Thomas H. Cook Book order (chronological)

Each year, for the past seventeen years, Mysterious Bookshop proprietor Otto Penzler has commissioned an original Christmas story by a leading suspense writer. These stories were then produced as pamphlets, just 1,000 copies, and given to customers of the bookstore as a Christmas present. Now, all seventeen tales have been collected in one volume, showcasing the talents of: Charles Ardai Lisa Atkinson George Baxt Lawrence Block Mary Higgins Clark Thomas H. Cook Ron Goulart Jeremiah Healy Edward D. Hoch Rupert Holmes Andrew Klavan Michael Malone Ed McBain Anne Perry S. J. Rozan Jonathan Santlofer Donald E. WestlakeSome of these stories are humorous, others suspenseful, and still others are tales of pure detection, but all of them together make up a charming collection and a perfect Christmas gift for all ages.

"Red Leaves: "Eric Moore has reason to be happy. He has a prosperous business, a comfortable home, a stable family life in a quiet town. Then, on an ordinary night, his teenage son Keith is asked to babysit the eight-year-old daughter of a neighbouring family. The next morning the girl is missing."--Page 4 of cover. The Murmur of Stones: "Diana's certain her son didn't die accidentally - she's sure her husband murdered him. And she's going to prove it."--Page 4 of cover.

»Ein Meisterwerk des subtilen Schreckens« Als der kleine Jason im Teich hinter dem Haus ertrinkt, kann seine Mutter Diana es nicht verwinden. Sie beschuldigt ihren Mann, den eigenen Sohn ermordet zu haben, und verhält sich immer manischer. Gleitet auch sie, wie zuvor schon ihr Vater, in den Wahnsinn ab? Dianas Bruder David, der immer im Schatten seiner Schwester gestanden hat, fürchtet schon bald um die Unversehrtheit seiner eigenen Familie …

They call Eddie Miller 'The Coed Killer's Son' because when Eddie was five years old, his father killed a college girl, dismembered her body, and buried the pieces in woods. Where Eddie's family name has brought only infamy, Jack's has bestowed respect. To exorcise the burden, his teacher Jack encourages Eddie to confront past and discover truth about his father.

Le storie di true crime hanno un fascino irresistibile, spingendoci a esplorare un cuore di tenebra che ci circonda. Questo libro presenta quindici racconti di crimine reale, scritti da celebri giornalisti investigativi e selezionati da James Ellroy. La potenza di queste narrazioni risiede nella straordinaria qualità degli autori e nella diversità dei temi trattati. Peter Landesman indaga sulla schiavitù sessuale di migliaia di ragazze arrivate negli Stati Uniti con false promesse di lavoro e un futuro migliore. David Grann racconta la strana morte di un fan di Sherlock Holmes, un evento che sembra uscito da un romanzo di Conan Doyle. Jeff Dietz accompagna un agente dell'FBI lungo il confine tra Texas e Messico, cercando le tracce degli immigrati clandestini. Inoltre, troviamo le riflessioni di Nancy Gibb scritte a meno di trenta ore dall'attacco alle Torri Gemelle, e l'analisi di Clive Thompson sui rischi degli allegati e-mail. Il volume si chiude con un racconto di Ellroy, che esplora l'influenza di Joseph Wambaugh sulla sua scrittura.

Prepare to meet the most seductively female and shockingly fatal femme fatales, brought to you by seventeen of today’s finest authors of mystery and suspense fiction. Award-winning editor Otto Penzler presents a collection of short, sizzling masterpieces filled with thrilling tales that showcase how sexy and fierce the 'gentler sex' can be. In 'Third Party', a party girl takes you on a wild ride through the Paris night, while Nelson DeMille's 'Rendezvous' plunges you into a Vietnam jungle where the deadliest scourge is a woman. Elmore Leonard introduces a Depression-era teenage gun moll in 'Louly and Pretty Boy', who loves Pretty Boy Floyd more than robbing filling stations. Lorenzo Carcaterra's 'A Thousand Miles from Nowhere' features a smart blonde seeking slow-simmered vengeance, and Michael Connelly's 'Cielo Azul' reveals how a nameless woman found dead in Los Angeles can be the most lethal prey. Other riveting tales include a scorned lover claiming an old fling's heart, a mysterious woman offering a tempting suicide pact, and a she-demon rising from the grave. These and many other bad girls cast their criminal spells through the powerful voices of Joyce Carol Oates, John Connolly, Thomas H. Cook, Jeffrey Deaver, and more, in stories as irresistible as the anti-heroines that blaze through their pages.

