Mac McQuarry knew better than to mix women and work. And he had enough trouble of his own: The disgraced former cop had been demoted after an explosive shakedown of the Charleston police department. But when Julie Carlson hires him to spy on her cheating husband, Mac can't resist. Not only is she drop-dead gorgeous, but her husband was a player in Mac's inglorious downfall. But what begins as a run-of-the-mill assignment spiced by a fiery flirtation suddenly spirals into a harrowing race for survival.

With an ailing mother to care for, Lisa Grant takes the first job she can find: research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. What Lisa expects to be a mind-numbingly boring task turns into anything but when a missing-persons case draws her attention. The details of the case are engrossing: an entire family — father, mother, and two children — disappeared without a trace more than 28 years ago. Except that’s not all: the mother in a photo Lisa finds could be her own twin.

hnny Harris is home again, his too-tight jeans and damn-your-eyes belligerence honed to perfection by a ten-year stretch in federal prison for murder. Now he’s out on parole and ready for the job Rachel Grant has promised him to help him begin a new life. Unlike the rest of the town, Rachel has always believed in her former student’s innocence. But one thing has changed. The sullenly handsome boy she remembers is still sullen, still handsome - but no longer a boy.

Seven years ago, Sarah Mason's five-year-old daughter vanished during an outing at a park in Beaufort, South Carolina. Despite a frantic search, little Lexie was never found, and Sarah was left to pick up the pieces of her shattered life and go on the best she could. Then, one hot August night, Sarah comes home to hear the phone ringing. When she picks it up, a child's terrified voice whispers, "Mommy, help, come and get me . . ." The call is cut off, but not before Sarah's heart goes into overdrive.

It’s not that Micayla Lange is afraid of the clinking she hears coming from the first floor of the empty McMansion she’s housesitting for her uncle Nicco. She’s a cop, after all. It’s just that finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her was enough drama for one night. Now she’s alone on New Year’s Eve, wearing flannel pajamas and wielding a Glock 22 as she zeroes in on the unmistakable source of the sound: Uncle Nicco’s private office.

One cold November night when Kat Kominski was 15 years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught. Thirteen years later, Kat - now Kate White - has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with a nine-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA's office. But her dark past returns to haunt her.

Growing up, Bianca St. Ives knew she was different from all her friends. Instead of playing hopscotch or combing her dolls' hair, she studied martial arts with sensei masters and dismantled explosives with special-ops retirees. Her father prepped her well to carry on the family business. Now a striking beauty with fierce skills, the prodigy has surpassed the master.

While vacationing in Utah’s mountain wilderness, Lynn Nelson suddenly finds herself having to deal with her teenage daughter Rory’s raging hormones. The object of Rory’s passion is their guide, drop-dead gorgeous Jess Feldman, a man the divorced Lynn instinctively distrusts, even as she shields herself from his blazing baby blues. But after Lynn and Rory fall off a cliff of sheared rock, Jess becomes their only hope.

Dr. Charlotte Stone sees what others do not. A sought-after expert in criminal pathology, Charlie regularly sits face-to-face with madmen. Obsessed with learning what makes human monsters commit terrible crimes, Charlie desires little else from life - no doubt because when she was 16, she herself survived a serial killer's bloodbath: A man butchered the family of Charlie's friend, then left the girl's body on a seaside boardwalk one week later. Because of the information Charlie gave police, the Boardwalk Killer went underground.

New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards continues her penchant for "fantastic storytelling" ( RT Book Reviews) with this next heart-pumping romantic suspense novel, the tale of a brilliant ornithologist trapped on the remote Attu Island in Alaska, fighting for her life - and that of a handsome stranger - before they're swallowed up in darkness forever.

'Twas the night before Christmas…and dozens of rich, influential hostages are trapped inside a sprawling lakefront mansion in New Orleans. The perp? Detective Reed Ware, model cop turned outlaw. After receiving a panicked call from Hollis "Holly" Bayard, a teenage street tough with a penchant for amateur sleuthing who stumbles upon the scene of a drug-deal-turned-murder, Ware finds his and his friend's lives in dire danger. The crime Holly witnessed could be the biggest police cover-up this side of New Orleans - and no one's talking.

At a Texas county fair, children’s book author Elle Portman is enjoying a rare night out with her favorite cowboy: her two-year-old son, Charlie. But just as they’re about to head home, the unthinkable happens: a shooter opens fire into the crowd, causing widespread panic to erupt all around them. Also caught in the melee is corporate consultant Calder Hudson. When he wakes up in the hospital, he's told he's lucky. Others didn't fare we well, which instills in Calder a furious determination to get justice.

On an April day in 1937, the sky opens and fire rains down upon the small Spanish town of Guernica. Seventeen-year-old Sibi and her family are caught up in the horror. Griff, an American military attaché, pulls Sibi from the wreckage, and it’s only the first time he saves her life in a span of hours. When Germany claims no involvement in the attack, insisting the Spanish Republic was responsible, Griff guides Sibi to lie to Nazi officials. If she or her sisters reveal that they saw planes bearing swastikas, the gestapo will silence them—by any means necessary.

