S. J. Rozan

Collects over thirty of the best entries in the Akashic noir series, including stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, and T. Jefferson Parker.

"Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and his wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, have been invited for a relaxing weekend in the tranquil Cotswolds, one of Britain's most beautiful and historic regions, famous for its rolling hills, sheep-strewn green meadows, golden cottages, and timeless villages that retain the spirit of old England. Duncan, Gemma, and their children are guests at Beck House, the country estate belonging to the family of Melody Talbot, Gemma's trusted detective sergeant. No ordinary farmers, the Talbots are wealthy and prominent with ties to Britain's most powerful and influential. A centerpiece of this glorious fall getaway is a posh charity luncheon catered by up-and-coming chef Viv Holland. After more than a decade in London, Viv has returned to her native Glouscestershire, making a name for herself with her innovative, mouthwatering use of the local bounty. Attended by several dozen of the area's well-to-do, as well as national food bloggers and restaurant critics, the event could make Viv a star. But a tragic car accident followed by a series of mysterious deaths could ruin her ascent. Each piece of information that surfaces makes it clear that the killer had a connection with Viv's pub-and perhaps with Beck House itself. Does the truth lie in the past? Or is it more immediate, woven into the tangled relationships and bitter resentments swirling among the staff at Beck House and at Viv's pub? Or is it even more personal, entwined with secrets hidden by Viv, her business partner Bea Abbot, and Viv's eleven-year-old daughter Grace? Further revelations rock the Talbots' estate and pull Duncan and Gemma and their colleagues into the investigation. With so much at stake both personally and professionally, especially for Melody Talbot, finding the killer becomes one of the team's most crucial cases."--Publisher description.

Erdas is a land of balance. A rare link, the spirit animal bond, bridges the human and animal worlds. Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan each have this gift-and the grave responsibility that comes with it. But the Conquerors are trying to destroy this balance. They're swallowing whole cities in their rush for power-including Meilin's home. Fed up with waiting and ready to fight, Meilin has set off into enemy territory with her spirit animal, a panda named Jhi. Her friends aren't far behind . . . but they're not the only ones. The enemy is everywhere.

Harlen Coben meets Sue Grafton in this smart, savvy, intriguing detective seriesA LETHAL INHERITANCE... China, 1938. Eighteen-year-old Rosalie Gilder flees Nazi-occupied Austria with her younger brother. Hidden among their belongings are a few precious family heirlooms, their only protection against the hard times that await them as they join Shanghai's growing population of Jewish refugees. New York, present day. Chinese-American detective Lydia Chin is hired by an old friend to investigate the recent theft of a cache of holocaust assets, thought to once belong to the Gilders. However, before she makes much headway, her friend is shot dead. Neither Lydia nor her partner, Bill, believe the NYPD's theory that his death was a robbery gone bad. Both fear they are no longer looking for a thief but a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to reclaim the past...

"Lydia Chin, a Chinese-American private investigator in her late twenties, is hired by Grandfather Gao, one of the most respected figures in New York City's Chinatown, for what appears to be a simple task. Lydia, along with her professional partner Bill Smith, is to fly to Hong Kong to deliver a family heirloom to the young grandson of a recently deceased colleague of Grandfather Gao. They arrive in Hong Kong safely, but before they can deliver the heirloom, the grandson is kidnapped and two separate ransom demands are made. While the family of the kidnapped boy tries to freeze them out, Lydia and Bill must quickly learn their way around a place where the rules are different, the stakes are high, and the cost of failure is too dire to imagine."--BOOK JACKET.

Investigating a rumor about new paintings by a famous contemporary Chinese artist who has been dead for twenty years, private investigator Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, discover that a new client is not who he claims to be.

Brand-new stories by: Jerome Charyn, Lawrence Block, Suzanne Chazin, Terrence Cheng, Pat Picciarelli, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., Kevin Baker, S.J. Rozan, Steven Torres, and others.As any Bronxite will tell you, being from Da Bronx is a permanent condition, no matter where you end up . . . For a time in the '70s and '80s, the name was synonymous (to non-Bronxites) with a vast urban maelstrom of lawlessness and decay. But the place was always more complicated than that. There's the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Garden, universities, Yankee Stadium, grand estates, squalid housing projects, the sinking Concourse, and nautical City Island . . . The writers represented in Bronx Noir know the borough so well that, reading the book, you'll smell it, feel it, see it, hear it. The sights and scents will be multitudinous and as distinct as the neighborhoods. And everyone of them, in all their glorious mutual contradiction, is the Bronx.

Three years ago, a child's death blew open a vortex of corruption inside Manhattan's lucrative construction industry. And it sent one innocent man to jail. Joe Cole is a former city investigator who now lives a broken life, cut off from his wife and daughter, and from the city he once knew so well. But for Joe, everything changes when a woman's murder and a teenager's rooftop freefall rip open old wounds--and reveal a shocking layer of rage and deception.It is Joe's former partner, beautiful, hard-charging investigator Ann Montgomery, who first sees the lies, forcing Joe out of his self-imposed isolation to help her unravel the cover-ups and secret relationships that allow the powerful to hide their crimes. Soon, the two are entering the darkest corners of their city, delving into the hidden desires of a borough president who wants to be mayor, the motivations of a charismatic community activist, and the machinations of a mayor whose ambitions know no bounds. As the secrets of each player are exposed, as the primal forces of greed, sex, and power come to the surface, Ann and Joe know they must press their search all the way to the end--because the most powerful revelations are yet to come.From a brilliantly choreographed press conference to a scandalous love affair gone terribly wrong, In This Rain takes us into the heart of a sprawling, brawling city--in a masterpiece of suspense that proves once again the unique and daring genius of S. J. Rozan.From the Hardcover edition.

An anthology of crime tales by some of today's favorite authors features an Edgar Award-winning coeditor and is complemented by original black-and-white art, in a volume that includes contributions by such names as Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly and Joyce Carol Oates. Original.

Neil Gaiman. Laura Lippman. Lee Child. These are just three of eighteen superstar authors who provide fascinating, thrilling, and utterly original perspectives on Sherlock Holmes in this one-of-a-kind book. These modern masters place the sleuth in suspenseful new situations, create characters who solve Holmesian mysteries, contemplate Holmes in his later years, fill gaps in the Sherlock Holmes Canon, and reveal their own personal obsessions with the Great Detective. Thomas Perry, for example, has Dr. Watson tell his tale, in a virtuoso work of alternate history that finds President McKinley approaching the sleuth with a disturbing request; Lee Child sends an FBI agent to investigate a crime near today’s Baker Street—only to get a twenty-first-century shock; Jacqueline Winspear spins a story of a plucky boy inspired by the detective to make his own deductions; and graphic artist Colin Cotterill portrays his struggle to complete this assignment in his hilarious “The Mysterious Case of the Unwritten Short Story.” In perfect tribute comes this delicious collection of twisty, clever, and enthralling studies of a timeless icon.

Its a great book