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A "brilliant" novel of Elizabeth Bathory, the notorious sixteenth-century Hungarian aristocrat who bathed in the blood of virgins (St. Petersburg Times).


Turmoil reigns in post-Soviet Hungary when journalist Drake Bathory-Kereshtur returns from America to grapple with his family history. He's haunted by the legacy of his ancestor, the notorious sixteenth-century Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who is said to have murdered more than 650 young virgins and bathed in their blood to preserve her youth. Interweaving past and present, The Blood Countess tells the stories of Elizabeth's debauched and murderous reign and Drake's fascination with the eternal clashes of faith and power, violence and beauty. Codrescu traces the captivating origins of the countess's obsessions in tandem with the emerging political fervor of the reporter, building the narratives into an unforgettable, bloody crescendo.


 


Taut and intense, The Blood Countess is a riveting novel that deftly straddles the genres of historical fiction, thriller, horror, and family drama.

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Two sisters discover startling secrets in their mother's old journal in this "poignant" novel by the New York Timesbestselling author of Garden of Lies (Debbie Macomber).


Emily and Sarah Marshall are cleaning out their dying mother's attic when Emily finds an old leather diary. Their mother's handwriting on the yellowed pages takes them back to a small Nebraska town in the summer of 1951, where sheltered, almost-engaged Elizabeth Harvey is swept into a clandestine romance with AJ, her rebellious childhood friend. When AJ becomes the prime suspect in a neighborhood fire, Elizabeth has to make the most difficult decision of her young life and choose between passionate but unpredictable AJ and her stable, longtime beau, Bob.


 


Shocked to learn that their mother was in love with a man other than their father, Emily and Sarah must confront painful truths about their mother, their father, and ultimately, themselves. Moving and uplifting, with a surprise ending readers won't see coming, The Diary is a novel about the mysteries of romantic love and the unassailable bond between parents and children.

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A father frets over his son's future while reexamining his own past in John P. Marquand's enduring portrait of America on the brink of World War II


A script doctor who divides his time between Manhattan, Hollywood, and a country home in New England, Jeffrey Wilson has entered middle age with all the trappings of success. Yet, in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, he feels increasingly anxious and isolated. He fears that his eldest son, a college sophomore, will be called to fight before he has had a chance to live on his own terms.


 


Two decades ago, Jeffrey served in World War I, and his life since then seems like a series of accidents. Instead of the journalism career he aspired to, he toils to fix other people's plays. By marrying into a prominent family, he gained wealth and stature, but sacrificed his autonomy. His friends and acquaintances, most of whom were chosen by his wife, are foolish and vain..


 


Powerless to rewind the clock or hold back the tides of global conflict, Jeffrey offers his son the one piece of advice that is impossible for a young man to hear: Time is running out. Witty, moving, and meticulously observed, So Little Time is the story of a crucial period in American history and one man's attempts to make sense of it all.

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The Quest to Restore a Working Farm at Vita Sackville-West's Legendary Garden

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"A charming portrait of an ancient and beautiful house in Kent [and] a poignant and amusing portrait of the English class system." Simon Winchester


From lavish palace for Elizabethan nobles to dreary jailhouse for eighteenth-century prisoners of war, from well-manicured country house for a string of landed families to weed-choked ruin, Sissinghurst, in Kent, has become one of the most illustrious estates in Englandand its future may prove to be just as intriguing as its past.


 


In the 1930s, English poet Vita Sackville-West and her husband, Harold Nicolson, acquired land that had once been owned by Vita's ancestors. Together they created elaborate gardens filled with roses, apple trees, vivid flowers, and scenic paths lined with hedges and pink brick walls. Vita, a gardening correspondent for the Observer and a close friend of Virginia Woolf, opened Sissinghurst to the public. But the thriving working farm began to change after her death. Her son Nigel instituted sweeping changes, including transferring ownership of the estate to Britain's National Trust in 1967 to avoid extensive taxation.


 


For author Adam Nicolson, the grandson of Harold and Vita, Sissinghurst was always more than a tourist attraction; it was his home. As a boy, Nicolson hiked the same trails that Roman conquerors walked centuries before. With wistful imagination, fascination with natural beauty, and connection to the land, Nicolson has returned home to restore Sissinghurst's glory. His journey to recreate a sustainable and functioning farm, despite resistance from the National Trust, makes for a compelling memoir of family, history, and the powerful relationship between people and nature.