In the unbearable heat of another sultry Washington, D.C., summer, a serial killer is on the loose. Dr. Tess Court, one of the capital’s most successful psychiatrists, wants nothing to do with the case—until the police convince her to lend a hand to the lead investigator, legendary ladies’ man Detective Ben Paris. Scarred by his family’s history, Ben has even less use for shrinks than Tess has for him—but the forces of animal magnetism and a shared desire to catch the demented criminal known as “The Priest” inexorably erode the walls they’ve built.

Police Lieutenant Phoebe MacNamara found her calling at an early age, when a violently unstable man broke into her family's home, trapping and terrorizing them for hours. Now she's Savannah's top hostage negotiator, who puts her life on the line every day to defuse powder-keg situations.

When Riley Cowan finds her estranged husband Jeff dead in his palatial home, she's sure it's no coincidence. The police rule it a suicide, but Riley thinks someone's out for blood - specifically someone Jeff's father ripped off in one of the biggest financial fraud cases of all time. She suspects that someone is trying to send a message to Jeff's father: Tell me where the money is, or everyone you care about will die.

One cold November night when Kat Kominski was 15 years old, she and some friends held up a convenience store. In the heat of the moment, one of the others shot and killed an off-duty cop moonlighting as a security guard. Kat and her pals fled the scene in a panic, and no one was caught. Thirteen years later, Kat - now Kate White - has built a new life for herself. Now a single mom with a nine-year-old son, she works as a prosecutor in the Philadelphia DA's office. But her dark past returns to haunt her.

What would make the perfect man? That's the deliciously racy topic that Jaine Bright and her three girlfriends are pondering one night at their favorite after-hours hot spot: Mr. Perfect. Would he be tall, dark, and handsome? Caring and warmhearted - or will just muscular do? As their conversation heats up, they concoct a tongue-in-cheek checklist that becomes an overnight sensation, spreading like wildfire at work and sizzling along email lines. But what began as a joke among friends turns deadly serious when one of the four women is murdered....

Katharine Lawrence has no idea what hit her. The attack came out of nowhere. Only hours earlier she had been enjoying a girls-only weekend with an old college friend. Now she finds herself lying bound and gagged on her kitchen floor, staring with terrified eyes at her friend Lisa while two masked gunmen search her house for - what? She doesn't know. She knows only that, unless they can escape, whatever it is they are searching for could end up getting both her and Lisa killed.

If driving a piece-of-crap tow truck through the seediest part of town with a Smith & Wesson beside her means putting a roof over her son’s head, then Samantha Jones is going to be the best damn repo woman on the books. The streetwalkers, the drug pushers, the bands of looking-for-trouble punks haunting the mean streets at midnight don’t intimidate her. These are her people. The guy she finds bound and bloodied in the trunk of her latest conquest, a flashy new BMW, is a different breed entirely.

New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards continues her penchant for "fantastic storytelling" ( RT Book Reviews) with this next heart-pumping romantic suspense novel, the tale of a brilliant ornithologist trapped on the remote Attu Island in Alaska, fighting for her life - and that of a handsome stranger - before they're swallowed up in darkness forever.

'Twas the night before Christmas…and dozens of rich, influential hostages are trapped inside a sprawling lakefront mansion in New Orleans. The perp? Detective Reed Ware, model cop turned outlaw. After receiving a panicked call from Hollis "Holly" Bayard, a teenage street tough with a penchant for amateur sleuthing who stumbles upon the scene of a drug-deal-turned-murder, Ware finds his and his friend's lives in dire danger. The crime Holly witnessed could be the biggest police cover-up this side of New Orleans - and no one's talking.

Dr. Charlotte Stone sees what others do not. A sought-after expert in criminal pathology, Charlie regularly sits face-to-face with madmen. Obsessed with learning what makes human monsters commit terrible crimes, Charlie desires little else from life - no doubt because when she was 16, she herself survived a serial killer's bloodbath: A man butchered the family of Charlie's friend, then left the girl's body on a seaside boardwalk one week later. Because of the information Charlie gave police, the Boardwalk Killer went underground.

It’s not that Micayla Lange is afraid of the clinking she hears coming from the first floor of the empty McMansion she’s housesitting for her uncle Nicco. She’s a cop, after all. It’s just that finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her was enough drama for one night. Now she’s alone on New Year’s Eve, wearing flannel pajamas and wielding a Glock 22 as she zeroes in on the unmistakable source of the sound: Uncle Nicco’s private office.

With an ailing mother to care for, Lisa Grant takes the first job she can find: research assistant to District Attorney Scott Buchanan. What Lisa expects to be a mind-numbingly boring task turns into anything but when a missing-persons case draws her attention. The details of the case are engrossing: an entire family — father, mother, and two children — disappeared without a trace more than 28 years ago. Except that’s not all: the mother in a photo Lisa finds could be her own twin.