**Two families. One courtroom showdown. • John Grisham's most gripping thriller yet. • "A legal literary legend." -- *USA Today***

**The #1 *New York Times* bestselling author returns to Mississippi with the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Grisham's trademark twists and turns will keep you tearing through the pages until the stunning conclusion.**

For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia.

Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood...

The Bridges of Madison County is a 1992 best-selling novel by Robert James Waller which tells the story of a married but lonely Italian woman, living in 1960s Madison County, Iowa, who engages in an affair with a National Geographic photographer from Bellingham, Washington who is visiting Madison County in order to create a photographic essay on the covered bridges in the area. The novel is presented as a novelization of a true story, but it is in fact entirely fiction. However, the author has stated in an interview that there are strong similarities between the main character and himself.The novel is one of the bestselling books of the twentieth century, with 50 million copies sold worldwide.It was originally published in the UK under the title Love in Black and White.The Bridges of Madison County was made into a 1995 film of the same name, adapted by Richard LaGravenese and directed by Clint Eastwood. It stars Eastwood and Meryl Streep.An epilogue entitled A Thousand Country Roads was published in 2002. It tells the remainder of the two main characters' story after their four-day affair. They never meet again, but their lives are interlocked until death.According to San Francisco Chronicle the novel is "lyrical..sensuous and sensitive..a tale of lasting love"

Now comes the hottest horror yet from the Bram Stoker Award winner... They're four strangers with one thing in common-a mysterious train choking the sky with black smoke, charging trackless across the American night...and carrying an unstoppable evil raised from the depths of history that will bring each of their worst fears to life.From Publishers WeeklyIn the new book by Bram Stoker Award–winner Little (Dispatch), strangers across the U.S. are each pursued by different supernatural forces as they fall into the path of a ghost train rumbling into the present day from a dark chapter in American history. Switching among characters—college freshman Angela Ramos in Flagstaff, Ariz.; divorced park ranger Henry Cote in Canyonlands National Park, Utah; Jolene, fleeing her husband to Bear Flats, Calif., with eight-year-old Skyler in tow; and Dennis Chen, on his first cross-country road trip—Little turns the screws bit by bit, bringing his unfortunate charges face to face with multiple terrors, including haunted houses, mummified zombies, a pair of succubi and a room full of jarred human body parts. The novel draws from historical record and modern-day hot-button topics, bringing to bear immigration issues from the time of the Transcontinental Railroad to the present. Readers might tire of the revolving door structure—characters switch off on a per-chapter basis—before the stories converge in northern Utah, and might find the multiple strands a bit overstuffed and under-scary; still, this novel offers Steven King–size epic horror for those with the patience for it. Review[Little] is on par with such greats as Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Peter Straub. -- Midwest Book Review

The Edgar Award—winning novel by the "master of nail-biting suspense"(Los Angeles Times)Thomas Perry exploded onto the literary scene withThe Butcher's Boy. Back in print by popular demand, this spectacular debut, from a writer of "infernal ingenuity" (The New York Times Book Review), includes a new Introduction by bestselling author Michael Connelly.Murder has always been easy for the Butcher's Boy—it's what he was raised to do. But when he kills the senior senator from Colorado and arrives in Las Vegas to pick up his fee, he learns that he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His actions attract the attention of police specialists who watch the world of organized crime, but though everyone knows that something big is going on, only Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, works her way closer to the truth, and to the frightening man behind it.

Glenn Killbourne and his fiancée, Carley Burch, find the lure of the mountains and the canyons of Arizona a strange test of their love in a tale that the reader will follow breathlessly, with keen satisfaction, from the very start to the dramatic close.

Depressed after being humiliated and abandoned by the two men in her life, Agatha Raisin finds a new prospect in curate Tristan Delon, whose untimely death prompts Agatha to investigate strange mysteries surrounding the victim.

GUN OVERBOARDWhen Matilda Benson solicits the help of Perry Mason, her request seems simple enough: cruise to a gambling ship moored just beyond the twelve-mile limit and buy back the IOUs signed by Miss Benson's niece. But after Mason reaches the floating casino, he discovers problems aplenty--most notably the ship's owner with a bullet hole through his head.Strangely enough, Matilda and her niece are also on board that night . . . when someone tosses a gun over the railing. Does Perry Mason's client have something to hide? With the support of his trusty secretary, Della Street, and the ever-helpful Paul Drake, Mason dives into an ocean of menace.

