2nd Chance reconvenes the Women's Murder Club, four friends (adetective, a reporter, an assistant district attorney, and a medical examiner)who used their networking skills, feminine intuition, and professional wiles tosolve a baffling series of murders in 1st to Die. This time, themurders of two African Americans, a little girl and an old woman, bear all thesigns of a serial killer for Lindsay Boxer, newly promoted to lieutenant of SanFrancisco's homicide squad. But there's an odd detail she finds even moredisturbing: both victims were related to city cops. A symbol glimpsed at bothmurder scenes leads to a racist hate group, but the taunting killer strikesagain and again, leaving deliberate clues and eluding the police ever morecleverly. In the meantime, each of the women has a personal stake at risk—andthe killer knows who they are. 2nd Chance speeds along at a Formula One pace through many tight curves,but unlike recent entries in theAlex Cross series, itdoesn't sacrifice good characters to a twisted plot. Lindsay's the star, butthere's a fine esprit de corps among the four women, who are even betterdeveloped here than in the first book. What makes them both convincing andinteresting as a criminal-justice juggernaut is their willingness to stick theirnecks out, even if they suffer for it. If you haven't picked up a JamesPatterson novel in a while, this is a great time to start anew. —BarrieTrinkle

"A city that forgets its murder victims is a city lost. This is where we don't forget," Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is told by his new boss, as he ends a three-year retirement and rejoins the Los Angeles Police Department at the start of The Closers, the 11th installment of Michael Connelly's Edgar-winning series. Having long ago demonstrated his knack for cracking previously unsolved homicides, Bosch is assigned to the newly re-branded Open-Unsolved Unit (aka "cold case" squad), and charged with resolving the 17-year-old abduction and slaying of a mixed-race teenager.Rebecca Verloren, 16, was discovered missing from her Chatsworth home on a July morning in 1988. Her corpse and the gun that ended her life were later found on a hill behind the house. An autopsy revealed that she'd recently undergone an abortion, and a piece of skin tissue—presumably the killer's—was found trapped inside the murder weapon. Only now, though, has DNA science matched that tissue to Roland Mackey, a dyslexic 35-year-old tow-truck operator with no obvious connection to the deceased. It's up to Bosch, once more partnered with Kizmin Rider, to determine whether Mackey offed Becky Verloren, or was at least an accessory to that tragedy. But the more Bosch and Rider dig into this dusty crime, trying in part to determine whether racial animosity might have been involved, the more pain and resistance they encounter. Becky's white mother maintains the teen's old bedroom as a shrine, while her shattered father, an African-American chef, has vanished into LA's homeless community. Of the two original investigators on the case, one has since committed suicide, and Bosch suspects that the other—now a police commander—is helping to keep the lid tight on some old departmental secrets, perhaps linked to our hero's nemesis, Deputy Chief Irvin S. Irving.Understandably rusty after three years sans shield, Bosch makes his share of personal and professional mistakes here—including one that supplies The Closers with a lethal, plot-turning climax. But the greater problem is that Connelly exhausts so much time and effort following his protagonist through the tedium of modern police procedures, that he neglects what readers have liked more about this series in the past: its persistently deft exploration of Bosch's lonely, haunted soul (which remains mostly out of sight in this tale), and the author's frequent flights of lyrical prose (also not much in evidence). Would-be novelists wanting an example of a solidly constructed cop tale need look no further than The Closers. But readers hoping to learn why Connelly is so well-respected in this genre should turn, instead, to previous Bosch titles such as The Concrete Blonde, Angel's Flight, or City of Bones. —J. Kingston Pierce

Titles are: Nice Guys * Hitchin' a Ride * The Grouch * Redundant * Scattered * All the Time * Worry Rock * Platypus (I Hate You) * Up Tight * Last Ride In * Ji nx * Haushinka * Walking Alone * Reject * Take Back * King for a Day * Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) * Prosthetic Head.

This must-read fantasy takes you inside Hogwarts again for Harry's 6th year. What's in store for the wizard and his friends? What danger does his greatest enemy have planned? And who is the half-blood prince? Find out in this long-awaited adventure! Winner of two 2005 Quill Book Awards: Best Children's Chapter Book in the middle grade category and readers' choice for Book of the Year!

