Victims

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Jonathan Kellerman

With scores of millions of books in print, translation into two dozen languages, and one of the most popular heroes in contemporary fiction to his name, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Kellerman is the unequivocal "master of the psychological thriller" (People). In his newest novel Kellerman delivers a tour de force--poignant, dark, and chilling--that illuminates a shadowy world where impulse rules. Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, she still seems older than her years--but her problems go beyond hyper-maturity. Patty Bigelow, Tanya's aunt and adoptive mother, has made a deathbed confession of murder and urged the young woman to seek Delaware's help. The doctor recalls Patty as a selfless E.R. nurse struggling to raise a child on her own--a woman seemingly incapable of the "terrible thing" she has admitted. But for Tanya's peace of mind, Delaware agrees to investigate, and he enlists LAPD detective Milo Sturgis in the search for the phantom victim of a crime that may never have occurred.Armed with only the vaguest details, psychologist and cop follow a trail twisting from L.A.'s sleaziest low-rent districts to its overblown mansions, retracing Patty and Tanya's nomadic and increasingly puzzling life to the doorsteps of a sullen heroin addict; a randy real-estate broker; and a brilliant, enigmatic physics student. Suddenly a very real murder tears open a terrifying tunnel into the past, where secrets--and bodies--are buried. As the tension mounts, Delaware and Sturgis uncover a tangled history of desperation, vengeance, and death--a legacy of evil that refuses to die. Dramatic, action-packed, and filled with the psychological detail that only Jonathan Kellerman can provide, Obsession is a whodunit, a whydunit--and something unique: a did-it-even-happen? This is Kellerman at his heart-racing best.From the Hardcover edition.

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Dean Unkefer

"MAD MEN MEETS THE WIRE IN THIS GRIPPING TRUE-CRIME MEMOIR BY A FORMER AGENT AT THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF NARCOTICS IN 1960s NEW YORK Before Nixon famously declared a "war on drugs," there was the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. New York City in the mid-1960s: The war in Vietnam was on the nation's tongue--but so is something else. Clandestine and chaotic, but equally ruthless, the agents of the Bureau were feared by the Mafia, dealers, pimps, prostitutes--anyone who did his or her business on the streets. With few rules and almost no oversight, the battle-hardened agents of the bureau were often more vicious than the criminals they chased. Agent Dean Unkefer was a naive kid with notions of justice and fair play when he joined up. But all that quickly changes once he gets thrown into the lion's den of 90 Church, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, where he is shocked to see the agents he revered are often more like thugs than lawmen. When he finally gets the chance to prove his mettle by going undercover in the field, the lines become increasingly blurred. As he spirals into the hell of addiction and watches his life become a complex balancing act of lies and half-truths, he begins to wonder what side he is really on. 90 Church is both the unbelievable memoir of one man's confrontation with the dark corners of the human experience and a fascinating window into a little-known time in American history. Learn the story of the agents who make the DEA look like choirboys"-- "Before Nixon famously declared a "war on drugs," there was the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. New York City in the mid-1960s. Free love is sweeping the nation--but so is something else. Clandestine and chaotic, but equally ruthless, the agents of the bureau were feared by the Mafia, dealers, pimps, prostitutes--anyone who did their business on the streets. With few rules and almost no oversight, the battle-hardened agents of the bureau were often more vicious than the criminals they chased. Agent Dean Unkefer was a naive kid with notions of justice and fair play when he joined up. But all that quickly changes once he gets thrown into the lion's den of 90 Church, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, where he is shocked to see the agents he revered are often more like thugs than lawmen. When he finally gets the chance to prove his mettle by going undercover in the field, the lines become increasingly blurred. As he spirals into the hell of addiction and watches his life become a complex balancing act of lies and half-truths, he begins to wonder what side he is really on. 90 Church is both the unbelievable memoir of one man's confrontation with the dark corners of the human experience, and a fascinating window into a little known time in American history. Learn the story of the agents who make the DEA look like choir boys. - For fans of David Simon, and the TV shows Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men - Film rights optioned by Universal Studios"--

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Faye Kellerman

Billionaire genius Genoa Greeves never got over the shocking death of her favorite teacher, Bennett "Dr. Ben" Alston Little, murdered execution-style and stuffed into the trunk of his Mercedes-Benz. No arrests were ever made, no killer charged for the brutal crime. Fifteen years later, the high-tech CEO reads about another execution-style murder; this time the victim is a Hollywood music producer named Primo Ekerling. There is no obvious connection, but the case is eerily similar to Little's and Genoa feels the time is right to close Dr. Ben's case once and for all—offering the L.A.P.D. a substantial financial "incentive" if justice is finally served for Little.Lieutenant Peter Decker resents having to commit valuable manpower to a fifteen-year-old open case simply because a rich woman says "Jump!" Still, the recent murder of Primo Ekerling does bear a disturbing resemblance to Little's case, even though two thug suspects are currently behind bars for the Ekerling murder. Decker can't help but wonder about a connection. His first phone calls are to the two primary investigators in the Little case, retired detectives Calvin Vitton and Arnie Lamar. Lamar is cooperative, but Vitton is not only reluctant to talk, he winds up dead of a suspicious suicide twelve hours later. Plunging into this long-buried murder, Decker discovers that even though the two slayings are separated by a decade and a half, there is still plenty of greed, lust, and evil to connect the dots.Decker's team of top investigators not only includes his favorite homicide detectives, Scott Oliver and Marge Dunn, but also his newly minted Hollywood detective daughter, Cindy Kutiel, whose help proves to be invaluable. His wife, Rina Lazarus, continues to be his backbone of support, offering a cool, rational outlook despite her growing concern for her husband's welfare and safety. Rina's worries and fears begin to build at a fevered pitch as past and present collide with a vengeance, catapulting an unsuspecting Peter Decker closer and closer to the edge of an infinite dark abyss.A relentlessly gripping tale spun by a master, Faye Kellerman's The Mercedes Coffin races through a dangerous urban world of fleeting fame and false dreams, making heart-pumping hairpin turns at each step of a terrifying journey, where truth and justice are fine lines between life and death.

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Dėvid Grann

Acclaimed New Yorker writer and author of the breakout debut bestseller The Lost City of Z, David Grann offers a collection of spellbinding narrative journalism. Whether he's reporting on the infiltration of the murderous Aryan Brotherhood into the U.S. prison system, tracking down a chameleon con artist in Europe, or riding in a cyclone- tossed skiff with a scientist hunting the elusive giant squid, David Grann revels in telling stories that explore the nature of obsession and that piece together true and unforgettable mysteries. Each of the dozen stories in this collection reveals a hidden and often dangerous world and, like Into Thin Air and The Orchid Thief, pivots around the gravitational pull of obsession and the captivating personalities of those caught in its grip. There is the world's foremost expert on Sherlock Holmes who is found dead in mysterious circumstances; an arson sleuth trying to prove that a man about to be executed is innocent; and sandhogs racing to complete the brutally dangerous job of building New York City's water tunnels before the old system collapses. Throughout, Grann's hypnotic accounts display the power--and often the willful perversity--of the human spirit. Compulsively readable, The Devil and Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant mosaic of ambition, madness, passion, and folly.From the Hardcover edition.