When a stuttering bishop comes to Perry Mason's office for help, Mason becomes involved in a battle of wills with a woman and the long-lost daughter she believes to be a fraud. The key to the puzzle lies in the bishop--who, unfortunately, has disappeared.

### From Publishers Weekly

Lovers of bestseller Braun's irresistible Siamese cats, regal Koko and delicate Yum Yum, and their pet human, Jim Qwilleran, will need no further recommendation than the title for this 25th book in the series. (Remember The Cat Who Went Up the Creek?) The locale is the same, the town of Pickax in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, with its peculiar, lovable citizens. Into this bucolic setting comes Thelma Thackeray, a native of Moose County, who, having achieved fame and fortune in Hollywood, is returning at age 82 to die. But first she intends to have some fun. Everyone is curious about the glamorous retiree, who also has purchased the long-vacant opera house downtown. Local historians recall that Thelma's twin brother, Thurston, had operated an animal hospital in neighboring Lockmaster until his tragic death from an accidental fall a year earlier. Now his son, Richard, has come to live with Thelma. When she decides to turn the opera house into a film club, Dick is offered the position of manager-with startling results. The first public event in the renovated opera house is the Kit Kat Revue, a fund-raiser, whose finale is a procession of prominent citizens with their pets, all cats. Qwill and Koko are at the end of the line, and that's when Koko brings down the house. In her inimitable gentle style, Braun documents the daily activities of the inhabitants of Pickax. Kidnappings, robberies and murders may abound, but nothing is really upsetting or unpleasant. Braun devotees will cheer.

Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

### From Booklist

This is the twenty-fifth volume of these intensely mild-mannered mysteries: it is hard to conceive of a more dulcet whodunit. Local columnist Qwilleran--Qwill, our hero--is immensely wealthy but funnels it through a foundation; lives in Pickax, Moose County, 400 miles north of anywhere; and dates the town librarian (although she's about to throw that over because libraries aren't about books anymore; Qwill's foundation is going to set her up in a bookstore). Thelma Thackeray, in her 80s, comes back to Pickax after a long Hollywood career in food. She's turning the old opera house into a revival movie theater, sparks a few other local delights, but can't seem to get her ne'er-do-well nephew to do well at all. Qwill plugs away at old lies and a death in Thelma' s family. We learn stuff through his newspaper column and his journal entries, and through the responses of his Siamese cat, Koko. All the murders are offstage: the fun part is in food, clothing, and the quotidian joys of small-town life; there's no sex and barely a whiff of technology. How can one fail to be amused by naming conventions that include local weatherman Wetherby Goode? *GraceAnne DeCandido*

*Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*

SUMMARY: A New York Times Bestselling AuthorA Mystery Guild Main SelectionJames Qwilleran and his famous felines, Koko and Yum Yum, are back for another mystery-solving stint in the beloved bestselling Cat Who series, and Koko has developed a strange new hobby: He drops himself from balconies, occasionally landing in the oddest of places.Simultaneous Publication with G. P. Putnam's Standard Print edition.

### Amazon.com Review

Qwilleran and his crime-solving Siamese cats KoKo and Yum Yum are back on the case in Pickax, the biggest little city in Moose County, which is 400 miles north of everywhere but still boasts a remarkably sophisticated social and cultural scene. Hardly a day or a night goes by without a tea, dinner party, crafts fair, play, or pageant, all of which are attended and described in great detail by Qwilleran, a former crime reporter whose not very onerous duties entail writing a feature column for the local newspaper as well as overseeing the civic philanthropy made possible by an inheritance from a wealthy friend of his deceased mother. Fans of this long-running and immensely popular series will delight in this 23rd installment, in which the matrons of Pickax are buying French perfume and blueing their hair for the annual visit of Mr. Delacamp, a jeweler from Down Under (Chicago), whose arrival will coincide with the reopening of the town's fabulously refurbished grand hotel. When the mysterious Mr. Delacamp is found dead in the presidential suite, and his "niece" goes missing along with the jewels and the cash, Qwilleran and his curious cats investigate. As usual, it takes a couple of Siamese with extraordinary powers (even for cats) and a current preoccupation with pennies, gum wrappers, and paper towels to point their owner toward the solution; Qwilleran may not be the quickest sleuth in Moose County, but with KoKo and Yum Yum on the case, he doesn't need to be. This is the coziest of cozies, a particular niche in the mystery subcategory of crime-solving felines of which Braun is the acknowledged mistress, and once again she delivers the goods. *--Jane Adams*

