Search

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year: After years of grief and rage, a man finds new purpose in investigating a woman's unsolved disappearance. George Gates's little boy was killed seven years ago and he has yet to find the cold comfort of seeing someone pay for the crime. Once a world-traveling writer, he now toils away at a local newspaper, quietly seething and plotting imaginary vengeance against the unknown murderer.Then, during a conversation with the now-retired detective who worked his son's case, he learns about a poet named Katherine Carr who disappeared twenty years earlier, leaving writings behind that may or may not contain useful clues. As he grows obsessed with the mystery, he's assigned to interview an orphan with a rare fatal disease, and the two become an unlikely team in their quest to learn the fate of Katherine Carr, in this emotionally compelling novel by a “master” and winner of the prestigious Edgar Award (Chicago Tribune). “[An] eerily poignant novel.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Every Thomas H. Cook novel is a subtle mind game, but The Fate of Katherine Carr is positively haunting.” —The New York Times Book Review“As much an investigation into character as it is a cold-case mystery.” —Booklist“Disturbing, psychologically complex... At each level, the novel ponders questions of good and evil, of guilt and retribution, and the power of storytelling itself.” —Associated Press

“Edgar–winner Cook examines the slow collapse of a prominent Southern family in this magnificent tale of suspense.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father's Delta estate, Great Oaks, to start what he considers a noble act: teaching at the local high school. Leading a class discussion on historical evil, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father's crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie's lineage can't. But when Eddie's investigation leads him to Great Oaks and to Jack's own father, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie's motives—and his own.As the deadly consequences of Jack's actions fall inescapably into place, Thomas H. Cook masterfully reveals the darker truths that lurk in the depths of small-town lives and in the hearts of even well-intentioned men.“Beautifully written and heavily muscled with character and intrigue, this novel is a tour de force.” —Michael Connelly“The plot is laced with unexpected twists, and Cook's writing is deeply atmospheric.” —Associated Press“[An] enthralling tale... thrilling.” —The New York Times Book Review“A joy to read... nearly perfect.” —The Kansas City Star

A mobster sends his bagman to track down his runaway daughter-in-law in this novel by “one of the most accomplished writers in the crime/thriller genre” (Financial Times). Sara Labriola is certain that if she stays in her marriage, someone is going to wind up dead—and it'll probably be her. So she flees her coastal Long Island home for New York City, where she changes her identity and finds work singing at a bar. Her husband is upset, of course. But her father-in-law, a small-time but brutal mob boss, is angry—and orders an underling to find her.. Meanwhile, Sara's husband—who despises his cruel, controlling father—learns of his father's plot and sends a friend into the mix to prevent the impending bloodshed. With multiple men searching for her, Sara is in danger. But she's not the only one... “Neat turns of phrase and tight plotting make for an engaging read.” —Publishers Weekly “Nobody tells a story better than Cook.” —Michael Connelly

On the eve of WWII, a wealthy young New Yorker is drawn into an international plot by an alluring and dangerous woman: “Captivating.” —Kirkus ReviewsIt's 1939 and the world is on the brink of war, but Thomas Danforth is in New York City living a charmed life. The well-traveled son of a wealthy importer, he's in his twenties and running the family business, looking forward to a bright future. Then, during a dark, snowy walk along Gramercy Park, a friend makes a fateful request—and involves Thomas in a dangerous plot that could change the fates of millions.Thomas is asked to open up his secluded Connecticut mansion to a mysterious woman who will receive training in firearms and explosives. Thus begins an international scheme carried out by the captivating Anna Klein which will ensnare Thomas in more ways than one. When it all goes wrong and Anna disappears, he will travel far from home once again, but this time, into a war-torn world that is much more dangerous, in this story by an Edgar Award–winning author known for his “piercing thrillers” (Daily News, New York).“No other suspense writer takes readers as deeply into the heart of darkness as Thomas H. Cook.” —Chicago Tribune“Laced with dozens of intriguing historical anecdotes.” —Kirkus Reviews“Cook's work is elegant, philosophical, and literary. This book is to be treasured, and is bound to earn him new readers. Grade A.” —The Plain Dealer

