Adam Austin hasn't spoken to his brother in years. When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman, working so close to the town's criminal fringes that he sometimes seems a part of them.Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Kent's team has a shot at the state championship, a welcome point of pride in a town that has had its share of hardships.Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered. When details emerge that connect the crime to the Austin brothers, the two are forced to unite to stop a killer-and to confront their buried rage and grief before history repeats itself again.Michael Koryta, long hailed as one of the best young thriller writers at work today, has written his greatest novel ever-an emotionally harrowing, unstoppably suspenseful novel that proves why Michael Connelly has named him "one of the best of the best."

1587, and Mary, Queen of Scots, dies by the executioner's axe, her head, shorn of its auburn wig, rolling across the platform. Will her death end the ceaseless plotting against Mary's red-haired cousin, Elizabeth?1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, is a time of more terror and triumph, not just for queen and court but for the whole of England. The turmoil is reflected in its theatres and under the galleries of inns like London's The Queen's Head where Lord Westfield's Men perform. The scene there on grows even more tumultuous when one of the actors is murdered by a mysterious stranger during a brawl.Nicholas Bracewell, the company's bookholder, a role far wider than mere producer, faces two immediate repercussions. The first is to secure a replacement acceptable to its temperamental star -- and chief shareholder -- Lawrence Firethorn. The second is to keep his promise to the dying Will Fowler and catch his killer.Soon further robberies, accidents, and misfortunes strike Lord Westfield's Men even as their stage successes swell. Bracewell begins to suspect a conspiracy, not a single murderous act, but where lies the proof? Then the players are rewarded with the ultimate accolade -- an appearance at court -- and the canny bookholder senses the end to the drama is at hand....First published to great acclaim in 1988, The Queen's Head anticipated the lure of bawdy, boisterous, yet elegant epics like Shakespeare in Love. Actor and playwrite Marston has followed with, to date, ten more lusty, historically grounded, theatrically sound Bracewell mysteries that explore the face of England and reveal his deep love for its rich literary and dramatic heritage. The Roaring Boy wasnominated for a 1996 Edgar Award for Best Novel.From Publishers WeeklyMarston launches a series with this first appearance of Nicholas Bracewell, "book holder" for an English theatrical company in 1588. Not only the prompter but also the wise manager of the group, Bracewell must cope with temperamental thespians and other, more grave crises. As England rejoices in the triumph over the Spanish Armada, the troupe rehearses a play honoring Queen Elizabeth, which she will attend. Hopes for a gala performance are dashed when a villain named "Redbeard" kills actor Will Fowler; that event and other incidents lead Bracewell to suspect a plot to ruin the company. Helped by Sam Ruff, who substitutes for Fowler, the manager keeps up morale and takes steps to guard against Redbeard in advance of the queen's arrival at the theater. Marston's exhilarating mystery, ending with a bang-up close--on and off stage--is colored by details about the acting profession at that time and, sadly, about the era's mortal quarrels between Catholics and Protestants.

They drove their herds to massacre range

Sep 1809 - 1 Jan 1813In 1809 Roger Brook went to Lisbon and became involved in the Peninsular War. While there he first met Lady Mary Ware, with unexpected results for both of them.Later, events carried him to Copenhagen, St. Petersburg and Moscow, which had just been occupied by Napoleon.In Russia he again met Lady Mary and disguised her as his soldier servant. The description of their participation in Napoleon's terrible Retreat from Moscow in 1812 has rarely, if ever, been equalled.

Another of Carr's mysteries with a strong gothic touch, this one involving a psychic. _________________

EDITORIAL REVIEW: When all questions of space, time, matter and the nature of being have been resolved, only one question remains - "Where shall we have dinner?" "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" provides the ultimate gastronomic experience, and for once there is no morning after to worry about. This is volume two in the Trilogy of five.

Dale McCarthy is a serial murderer with the unique and miraculous ability to resurrect the dead. He can bring the dead back to life with no memory of their deaths allowing him to kill them again and again and again. Ever since her new neighbor moved in, Sara Lincoln has been having terrible nightmares. Last night she dreamt that she and her husband were brutally murdered in their beds. This morning she woke to find clean spots on the carpet as if it had been scrubbed with bleach, bloody sheets in the laundry, and bloodstains on her mattress. Night after night the dream is the same. With no one prepared to take her wild fears seriously, Sarah will have to piece together the grisly clues in time to save herself from being murdered. Again.

"A nail-biting, throat-squeezing, nonstop plunge into darkness and evil. I guarantee, once you start reading this book, you'll be up until dawn." --Rick Hautala"Grabs the reader and yanks him along through an ever-worsening landscape of horrors...a terifying ride with a shattering conclusion."--Gary BrandnerDIVINE PROPHECY. HOLY TERRORStrange things are happening in the quiet town of Randall, Arizona.The local minister vanishes, his church defiled by blasphemous obscenities scrawled in blood....A crazed old woman in her eighties becomes pregnant. Herds of animals are discovered butchered in a field. And one by one, the good folks in town are falling victim to the same unspeakable fate. Now an itinerant preacher has arrived spreading a gospel of cataclysmic fury.Darkness is falling on Randall, Arizona. The smell of fear lingers in the air. And stranger things are yet to come....