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Former FBI agent Brigid Quinn hasn’t forgiven herself for the testimony that led to young mother Nicole Gleason being convicted for the manslaughter of her abusive husband. Now out of jail early on parole, Nicole is living in a group home for felons in Brigid’s Arizona neighborhood. But while Brigid hopes to make amends with Nicole, not everyone in the community is happy to have criminals on their doorstep. When outspoken local resident Dorita Gordino is grotesquely murdered, suspicion soon falls on Nicole. Brigid is determined to catch Dorita’s killer and prove Nicole’s innocence --- even if it means one of her own darkest secrets comes to light.

Chicago, the turn of the 21st century. Our narrator --- always there and never entirely present --- recounts her decades-long relationship with the heiress Katherine Stern. Through the years since boarding school, she has seen Katherine as a daughter who wants for nothing but respect from her psychotherapist father, as a woman with a kind but fortune-hunting fiancée, and as a mystery even more confounding than the gothic horror stories she evaluates from the slush pile at her job. Sometimes, despite their estrangement, she has even seen Katherine as a friend. Inspired by the classic story WASHINGTON SQUARE by Henry James, Norah Labiner reimagines the prolific tale.

Walter Nash has a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years. Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated.

It’s 1915, and life is falling apart for 13-year-old twins Bolt and Eleanor. When their mother dies, they are forced to leave home under the care of a vicious con man who claims to be their long-lost uncle Charlie. During a late-night poker game, when one of his rages ends in murder, they decide to flee. Salvation arrives in the form of Mr. Jengling, founder of the Emporium of Wonders. He adopts Bolt and Eleanor, who travel by train across the vast, sometimes brutal American frontier with their new family, watching as the exhibitions spark amazement wherever they go. But as Bolt falls in deeper with their new clan, he finds Eleanor pulling further away from him. And when Uncle Charlie picks up their trail, the twins find themselves facing a peril that will forever alter the trajectory of their lives.

Chino and Paco Rojas seem well-mannered, at least for Chicanos, to the white cops who pull them over for littering on the long drive from California to Trinity, Texas. So well-mannered, in fact, that Captain Frank McKellan lets them off with a warning and recommends them a job at Stanzik Farms, the largest independent melon grower in the area. But Chino and Paco didn’t drive all this way for work. Instead, Chino is looking for a mysterious man, Vincent Mora, whose new Valley Agricultural Workers Association is causing a scene striking against the farm owners. Stanzik’s fields and Mora’s union bring together a cast of unlikely characters. Some are neighbors, others are just passing through. Some know each other well, or at least thought they did…before the picket line.  

Four decades ago, Joyce Carol Oates penned her first novel of psychological suspense under the name “Rosamond Smith.” In the Smith books, Oates explored themes of betrayal and deception, lust and murder, through stories involving twins, doubles and hidden second identities. Hard Case Crime is proud to bring these extraordinary works of crime fiction back into print in definitive double editions, each pairing two complete novels and two never-before-collected Oates short stories. In this volume, a model suburban husband grows obsessed with a beautiful stranger in DOUBLE DELIGHT, while an eminent professor preys on a vulnerable student in NEMESIS --- and the echoes continue in the rare short stories “A Girl Worth Twenty Million” and “First Death.”

For Meg (wife #1), Jenny (#2) and Amelia (#3), the term “a woman scorned” isn’t strong enough. They want more than revenge for the years of their life they wasted with their pitiful excuse for a husband. They want him dead. As they carry out their lethal plan, they soon realize they’re thinking too small. What about all the other men (and women) who cause immeasurable suffering and get away with it? Thus “the business” is born. A dazzling new female-owned venture that will change the course of their lives --- and shorten many others! And for Meg and Jenny, it could allow them to experience a love they never thought possible.

Sheriff Joanna Brady is looking forward to the holidays with her busy family and celebrating her daughter’s graduation from the police academy. But the family is interrupted when a body is discovered beneath a flooded bridge in the Arizona desert. A young boy was murdered, and the details of the crime scene tell Joanna that this was not the killer’s first murder. As Joanna digs deeper into the case, she uncovers unlikely connections between cases of mysterious deaths and missing persons, having long since gone cold, that extend far beyond the confines of her small town and include the discovery of a body near Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. To get justice for the victims and to save the town of Bisbee from a predator, Joanna must chase down every dangerous lead.

In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area’s Black community. The killer vanished into the night. For 15 years, the case remained unsolved. Then authorities zeroed in on Dennis Perry, a carpenter who grew up nearby. Convicted with devastatingly flawed evidence, Perry received a double life sentence. When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of corruption, devastating missteps and secrets. He eventually uncovers explosive evidence that helps prove Perry’s innocence. And he confronts a long-ignored suspect: an alleged white supremacist who had bragged about committing the murders. But the fight for the truth is not easily won.