A “gripping” mystery revolving around a family tragedy, and a woman who may or may not be descending into madness, by the Edgar Award–winning author (Entertainment Weekly). David Sears grew up terrorized by the ravings of his schizophrenic father, a frustrated literary genius who openly preferred David's sister, Diana, for her superior intelligence. When the old man died, David thought the madness had finally left with him. But the Sears family was not through with its troubles. The drowning of Diana's mentally ill son was ruled a tragic “misadventure,” but she believes other factors were at play. After hastily divorcing her husband, she sets out to prove his guilt. Her increasingly manic behavior is becoming hard for David to ignore. He finds himself afraid for his own family's safety—and must choose his words carefully when answering the detective... Thomas H. Cook explores the power of blood to define us, bind us, and sometimes destroy us, in a novel of “consuming suspense almost too concentrated to bear” (Daily News, New York). “So spare and precise, it feels as if it has been chiseled in stone with something like a surgical instrument.” —Joyce Carol Oates “What's at stake isn't so much the resolution of a mystery as the integrity of a family.” —Time Out New York “[An] unusual, chilling mystery... Cook reveals all the pieces of the shocking story with an absolutely steady hand.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A renowned true-crime writer's suicide opens up a continent-crossing mystery in this Edgar Award–winning author's “spellbinding thriller” (Publishers Weekly). When the body of true-crime writer Julian Wells is found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question is not how he died, but why? Philip Anders, Wells's best friend and literary executor, vows to find out what drove the enigmatic author to take his own life. The first clue is a map of Argentina that Wells had been examining on the day he died. Years ago, he and Anders made a fateful trip to Buenos Aires, where they met their tour guide, Marisol. Her subsequent disappearance during Argentina's Dirty War haunted the author. Had he discovered some new clue to her tragic fate? Was he planning to return to South America? And what, if anything, does Marisol's disappearance have to do with the curious dedication in Wells's first book: For Philip, sole witness to my crime? Anders soon finds himself on a journey into his friend's haunted, secret life. Spanning four decades and traversing three continents, The Crime of Julian Wells is a tour-de-force from one of America's most acclaimed suspense novelists. “Intelligent and elegant.” —The Wall Street Journal “[A] striking example of a suspense writer working at the top of his form, and an agreeable diversion for those who enjoy a bit of style with their substance... Cook's characterizations are richly balanced and finely nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times

A “marvelously tense” novel of psychological suspense centered on a long-ago crime of passion, from an Edgar Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly, starred review).With dreams of academic greatness, Lucas Paige rose from humble and sordid beginnings to attend Harvard. But his achievements since then have been meager. Arriving in St. Louis to give yet another sparsely attended reading, he happens upon a face from the past he's tried to forget: Lola Faye Gilroy, the “other woman” he long blamed for his father's murder.Reluctantly, Luke joins Lola Faye for a drink. As one drink turns into several, these two battered souls relive, from their different perspectives, the most searing experience of their lives. They are transported back to the tiny southern town of Glenville, Alabama, where a violent crime of passion is brought to light once more. As it happens, there is much Luke doesn't know. And what he doesn't know can hurt him. Trapped in an increasingly intense exchange, Luke struggles to gain control and determine what Lola Faye is truly after—before it's too late.This “darkly powerful” (Kirkus Reviews) literary thriller, rich with Southern atmosphere, is “a knockout” (People).“Cook continues his work as one of the best fiction writers in America.” —The Plain Dealer

Everyone has a breaking point... “Probably no other suspense writer takes readers as deeply into the heart of darkness as Cook.” —Chicago TribuneThere are no witnesses nor evidence to link him to the crime, but the police are sure that vagrant Albert Jay Smalls killed a child. Their interviews have led nowhere, but now—with a 6:00 a.m. deadline looming at which he must be released from custody—they will try one more interrogation. Detective Pierce, whose own daughter's death has left a hole in his heart, and Detective Cohen, still broken from what he saw in World War II, will look into the abyss of Smalls's troubled mind in a frantic last-ditch effort to extract a confession. Their effort will bring answers they never expected—and blur the line between innocence and guilt...“Cook adroitly weaves back and forth between the crime itself, the subsequent investigation and the halting questioning of the suspect. More compelling, however, is his portrayal of how the crime affects Pierce and Cohen, as well as several secondary characters... Down to the cleverly hatched, melancholy ending, Cook again takes readers down a dark, treacherous road into the heart of human fallibility and struggle.” —Publishers Weekly“[An] irresistible premise.” —Kirkus Reviews“Well-plotted... The psychic pain of these characters is piercing.” —The New York Times Book Review

Will the truth bring peace—or pain? A “once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece” by the Edgar Award–winning author (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Mystery writer Paul Graves, a man with a painful past, has come to an artists'retreat in New York's quiet, picturesque Hudson Valley. But his purpose for being there is not a pleasant escape. He's been tasked with something more unusual.Long ago, when Riverwood was a private estate, a teenage girl was murdered there—a crime that remains unsolved to this day. Now the victim's elderly mother is dying, and her final wish is to learn what happened to her daughter. For the sake of this grieving woman, Graves has been asked to craft a story that answers her questions and provides a sense of closure. But he may have to choose between truth and kindness...“Eerie suspense... Although it's easy to miss the very real clues that Cook drops so artfully into the story, there's no ignoring his savage imagery, or escaping the airless chambers of his disturbing imagination.” —The New York Times Book Review“[An] indelibly haunting tale that once again demonstrates that he is among the best in the business.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Hypnotic.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

