Showing results by author "Alison Gaylin" in All Categories

Dr. Margaret Richter has it all. She’s rich, thanks to her best-selling self-help books. She has a beautiful home in Cape Cod overlooking the beach. And she has a monthly book club that everyone is dying to get invited to. Literally. Because behind the crystal wine glasses, the fine linens and the catered hors d'oeuvres lies a tangled web of secrets, of deceit, of murder. No member of the book club is innocent—and many are guilty. And the person with the most to hide is Margaret Richter herself.

On June 28, 1980 - the hottest night of the year - Kelly Michelle Lund shoots and kills Oscar-nominated director John McFadden at a party in his home...and instantly becomes a media sensation, her chilling smile fodder for national nightmares. For years speculation swirls over the enigmatic 17-year-old's motives, information she's refused to share. Convicted of the murder, she loses her youth and her freedom - but keeps her secrets to herself.

For 13 days in 1976, teenage murderers April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy terrorized Southern California's Inland Empire, killing a dozen victims before perishing themselves in a fire...or did they? More than 40 years later, 20-something podcast producer Quentin Garrison blames his troubled upbringing on the murders. And after a shocking message from a source, he has reason to believe April Cooper may still be alive.

Sunny Randall’s newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all the perks the lifestyle entails—a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board by Blake’s manager, Bethany, to protect him and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies and schemes…and ties to a dangerous criminal scene.

Camille Gardener is a grieving - and angry - mother who, five years after her daughter’s death, is still obsessed with the privileged young man she believes to be responsible. When her rash actions draw the attention of a secret group of women - the collective - Camille is drawn into a dark web where these mothers share their wildly different stories of loss as well as their desire for justice in a world where privilege denies accountability. Fueled by mutual rage, the collective members devise and act out retribution fantasies via anonymous, highly coordinated revenge killings.

After a near-death experience, Sunny Randall is ready to lighten her load as a PI, that is until she is called upon by billionaire media magnate Bill Welch to investigate the disappearance of his son, Dylan, the cofounder of the Gonzo Energy Drink company. Lazy, unscrupulous and a notorious partier, Dylan isn’t exactly reliable. But Dylan’s mother, Lydia, insists this time is different. She knows him. He’s her son. And she believes he’s in serious danger.

Meg Russo was behind the wheel when it happened. She and her husband Justin were driving their daughter Lily to Ithaca College, the family celebrating the eighteen-year-old music prodigy’s future. Then a car swerved up beside them, the young men inside it behaving bizarrely—and Meg lost control of her own vehicle. The family road trip turned into a tragedy. Justin didn’t survive the accident.

A seemingly open-and-shut police case with a clear-cut hero and villain turns out to be anything but simple. Late one night in the quiet Hudson Valley town of Havenkill, a distraught woman stumbles into the police station - and lives are changed forever. Aimee En, once a darling of the '80s pop music scene, claims that a teenage boy stole her car, then ran over another young man who'd rushed to help. As Liam Miller's life hangs in the balance, the events of that fateful night begin to come into focus. But is everything as it seems?

World famous author Melanie Joan Hart asks for Sunny's help in tracking down Book Babe, the screen-name of an enormously popular book reviewer, who has trolled her with a deeply insulting one-star review. This usually wouldn’t matter except that Book Babe has thousands of followers, and her unwarranted blast has Melanie's publisher threatening to pull all her books. But Sunny's investigation reveals that the reviewer and Melanie have a rich history—in fact, she may even have good reason to hate the torn-up author.

It’s dreaded news for actress Lyla McCord and her husband, Nolan. Their eight-year-old daughter has vanished. To find her, Nolan reaches out to a psychic gifted with uncanny visions about the lost girl. But Lyla thinks she sees right through him. Is he a con artist or the real thing? Either way, he might be telling the truth. And that’s too frightening for Lyla to bear.

