Zen returns to his native Venice. He is searching for the ghostly tormentors of a half-demented "contessa" and a vanished American millionaire whose family is paying Zen under the table to determine his whereabouts-dead or alive. But he keeps stumbling over corpses that are distressingly concrete: from the crooked cop found drowned in one of the city's noisome "black wells" to a brand-new skeleton that surfaces on the Isle of the Dead.

Where: A quiet fishing village in northern Iceland, where no one locks their doors. It is accessible only via a small mountain tunnel. Who: Ari Thor is a rookie policeman on his first posting, far from his girlfriend in Reykjavik. He has a past that he's unable to leave behind. What: A young woman is found lying half-naked in the snow, bleeding and unconscious, and a highly esteemed elderly writer falls to his death. Ari is dragged straight into...

"One year ago, Lucy's sister, Nicki, left to meet friends at a pub in Dublin and never came home. The third Irish woman to vanish inexplicably in as many years, the agony of not knowing what happened that night has turned Lucy's life into a waking nightmare. So, she's going to take matters into her own hands. Angela works as a civilian paper-pusher in the Missing Persons Unit, but wants nothing more than to be a fully-fledged member of An Garda S�ioch�ana,...

"From the New York Times bestselling author Darynda Jones comes the second novel in her laugh-out-loud Sunshine Vicram mystery series, A Good Day for Chardonnay. Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff-and even fuller-time coffee guzzler Sunshine Vicram, didn't get that memo. All Sunshine really wants is one easy-going day. You know, the kind that starts with...

Eager to be back at work after recovering from a near-fatal injury, Simon takes on a cold-case for the Lafferton police about a girl who disappeared some years before. Meanwhile, his family adjusts to changes of its own; namely his sister's marriage to Chief Constable Kieron Bright. But when events take an unfavorable turn for the Chief Constable and an arsonist goes on a deadly rampage in Lafferton, Simon's personal and professional lives intertwine...

Crime and Detective. A police constable named Oliver Wicken has apparently committed suicide, leaving his mother and his invalid sister to fend for themselves. The evidence, according to the coroner, is irrefutable. Wicken was shot in the temple with his own revolver and a farewell note has been found beside his body. But new and disturbing evidence is brought to light that leads Detective Murdoch to suspect that the suicide was not what it seemed....

"Glasgow, 1932. When the son-in-law of one of the city's wealthiest shipbuilders is found floating in the River Clyde with his throat cut, it falls to Inspector Jimmy Dreghorn to lead the murder case-despite sharing a troubled history with the victim's widow. From the flying fists and flashing blades of Glasgow's criminal underworld, to the backstabbing upper echelons of government and big business, Dreghorn and his partner 'Bonnie' Archie McDaid...

"It's August 1984 and paper boy Christopher Stewart has gone missing. Hours later, twelve-year-old Sammy Cox hurries home from his own paper route, red-faced and out of breath, hiding a secret. Crystal, Sammy's seventeen-year-old sister, is worried by the disappearance but she also sees an opportunity: The Stewart case has echoes of an earlier unsolved disappearance of another boy one town over. Crystal senses the makings of an award-winning essay,...

"London, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the 'people's princess'. Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command, and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. A weak link could spell disaster. Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick and his Scotland Yard squad are sent in to investigate the team....