A small-town doctor is haunted by the decades-old murder of his first love in this “novel of stunning power” by an Edgar Award–winning author (Booklist). Ben Wade is a middle-aged doctor in Choctaw County, Alabama, and back in 1962 he dreamed of spending the rest of his life with Kelli Troy. But he never had the chance to confess his love for Kelli before her body was found on Breakheart Hill. Decades later, the small town is still haunted by that violent death—especially Ben. He's never been able to move on, because he's the only one who knows what really happened that summer afternoon... “A haunting evocation that gains power and resonance with each twist of its spiral-like narration.” —Publishers Weekly “A climax that is so unexpected the reader may think [Cook] has cheated. But there is no cheating here, only excellent storytelling.” —Booklist “Cook has long been one of my favorite writers.” —Harlan Coben, New York Times–bestselling author of Hold Tight “[A] masterful crime novelist.” —Toronto Star

What drove a woman to murder in 1920s New England? “Few readers will be prepared for the surprise that awaits at novel's end” in this Edgar Award–winning novel (Publishers Weekly, starred review).It was referred to as the Chatham School affair—a tragic event that destroyed five lives, shook a coastal Massachusetts community to its core, and traumatized a boy named Henry Griswald. Now Henry is an aged, unmarried lawyer, and as he writes his will, he recalls that long-ago day in 1926 when something drove his teacher to murder—and contemplates the role he played in it all...“Cook is a master, precise and merciless, at showing the slow-motion shattering of families and relationships... The Chatham School Affair ranks with his best.” —Chicago Tribune“Such a seductive book.” —The New York Times Book Review“Like the best of his crime-writing colleagues, Cook uses the genre to open a window onto the human condition... [a] literate, compelling novel.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

After a Georgia sheriff's death, old secrets start to emerge in this “highly satisfying story, strong in color and atmosphere, intelligent and exacting” (The New York Times).Jackson Kinley has returned to Sequoyah, his small Southern hometown, to mourn the passing of his old friend Ray Tindall. But Sheriff Tindall's death has raised new questions about a very old case.Forty years ago, a man was sentenced to die for murder, even though the body of the victim was never found—only her bloodstained dress. The late sheriff had begun to take another look at the case, before quickly closed it again. Kinley, a true-crime writer, wants to know why. His investigation will lead him into a maze of corruption—and into the darkest corners of the human heart—in this powerful, evocative work of fiction by an Edgar Award winner and “masterful crime novelist” (Toronto Star).“[A] splendid novel.” —Publishers Weekly“[A] gripping Southern drama.” —Kirkus Reviews

Over his acclaimed career, Cook's novels have haunted, riveted, and spellbound readers across the world, and his short stories are equally acclaimed. They range from the intensely focused world of'Fatherhood,'the Herodotus prize-winning title story, to the Edgar nominated'Rain,'a dark, kaleidoscopic tale of Manhattan on a single, rain-swept night.'The Fix,'the story of a famous boxing fix that was, well, not a fix at all, was selected for inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year.'What She Offered,'the gripping tale of a one-night stand, was included in The Best Noir Stories of the Century. Like Cook's novels, the range of this collection is, itself, astonishing. From a backwoods Appalachian shack during the Depression ('Poor People') to a Midwestern college campus in the throes of Sixties revolt ('The Sun-Gazer') to a midtown Manhattan bookstore on Christmas Eve,'The Lessons of the Season,'this collection demonstrates precisely that, in the words of Michael Connolly,'no one tells a story better than Thomas H. Cook.'

Two gripping accounts of true crime and its devastating aftermath from an Edgar Award winner hailed as “a writer of poetic gifts” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Blood Echoes: In May 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison—and went on to commit one of the most horrific murders in American history, slaughtering six members of the Alday family in Donalsonville, Georgia. Their depredations were followed by a trial that only continued the nightmare for those whose loved ones were murdered. Based on court documents, police records, and interviews with the surviving family members, this is a chilling look at a kind of blind, inhuman evil rarely seen in our world. “[A] scorching indictment of the legal and court systems.” —Publishers Weekly Early Graves: Alvin and Judith Ann Neelley were perfect for each other; both shared twisted urges the other could appreciate. At first playing pranks and committing vandalism, their sick ambitions grew, until they targeted thirteen-year-old Lisa Ann Millican—whose brutalized corpse was found three days later. And she was only the first to die. Drawing on police records and extensive interviews, Thomas H. Cook recounts the killing spree of Alvin and Judith, who at nineteen became the youngest woman ever sentenced to death row. “Strong writing...enhances the book's grisly appeal.” —Publishers Weekly

