After the #1 New York Times bestsellers Split Second, Hour Game, Simple Genius, and First Family, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell return in their most shocking case: a high stakes struggle where the relentless needs of national security run up against the absolute limits of the human mind.

THE SIXTH MAN

Edgar Roy – an alleged serial killer held in a secure, fortress-like Federal Supermax facility – is awaiting trial. He faces almost certain conviction. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are called in by Roy's attorney, Sean's old friend and mentor Ted Bergin, to help work the case. But their investigation is derailed before it begins – en route to their first meeting with Bergin, Sean and Michelle find him murdered. It is now up to them to ask the questions no one seems to want answered: Is Roy a killer? Who murdered Bergin? With help from some surprising allies, they continue to pursue the case. But the more they dig into Roy's past, the more they encounter obstacles, half-truths, dead-ends, false friends, and escalating threats from every direction. Their persistence puts them on a collision course with the highest levels of the government and the darkest corners of power. In a terrifying confrontation that will push Sean and Michelle to their limits, the duo may be permanently parted.

Hired as a bodyguard to faded actress Clarissa Lisle, the recent recipient of numerous death threats, Cordelia Gray accompanies the actress to an island castle, whose owner collects funeral paraphernalia.

Hired as a bodyguard to faded actress Clarissa Lisle, the recent recipient of numerous death threats, Cordelia Gray accompanies the actress to an island castle, whose owner collects funeral paraphernalia.

Dana Evans, who made her first appearance in Sidney Sheldon's The Best Laid Plans, is a spunky, good-looking, young Washington TV journalist who's recently returned to the nation's capital from the Balkans, where she adopted a handicapped war orphan who's having trouble adjusting to life in America. But that doesn't keep Dana from following a story all over the world, from Washington to Aspen, Nice, Juneau, Düsseldorf, Rome, Brussels, Moscow, and Siberia. Each of these brief visits is like a postcard--a local landmark or two, an interesting local restaurant (at least in the European venues), and another piece of the puzzle, which has to do with why every member of a venerable, old Washington dynasty has died a violent death in the last year. It seems strange that in a media-savvy city like Washington, no one but Dana has noticed there's a pattern in the rapid extinction of the Winthrops or even whispered the words family vendetta. But that's why pretty, young girl TV reporters were invented, at least by Sheldon.As Dana sets out to investigate the distinguished career of the Winthrop family patriarch, her lover Jeff, a sports anchor at her station, is called away to administer aid and succor to his former wife, a beautiful model who's realized, too little and too late, that she never should have dumped him. And Kemal, the 12-year-old orphan, is being drugged by his baby sitter, who's in cahoots with at least one set of bad guys. Dana hasn't noticed how tractable the temperamental boy has become recently because she's been dressing up like a two-bit Russian tramp to infiltrate a secret weapons base in Siberia... Do you hear the words movie locations? But all's well that ends well, as it usually does for Sheldon's heroines, and in the meantime you've learned where the five-star hotels are and what to order in a famous restaurant in Rome. A slick, commercial, slightly thin tale told by a craftsman of the genre.

The sequel to A Mystery of Errors finds Will Shakespeare and Symington "Tuck" Smythe embroiled in a murder mystery when the bumbling detectives and their band of thespians are hired to furnish theatrical entertainment at a large wedding pageant and the bride turns up dead.

A vivid psychological suspense novel. A diving instructor makes a gruesome discovery in Cranwell Lake – the body of a teenager who has clearly been in the water for many years. Detective Peter Porteous is called to the scene. After trailing through the missing persons files, he deduces that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. As the police investigation gets under way in Cranwell, on the other side of the country prison officer Hannah Morton is about to get the shock of her life. For Michael was her boyfriend, and she was with him the night he disappeared. The news report that a body has been found brings back dreaded and long buried memories from her past…

A vivid psychological suspense novel. A diving instructor makes a gruesome discovery in Cranwell Lake – the body of a teenager who has clearly been in the water for many years. Detective Peter Porteous is called to the scene. After trailing through the missing persons files, he deduces that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. As the police investigation gets under way in Cranwell, on the other side of the country prison officer Hannah Morton is about to get the shock of her life. For Michael was her boyfriend, and she was with him the night he disappeared. The news report that a body has been found brings back dreaded and long buried memories from her past…

The following story was told to the writer by Nick Carter as being the most remarkable, and in many respects, the most mysterious case in his experience. It baffled the shrewdest detectives on the regular force, and had practically been abandoned when Nick Carter took hold of it. I tell the story in my own way and in the third person, but the facts, scenes and incidents are reproduced as nearly as possible in the great detective's own words.THE AUTHOR.

