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A powerful and unscrupulous investment banker learns the hard way that what goes up must come down. Ever since Gordon Perkins made off with his partners' money, he's been living fast, but losing even faster.

In an overpopulated world where all signs of nature have been obliterated and a wall has been erected to keep out plague-ridden animals, twelve-year-old Mika refuses to believe that his twin sister was killed after being abducted, and continues to search for her in spite of the dangers he faces in doing so.

When Sydney Chaplin left D.C. nine years ago for college, she vowed never to return. But when her sister is found brutally murdered, she finds herself drawn once again into the shadowy web of her wealthy, powerful family. Joined by Washington detectives Jack Cassian and Darius Train, and driven by her need to know the truth about her sister's death, Sydney will risk everything--her life and her family's future--to find the answers.

This set of novellas from Austin, Texas resident James Hynes was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. As chilling as the best of Edgar Allan Poe and bursting with fiendish humor, Publish and Perish features three tales from the not-so-hallowed halls of academia.

The five Lisbon sisters are brought up in a strict household, and when the youngest kills herself, the oppression of the remaining sisters intensifies. As Therese, Mary, Bonnie and Lux are pulled deeper into isolation by their domineering mother, a group of neighborhood boys become obsessed with liberating the sisters. But what the boys don't know is, the Lisbon girls are beyond saving.

Dispatched to investigate the suicide of one of DCs most influential defense officials, an ardent, early supporter of the war in Iraq, Army lawyer Sean Drummond and his female partner find themselves in the middle of a tug-of-war between Washington's most influential power brokers and his own personal allegiance to the soldiers dying overseas. What he uncovers are the secrets that led to the war, secrets that once exposed would destroy public support and undermine the presidency. Now, Drummond faces the greatest moral quandary of his life: What is the true meaning of patriotism?

Scott Finn, rising star at a Boston law firm, has worked hard to pull himself out of the Charlestown projects. When the body of his co-worker and old flame, Natalie Caldwell, floats to the surface of Boston Harbor, Finn is grief stricken. But almost immediately, he's tapped by the firm to replace her in the defense of a high-profile client. As he retraces Natalie's footsteps, Finn begins to unravel the awful mystery of her murder. But police lieutenant Linda Flaherty is also hot on the trail.

California P.I. Kat Vargas has promised herself to steer clear of intimacy ever since her dream life with her first love and fiancé came to a tragic end. One day, an attractive man named Ty Chandler walks into Kat's office desperate to find the child he gave up years ago. So begins a passionate love story of the mending of two broken hearts.

Criminal defense attorney Erin D'Angelo, Cliff's bookstore partner, needs a favor. Her first true love, Robert Marshall, has been murdered, and his wife Laura has confessed. But Erin smells something fishy. She asks Cliff to investigate, which he is more than willing to do when he learns the victim left behind an amazing collection of signed books. If the books are genuine, they are definitely worth killing for.

Psychic Mira Morales and her daughter Annie are preparing their skiff for a return journey from the deserted beach where they've enjoyed a relaxig day in the sun. When a man assaults them and makes off with Annie, Mira must venture into a place she could never have imagined.