in WWII espionage. And in "The Five-Dollar Dress," Mary Higgins Clark unearths the contents of a mysterious hope chest found in an apartment on Union Square. With additional stories from T. Jefferson Parker, S. J. Rozan, Nancy Pickard, Ben H. Winters, Brendan DuBois, Persia Walker, Jon L. Breen, N. J. Ayres, Angela Zeman, Thomas H. Cook, Judith Kelman, Margaret Maron, Justin Scott, and Julie Hyzy,Manhattan Mayhem is teeming with red herrings, likely suspects, and thoroughly satisfying mysteries.

There has been a shocking crime at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School.In a glass case in the front hall, a trophy—the trophy, the first trophy ever won in the school’s lackluster competitive history—has been stolen.Even more horrifying, an outraged Principal Van Vreeland has canceled everything fun until the trophy is back, including the eighth graders’ long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime field trip to Taproot Valley. Rock climbing, ropes courses, ecology hikes, s’mores… all gone!Luckily, Bethesda Fielding is on the case. As self-appointed sleuth extraordinaire, Bethesda’s confident she’ll be able to track down the culprit in no time and save her class trip! Except it seems like the more she searches for answers, the more mysteries she reveals…. Can Bethesda solve this baffling mystery—or are the eighth graders doomed for a Week of a Thousand Quizzes instead?

Homework, hormones, heartache… middle school has no shortage of perils. Never fear, the authors of the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario series return with a survival guide for those who are facing—or just about to face—this big transitional time in school and life. The handbook is packed with funny-but-useful tips for the trickiest situations that crop up in middle school, like taking charge of a too-busy homework schedule, dealing with a cold shoulder from a friend who has suddenly become just too cool, avoiding common e-mail and cell phone disasters, and more.