Doctor Jack Troy was born and raised in Faha, but his responsibilities for the sick and his care for the dying mean that he has always been set apart from the town. His eldest daughter, Ronnie, has grown up in her father's shadow and remains there, having missed one chance at love --- and passed up another offer of marriage from an unsuitable man. But in the Advent season of 1962, as the town readies itself for Christmas, Ronnie and Doctor Troy's lives are turned upside down when a baby is left in their care. As the winter passes, father and daughter's lives, the understanding of their family and their role in their community are changed forever.

In 1969, 23-year-old starlet Lori Lovely shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows as a Benedictine nun. The media can’t get enough of the story. Why would such a beautiful girl take the veil? Did it have anything to do with her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley? In 1990, history student Lu Tibbott decides to dig into a true 20th-century mystery for her senior thesis and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. For decades, Mother Lori has refused all requests for interviews --- until Lu arrives with a tape recorder in hand. To Lu’s delight, Mother Lori is finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.

Avery and Reed Bond grew up sharing a close-knit relationship. Even so, Avery often finds herself exasperated by her brother’s relentless matchmaking, while Reed can’t resist teasing his sister. Facing their first Christmas without their beloved Grams, the woman who lovingly raised them, Reed and Avery decide to spend the holiday together at Reed’s home. However, their plans take an unexpected turn when the ferry Avery is traveling on stalls in the middle of Puget Sound, stranding its passengers and leaving Reed waiting a now undetermined length of time for her arrival. What is at first an inconvenience threatens to ruin the plans of a number of commuters, but Avery and Reed soon discover that this unforeseen delay might end up being a perfectly timed blessing in disguise.

Editor Christine Russo can't believe her luck. She's been chosen by the iconic Gloria Beaufort, founder of a billion-dollar beauty empire, to cover her grandson's wedding for Bespoke, the elite fashion magazine read by every A-lister. It feels too good to be true. Because it is. Gloria is found dead on the first morning of the celebratory weekend, and her entire family wants to keep her death a secret and for the wedding to march on. When Gloria's heirs issue a chilling warning to Christine to keep things quiet, she can't help but wonder if one of them is guilty of murder. As she navigates a world where glamour masks grimy secrets and everyone she meets is a suspect, she realizes that among this glitzy elite nothing is as it seems.

Two days before his 21st birthday, Brody Reames left the Outer Banks to fulfill his dream of sailing. He knew leaving his hometown wouldn’t be forever, but to mend a disillusioned heart in Fortunate Harbor, it was for the best. Still, he never expected that a family upheaval and his loving mother’s plea would call him back. With Christmas nearing, Brody is coming home again --- to a crisp chill in the air and a warm former flame. An attorney for the Outer Banks’ five-star oceanfront resort and resident treasure hunter, Rae Alden has a life that is adventurous, rewarding...and lonely. But now, after eight years, she sees Brody again. Like waves along the Crystal Coast, emotions thought long-gone come rushing back. But with both of them facing family turmoil and secrets yet to be revealed, how promising is a new chance at happiness, no matter how powerful the yearning?

Rune Ryker has nothing left to lose. Everything has been stolen by the Immortals --- her family, her home, her freedom. Each year, humans are forced to journey into the Immortal Realms, but 20-year-old Rune orchestrates her own selection, determined to find her family and destroy anyone who stands in her way. Rune is used to doing whatever it takes to survive, and now she must endure the Forge, a cutthroat college for the Immortal druids’ elusive tarot magic. When Rune’s magic reveals itself to be the rarest and most powerful, she must live with its only other wielder: Prince Draven. As arrogant as he is ruthlessly ambitious, he’s the last person she can trust. Rune’s abilities also draw the eyes of the most dangerous druids in the realms. Some want to use her. More want her dead. Draven offers to train her…for a price.

In these nine peerless stories, a family boating trip veers into emotional disaster while very narrowly avoiding the physical; a would-be cheater hands over his car --- his prized possession --- for a shot with a pretty girl; a furniture magnate and his filmmaker daughter visit his impoverished hometown; a doctor’s long-ago affair returns with a bitter pill. Crackling with wry humor, shot through with both wisdom and pain, these are stories of grifters and dreamers, of the lovelorn and the lawless, stories of the ongoing dissonance between the lives we want and the lives this world will allow.

In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert met Rayya. They became friends, then best friends, then inseparable. When tragedy entered their lives, the truth was finally laid bare: The two were in love. They were also a pair of addicts, on a collision course toward catastrophe. What if your most beautiful love story turned into your biggest nightmare? What if the dear friend who taught you so much about your self-destructive tendencies became the unstable partner with whom you disastrously reenacted every one of them? And what if your most devastating heartbreak opened a pathway to your greatest awakening?

