National Network for Equitable Library Service

"It is the summer of 1971 and Liz takes care of her four sisters while waiting to meet the sixth Murphy child: a boy. And yet, something is not right. Adults tensely whisper in small groups, heads shaking. Her younger sister, Rose seems more annoying, always flashing her camera and jotting notes in her notepad. The truth is worse than anyone could imagine: an entire family slaughtered in their home nearby, even the children. The small rural community reels in the aftermath. No one seems to know who did it or why. For Liz, these events complicate her already tiring life.

Ancient Rome's favorite son and sometimes palace spy, Marcus Didius Falco, is called upon by the Emperor Vespasian to investigate an act of treason. Disguised as an idle vacationer, Falco travels all the way to Pompeii where a series of Herculean events is about to erupt.

The Maltese Falcon is the definitive masterpiece of the hard-boiled detective genre. It introduces legendary PI Sam Spade, a loner who follows his own code and the rules of the street as he zeros in on his partner's killer and the famous jewel-encrusted bird. Humphrey Bogart immortalized the tough-guy detective in the classic 1941 film.

In a largely abandoned region of the southeast US where hurricane-strength storms return day after day, a former serial killer and a former US Marshal must work together to bring light to America's heart of darkness.

Rookie reporter Evie Jones is haunted by the unsolved murder of her childhood best friend. Now twenty-one, Evie is obsessively drawn to finding out what really happened. But as she gets closer to the truth, Evie becomes convinced the killer is still at large, and coming back for her.

Amos Decker takes an interest in the case of a convicted murderer after discovering striking similarities to his own life. Both men were talented football players with promising careers cut short by tragedy. Both men's families were brutally murdered. And in both cases, another suspect came forward, years after the killing, to confess to the crime. A suspect who may or may not have been telling the truth.

It's 2004. El Federación, the most powerful drug organization in the world, has been exploded, and the Mexican drug trade has settled out into several cartels that exist in a state of tenuous accord. The patron of El Federación, Adán Barrera, is in solitary in a San Diego prison. Art Keller, the DEA agent who put him there, is living at a New Mexican monastery--the solitude and simple truths of the place a powerful antidote to his former life.

A man is found dead, killed with a crossbow bolt. It's no hunting accident, but uncovering the truth will take Duffy down his most dangerous road yet.

When journalist Lily Bigelow is found dead in the courtyard of Carrickfergus Castle, it looks like a suicide. Yet there are a few things that bother Sean Duffy just enough to keep the case file open. Who killed Lily Bigelow? And what were they trying to hide?

On a rainy November day, police detectives Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver von Bodenstein are summoned to a mysterious traffic accident: a woman has fallen from a pedestrian bridge onto a car driving underneath. According to a witness, the woman may have been pushed. The investigation leads Pia and Oliver to a small village, and the home of the victim, Rita Cramer.