A witty amateur sleuth deals with a disgraced sitcom star and a deadly mystery: “Great fun” (Publishers Weekly). Lyle Hednut, known to America as Uncle Chubby, has been the top draw in television comedy for three seasons straight. He is three hundred pounds of good humor and wholesome charm, beloved by children and adults alike until the day the police find him enjoying the show at the wrong kind of movie theater in Times Square. The arrest destroys his image, but his sitcom is too popular for the network to shut down. About to start production on the fourth season, he decides to tell his side of the story, and hires Stewart Hoag—failed novelist and ghostwriter for the disgraced—to do the writing. Hoagy quickly sees that Uncle Chubby’s cheer is no more than an act. The comedy icon is thin-skinned, irrational, and prone to rage. With a man like that in charge of a TV show, it won’t be long before comedy violence turns into the real thing.

The next clever, witty, and touching installment in the Edgar award-winning Stewart Hoag mystery series finds the beloved ghostwriter-sleuth and his faithful neurotic basset hound, Lulu, back in 1990’s New York City, investigating a bestselling author’s stolen manuscript and three murders linked to the crime. Washed-up celebrity ghostwriter Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag has finally rediscovered his voice and is making progress on what he hopes will be his long-awaited second novel. Burrowed up in his less-than-luxurious, sweltering fifth floor walk-up, he tries not to think of the disparities between himself and his ex-wife, celebrity actress Merilee Nash, who is sifting through film offers—and also her fickle feelings for Hoagy—from her elegant eight-room apartment looking over Central Park. When Merilee offers her home for Hoagy’s use while she’s shooting on location, hope blossoms that he might finally get some real work done… and solidify their rekindling romance. Then Hoagy receives a call from his literary agent asking if he can meet with publishing’s most ruthless and reviled editor, Sylvia James, for a drink at the Algonquin Hotel. After disclosing that aging literary genius Addison James—also Sylvia’s father and main client—has not in fact written his last two bestselling historical sagas, Sylvia reveals her suspicions that Addison’s assistant Tommy O’Brien—the true author—has run away with their most recent manuscript and is holding it for ransom. Tempted by Sylvia’s offer to bid a hefty advance for his novel-in-progress, Hoagy agrees to help unearth Tommy’s sudden disappearance. If only he’d known exactly what he was getting himself into, he might’ve saved himself from the ensuing grief that follows in his hot pursuit of Tommy. But then, that wouldn’t be a normal day in the life of Hoagy. With clattering claims of a mugging, a stolen manuscript, and three murders, now it’s up to Hoagy and his short-legged sidekick Lulu to unravel this baffling, bizarre case.

The “wickedly amusing” Edgar Award–winning mystery starring ghostwriter/sleuth Stewart Hoag and his “delightful” basset hound sidekick Lulu (Publishers Weekly). Stewart Hoag knows how quickly fame can fade. The same critics who adored his first novel used his second for target practice, ending his literary career once and for all. To keep his basset hound fed, Hoagy ghostwrites memoirs for the rich, famous, and self-destructive. His newest subject reminds him all too much of himself. By the age of twenty, Cam Noyes is already being hailed as the next F. Scott Fitzgerald. Though he’s only published one book, Cam runs with the big boys: dating artists, trashing restaurants, and ending every night in a haze of tequila and cocaine. So glamorous is his lifestyle that he’s having trouble starting his second novel, forcing his agent to hire Hoagy to get the little genius working on a memoir instead. As Hoagy digs into the kid’s life story, he learns that New York publishing is even more cutthroat than he thought.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

The ghostwriting sleuth discovers a rock star’s deadly side in “one of my all-time favorite series” (Harlan Coben). From the first time they played on the Ed Sullivan Show, Us was the hottest band on earth. For more than a decade, the group tore through the charts and indulged in an endless cycle of drugs, women, and violence, until two musicians died—the drummer by drugs, the guitarist by a crazed gunman. Once the band was finished, lead singer Tristam Scarr retreated to the English countryside, hiding from the world until the day he hires an American to ghostwrite his memoirs. Stewart Hoag arrives in London in the company of Lulu, his ever-hungry basset hound, to find the rock idol of his youth reduced to a wheezing, frail fortysomething. The first thing Starr tells him is that their drummer never overdosed—he was murdered. And as their interviews progress, Hoagy learns that working for a rock star is almost as dangerous as being one.

From the Edgar and American Mystery Award-winning author of The Man Who Was F. Scott Fitzgerald comes the sixth book in the highly acclaimed Hoagy series, a hilarious spoof of love, divorce . . . and death, Hollywood-style.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "A memoir in essays about so many things—growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it’s like to grow into the person you are meant to be. Hough’s writing will break your heart." —Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist Searing and extremely personal essays, shot through with the darkest elements America can manifest, while discovering light and humor in unexpected corners. As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the U.S. Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe--to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile—but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family." Along the way, she's loaded up her car and started over, trading one life for the next. She's taken pilgrimages to the sights of her youth, been kept in solitary confinement, dated a lot of women, dabbled in drugs, and eventually found herself as what she always wanted to be: a writer. Here, as she sweeps through the underbelly of America—relying on friends, family, and strangers alike—she begins to excavate a new identity even as her past continues to trail her and color her world, relationships, and perceptions of self. At once razor-sharp, profoundly brave, and often very, very funny, the essays in Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing interrogate our notions of ecstasy, queerness, and what it means to live freely. Each piece is a reckoning: of survival, identity, and how to reclaim one's past when carving out a future. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL