to be read

Behind the prim gates of the Greenwich, Connecticut, McMansions, Wall Street whizzes turn their attentions from mortgages to another possible profit source: the $25 trillion life-insurance industry. By securitizing the policies of the old and sick, they hope to make another financial killing. At the same time, Natalie Savondnik and Ronald Goodall-two exceptional yet aloof medical residents-are working closely with their medical center's premier scientist...

4.8 stars

"Attorney Clayton Gladwell keeps 'special' cases in blue folders that only he can access, but when Gladwell announces his impending retirement, someone decides that Blue Folder secrets aren't safe unless everyone connected to them is dead. From a long-dead movie star, the owner of a trendy art gallery, and an Algonquin Roundtable personality to a senile resident in a nursing home and a broken-down cleaning woman, Lt. Harald must figure out who hated...

4.2 stars

Art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to discover the truth behind a bombing that killed an old friend, but while there he encounters something that turns his world upside down. It is a face--a face that feels hauntingly familiar, a face that chills him to the bone. While desperately searching for answers, Allon will uncover a portrait of evil stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives--and into his own personal nightmares......

4.6 stars

"Margaret Maron is back with a new mystery featuring her critically acclaimed sleuth Judge Deborah Knott"--Provided by publisher. Conflicts between family farmers and real estate developers in Colleton County lead to the murder of a controversial commissioner and pulls Judge Deborah Knott and her husband, sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant, into the fray.

3.3 stars

Her name is Elise Freeman, and her chilling cry for help comes too late to save her. On a DVD found near her lifeless body, the emotionally and physically battered woman chronicles a long ordeal of abuse at the hands of three sadistic tormentors. But even more shocking is the revelation that the offenders, like their victim, are teachers at one of L.A.'s most prestigious prep schools. Homicide detective Milo Sturgis is assigned to probe the hallowed...

3.7 stars

From a beloved master of crime fiction, The Deep Blue Good-by is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.
 
Travis McGee is a self-described beach bum who won his houseboat in a card game. He’s also a knight-errant who’s wary of credit cards, retirement benefits, political parties, mortgages, and television. He only works when his cash runs out, and...

4.5 stars

In a remote Florida lake, a cave collapses, trapping Doc Ford and two of his friends. Ford manages to escape and surfaces to find help-but two ex-cons are waiting for him. They're intent on diving to the bottom of the deep lake and finding the remains of a legendary plane, supposedly loaded with gold. Ford's expertise is just what they need. And if he doesn't help, Ford and his friends are dead in the water.

4.4 stars

Grigori Bulganov once saved Gabriel Allon's life in Moscow--and Allon always repays his debts. So when the former Russian intelligence officer vanishes, Allon gathers his team of operatives to go after those responsible. But, in a running battle that rages across the globe, Allon soon realizes that his enemy may already hold the key to victory. And that if he continues, it will cost him more than he can bear...

4.2 stars

2008. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's personal private secretary, Toby Bell,...

Pulled from home country duty to carry out a covert mission to assassinate a roadside bomber in the Middle East, a talented surveillance operative engages in a painstaking process to save lives while working under a constant threat of disavowal.