Dr. Sophie Knowles teaches math at Henley College in Massachusetts, but when a colleague turns up dead, it's up to her to find the killer before someone else gets subtracted.

The novel tells the story of Lara Cameron, a successful real estate developer who came from a broken family in Nova Scotia. Lara's mother and her male twin die during their birth and her Scottish father, who collects rents for boarding houses, doesn't want her. Early in life, she learns to fend for herself and how to get her own way in a male-dominated world. After her father's death due to a sudden heart failure, Lara takes up her father's job along with her own kitchen work in the boarding house. She meets a man called Charles Cohn who is much impressed by her. He hands her a contract for building. To acquire a fine piece of land, she makes a deal with the owner of the boarding house to secure her first building in exchange for her body. Thrilled at her success, she moves to Chicago to start her real estate empire. Even though she encounters many problems, she is able to overcome them all and become one of America's most successful businesswomen, and receives the nickname, "Iron Butterfly." She falls in love with a talented pianist, Philip Adler, and marries him. She is on the verge of losing everything she has achieved as well as the one man she loves, but the Iron Butterfly miraculously recovers from all her shattered dreams and gains back all her hopes and the only man whom she ever truly loved.

The remote resort of Fjallbacka has seen its share of tragedy, though perhaps none worse than that of the little girl found in a fisherman's net. But the post-mortem reveals that this is no accidental drowning! Local detective Patrik Hedstrom has just become a father. It is his grim task to discover who could be behind the methodical murder of a child both he and his partner, Erica, knew well. He knows the solution lies with finding a motive for this terrible crime. What he does not know is how this case will reach into the dark heart of Fjallbacka and tear aside its idyllic facade, perhaps forever.

A shocking double-murder scene greets Detective Inspector Philip Brennan when he is called to a flat in Colchester. Two women are viciously cut open and laying spreadeagled, one tied to the bed, one on the floor. The woman on the bed has had her stomach cut into and her unborn child is missing. But this is the third time Phil and his team have seen such an atrocity. Two other pregnant women have been killed in this way and their babies taken from them. No-one can imagine what sort of person would want to commit such evil acts. When psychologist Marina Esposito is brought in, Phil has to put aside his feelings about their shared past and get on with the job. But can they find the killer before another woman is targeted?

When winter hits Crozet, Virginia, it

hits hard--and hangs on for

months. Thats nothing new to

postmistress Mary Minor Harry

Haristeen and her friends, who keep warm with hard work, hot

toddies, and rabid rooting for

the University of Virginias

womens basketball team at the

old stadium affectionately

dubbed The Clam. But the usual postgame high spirits are laid

low when contractor H. H.

Donaldson drops dead in the

parking lot. And pretty soon

word has spread that it wasnt a

heart attack that did him in. It just doesnt sit right with Harry

that one of her fellow fans--

perhaps even an acquaintance

or neighbor sitting close by in

the stands--is a murderer. And

as tiger cat Mrs. Murphy is all too aware, things that dont sit

right with Harry make her

restless, curious, and prone to

poking her not-very-sensitive

human nose into dangerous

places. So the animals start paying closer attention to what

the people around them are

doing--and theyre the first ones

to realize when the next

murder occurs.It seems obvious

to Harry that the deaths are connected--and she intends to

find out exactly how. Theres no

shortage of suspects,

considering that H.H. was a

ladies man whod left a trail of

broken hearts all over town--the most recent belonging to his

wife-- and that the second

murder victim was not very

popular in Crozet.As the police

launch their investigation, Harry

picks up clues through savvy questioning of everyone she

knows. But its the critters who

are most attuned to trouble--

they scent something wicked

wafting Harrys way on the tail

of the next snowstorm. And as Harry draws closer to the truth

about a brutal killer, Mrs.

Murphy and her friends realize

its up to them to make sure

their intrepid mom lands on her

feet.

