From Atlanta's wealthiest suburbs to its stark inner-city housing projects, a killer has crossed the boundaries of wealth and race. And the people who are chasing him must cross those boundaries, too. Among them is Michael Ormewood, a veteran detective whose marriage is hanging by a thread and whose arrogance and explosive temper are threatening his career. And Angie Polaski, a beautiful vice cop who was once Michael's lover before she became his enemy.

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache, and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances.

Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister, Mattie, in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray - a radio personality working on a segment about forgotten towns in America - overhears Sadie's story, he becomes obsessed with finding the girl.

Kiara and her brother, Marcus, are barely scraping by in a squalid East Oakland apartment complex optimistically called the Regal-Hi. Both have dropped out of high school, their family fractured by death and prison. But while Marcus clings to his dream of rap stardom, Kiara hunts for work to pay their rent—which has more than doubled—and to keep the nine-year-old boy next door, abandoned by his mother, safe and fed.

Josephine Clark is trapped. A harrowing past haunts her every time she looks in the mirror, and she can't escape the violence of her everyday life. More and more, her thoughts turn to Evan Salinger, the boy she knew in high school. The boy they called a mental case. A loner. A freak. The boy who seemed to know things no one could know. For a few short weeks, Jo had found perfect solace in Evan's company, sneaking every night to meet him at the local pool.

Sometimes you don't mean to become another person. Sometimes the choice is made for you, and pretending is the only thing that keeps you going. When Alexis Romera is taken and her kidnappers find her fake ID in her purse, she must become Sophia in order to keep her family safe. Revealing her real identity to the man she's sold to would be easy enough, but can she trust him? Hell-bent on avenging the murder of his uncle, Rebel doesn't seem all that interested in playing things safe.

Margo is not like other girls. She lives in a derelict neighborhood called the Bone, in a cursed house, with her cursed mother, who hasn't spoken to her in over two years. She lives her days feeling invisible. It's not until she develops a friendship with her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Judah Grant, that things begin to change. When a neighborhood girl, seven-year-old Neveah Anthony, goes missing, Judah sets out to help Margo uncover what happened to her. What Margo finds changes her, and with a new perspective on life she's determined to find evil and punish it.

Theresa Drazen wants to know one thing: Is there something wrong with her? Because from what she can see, she has money, brains, and a body that does the job. Yet she keeps getting shelved - most recently by her fiancé, who happens to be the DA. And she'll get over it, really. No problem. She'll just have a nice, short encounter with a mysterious Italian named Antonio who may or may not be involved with some kind of alleged criminal activity.

His name is Nate and I should hate him, but I don't. I'm not supposed to know his real name, even worse, I'm not supposed to care. He is nothing to me but means to an end. The plan is simple: break free, collect the pieces of my broken soul, kill the bastards and run away.

Port Royal, South Carolina, was my home. I was born there. I fell in love there. And I nearly died there. I never thought I'd go back. Now, after so many years, I have to return to bury the man who made my life a living hell. Some nights, I used to cry myself to sleep, praying my father would die. Other nights were different. Other nights, there was him. Callan Cross.

Abby has been through hell and has survived one of the most brutal childhoods imaginable. To the outside world, she is just a loner with an attitude. When her grandmother dies in a tragic explosion, Abby is left with questions - and nothing else. Homeless, sleeping in a junkyard, and on the run from a system that has failed her over and over again, she meets Jake, a tattooed, blue-eyed biker with secrets that rival her own. Two broken souls that can't be healed. They can't be saved.

Homicide detective Frank Bennett has a new partner - dark, beautiful, coldly efficient Eden Archer. Frank doesn’t know what to make of her, or her brother Eric, who’s also on the police force. Their methods are... unusual. But when a graveyard full of large steel toolboxes filled with body parts is found at the bottom of Sydney harbor, unusual is the least of their worries. For Eden and Eric, the case holds chilling links to a scarred childhood - and the murderer who raised them. For Frank, each clue brings him closer to something he’s not sure he wants to face.

Hawken Trent. So polite. So sweet. Such an upstanding young man. A virgin, too, I hear. He never gets naughty with a girl. Probably because Jesus told him not to. And now here he is, trying to be the hero by protecting another girl from me. He calls me a bully. Irrational. Unreasonable. A criminal. He can call me anything he wants, I’ve heard worse. And he can try to stand between me and my money, but he’s never had to fight for food. That rich, clean, school boy doesn’t have what it takes

With 10 stories that move from the barrios of the Dominican Republic to the struggling urban communities of New Jersey, Junot Diaz makes his remarkable debut. Diaz's work is unflinching and strong, and these stories crackle with an electric sense of discovery.

For a fee so big he can't turn it down, Simeon Grist is hired to watchdog the kind of guy he'd usually prefer to throw through the nearest window. Toby Vane is the golden boy of prime-time television, whose gee-whiz smile and chiseled features mask a dark secret that would take the shine off for his millions of adoring female fans: every now and then he beats up a woman, and almost any woman will do.