Thomas Cook has always been drawn to dark places, for the powerful emotions they evoke and for what we can learn from them. These lessons are often unexpected and sometimes profoundly intimate, but they are never straightforward.With his wife and daughter, Cook travels across the globe in search of darkness—from Lourdes to Ghana, from San Francisco to Verdun, from the monumental, mechanized horror of Auschwitz to the intimate personal grief of a shrine to dead infants in Kamukura, Japan. Along the way he reflects on what these sites may teach us, not only about human history, but about our own personal histories.During the course of a lifetime of traveling to some of earth's most tragic locals, from the leper colony on Molokai to ground zero at Hiroshima, he finds not only darkness, but a light that can illuminate the darkness within each of us. Written in vivid prose, this is at once a personal memoir of exploration (both external and internal) and a strangely heartening look at the radiance and optimism that may be found at the very heart of darkness.

A quartet of crime stories about deadly books—penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers. The Little Men by Megan Abbott: Rumors and strange experiences lead a washed-up actress in 1950s Hollywood to question the suspicious circumstances surrounding the alleged suicide of a former occupant of her low-rent bungalow—especially after she discovers an ominous inscription in a book that's closely guarded by her mysterious landlord. “Noir's reigning crown princess.” —Booklist What's in a Name? by Thomas H. Cook: Rare books dealer and amateur historian Franklin Altman has always wondered how the world might have turned out if the First World War had ended differently. On the fiftieth anniversary of the Armistice Treaty, an ancient German mysteriously appears and presents him with a personal manuscript, the contents of which, he claims, have the power to change history. “A gifted novelist, intelligent and compassionate.” —Joyce Carol Oates The Book of the Lion by Thomas Perry: An anonymous phone call sends Professor Dominic Hallkyn on a mad dash through the streets of Boston in pursuit of a priceless Chaucerian manuscript. But the caller's demands will lead to a devilish plot twist. “Thomas Perry is, quite simply, brilliant.” —Robert B. Parker From the Queen by Carolyn Hart: When a priceless, first edition of Agatha Christie's Poirot Investigates, autographed and inscribed to the Queen of England, disappears from her South Carolina thrift shop, Ellen Gallagher calls on her friend Annie Darling, owner of the mystery bookstore Death on Demand, to track it down. “Carolyn Hart's work is both utterly reliable and utterly unpredictable.” —Charlaine Harris

As the world closes in around them, two Nazis hide out in a tropical paradise. The servants sense something strange about the two old men. They are not sure what business Dr. Langhof and Dr. Ludtz have in El Caliz, but they are certain that whatever they do in their colonial mansion is the work of the devil. Although they do not know the specifics of the two men's crimes, the servants are right to suspect something sinister. The men are Nazis, fugitives from international law who fled to this South American haven in the chaotic days after World War II. Langhof brought with him a cache of stolen diamonds, with which he bought their safety from the small nation's corrupt president. He passes his days cultivating a stunning greenhouse full of orchids, and meditating on the evil acts that fill his past. For now they are safe, but fate has many ways of dealing out justice.

This “beautifully written and elegantly plotted” thriller from the Edgar Award–winning author of The Chatham School Affair is “one of his best ever” (The Globe and Mail, Toronto). Twenty years ago, Ray Campbell was a well-intentioned aid worker dedicated to improving conditions in Lubanda, a newly independent African country. Now a cautious risk-management consultant, he is forced to reconsider that year of living dangerously when an old friend is found murdered in a New York alley. Signs suggest that this recent tragedy is rooted in a more distant one—that of Martine Aubert, the only woman Ray ever loved, whose fate he'd sealed with a grievous mistake: “In Rupala, twenty years before, I had rolled the dice for a woman who was not even present at the table, and how on the outcome of that toss, a braver and more knowing heart than mine had been forfeited.” Martine Aubert was a white, native Lubandan farmer whose dream for her homeland put her in conflict with fearsome men intent on its so-called development. As Ray returns to Lubanda to investigate the cause of his friend's murder, he also revisits the passion he'd once felt for Martine and vows, in her memory, to rectify his wrongs. A Dancer in the Dust is a gripping story of ill-fated love: one man's love for an extraordinary woman, and one woman's love for her troubled country. “Not since John Le Carré's The Mission Song have I seen such a loving and sorrowful portrait of modern Africa.” —The News & Observer (Raleigh)

A photographer struggles to understand a stranger's suicide. There's nothing special about the woman's death. It comes over the police radio like any other sad story: a woman found on the sidewalk, killed after plunging from her apartment. But something about the gruesome scene grabs David Corman's attention. A freelance photographer with a defunct marriage and a career on the skids, he fixates on this mysterious death. Though near starvation, the woman had been buying formula to feed to a baby doll. Before she leapt, she tossed the plastic child out the window. David photographs the dead woman and her pretend child;although he's jaded, the strange scene stirs his compassion, and he begins researching her past. He's convinced that his job has shown him the worst the city has to offer. But learning the truth behind this futile suicide will teach David that New York is even uglier than he imagined.

