Fiction

"Unbearably suspenseful . . . pushes the envelope and succeeds on nearly every level."--Bookreporter

It is the summer of 1934, and Hitler is nearing the summit of supreme power in Germany. When Britain's MI6 gets word that a German scientist has made a key breakthrough in germ warfare, they send Elena Standish on a dangerous mission to get him out of Germany before he's forced to share his knowledge and its destructive power with Hitler's elite.

But the British soon learn that the new head of Germany's germ warfare division is an old enemy of Elena's grandfather Lucas, the former head of MI6. And he's bent on using any means to avenge his defeat at Lucas's hands twenty years before.

What starts as an effort to save Europe from the devastation of disease becomes an intensely personal fight. As Elena and the scientist make their way across Germany, they confront not only the Gestapo but also a group of unpredictable Nazi supporters. With Elena's every decision challenged, this compelling thriller takes a searing look at what it means to make the right choices in a world rife with so much evil.

"The truth about Reacher gets better and better."--Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Four people in a car, hoping to make Chicago by morning. One man driving, eyes on the road. Another man next to him, telling stories that don't add up. A woman in the back, silent and worried. And next to her, a huge man with a broken nose, hitching a ride east to Virginia.

An hour behind them, a man lies stabbed to death in an old pumping station. He was seen going in with two others, but he never came out. He has been executed, the knife work professional, the killers vanished. Within minutes, the police are notified. Within hours, the FBI descends, laying claim to the victim without ever saying who he was or why he was there.

All Reacher wanted was a ride to Virginia. All he did was stick out his thumb. But he soon discovers he has hitched more than a ride. He has tied himself to a massive conspiracy that makes him a threat--to both sides at once.

In Lee Child's white-hot thriller, nothing is what it seems, and nobody is telling the truth. As the tension rises, the twists come fast and furious, keeping readers guessing and gasping until the explosive finale.

Michael Dorris has crafted a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting in the present day and moving backward, the novel is told in the voices of the three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past.

"We're going to die, aren't we?"

"Yes."

Two brothers face challenges at sea. A man with special blood approaches his foreboding doom. In a dystopian future, Scouts reflect on the giant leap of mankind. Aided by her friends, an ill girl begins to conquer her challenges. A death row prisoner reaches out for help. A homeless man is absolved from his sins. An old sea captain develops unique plans for his funeral. An actor performs his most difficult role.

The stories in Absolution explore the psychological, emotional, and spiritual struggles of life and death. The characters are enlivened as they strive for value, significance, and meaning.

Is absolution the answer they seek?