In the jubilant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, shares a single, life-altering moment with Margaret Salt, a woman determined to outrun her past. Cal is married to Becky, whose spiritual gifts help the living speak to the dead, while Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving at sea, believed to be safe --- until a telegram suggests otherwise. What begins as a fleeting transgression becomes a complex secret that irrevocably binds all four of them in unexpected ways. As their small Ohio town remakes itself in the postwar boom, the Salt and Jenkins families remain in each other’s orbit, and the consequences of choices made long ago begin to emerge, reshaping their lives in ways that will forever impact the next generation.

Hazel and Marc were paired together on “Love Synced,” a revolutionary reality AI dating show that matches hopeful lovers. But when it came time to say “I do,” Hazel left her perfect match at the altar. Now all she wants to do is fly home. Instead, she’s trapped at a tiny, snowed-in airport with her ex and his obnoxiously rich family. But when they start turning up dead, a jilted lover is the least of Hazel's worries. There’s a serial killer to catch first. The heart is a fickle thing, so it’s no surprise that AI couldn’t predict true love for Hazel. But can it help crack the case when a murderer is picking off her almost-in-laws one by one?

Owein arrives in England to marry Lady Cora of Leiningen, his dearest friend and confidante he’s known mostly through letters. However, Queen Victoria has other plans in store for the centuries-old wizard. The queen is obsessed with preserving magic, and she believes Owein is the key to pursuing her lofty ambitions. Torn from his family, his home and his betrothed, Owein is pushed into the Queen’s League of Magicians, where he learns that the Crown’s upheaval of his life is only the beginning of his problems. Meanwhile, Cora must push aside her broken heart and use her own spells and resources to uncover truths that the queen wants hidden. As new threats, former loves, untapped spells and even older souls than Owein collide, his next choice could be his last.

After six years of a stolen hour here, another there, tonight is going to be different for Nick Holloway and Jenny Parrish. They’ve booked a room in a new luxury hotel in Manhattan, where they’ll spend the entire night together for the first time. Expectations are running high for this brief reprieve from ordinary life: they both need a good bout of ravishing sex and witty conversation. But that’s not what they get. Because they’ve barely gotten started when a smoke alarm goes off. Nick is annoyed but not worried about what must be only a minor glitch. Jenny is anxious and guilty. Is karma coming for them at last? LUCKY NIGHT seamlessly shifts between Nick and Jenny’s perspectives as the reality of their situation becomes apparent, and all their secrets, evasions and regrets come spilling out.

It only took six months for the life of Special Agent Dwight Chambers to crumble around him. First, he lost his partner, and then, tragically, his wife. Returning to work at the New Orleans Field Office, Chambers is dismayed to find himself saddled with mentoring a brand-new FBI agent --- A. X. L. Pendergast. As Chambers tries to pull himself together, his enigmatic and exasperating junior partner pulls an outrageous stunt that gets both of them suspended. Pendergast welcomes the banishment, because it gives him the opportunity to investigate a peculiar murder in Mississippi that has captured his fancy. Chambers grudgingly goes along. Thanks in large part to Pendergast’s brilliance and unorthodox methods, they solve the case and find the killer. That is when the true horror begins.

Following the car accident that ended his football career and left his body scarred, 22-year-old Luke Griffin joins the cast of “Endeavor,” a new competition-based reality show that pits the tabloids’ darlings against one another in tasks of endurance and problem solving. But Luke has aspirations far bigger than the show's million-dollar prize, and soon a series of betrayals leads to irreversible tragedy. Ten years later, Luke is a father of two and the stay-at-home husband to America’s only openly gay senator. When his husband's serial cheating is exposed, Luke impulsively joins the cast of the latest season of “Endeavor” in a desperate bid to earn some fast cash. Back on set, he is confronted with everything he tried to leave in the past, all of which threaten to tear down the walls he’s spent a decade building.

It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all together at their beloved family home. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by a fatal accident on their brother Topher’s boat. Now the Ryan women are back and eager to reconnect, but each carries a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, rekindles a flame with her high school crush. Middle sister Alice has been thrown a curveball that threatens the career she’s restarting and faces a difficult decision that may doom her marriage. And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk of bringing the woman she loves home to meet her devoutly Catholic mother. When Cait invites a guest from their shared past to dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface.

1926. Diana Gold, owner and impresario, throws open the doors to the most opulent new hotel in London. As the champagne flows and the chandeliers shimmer, millionaires and gamblers rub shoulders with film stars and royalty. But things at the Hotel Artemis aren’t quite what they seem --- including the two guests Diana expects at midnight. Powerful and dangerous, they’ve dragged her from the gutter and taught her all she knows. Now Diana must take perfect care of them --- unless they take care of her first. But when a body is found in the hotel’s finest suite, the lavish opening night begins to spiral out of control. And over 24 fateful hours, the staff and guests of the Artemis will find out why they are really there.