### From Publishers Weekly

After 22 Cat Who mysteries (The Cat Who Saw Stars, etc.), Braun's legions of fans know precisely what to expect from this mistress of feline detective stories--a bloodless crime, much bantering between Jim Qwilleran and his friends, and mysterious crime-solving hints from his beloved Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum. Braun's 23rd novel fulfills these expectations. Journalist Qwilleran has evolved into an independently wealthy columnist and generous benefactor for almost every worthy cause in Pickax, Mich. As a leading citizen, he participates in everything from the refurbishing of the Pickax Hotel (renamed the Mackintosh Inn) to the tricounty Scottish Gathering and Highland Games. One of the renovated hotel's first guests is a jewelry buyer and seller from Chicago. Mr. Delacamp appears once every five years or so to offer exquisitely expensive jewelry (cash only, please) and to buy heirlooms (cash, again) from Pickax's wealthy ladies. This trip proves to be his last, and his murder provides the grist for Koko's deductive prowess. This Sherlock of the cat kingdom does his best, from his reading choices to his seemingly inexplicable actions with paper towels, gum wrappers and nuts, to educate the mere human he lives with. Yet again, Braun's upbeat prose and amiable characters make her novel the cat's meow of cozies. (Jan.)

Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

EDITORIAL REVIEW: **A New York Times Bestseller** Murder and theft put a damper on the festivities for the residents of Pickax in the twenty-seventh Cat Who book, and Lilian Jackson Braun proves yet again that Qwill, Yum Yum, and Koko are the purrfect team to solve any mystery.

Тhe fifth novel in the adventures of Captain Alatriste, a seventeenth-century swashbuckler and "a twenty-first-century literary phenomenon." (Entertainment Weekly) In the cosmopolitan world of seventeenth-century Madrid, captain Alatriste and his protégé Íñigo are fish out of water. But the king is determined to keep Alatriste on retainer-regardless of whether his "employment" brings the captain uncomfortably close to old enemies. Alatriste begins an affair with the famous and beautiful actress, María Castro, but soon discovers that the cost of her favors may be more than he bargained for-especially when he and Íñigo become unwilling participants in a court conspiracy that could lead them both to the gallows . . .From Publishers WeeklyThe swashbuckling spirit of Rafael Sabatini lives on in Perez-Reverte's fifth installment to the adventures of the 17th-century Spanish swordsman, Capt. Diego Alariste. The novel finds Diego back in Madrid, where even the slightest personal affront can lead to a clash of blades. Accompanied, as usual, by his loyal young servant, Iñigo Balboa Aguirre, and his friend, the poet and playwright Francisco de Quevedo, Diego learns that both he and King Philip IV are rivals for the attentions of the married actress Maria de Costa, who has many other suitors lined up at her dressing room door. Not even a death threat can scare off the ardent captain, who becomes a pawn in an old enemy's dastardly plot to assassinate the king. Richly atmospheric and alive with the sights, sounds and smells of old Madrid, this tale of derring-do is old-fashioned fun. It's elegantly written and filled with thrilling swordplay and hairbreadth escapes—escapist books don't get much better than this.

Thanks to her recent adventures in Dying for Chocolate, Goldy Bear, the premier caterer of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, is no stranger to violence--or sudden death.  But when she agrees to cater the first College Advisory Dinner for Seniors and Parents at the exclusive Elk Park Preparatory School, the last thing she expects to find at the end of the evening is the battered body of the school valedictorian.Who could have killed Keith Andrews, and why?  Goldy's hungry for some answers--and not just because she found the corpse.  Her young son, Arch, a student at Elk Park Prep, has become a target for some not-so-funny pranks, while her eighteen-year-old live-in helper, Julian, has become a prime suspect in the Andrews boy's murder.As her investigation intensifies, Goldy's anxiety level rises faster than homemade doughnuts. . .as she turns up evidence that suggests that Keith knew more than enough to blow the lid off some very unscholarly secrets.  And then, as her search rattles one skeleton too many, Goldy learns a crucial fact: a little knowledge about a killer can be a deadly thing.From Publishers WeeklyCaterer Goldy Bear must solve the murder of a high school valedictorian in this delicious mystery.