Five decades after war's end, a rare-books dealer receives a strange visitor. The guns went silent on November 11, 1918, never to fire again. Throughout the 1920s, unrest seethed across Europe, and Fascists battled Communists in the streets of Berlin, but democracy won out. For years, peace has prevailed around the world. But there is a part of Franklin Altman that misses the war. A rare-books dealer living in New York City, Altman has devoted his life to studying the history of the Weimar Republic, when all of Europe hung in the balance and it seemed it would take but a single spark to set the world ablaze. Why did that spark never come? Altman is musing on these questions one evening when a man comes into his shop. An aged German veteran with a limp and the faint shakes of Parkinson's, he is about to teach Altman that in history, the devil is in the details.The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.

Now living in New York, ex-cop Frank Clemons investigates a brutal slashing. The sleek high-rises of Park Avenue make Frank Clemons uneasy. The former Atlanta homicide detective came to New York after a sickening murder case soured him on the South, but despite the glitz of his new surroundings and the beauty of the woman he shares them with, the city makes his skin crawl. Now a private eye, he is only at ease in the city's darker corners, among the whores, gamblers, and pimps who call Eighth Avenue home. That affinity for the isolated is what draws him to Hannah Karlsberg, an elderly seamstress who deserved a better death than she got. Hannah's employer asks Clemons to find the victim's next of kin, so the police can release the body for burial. As he learns about the dead woman's past, which stretches back to the Lower East Side of the 1930s, Clemons becomes obsessed with unearthing the decades-old secret that led to her death.

A withdrawn architect revisits the darkest moment of his childhood. Steve Farris was nine years old in 1959, the youngest child in a family that was about to be snuffed out. Around four o'clock on an ordinary November afternoon, Steve's father loaded his shotgun. With calm precision he killed his teenaged son and daughter, and then turned the weapon on his wife. For two hours he waited for his youngest son to come home from school. When Steve did not appear, his father drove away, disappearing for good. Now a successful architect, Farris has spent his life avoiding the memories of that dark day. But questions from an author writing a book about the crime bring back impressions from the days leading up to the killing. For the first time he must confront his awful past, and the terrifying possibility that his father had a reason for what he did.

Frank Clemons, an ex-cop turned private detective, faces a pair of perplexing cases on the mean streets of New York City. The first case is simple. A wealthy man's wife has grown distant, and he asks Frank Clemons, a private eye hardened by his past work on Atlanta's homicide beat, to find out why. There are a number of simple reasons why a young woman might withdraw from her older husband, but the spurned spouse rejects them all. Her jewelry is disappearing, but he insists that she doesn't have trouble with blackmail, drugs, or gambling. The answer must be more complex, and he begs Frank to find out what it is. Meanwhile, an old woman familiar to Frank from his nights haunting Tenth Avenue has been murdered, and a gypsy priestess claims that she killed her. But Frank is unconvinced, and unearthing these women's secrets will force him deep into the dark side of a city that he still cannot call home.

A troubled cop obsessively searches for a young girl's killer. The young girl lies in a ditch without a scratch on her -- a white high school student stretched out dead in the black part of Atlanta. She was a rich girl from a cold family, too genteel for the neighborhood where she died, and only the baby in her belly suggests how she might have gotten there. For Detective Frank Clemons, the scene is far too familiar. Too close to how it was when he found his own daughter, dead in the woods by her own hand, her youthful beauty cruelly ravaged by depression. Her suicide ended his marriage and sent him on a downward spiral that has nearly claimed his own life. To hang on to sanity, he must do everything he can to find justice for the dead.

A true-crime account of a vicious massacre and the legal battles that followed. It was not a clever killing. On May 5, 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison and disappeared. Joined by a fifteen-year-old brother, they surfaced in Georgia, where they were spotted joyriding in a stolen car. Within a week, the four young men were arrested on suspicion of committing one of the most horrific murders in American history. Jerry Alday and his family were eating Sunday dinner when death burst through the door of their cozy little trailer. Their six bodies are only the beginning of Thomas H. Cook's retelling of this gruesome story;the horrors continued in the courtroom. Based on court documents, police records, and interviews with the surviving family members, this is a chilling look at the evil that can lurk just around the corner.

