African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs solves a murder in a racist Southern small town.

Stacey Daniels has always been attracted to the wrong type of man . . . And she knows in her heart the virile, wounded Viking at her front doorstep will certainly be no exception. A vision from her most secret erotic fantasies—a glorious god of a man—he excites her with his tantalizing aura of dangerous sensuality. Stacey knows in the deepest depths of her soul that submission will bring unforeseen peril into her life, and yet she is helpless to resist him—for he is a master of decadent pleasures and sweet sensuality . . . and all she has ever wished for. But loving Conor carries a burden that no mortal woman can bear. Though he finds solace in Stacey's passion and the warmth of her welcoming body, his true realm is one of darkest dreams, torn by violence and strife, that is now following him into Stacey's world . . . .

Characters: 8 male, 2 femaleAcclaimed playwright Matt Pelfrey's adaptation of John Ball's In the Heat of the Night based on the award-winning book that inspired the Oscar-winning film and the Emmy-winning television series.It's 1962. A hot August night lies heavy over the small town of Argo, Alabama. A dead white man is discovered and the local police arrest a black stranger named Virgil Tibbs. The police discover that their prime suspect is in fact a homicide detective from California. As it happens, Tibbs becomes the racially-tense community's single hope in solving a brutal murder that is turning up no witnesses, no motives, and no clues."A tight and timely thriller!" -Theatermania.com. "It's eminently stageworthy...a tense and exciting story that follows the book's basic plot but offers viewers a distinctly new and different In the Heat of the Night" -CurtainUp. "The play is taut and startlingly resonant, even as it deals with events taking place nearly 50 years ago. Pelfrey's work is economical and uncompromising...suspenseful, thrilling, and stunningly theatrical." -Nytheatre.com.

In The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen brilliantly recreates the tense and dangerous atmosphere of London during the bombing raids of World War II. Many people have fled the city, and those who stayed behind find themselves thrown together in an odd intimacy born of crisis. Stella Rodney is one of those who chose to stay. But for her, the sense of impending catastrophe becomes acutely personal when she discovers that her lover, Robert, is suspected of selling secrets to the enemy, and that the man who is following him wants Stella herself as the price of his silence. Caught between these two men, not sure whom to believe, Stella finds her world crumbling as she learns how little we can truly know of those around us.

For the first time since their breakout debut, Casanegra (Atria Books, 2008), the powerful trio of Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes join forces to bring readers back into the sexy and entertaining world of struggling actor and gigolo-turned-sleuth Tennyson Hardwick. This time, Tennyson is faced with the death of a football star who had previously been acquitted of murder - and who had turned to Tennyson for protection not long before his apparent suicide.

SHE MAKES HIM AN OFFER… Detective Brady O'Keefe doesn't want a relationship—doesn't believe in relationships. Especially now that he's knee-deep in a murder investigation that threatens the mayor's reelection campaign. An investigation that would go much more smoothly if only he could concentrate on more than the mayor's sexy PR consultant…. …HE CAN'T REFUSE! Erin Mahoney can't afford to lose this job, but working day—and night—with Brady O'Keefe is driving her to distraction! How can she focus on press releases when all she can do is fantasize about the two of them giving each other some release? So what will it hurt to offer him one night of sex to get it out of their systems, with no strings attached? Little does she guess that being tied up by Brady will be way too appealing….

A 50th-anniversary edition of the pioneering novel featuring African American police detective Virgil Tibbs—with a foreword by John Ridley, creator of the TV series American Crime and Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave “They call me Mr. Tibbs” was the line immortalized by Sidney Poitier in the 1967 Oscar-winning movie adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Now fans of classic crime can rediscover this suspense-filled novel whose hero paved the way for James Patterson’s Alex Cross, George Pelecanos’s Derek Strange, and other African American detectives. A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It’s no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man—Virgil Tibbs—is not the killer but a skilled homicide detective, passing through racially tense Wells, South Carolina, on his way back to California. Even more surprising, Wells’s new police chief recruits Tibbs to help with the investigation. But Tibbs’s presence in town rubs some of the locals the wrong way, and it won’t be long before the martial arts–trained detective has to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.