Best-selling author Scott Turow takes the helm for the tenth edition of this annual, featuring twenty-one of the past year’s most distinguished tales of mystery, crime, and suspense. Elmore Leonard tells the tale of a young woman who’s fled home with a convicted bank robber. Walter Mosley describes an over-the-hill private detective and his new client, a woman named Karma. C. J. Box explores the fate of two Czech immigrants stranded by the side of the road in Yellowstone Park. Ed McBain begins his story on role-playing with the line “ ‘Why don’t we kill somebody?’ she suggested.” Wendy Hornsby tells of a wild motorcycle chase through the canyons outside Las Vegas. Laura Lippman describes...

In her 91 years, Ann-Victoria Hadley has often been the most hated person in Snow Hill, Pennsylvania. But now, it's worse than ever. After a new school board inserted 'intelligent design' into the curriculum, they were sued by a coalition including Hadley, the one member of the board who wouldn't go along with the rest. With the trial about to start and the town a national laughing stock, Annie-Vic is found clubbed into unconsciousness and not expected to survive. The local police chief, one of the school board members, can't investigate it himself and doesn't trust the state police. So he brings in Gregor Demarkian. Gregor Demarkian, former FBI agent, is happy to help - his wedding is...

Gregor Demarkian grew up in the Armenian-American enclave in Philadelphia known as Cavanaugh Street. Even though he left to go to college, and then went on to a storied career, he eventually returned to Cavanaugh Street after an early retirement. There he still retains some of the friends. Among them is Father Tibor Kasparian, probably the most genuinely gentle soul that Demarkian has ever met. When Father Tibor is then arrested on murder charges, it tears at the very foundation of Demarkian's world. While Gregor has very strict rules about for whom and under what conditions he will consult, all those rules go by the wayside. Demarkian is now a man possessed, and his one goal is to find out...

Murder, mayhem, and other unladylike behavior erupt at the Third Annual Conference of American Writers of Romance where author Patience McKenna finds herself caught in an intrigue that would horrify her most devoted readers. Complete with a crime-solving cat, this Edgar-nominated whodunit is a clever behind-the-scenes look at the romance business -- authors, agents, editors, publishers, and fans.

The "endearing and brilliant" (Publishers Weekly) Gregor Demarkian returns in a case of an unresolved crime and a new, brutal murder Alwych, Connecticut, is the stereotypical old money Connecticut beach town - the best families live in mini-mansions on Beach Drive, their children go to Alwych Country Day School, and the parents have memberships to the Atlantic Club. And Chapin Waring is the worst thing that ever happened to this town. She was a well turned-out debutante from one of the richest families in Alwych until thirty years ago when the young debutante, destined to attend the right school, marry the right man, and have the right life, was revealed to a bank robber and a...

For more than twenty years, Patsy MacLaren Willis led a charmed life behind the wrought-iron gates of exclusive Fox Run Hill...chatting at the country club, basking by the pool, enjoying all the peace and privacy only money can buy. So why then, on an early-summer morning, did privileged Patsy MacLaren pack up her designer clothes, affix a silencer to a Smith & Wesson Magnum, and shoot her husband in his sleep? The Philadelphia police believe it's a case of love gone wrong...especially after the new widow pipe-bombs her car in a downtown parking garage. But former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, who's going through his own crisis of the heart, thinks Patsy MacLaren's motives go much deeper than...

There's no place like home for the homicide For former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian, retirement has just come to an abrupt end. What started as a mysterious summons to a Christmas Eve feast at multimillionaire Robert Hannaford;s isolated country estate was now an invitation to a murder scene. Demerol and a blood-covered statue had ensured that. Red ribbon, green wreaths, and spilled blue blood... christmas can be murder on the Philadelphia main line! Add the late patriarch's penchant for making enemies, seven siblings with ample reasons for wanting Daddy dead, plus a murderer with a genius for mayhem, and you've got local police begging the Bureau's aging former ace to take up...

When the naked and poisoned body of an aerobics instructor is discovered at the Fountain of Youth Workout Studio, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian struggles to find the culprit before the killer spoils the local New Year's celebrations.

When an infant is found murdered at a controversial women's retreat located in the small community of Bellerton, North Carolina, rumored to be a den of Satan worship, former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian pursues the truth and learns that are many with an ungodly motive for murder.

Twelve years ago, Chester Morton disappeared from his hometown in Mattuck, New York, leaving no trace and never to be heard from again. For the past twelve years, his mother has kept the search for her son alive - paying for a billboard overlooking the local community college, putting up new flyers every week, hounding every law enforcement agency she can get to listen. Her determination has made his disappearance very high profile but it's also been damaging to her family, her children and to herself. Now, Chester's body is finally found - hanging from the very billboard that has been advertising his disappearance. Chester's corpse, however, is recent - meaning that Chester had been...