In Thomas H. Cook's first novel, a weary detective tracks a blood-crazed psychopath. Blood seeps into the gutters at the children's zoo in Central Park. Two deer have been slaughtered, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other slashed across the neck. Normally it would be a case for the Parks Department, but these are no ordinary deer. The pride of the small menagerie, they were given to the zoo by a prominent socialite who cannot afford bloody headlines. The NYPD hands the case to Detective Reardon, star of the homicide squad. A recent widower at fifty-six, Reardon has seen too many human victims to care much about the two butchered animals. He resents being taken off other pressing cases for the sake of politics, but soon another killing snaps him to attention. Two women are found dead in their apartment, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other with her throat cut. Surely this vicious parallel isn't a coincidence...

A story of guilt, murder and politics set in Africa and New York from the acknowledged master of psychological suspense. Twenty years ago, Ray Campbell was an idealistic aid worker in Africa. He fell in love there with Martine, a local farmer, who tried to make Ray see that all actions have consequences. But he couldn't, not until it was too late... When a friend from his time in Africa is found dead in a New York alley, Ray is forced to return to a past he's spent a lifetime trying to forget...

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, a young girl's murder stirs racial. tensions in Birmingham, Alabama. The grave on the football field is shallow, and easy to spot from a distance. It would have been found sooner, had most of the residents in the black half of Birmingham not been downtown, marching, singing, and being arrested alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Police detective Ben Wellman is among them when he gets the call about the fresh grave. Under the loosely packed dirt, he finds a young black girl, her innocence taken and her life along with it. His sergeant orders Wellman to investigate, but instructs him not to try too hard. In the summer of 1963, Birmingham is tense enough without a manhunt for the killers of a black child. Wellman digs for the truth in spite of skepticism from the black community and scorn from his fellow officers. What he finds is a secret that men from both sides of town would prefer stayed buried.

A brother recalls the magnificent life of his sister, the greatest writer of her age. A launch party is underway for a hotly anticipated biography, the life story of Elena Franklin. As a young woman, Elena was one of the most promising literary talents of the 1920s, and over the years her legend grew. Her biographer, Martha Farrell, has combed through all the evidence of Elena's genius and passion, from her early years in New York to her expatriate life in Paris. The result is a monumental work -- but among the party's crowd is the man who knows the book is an empty shell. Only William, Elena's brother, knew the truth about the famed author. Martha's flawed biography spurs his memory, and he recalls how the temperamental baby grew into a legend. He knew Elena's hidden pain, shared their family secrets, and draws his own portrait of the troubled soul that lay behind her artistic gifts.

A gut-wrenching true-crime account of a couple on a twisted killing spree in the American South. Evil has a way of finding itself. How else could you explain the bond between Alvin and Judith Ann Neelley, who consecrated their marriage in blood? Before the killings started, they restricted themselves to simple mischief: prank calls, vandalism, firing guns at strangers'houses. Gradually their ambition grew, until one day at the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, they spotted Lisa Ann Millican. Three days after Lisa Ann disappeared, the thirteen-year-old girl was found shot and pumped full of liquid drain cleaner. In between her abduction and her death, she was subjected to innumerable horrors. And she was only the first to die. Drawing on police records and extensive interviews, Thomas H. Cook recounts the story of Judith Ann Neelley, who at nineteen became the youngest woman ever sentenced to death row

It is autumn 1937 when a mystery woman appears in Port Alma, a sea village nestled on the chilly coast of Maine. A fragile, green-eyed beauty, the woman arrives with little more than the clothes on her back and a wealth of unspoken secrets. Before a year goes by, she will flee Port Alma on the same bus that brought her there. But before she goes, she will irrevocably alter the lives of two brothers — leaving one dead, and the other perched on the edge of madness.There is much that Dora March has hidden.But in Port Alma, Maine, there are other secrets, too....

In this Edgar Award finalist and “slow-burning, intricate” thriller, a professor falls for his wife all over again... while he stands trial for her murder (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Samuel Madison always wondered what Sandrine saw in him. He was a meek, stuffy doctoral student while she was a beautiful bohemian with limitless talent and imagination. On the surface their marriage seemed tranquil: jobs at the same small liberal arts college, a precocious young daughter, and a home filled with art and literature. But then one night Sandrine is found dead from an overdose—and Samuel is accused of poisoning her. As secrets about their tumultuous marriage come to light in the courtroom, Samuel must face a town and media convinced of his guilt, a daughter whose faith in her father has been shaken to its core, and astonishing revelations about his wife, who never ceased being a mystery to him. Sandrine's Case is a “gripping, moving, and elegiac” novel about the evil that can lurk within the heart of a seemingly ordinary man (Michael Connelly). “Cook plays with and against the conventions of the noir mystery to craft a novel deeper and richer than the genre would seem to allow.” —The Columbus Dispatch

How did Sandrine die? There was no forced entry. She had been gradually stockpiling prescription drugs. A lethal quantity of Demerol was found in her blood. But did the beautiful, luminous Sandrine Madison really take her own life? The District Attorny doesn't think so. Neither does the local newspaper. And so Sandrine's husband must now face a town convinced of his guilt and a daughter whose faith in her father has been shaken to its core. But, as he stands in the dock, Samuel Madison must confront yet more searing questions: Who was Sandrine? Why did she die? And why – how? – is she making him fall in love with her all over again? A psychological thriller from a true master, SANDRINE will hold you in its spell until its unexpected end.