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From the majestic Bengal tiger to the domesticated Siamese comes a meditation on cats from the bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Dogs and The Social Lives of Dogs 


From as far back in time as the disappearance of the dinosaurs, cats have occupied an important place in our evolutionary, social, and cultural history. The family of the cat is as diverse as it is widespread, ranging from the lions, tigers, and pumas of the African and Asian wilds to the domesticated cats of our homes, zoos, and circuses.


 


When she witnesses her housecat, Rajah, effortlessly scare off two fully-grown deer, acclaimed anthropologist Elizabeth Marshall Thomas starts studying the links that bind the feline family together. Immersing herself in the subtle differences of their social orders, feeding behaviors, and means of communication, Thomas explores the nature of the cat, both wild and domestic, and the resilient streak that has ensured its survival over thousands of years.

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The unforgettable journey of an American businessmanfrom his humble origins to his extraordinary successesand the compromises he made along the way

 


When Willis Wayde first lays eyes on the Harcourt mansion near Clyde, Massachusetts, he is fifteen years old. His father is an engineer at Harcourt Mill, and Willis is awestruck by the family's wealth and power. Seeking guidance from Henry Harcourt, Willis meets Bess, the old man's granddaughter. Their friendship eventually blossoms into love as the elder Harcourt takes the young man under his wing, recognizing in Willis a kindred spirit whose instinct for making money matches his own.


 


Pleased with his good fortune, Willis is nevertheless acutely aware of the great social gulf that separates the Waydes from the Harcourts. Determined to make his own way, he sets out on a path that will take him far beyond New England and the insular, old-money world of Henry and Bess. Then the Depression hits, wiping out the Harcourt family fortune. When he comes back into their life, Willis has the power to rescue the last vestige of the family's prestige: the mill. Torn between his nostalgia for a simpler, more sentimental time and his sharply honed business acumen, Willis must make a fateful decision.

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National Book Award Finalist: "A learned, thoughtful, witty legal history for the layman" (The New Yorker).


What do the thoughts of a ravenous tiger have to do with the evolution of America's legal system? How do the works of Jane Austen and Ludwig van Beethoven relate to corporal punishment? In The Law of the Land, Charles Rembar examines these and many other topics, illustrating the surprisingly entertaining history of US law.


 


Best known for his passionate efforts to protect literature, including Lady Chatterley's Lover, from censorship laws, Rembar offers an exciting look at the democratic judicial system that will appeal to lawyers and laymen alike. From the dark days of medieval England, when legal disputes were settled by duel, through recent paradigm shifts in the interpretation and application of the legal code, The Law of the Land is a compelling and informative history of the rules and regulations we so often take for granted.

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When given two alternatives, always choose the third    Its springtime in Paris and Sarah Calloway looks forward to mixing business with pleasure. Her business? To purchase the travel journals of the celebrated turn-of-the-century adventuress Isabelle Eberhardt. Her pleasure? A long-awaited romantic rendezvous with her intimate friend and fellow journalist Stanley London, who is flying in from Jerusalem to join her. So what goes wrong? Just about everything.   Sarah arrives in Paris only to learn that the Eberhardt journals have mysteriously disappeared. One day later, she discovers that Stanley has mysteriously disappeared as well. Enter the stranger from the Middle East, a beguiling young Arab who offers Sarah his unsolicited assistance. One day later, he too disappears. His departure, however, is not so mysterious. He is brutally murdered and Sarah finds herself directly implicated in the young mans untimely death. Her passport is confiscated and she is kept under constant police surveillance. So begins one chillingly unforgettable week in the life of Sarah Calloway, investigative reporter. A week in which the French Secret Police, the Israeli Mossad, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and the most notorious of terroristsAbu Nidalall have their roles to play. As Sarah struggles to unravel the mystery at the core of a series of calamities besetting her stay in Paris, she is drawn into a kaleidoscope nightmare of bewildering dimensions, a trial by fire with only one exit and one retreat: the harrowing rite of passage known as the Third Way.

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On Christmas Day, 1987, a brutal murder takes place. The victim? A young, pregnant woman waiting at a bus stop on a deserted street of a southern California town. The assassins? Two cold-blooded, professional hit men. The accomplices? Two San Rodino cops. And the witness? Sarah Calloway, investigative reporter. This gruesome encounter plunges Sarah headlong into a perilous maze of double-dealings and international intrigue, where the first murder detonates a second, and then a puzzling chain of killings. It is like a game of mirages, for no sooner does Sarah unlock one piece of the puzzle than it fades into the shadows, leaving more complex, more harrowing possibilities in its wake. Is she dealing with a band of well-armed Survivalists? Paramilitary drug smugglers? Nicaraguan Contras? Central American death squads? Cuban terrorists? Or are there elements more insidious and closer to home? The deeper Sarah digs, the darker and more powerful the forces become. And the truth is far more chilling than Sarah could ever have suspected as she discovers the far reaching and ruthless impact of La Mano Blanca, the White Hand.