The untold story behind Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."Philadelphia, 1842: Poe's cat, Cattarina, becomes embroiled in a killer's affairs when she finds a clue to the crime - a glass eye. But it's only when her beloved "Eddy" takes an interest that she decides to hunt down the madman. Her dangerous expedition takes her from creepy Eastern State Penitentiary to Rittenhouse Square where she runs into a gang of feral cats intent on stopping her.As the mystery pulls Cattarina deeper into trouble, even Eddy becomes the target of suspicion. Yet she cannot give up the chase. Both her reputation as a huntress and her friend's happiness are at stake. For if she succeeds in catching the Glass Eye Killer, the missing pieces of Eddy's unfinished story will fall into place, and the Poe household will once again experience peace.Full of Victorian witticisms and rich detail, this cozy mystery is a fictional account of Edgar Allan Poe's real-life animal companion. Fans of historical and animal mysteries are sure to like this series.

Cattarina Mystery - 1, 2

The hunt is on in this new installment of Rita Mae Brown’s clever and engaging series. Only instead of chasing foxes into their dens, the locals must track down a killer and save the life of one of the most beloved folks in town.It’s February, prime foxhunting season for the members of Virginia’s Jefferson Hunt Club. The girls at Custis Hall are finishing their last semester before heading off to college, the entrepreneurially shrewd Crawford Howard is still smarting from January’s breech in hound etiquette, and the Casanova Hunt Club is hosting their annual ball. New neighbors bring new friendships, and romance is in the air.Then a shocking event alarms the community. A woman is found brutally murdered, stripped naked, and meticulously placed atop a horse statue outside a tack shop. The theft of a treasured foxhunting prize inside the store may be linked to the grisly scene, and everyone is on edge.With few clues to go on, “Sister†Jane Arnold, master of the Jefferson Hunt Club, uses her fine-tuned horse sense to try to solve the mystery of this “Lady Godiva†murder. The septuagenarian still has a strong spring in her step and her wits about her, but that may not be enough. As Sister gets closer to the truth, she could become the killer’s next victim.But humans aren’t the only ones equipped to sniff out the trail. The local foxes, horses, and hounds have their own theories on the whodunit. If only these peculiar people could just listen to them, they’d see that the killer might be right under their oblivious noses.Once again, this charming southern community finds itself caught up in a bone-chilling tale of murder and greed. It’s up to everyone, two- and four-legged alike, to band together, beat the bushes, and bring to bay the evil forces that have declared the Jefferson Hunt Club fair game–because foul play is never in season.

The Three Evangelists is an enormously entertaining departure from Vargas's Commissaire Adamsberg series. Sophia Simeonidis, a Greek opera singer, wakes up one morning to discover that a tree has appeared overnight in the garden of her Paris house. As her husband doesn't give a damn, she asks her new neighbours to dig around the tree to find out if something has been buried. Her neighbours are eccentric: Vandoosler, an ex-cop fired from the police for having helped a murderer to escape, and sharing the house are three impecunious historians: Mathias, Marc and Lucien – the three evangelists, as Vandoosler calls them. They accept the job because they are desperate for money and rather curious. When they find nothing and Sophia's dead body turns up weeks later, they decide to investigate.

Silken skin pale against dark hair, red lips provocatively smiling at him – that's how Lieutenant Bret Taylor remembered Lorraine. He was drunk when he married her, stone cold sober when he found her dead. Out on the sunlit streets of L.A. walked the man – her lover, her killer – who had been with her that fatal night. Taylor intended to find him. And when he did, the gun in his pocket would provide the quickest kind of justice. But first Taylor had to find something else: an elusive memory so powerful it drove him down three terrifying roads toward self-destruction – grief, ecstasy, and death.

EVERYTHING IS LEGAL IN AMSTERDAM.

EXCEPT MURDER.

Nadia Tesla will do anything to get the job done. That includes posing as a window girl in De Wallen, Amsterdam’s notorious red-light district, to solve a murder. In this case, Nadia’s employer isn’t just a client. He’s Simmy Simeonovich, one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, with whom she shares a palpable chemistry. Or so she thinks.

The murder victim wasn’t a typical sex worker, either. She possessed an electric appeal that attracted people from all walks of life, including the most powerful. As Nadia investigates, she begins to realize that not everything may be as it seems, including Simmy’s motive for hiring her in the first place. The stakes for Nadia—and the world—are much higher.

In her first stand-alone case as a private investigator, Nadia Tesla uncovers the clues along murky waterways from Amsterdam to Bruges and on to London, in her quest for truth, life and love.