On a summer afternoon in 1998, six-year-old Iris Neff walked away from a barbecue in her small suburban town...and vanished. Missing persons investigator Brenna Spector has a rare neurological disorder that enables her to recall every detail of every day of her life. A blessing and a curse, it began in childhood, when her older sister stepped into a strange car never to be seen again, and it’s proven invaluable in her work. But it hasn’t helped her solve the mystery that haunts her above all others - and it didn’t lead her to little Iris.

Samantha Leiffer is trying to get a grip on reality. Her live-in boyfriend, detective John Krull, isn't deeply troubled, he's just quiet. Her ex isn't a stalker, he's just trying to be friendly. And the nerdy stranger who gives Sam a note warning her of danger unless she calls him, is just hitting on her-until one by one, people vaguely connected to her start getting killed. Now Sam knows she's not imagining the murderer - and that he's closer than she thinks.

Brenna has perfect memory, able to recall in astonishing detail every moment of every day of her adult life. But her childhood - those carefree years before the traumatic disappearance of her sister, Clea - is frustratingly vague. When Brenna listens to the stories Lula Belle tells her audience, stories only Brenna and Clea could know, those years come to life again in vivid detail.

Brenna Spector is held prisoner by the past. She has perfect memory, which allows her to recall in vivid and remarkable detail every moment of every day of her adult life. If only she could remember more from her child-hood…for she's still trying to unravel the mystery of her sister Clea's disappearance, 28 years ago, when Clea was 17. But now her obsession with finding out what happened to Clea is taking a toll on her own teenage daughter, Maya, who's been very secretive lately. And when Maya goes missing, Brenna fears her worst nightmare has come true.

Sunny Randall is hired to investigate the disappearance of an energy drink company’s CEO, Dylan. As she gets closer to finding Dylan, she learns not only of his bad behaviour toward numerous women, but of his bad behaviour within the business world – and his energy drink that, despite its marketing, has proven dangerous and even deadly.

Scandal-sheet cub reporter Simone Glass has posed as a cater-waiter at a gala benefit, eavesdropped from a Dumpster, and sneaked onto the set of the hottest new TV series. But how many lies and betrayals can Simone live with - especially if they lead to murder? When a soap opera star commits suicide and a stripper with sordid celebrity connections is found dead, Simone’s most reliable sources begin acting paranoid. There’s a remorseless killer ripping Tinseltown apart. Can Simone expose the murderer?

Sunny Randall's newest client, Blake, seems to have it all: he is an Instagram influencer, with all of the perks that the lifestyle entails—a beautiful girlfriend, wealth, and adoring fans. But one of those fans has turned ugly, and Sunny is brought on board to protect Blake and to uncover who is out to kill him. In doing so, she investigates a glamorous world rife with lies, schemes and ties to Boston's mob.

Samantha Leiffer has a self-centered self-help guru for a mother, a cadre of off-kilter Greenwich Village pals, and an ambisexually-cheating ex-boyfriend. She doesn't need more grief. Then she spies two people dumping a dubious-looking ice chest into the Hudson River, and she has a chilling hunch about what's inside. Not being the kind of girl to let two psychos get away with murder, Sam sets out to unravel a mystery - and is soon being stalked by a sinister, shadowy figure who's wearing one-of-a-kind mirrored contact lenses.

Camille Gardner is a grieving mother who, five years after her daughter's death, is obsessed with the man she believes to be responsible. Because Camille wants revenge. Enter: the Collective. A group of women who desire justice above all else. A group of women who enact revenge on the men who have wronged them. But as Camille gets more involved in the group she must decide whether these women are the heroes or the villains. And if she chooses wrong, will she ever get out alive?

Investigative journalist Zoe Greene, traumatized by a serial killer, has switched to writing for a soap-opera digest. Obsessed with soap star Warren Clark, she delights in joining him at his home in Mexico. But nearby, the mutilated body of a teenager was found recently, his heart torn from his body. From the moment Zoe arrives, things go wrong. Warren disappears for long stretches of time. Other Americans she meets hide strange black crosses and blood-tipped cacti in their homes.