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In the sequel to his much heralded The Rain and The Fire and The Will of God, Donald Wetzel continues the story of John, or Jack, and Rodney, two boys whose innocence, honor, and integrity is tested as they search a river for a lost boat and find more than they had bargained for along the way.

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The Rain and the Fire and the Will of God

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According to Jack Haywood, the trouble with the Hillthe farmis that nothing ever happens there. He expects this summer, the summer of his fourteenth year, to be no different. First there is Jenny Holmes, whom he can go to see only on the pretext of seeing her brother, Les, a real pain. Jenny, who lives a mile and a half away by moonlit trail through piney woods and cypress swamp. Then there is the gator hole, even further from the Hill, where one can bravely swim in the secret conviction that the gator is a myth. There are the great summer thunderstorms, but they are to be expected. And then there is Rodney, also fourteen, down from White Plains, New Yorkhis mother recently deceasedcome to spend the summer on the Hill. But even if Jack never says so, at the summers end, hell know that much indeed has happened this summer on the Hill, much that is tender and warmand quite realin this story that is not so much of adolescence as it is of life itselfand of our right to hold to its celebration.

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Rabbi Small returns in this New York Timesbestselling novel to investigate a mysterious death on the Day of Atonementfrom the Edgar Awardwinning author.
The day before Yom Kippur, the synagogue sound system is on the blink, the floral arrangements are in disarray, and a member of Rabbi David Small's congregationin the Massachusetts town of Barnard's Crossingis terribly concerned with how much a Torah weighs. The rabbi is determined not to let these mundane concerns ruin his day of prayer and contemplation. But the holiest day of the Jewish year is interrupted when a member of the congregation is found dead in his car.
Details emerge that suggest the man may have killed himself, but the rabbi's wife suspects murder. Which is it? Rabbi Small kicks into high detective gear to find out. His search for the culprit among the small town's cast of eccentric characters leads to nail-biting suspense in this highly entertaining and engrossing mystery.
"A crackling good mystery." Time
"A whale of a good time." The New York Times

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Rabbi Small has left the synagogue, but he's not done with sleuthing, in this "engaging" mystery from the New York Timesbestselling author (New York Newsday).
Edgar AwardWinning Author
After three decades of dealing with temple politics and getting involved with more than a handful of murder investigations, Rabbi David Small is ready to retire from his synagogue in the cozy Boston suburb of Barnard's Crossing. For years, his secret desire has been to permanently take up teaching, but when he finally leaves the synagogue to pursue that dream, life at a university proves more dangerous than he thought.
Late at night, a notoriously ambitious college professor dies in a car wreck. The academic had been drinking heavily, but evidence suggests that the crash might not have been an accident. The local police are stumped and enlist the only detective they know whose astute eye and quick mind come from a higher power: Rabbi Small.

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A woman must untangle a dark enigma that dates back to World War II in order to find her kidnapped son in this riveting international thriller from Peter Abrahams, aka Spencer Quinn, author of the Chet and Bernie Mysteries


Rachel Monette arrives home to a scene of unspeakable violence: Her French-born husband, Dan, is deadthe victim of a savage stabbingand her five-year-old son is missing. A neighbor claims she saw a rabbi taking Adam away. But there are no synagogues in Williamstown.


 


The only clue is a letter Rachel finds in Dan's safety deposit box. Written in 1942, it's about the reassignment of three German soldiers to a place called Camp Siegfried in the supposedly unoccupied western part of North Africa. Convinced that the murder and abduction are related to a book Dan recently completed about German-occupied countries during World War II, Rachel travels to North Africa and then on to Israel, where a mass murderer hiding in plain sight is determined to keep the horrors of the past buried forever.

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An interfaith wedding, local politics, and a lethal hit-and-run case keep Rabbi Small busy in this mystery in the New York Timesbestselling series.
Edgar AwardWinning Author
Since becoming the rabbi at the synagogue in Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts, David Small has seen his congregation through a fair share of unholy bickering and corruption. So when millionaire Howard Magnuson is elected president of the synagogue, the rabbi isn't surprised that Magnuson wants to bring corporate efficiency to the templeat the expense of religious tradition. Conflict flares when Rabbi Small refuses, on the basis of temple rules, to officiate the interfaith wedding of Magnuson's daughter to a non-Jewish Boston politician, and the new president calls for the rabbi's dismissal.
When another player in Boston politics is killed in a hit-and-run accident and the police suspect a Jewish college student, Rabbi Small fears the undergrad might have been set upand that Magnuson is involved. The young man's innocence and the future of the temple depend on Rabbi Small solving the case with his signature wit and Judaic wisdom.

