Best selling Mystery Books

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Once you start The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan

Amazon Best Books of the Month, May 2010 As the finale to Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is not content to merely match the adrenaline-charged pace that made international bestsellers out of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire. Instead, it roars with an explosive storyline that blows the doors off the series and announces that the very best has been saved for last. A familiar evil lies in wait for Lisbeth Salander, but this time, she must do more than confront the miscreants of her past; she must destroy them. Much to her chagrin, survival requires her to place a great deal of faith in journalist Mikael Blomkvist and trust his judgment when the stakes are highest. To reveal more of the plot would be criminal, as Larsson's mastery of the unexpected is why millions have fallen hard for his work. But rest assured that the odds are again stacked, the challenges personal, and the action fraught with neck-snapping revelations in this snarling conclusion to a thrilling triad. This closing chapter to The Girl's pursuit of justice is guaranteed to leave readers both satisfied and saddened once the final page has been turned. --Dave Callanan

The Blues were born out of need, anger and pride. Murder comes from those same dark places. Memphis has both. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has vanished. Either she's off on another drunken escapade or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day's work for Detective Billy Able quickly grows into a complex spider's web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, and sordid secrets including a few of Billy's own. With the help of Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted trail of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.

Ever since local developer Fred Stanton and his wife, Mimi, built five modular homes next door to Lucy Stone's farmhouse, life just hasn't been the same. With Mimi complaining about everything from the state of Lucy's lawn to another neighbor's lovable dog, quaint Tinker's Cove, Maine, is now entangled in cul-de-sac politics and backstabbing. And when Mimi doesn't show up for her shift at The Hat and Mitten Fund bake sale, the scent of burnt sugar leads Lucy to a shocking discovery: Mimi, face down on her kitchen floor--with a knife in her back.

While the police start their investigation, Lucy gets busy writing up the murder for the local Pennysaver--and following a few leads of her own. Lucy knows the women in her neighborhood didn't like Mimi, but they certainly didn't want her dead...right?

"I like Lucy Stone a lot, and so will readers."--Carolyn Hart

"Leslie Meier writes with sparkle and warmth."--Chicago Sun Times

"Mothers everywhere will identify with Lucy Stone and the domestic problems she encounters."--Publishers Weekly

“This book has got it allâ€"an instant classic.”â€"Lee Child, author of The Hard Way
 
“It is a pleasure marching off to war with the spirited Billy Boyle. He is a charmer, richly imagined and vividly rendered, and he tells a finely suspenseful yarn.”â€"Dan Fesperman, author of The Prisoner of Guantanamo
 
What’s a twenty-two-year-old Irish American cop who’s never been out of Massa-chusetts before doing at Beardsley Hall, an English country house, having lunch with King Haakon of Norway? Billy Boyle himself wonders. Back home in Southie, he’d barely made detective when war was declared. Unwilling to fightâ€"and perhaps dieâ€"for England, he was relieved when his mother wangled a job for him on the staff of a general married to her distant cousin. But the general turns out to be Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose headquarters are in London, which is undergoing the Blitz. And Uncle Ike wants Billy to be his personal investigator.
 
Billy is dispatched to the seat of the Norwegian government in exile. Operation Jupiter, the impending invasion of Norway, is being planned, but it is feared that there is a German spy amongst the Norwegians.
 
Billy doubts his own abilities, with good reason. A theft and two murders test his investigative powers, but Billy proves to be a better detective than he or anyone else expected.

The Vince Flynn for the 21st Century is here!--John Fasano, producer of Another 48 Hours and Darkness Falls

"Hostile Intent kept me up most of the night. Hold on, is all I can tell you."--Jay Nordlinger, National Review

It starts with the unthinkable--the most horrific act of violence ever committed on American soil.

Only one man can stop them.

Hostile Intent

Code named Devlin, he exists in the blackest shadows of the United States government--operating off the grid as the NSA's top agent. He's their most lethal weapon-and their most secret. But someone is trying to draw him out into the open by putting America's citizens in the crosshairs--and they will continue the slaughter until they get what they want.

"Six pages into Hostile Intent and I began to feel uneasy. By page nine I'd been punched in the gut. And it just doesn't stop." --Bill Whittle, author of Silent America

Born on the United States Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, N. C., Michael Walsh comes from a long line of American servicemen, including veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Walsh grew up among veterans and intelligence officers in duty stations around the world, including Washington, D.C., San Diego and Pearl Harbor, and even today several members of his family are former or active intelligence professionals with high security clearances. His debut novel, Exchange Alley was a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection upon its publication in 1997. His novel And All the Saints was a winner of the 2004 American Book Award for fiction.

Meet twenty-two-year-old Cherry Pye (née Cheryl Bunterman), a pop star since she was fourteenâ€"and about to attempt a comeback from her latest drug-and-alcohol disaster.

Now meet Cherry again: in the person of her “undercover stunt double,” Ann DeLusia. Ann portrays Cherry whenever the singer is too “indisposed”â€"meaning wastedâ€"to go out in public. And it is Ann-mistaken-for-Cherry who is kidnapped from a South Beach hotel by obsessed paparazzo Bang Abbott.

Now the challenge for Cherry’s handlers (überâ€"stage mother; horndog record producer; nipped, tucked, and Botoxed twin publicists; weed whackerâ€"wielding bodyguard) is to rescue Ann while keeping her existence a secret from Cherry’s publicâ€"and from Cherry herself.

The situation is more complicated than they know. Ann has had a bewitching encounter with Skinkâ€"the unhinged former governor of Florida living wild in a mangrove swampâ€"and now he’s heading for Miami to find her . . .

Will Bang Abbott achieve his fantasy of a lucrative private photo session with Cherry Pye? Will Cherry sober up in time to lip-synch her way through her concert tour? Will Skink track down Ann DeLusia before Cherry’s motley posse does?

All will be revealed in this hilarious spin on life in the celebrity fast lane.


From the Hardcover edition.

Paris is stunning in the summer

NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him--he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer.

The killing is simply marvelous

Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her boyfriend were murdered while on vacation in Rome. Since then, young couples in Paris, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, and Stockholm have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim.

Wish you were here

Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm--and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, The Postcard Killers may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet.