A Person of Interest

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Karin Fossum

A chilling tale about the danger of good intentions - from the acclaimed author of the Inspector Sejer seriesA woman wakes one night to find that a strange man has walked into her bedroom. She lies there in terrified silence unable to move. The woman is an author and the man one of her prospective characters. So desperate is he to have his story told that he has resorted to breaking in to her house to make her tell it.She creates Alvar Eide, forty-two years old, single, who works in an art gallery. He lives a quiet, dutiful life, carefully designed to avoid surprise. One winter's day all this begins to change, when an emaciated young heroin addict walks into the gallery. A kind man, Alvar gives her a cup of coffee to warm her up. She returns some weeks later to his place of work, and then one day appears on his doorstep demanding to be let in.Interspersed with the chapters of Alvar's story are his encounters with its author - the frantic attempts of a fictional man trying to control his own destiny. Broken is a gripping novel about the boundary between fact and fiction from the renowned author of the Inspector Sejer mysteries.

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Thomas H. Cook

In his latest novel of unrelenting suspense, Edgar Award--winning author Thomas Cook journeys into the darkest corners of the human heart to tell a mesmerizing story of crime and retribution--and the forces that push even good people to the breaking point.THE INTERROGATIONAlbert Jay Smalls sits in an interrogation room accused of an unspeakable crime. The police have no witnesses, no physical evidence, but they are certain he is hiding the truth. With less than twelve hours before he must be released, Smalls will be put through one final interrogation. IIt is a search that leads into the shadowed recesses of one man's shattered mind--and to the devastating secrets buried in a desolate seaside town. It is a quest that takes three desperate cops down a dark, twisting road as they race against the clock to find out what really happened one rainy autumn afternoon in 1952. The answers will be more shocking than anyone can imagine, blurring the boundaries between pursuers and prey, between the innocent and the guilty, between the truth that sets us free and the tragedies that haunt us to the grave.Against a gripping backdrop of murder and redemption, master storyteller Thomas Cook probes the uneasy, shifting bonds of family, love, and unbearable loss, proving once again why he is "perhaps the best American writer of crime fiction currently practicing" (Drood Review).From the Hardcover edition.

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Tim Green

Readers last saw Casey Jordan in The Letter of the Law, where she defended her law professor for the grisly murder of a student only to discover he was guilty. After, Casey left her high-powered practice and wealthy husband and opened a legal aid clinic. When an illegal Mexican immigrant is shot on a ranch outside Dallas, it makes the news, not because of the immigrant, but because of the shooter, Senator Tucker Dean. It looks like a hunting accident, and the well-loved young Senator spins the disaster artfully with his tearful press conference. . . until the sister in law of the victim steps forward with another tale. The senator's wife was regularly visiting the victim, so Casey theorizes he was shot by the husband for revenge. When INS takes the victim's daughter away and tries to deport his wife, it looks like a cover-up of epic proportions. Casey approaches the D.A.'s office with information, only to discover that no prosecutor will take on this case. The senator is powerful and on track for a presidential nomination in a few years, so no one wants to tangle with him. Casey is determined to see the truth come out. If the state won't prosecute a murderer, she will sue him in civil court on behalf of the mother. But this popular senator is wily, vindictive, and dangerous. What will happen to Casey when she goes up against a man who seems above the law?

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David Hewson

The snow is falling on the ancient streets of Rome. And in the heart of the city, under the Pantheon's great dome, a woman's body lies on the marble floor, carefully positioned with a gruesome carving on her back....In David Hewson's ingenious new thriller, this horrific murder hurtles Rome's police force into a collision with U.S. agents--and a secret that has festered for fifteen years, now unraveling in the world's most enigmatic city.When Detective Nic Costa arrives at the scene, he is unprepared for what he finds, or for the ambush that leaves his only witness vanished into the night. The dead woman was American. Within hours, U.S. agents descend with a take-no-prisoners style and a shocking story to tell: the killer has struck before, in monuments all over the world, leaving the same cryptic message carved onto the bodies of the victims. But one agent, beautiful, blond Emily Deacon, has yet another story to tell Nic--about a stunning act of deception that may lead back to the U.S. government, and her own chilling, personal connection to the killer. Now, as the first murder leads to more grisly slayings and a motley crew of veteran Roman cops jousts with the Americans, Nic is pulled into a woman's harrowing search for the truth...a search that will take them both into the mind of a madman, into a shocking conspiracy--and into a dark episode in a nation's long-forgotten past.From its haunting opening to its nerve-shattering climax, The Sacred Cut defies all our expectations, proving once again the unique and compelling genius of David Hewson.From the Hardcover edition.