College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran -- and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been...

"When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an innocent accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the offending car is Merry Mansfield-- the eponymous Razor Girl-- so named for her unique, eye-popping addition to what might be an otherwise unexciting scam. But, of course-- this is Hiaasen!-- the scam is only the very beginning of a situation that's going to spiral crazily...

"After a failed apprenticeship, working her way up to head housekeeper of a posh London hotel is more than Sara Smythe ever thought she'd make of herself. But when a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house The Dakota, leads to a job offer, her world is suddenly awash in possibility--no mean feat for a servant in 1884. In 1985, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities. Two generations...

"Donna Leon's bestselling mystery novels have won a multitude of fans for their insider's portrayal of Venice. From family meals to vaporetti rides, the details and rhythms of everyday life are an integral part of this beloved series. But so are the never-ending influx of tourists and the suffocating corruption. Through it all, Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti, a good man who loves his family and his city, has been an enduring figure, but in Earthly...

"Longmire Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of twenty-five armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion...

"Norwich is riddled with old chalk-mining tunnels, but no one's sure exactly how many. When Ruth is called in to investigate a set of human remains found in one of them, she notices the bones are almost translucent, a sign they were boiled soon after death. Once more, she finds herself at the helm of a murder investigation. Meanwhile, DCI Nelson is hunting for a missing homeless woman, Barbara, who he hears has gone "underground." Could she have disappeared...

"In the newest in the USA Today bestselling mystery series, Jessica Fletcher visits New York City during fashion week, only to discover someone has rather fatal designs ... Jessica is in Manhattan to attend the debut of a new designer. Formerly Sandy Black of Cabot Cove, the young man has reinvented himself as Xandr Ebon, and is introducing his evening wear collection to the public and--more important--to the industry's powers-that-be: the stylists,...

Brother Fritz wants to sell. Sister Petra wants to expand. The Bircher family has manufactured cookies in the picturesque Swiss canton of Schwyz since the late 1800s. And Annie Young-Perret was warned, when she took an assignment to write a history of the company, about the ongoing sibling feud over control of its future. When Fritz is found shot to death, the police arrest Petra. Fritz had been negotiating with a firm that specializes in buying and...

"Jacob Rigolet, soon to be fired from his position as assistant to a wealthy art collector, looks up from his seat at an auction to see his mother, Nora Ives Rigolet, until that day head librarian at Halifax Free Library, walk almost casually up the aisle and fling an open jar of black ink at master photographer Robert Capa's "Death on a Leipzig Balcony." Jacob's fiancee, the erotically accomplished Detective Martha Crauchet, is assigned to the interrogation....

"Thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night, witnessed only by her younger sister. Her family was shattered, but managed to stick together, hoping against hope that Julie is still alive. And then one night: the doorbell rings. A young woman who appears to be Julie is finally, miraculously, home safe. The family is ecstatic--but Anna, Julie's mother, has whispers of doubts. She hates to face them. She...