Attorney Henry Griswald has a secret: the truth behind the tragic events the world knew as the Chatham School Affair, the controversial tragedy that destroyed five lives, shattered a quiet community, and forever scarred the young boy. Layer by layer, in The Chatham School Affair, Cook paints a stunning portrait of a woman, a school, and a town in which passionate violence seems impossible...and inevitable.'Thomas Cook's night visions, seen through a lens darkly, are haunting,'raved the New York Times Book Review, and The Chatham School Affair will cement this superb writer's position as one of crime fiction's most prodigious talents, a master of the unexpected ending.

Lyrical, suspenseful short fiction from an Edgar Award–winning author: “Thomas Cook has long been one of my favorite writers” (Harlan Coben). Over his acclaimed career, Cook's novels have haunted, riveted, and spellbound readers across the world, and his short stories are equally acclaimed. They range from the intensely focused world of “Fatherhood,” the Herodotus Award–winning title story, to the Edgar-nominated “Rain,” a dark, kaleidoscopic tale of Manhattan on a single, rain-swept night. “The Fix,” the story of a famous boxing fix that was, well, not a fix at all, was selected for inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year. “What She Offered,” the gripping tale of a one-night stand, was included in the Best Noir Stories of the Century. Like Cook's novels, the range of this collection is, itself, astonishing. From a backwoods Appalachian shack during the Depression (“Poor People”) to a Midwestern college campus in the throes of sixties revolt (“The Sun-Gazer”) to a midtown Manhattan bookstore on Christmas Eve (“The Lessons of the Season”), this collection demonstrates precisely that, in the words of Michael Connolly, “no one tells a story better than Thomas H. Cook.”

From the Edgar Award–winning author of Red Leaves: An “intelligent and elegant” thriller in the grand tradition of Eric Ambler and Graham Greene (The Wall Street Journal). When the body of famed true-crime writer Julian Wells is found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question is not how he died, but why? Philip Anders, Wells's best friend and literary executor, vows to find out what drove the enigmatic author to take his own life. The first clue is a map of Argentina that Wells had been examining on the day he died. Years ago, he and Anders made a fateful trip to Buenos Aires, where their tour guide was a woman named Marisol. Her subsequent disappearance during Argentina's Dirty War haunted the author. Had he discovered some new clue to her fate? Was he planning to return to South America? And what, if anything, does Marisol's disappearance have to do with the curious dedication in Wells's first book: “For Philip, sole witness to my crime”? Anders soon finds himself on a journey into his friend's haunted, secret life. Spanning four decades and traversing three continents, The Crime of Julian Wells is a “spellbinding” tour-de-force from one of America's most acclaimed suspense novelists (Publishers Weekly). “[A] striking example of a suspense writer working at the top of his form, and an agreeable diversion for those who enjoy a bit of style with their substance... Cook's characterizations are richly balanced and finely nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times

A famous writer is dead. Suicide? Punishment? Or Justice? Julian Wells was a writer of dark non-fiction works that detailed some of the worst crimes of the 20th Century. Was it this exploration of man's inhumanity to man that caused him to take his own life? When his body is found in a boat drifting in a pond in Montauk, New York, his best friend, the literary critic Philip Anders, begins to reread his work in order to prepare a eulogy. This rereading, along with other clues, convinces the critic that his friend has committed a terrible crime, and that it was as punishment for this crime that Wells took his own life. Anders'investigation sparks an obsession with unravelling the mystery of the man he thought he knew. His journey towards understanding leads him from Paris to Budapest, spans four decades, and takes him deeper and deeper in to the heart of darkness that was Julian Wells...

At the height of the Civil Rights movement, a young girl's murder stirs racial tensions in Birmingham, Alabama The grave on the football field is shallow, and easy to spot from a distance. It would have been found sooner, had most of the residents in the black half of Birmingham not been downtown, marching, singing, and being arrested alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Police detective Ben Wellman is among them when he gets the call about the fresh grave. Under the loosely packed dirt, he finds a young black girl, her innocence taken and her life along with it. His sergeant orders Wellman to investigate, but instructs him not to try too hard. In the summer of 1963, Birmingham is tense enough without a manhunt for the killers of a black child. Wellman digs for the truth in spite of skepticism from the black community and scorn from his fellow officers. What he finds is a secret that men from both sides of town would prefer stayed buried.