These words were eighteen-year-old Dave Pelzer's declaration of independence to his mother, representating the ultimate act of self-reliance. Dave's father never intervened as his mother abused him with shocking brutality, denying him food and clothing, torturing him in any way she could imagine. This was the woman who told her son she could kill him any time she wanted to — and nearly did.

The more than one million readers of Pelzer's previous bestselling memoirs, A Child Called "It" and "The Lost Boy, know that he lived to tell his courageous story. But even years after he was resucued, his life remained a continual struggle. Dave felt rootless and awkward; an outcast haunted by memeories of his year as the bruised, cowering "It" locked in his mother's basement. Desperately trying to make something of his life, Dave was determined to weather every setback and gain strength from adversity.

With stunning generosity of spirit, Dave Pelzer invites listeners on his journey to discover how he turned shame into pride and rejection into acceptance — how a lost, nameless boy finally found himself in the heart and soul of an man who is free at last.

This Bible features thought-provoking questions and real-life stories that teenagers can relate to. With user-friendly book instructions, notes and timelines, it's the perfect Bible study resource for youths. Teens can find practical applications with over 400 devotionals that tackle topics such as partying and peer pressure. Designed and written with input from hundreds of students, this Bible has been created especially for your teens. Features include contemporary graphics, dozens of maps and time-lines, and index/concordance, and much more.

Valerie Simpson is a young female tennis star with a troubled past who's now on the verge of a comeback and wants Myron as her agent. Myron, who's also got the hottest young male tennis star, Duane Richwood, primed to take his first grand slam tournament, couldn't be happier. That is, until Valerie is murdered in broad daylight at the U.S. Open and Myron's number one client becomes the number one suspect.

Clearing Duane's name should be easy enough. Duane was playing in a match at the time of Valerie's death. But why is his phone number in Valerie's black book when he claims only to have known her in passing? Why was she calling him from a phone booth on the street? The police stop caring once they pin the murder on a man known for having stalked Valerie and seen talking to her moments before the murder. But Myron isn't satisfied. It seems too clean for him.

Myron pries a bit and finds himself prying open the past where six years before, Valerie's fiancee, the son of a senator, was brutally murdered by a juvenile delinquent and a straight-A student was subsequently gunned down on the street in retaliation, his death squandered in bureaucratic files. And everyone from the Senator to the mob want Myron to stop digging.

The truth beneath the truth is not only dangerous, it's deadly. And Myron may be the next victim.

In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction—Myron Bolitar—a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.

Robin Cook confronts one of the most provocative issues of our time—a terrifying glimpse into the dangers of antidepressant drugs...

"Cook manages to keep the suspense mounting and the pages turning."— San Francisco Chronicle

"King of the mind-bending medical thriller"-Kirkus Reviews

"[A] morality tale of antidepressants and greedy medical entrepreneurs."— Detroit News

"One of Cook's best"— Associated Press

Henry Pierce is about to become very rich—as soon as his firm, AmedeoTechnologies, gets an infusion of capital from a big backer. But the brilliantchemist's workaholic habits are disrupted when his lover, the formerintelligence officer of his company, breaks up with him. Lonely and dispirited,he moves into a new apartment and gets a new phone number that attracts a lot ofcallers, but not for him. His new telephone number seems to have previouslybelonged to one Lilly Quinlan, an escort whose Internet photo arouses Henry'scuriosity, especially when L.A. Darlings, whose Web page features the beautifulyoung woman, can't tell Henry how to find her. With the same single-mindednessthat made him a high-tech superstar, Pierce pursues his search for the missinggirl, motivated by his guilt over the disappearance years earlier of his ownsister, who, like Lilly, was also a prostitute (and ultimately the victim of theDollmaker, a serial killer from Connelly's 1994 novel The Concrete Blonde.) But thatmotive is too thin to support Pierce's sudden abandonment of his career at sucha critical juncture, even if forces unknown to him are setting him up for afall. Despite those holes in the plot and a less than compelling protagonist,the novel succeeds due to Connelly's literary and expository gifts and his moreinteresting secondary characters. —Jane Adams