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The rabbi looks into a professor's death in the New York Timesbestselling series that's "the American equivalent of the British cozy" (Booklist).
Edgar AwardWinning Author
Retired from his job at the synagogue in Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts, Rabbi Small now teaches Judaic studies at a Boston college. Finally able to enjoy theological contemplation without the annoyance of temple politics, the rabbi is shocked when one of his colleagues is found dead in his carand the clues at the scene point to murder.
The deceased English professor was notoriously selfish and held long-standing grudges against other members of the faculty, so the list of suspects is long. But when the rabbi who took over Small's position in Barnard's Crossing is implicated, it falls to Small to clear his name and find the true killer, one last time.

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A call from a killer sends Mike Shayne hurtling toward the brink


A woman sits in the Encanto Hotel on Biscayne Bay, rationing a bottle of scotch and waiting for a call that could change her life. She clutches a marriage announcement that has chilled her to the core. At last, there is a knock at the door, but it isn't the person she was expecting. Instead she is greeted by a man she thought dead, a man who tortured her for far too long. She offers him a drink and then presses a pistol to his chest and pulls the trigger until the clip is empty and her tormenter is dead.


 


In a state of panic, she calls the only man who can helpMiami's toughest private detective, Mike Shayneand lies. She says her name is Carla, that the dead man is her husband, and that it was her daughter, Vicky, who pulled the trigger. She may think she knows how to play the game, but she'll soon find that Shayne is a dangerous man to toy withand he doesn't stay fooled for long.



The Body Came Back is the 46th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Mike Shayne finds strange secrets hidden beneath the cover of a grisly double suicide


It's 10:30 pm, and Mike Shayne is sipping cognac, ruminating on the perfection of Lucy Hamilton's fried chicken, when a shotgun fires upstairs. Following the acrid stench of gunpowder to a locked door halfway down the hall, Shayne has no choice but to batter it down, tumbling face first into the scene of a particularly ugly double suicide. The woman lies on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, her face twisted by the deadly kiss of cyanide. A few feet beyond her body is what remains of a man, his head obliterated by the shotgun's blast.


 


The woman's father is one of Miami's power brokers, and he refuses to believe that his daughter would end her life over a silly affair. Isn't it possible, he asks, that she was murdered? Convinced or not, Shayne is the only man ruthless enough to find out.


 


The Corpse That Never Was is the 45th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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Mike Shayne investigates the connection between a flirtatious wife, a husband blinded by jealousy, and a murdered boss


Just 3 years ago, Ralph Larson and his wife were newlyweds, the happiest young couple in Miami. But since Larson went to work for Wesley Ames, his life has been hell. He's convinced his wife has fallen in love with his boss, and the jealousy is driving him mad. Hoping to avoid a murder, private detective Mike Shayne tells Larson's wife to knock off the flirting before her husband's envy leads to tragedy. But it's too late: Death is at the door.


 


When Shayne learns that Larson is headed to Ames's apartment, pistol in hand, he races there hoping to prevent bloodshed. He finds Larson standing over his boss's corpse, ready to confess to murder. But there's more here than meets the eyeand more to this murder than a resentful husband holding a smoking gun.


 


Shoot to Kill is the 48th book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

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As Passover approaches, Rabbi Small contends with infighting, backstabbing, and an actual murder in this New York Times bestseller.
Edgar AwardWinning Author
As Rabbi David Small's five-year contract winds down at the synagogue in Barnard's Crossing, Massachusetts, some members of the congregation are plotting to remove him; others are whispering about starting a new temple of their own across the street. When the rabbi gets an invitation to perform Passover services at a local university, he's eager to get away from the bickering and spend a few days on campus. But instead of peace and enlightenment, he finds a murder wrapped up in drug deals and racial tensions.
From tuned-out hippies to political zealots, the college is full of potential suspects. Once again it's up to the rabbi to draw on his deductive skills to solve the caseand avoid getting sucked into the bitter culture warbefore the killer strikes again.
"Detective work at its most telling . . . The puzzle is a good one . . . but the best part of this and any Small tale is the wondrous warmth and assurance of the portrayal of Jews and Judaism." The New York Times Book Review
"The Rabbi's best adventure yet." Library Journal