A photographer struggles to understand a stranger's suicideThere's nothing special about the woman's death. It comes over the police radio like any other sad story: a woman found on the sidewalk, killed after plunging from her apartment. But something about the gruesome scene grabs David Corman's attention. A freelance photographer with a defunct marriage and a career on the skids, he fixates on this mysterious death. Though near starvation, the woman had been buying formula to feed to a baby doll. Before she leapt, she tossed the plastic child out the window. David photographs the dead woman and her pretend child; although he's jaded, the strange scene stirs his compassion, and he begins researching her past. He's convinced that his job has shown him the worst the city has to offer. But learning the truth behind this futile suicide will teach David that New York is even uglier than he imagined.

In Thomas H. Cook's Edgar Award–nominated first novel, a weary detective tracks a blood-crazed psychopath Blood seeps into the gutters at the children's zoo in Central Park. Two deer have been slaughtered, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other slashed across the neck. Normally it would be a case for the Parks Department, but these are no ordinary deer. The pride of the small menagerie, they were given to the zoo by a prominent socialite who cannot afford bloody headlines. The NYPD hands the case to Detective Reardon, star of the homicide squad. A recent widower at fifty-six, Reardon has seen too many human victims to care much about the two butchered animals. He resents being taken off other pressing cases for the sake of politics, but soon another killing snaps him to attention. Two women are found dead in their apartment, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other with her throat cut. Surely this vicious parallel isn't a coincidence.…

The Best American Crime Reporting 2010 is yet another must read for the true crime aficionado—an eye-opening compendium of the most gripping, suspenseful, and brilliant crime stories of the year by the masters of the genre. Guest editor Stephen J. Dubner (Freakonomics) joins series editors Otto Penzler and Thomas Cook for the latest annual installment in what Entertainment Weekly has praised as the best mix of “the political, the macabre, and the downright brilliant,” and People Magazine calls, “arresting reading.”

On the eve of WWII, an international plot leads to a deadly obsession: “Nobody tells a story better than Thomas H. Cook” (Michael Connelly, New York Times–bestselling author of Two Kinds of Truth). It's 1939 and the world is on the brink of war, but Thomas Danforth is in New York City living a fortunate life. The well-traveled son of a wealthy importer, he's in his twenties and running the family business, looking forward to a bright future. Then, during a snowy evening walk along Gramercy Park, a friend makes a fateful request—and involves Thomas in a dangerous idea that could change the fates of millions. Thomas is to provide access to his secluded Connecticut mansion, where a mysterious woman will receive training in firearms and explosives. Thus begins an international plot carried out by the strange and alluring Anna Klein—a plot that will ensnare Thomas in more ways than one. When it all goes wrong and Anna disappears, he will travel far from home once again, but this time, into a war-torn world that is far more dangerous, in this story by an Edgar Award–winning author known for his “piercing thrillers” (New York Daily News). “No other suspense writer takes readers as deeply into the heart of darkness as Thomas H. Cook.” —Chicago Tribune

A brother recalls the magnificent life of his sister, the greatest writer of her ageA launch party is underway for a hotly anticipated biography, the life story of Elena Franklin. As a young woman, Elena was one of the most promising literary talents of the 1920s, and over the years her legend grew. Her biographer, Martha Farrell, has combed through all the evidence of Elena's genius and passion, from her early years in New York to her expatriate life in Paris. The result is a monumental work – but among the party's crowd is the man who knows the book is an empty shell. Only William, Elena's brother, knew the truth about the famed author. Martha's flawed biography spurs his memory, and he recalls how the temperamental baby grew into a legend. He knew Elena's hidden pain, shared their family secrets, and draws his own portrait of the troubled soul that lay behind her artistic gifts.

A “marvelously tense” novel of psychological suspense centered on a long-ago crime of passion, from an Edgar Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly, starred review). With dreams of academic greatness, Lucas Paige rose from humble and sordid beginnings to attend Harvard. But his achievements since then have been meager. In St. Louis to give yet another sparsely attended reading, he discovers a face from the past he's tried to forget: Lola Faye Gilroy, the “other woman” he long blamed for his father's murder. Reluctantly, Luke joins Lola Faye for a drink. As one drink turns into several, these two battered souls relive, from their different perspectives, the most searing experience of their lives. They are transported back to the tiny southern town of Glenville, Alabama, where a violent crime of passion is turned in the light once more. As it turns out, there is much Luke doesn't know. And what he doesn't know can hurt him. Trapped in an increasingly intense exchange, Luke struggles to gain control and determine what Lola Faye is truly after—before it is too late. This “darkly powerful” (Kirkus Reviews) literary thriller, rich with Southern atmosphere, is “a knockout” (People). “Cook continues his work as one of the best fiction writers in America.” —The Plain Dealer