When a student turns up murdered at the City of Liverpool University, Detectives David Murphy and Laura Rossi are charged with finding the culprit. Attached to the deceased body is a letter from her killer, which details a famous unethical psychological experiment; it is that experiment that was used on this victim, resulting in her death. Thinking the letter is just an attempt to throw them off course, Murphy and Rossi initially dismiss it. But then more bodies are found, each with connections to the university—and each with their own letter accompanying the body.Murphy and Rossi quickly realize they’re chasing a killer unlike any they’ve hunted before: One who sees himself as a valuable researcher of human behavior—a killer who doesn’t just want his victims’ bodies, but their minds as well. As they delve into the darkest pockets of psychological research, Murphy and Rossi struggle to understand the motives of the madman, trying to find the killer before his gruesome experiments claim their next victim.

A TONIGHT SHOW SUMMER READS FINALIST An electrifying first novel from "a riveting new voice in American fiction" (George Saunders): A young woman returns to her childhood home in the American South and uncovers secrets about her father's life and death Billie James' inheritance isn't much: a little money and a shack in the Mississippi Delta. The house once belonged to her father, a renowned black poet who died unexpectedly when Billie was four years old. Though Billie was there when the accident happened, she has no memory of that day—and she hasn't been back to the South since. Thirty years later, Billie returns but her father's home is unnervingly secluded: her only neighbors are the McGees, the family whose history has been entangled with hers since the days of slavery. As Billie encounters the locals, she hears a strange rumor: that she herself went missing on the day her father died. As the mystery intensifies, she finds out that this forgotten piece of her past could put her in danger. Inventive, gritty, and openhearted, The Gone Dead is an astonishing debut novel about race, justice, and memory that lays bare the long-concealed wounds of a family and a country.

Best-selling author, Susan Beth Pfeffer, delivers a riveting companion to Life As We Knew It in this enthralling tale that follows seventeen-year-old Alex Morales as he fights to survive in the aftermath of apocalyptic events in New York City. Alex Morales is an average high schooler focused on his after-school job, helping his dad out with building superintendent responsibilities, and getting good grades so he can make it into an Ivy League college. But when the moon alters its gravitational pull and catastrophic events ensue, everything changes. Now, he has to care for his younger sisters, decide whether it’s ethical to rob the dead, and keep the hope alive that their lost parents will return. Bone-chilling and harrowing, Susan Beth Pfeffer investigates what it takes to survive when the odds are stacked against you in this captivating story about sacrifice and humanity.

The ninth installment in the series that inspired the HBO original True Blood offers another exciting undead adventure, which opens with a vampire fashion show, showing just one of the fruits of the author's unique writing style. Original.

An arresting un-coming-of-age story, from a breathtaking talent Becca has always longed to break free from her small, backwater hometown. But the discovery of an unidentified dead girl on the side of a dirt road sends the town--and Becca--into a tailspin. Unable to make sense of the violence of the outside world creeping into her backyard, Becca finds herself retreating inward, paralyzed from moving forward for the first time in her life. Short chapters detailing the last days of Amelia Anne Richardson's life are intercut with Becca's own summer as the parallel stories of two young women struggling with self-identity and relationships on the edge twist the reader closer and closer to the truth about Amelia's death.

An absorbing collection of ten famous murder stories of North Carolina, spanning the years 1808 to 1914. “An interesting job of reporting....A book that rates a place on the bedside table.”-Charlotte Observer

Serious crime isn't supposed to happen in elegant English country homes, especially not in such families as that of Queen's counsel Ralph Mintar, a prominent barrister who's destined to become a high-court judge. So it's particularly shocking when Mintar's attractive wife, Virginia, goes missing just after a small dinner party. Her disappearance is eerily reminiscent of the day four years before, when the Mintars' adult daughter Caroline left the house, never to return. Caroline seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, but Virginia's body is soon found at the bottom of a garden well, and Inspector Luke Thanet and his partner, Sergeant Mike Lineham, who are called in to investigate, quickly discard any idea of accidental death. Virginia was the perfect murder victim. Her outrageous flirting made her many enemies, several of whom were there on the night of her death. They had both reason and opportunity to kill her, but which one took the final, fatal step? Who wanted Virginia dead and gone? Who was Virginia's latest lover? What does her mother-in-law have to hide? What about Caroline's younger sister and her womanizing fiancé? Thanet and Lineham wonder how they can even begin to unravel the morass of family secrets that complicate this case. Distracted by his own daughter Bridget's dangerous pregnancy and pushed by his boss to find hard evidence in this high-profile homicide, Luke Thanet feels pressured as never before as he probes into the life and death of one of the most poignant and, finally, shocking cases of his career. Always a skilled mistress of the classic British crime novel, award-winning author Dorothy Simpson is at the top of her form in this powerful novel of family love gone tragically wrong.