Eric Moore führt ein harmonisches Leben, bis sein Sohn Keith auf die Nachbarstochter Amy aufpasst und sie am nächsten Morgen verschwunden ist. Während Keith seine Unschuld beteuert, plagt Eric der schreckliche Verdacht, dass sein Sohn in das Verschwinden verwickelt sein könnte.

In this affecting crime novel, shortlisted for both the Edgar and the Duncan Lawrie Dagger, Eric Moore watches his safe, solid world disintegrate. When eight-year-old Amy Giordano disappears from her family's house, while Keith, Eric's teenage son, is babysitting, Keith becomes an obvious suspect, and even his parents have misgivings. As time passes without Amy being found, a corrosive suspicion seeps into every aspect of Eric's life. That suspicion is fed by Eric's shaky family history - a father whose plans failed, an alcoholic older brother, a younger sister who died aged seven and a mother driven to suicide. Not even Eric's loving wife, Meredith, is immune from his doubts as he begins to examine and re-examine every aspect of his life. The totally unexpected resolution is both shocking and perfectly apt.

In autumn 1937 a mysterious woman appears in Port Alma, nestled on the chilly coast of Maine. Dora March does not like to talk about her background, but she soon settles into Port Alma, winning friends and admirers, particulary the Brothers Cal and Billy Chase. Yet within a year she flees the Town on the same bus she arrived on, leaving Billy dead and Cal in pursuit of the woman who has apparently killed is brother...

Sara Labriola is a married woman haunted by the shattering secrets of her past—and terrified of the future. Tired of living in fear—and knowing that if she stays in her marriage she'll be killed—Sara decides to do the only thing she she makes herself disappear.One afternoon, without telling a soul, she packs a single suitcase and leaves her life in Long Island behind. In New York City, she will reinvent herself. She will change her identity, and maybe even get the happy ending she's always dreamed of. But that dream is about to become a nightmare when her father-in-law decides to make her pay for abandoning his son.Leo Labriola runs his modest but lucrative criminal organization like he does his family—with unspeakable brutality and zero tolerance for disobedience. He's determined to teach Sara a lesson and he'll stop at nothing to do it. Now six differently desperate and dangerous men—each with the power to destroy her—are on Sara's trail. But none of them suspect that the woman they are seeking has a dangerous secret of her own. For Sara is leading all of them down a path of private demons, past sins, and the deadliest peril.

Der obdachlose Jay Smalls wird beschuldigt, ein Mädchen erwürgt zu haben, leugnet jedoch die Tat. Die Ermittler Norman Cohen und Jack Pierce sind von seiner Schuld überzeugt und wollen ihn einem letzten Verhör unterziehen, bevor sie ihn in zwölf Stunden freilassen müssen. Es beginnt ein Wettlauf gegen die Zeit.

Die Fernsehserie "Taken", produziert von Steven Spielberg, folgt dem Leben dreier Menschen und ihrer Familien, die nach dem UFO-Absturz bei Roswell 1947 stark beeinflusst werden. Captain Russell Keys kehrt 1945 aus dem Krieg zurück, doch seine schmerzlichen Erinnerungen und die geheimnisvollen blauen Lichter verfolgen ihn.

El d&ía en que Sara decidi&ó huir de casa, dejar atr&ás a su marido y empezar una nueva vida, no sab&ía que estaba poniendo en marcha un mecanismo imparable de intriga y violencia. Porque, como pronto descubrir&á, nadie abandona al hijo de Leo Labriola& sin pagar las consecuencias. Seis vidas giran en torno a una mujer desesperada: un hombre con muchas deudas y poco tiempo de vida, un buscador de personas atormentado por su pasado, un mat&ón fiel hasta la muerte, un marido desencantado y d&ébil, un barman en busca de cantante y un capo mafioso violento y despiadado... Seis hombres que se juegan su futuro en el transcurso de unas horas, en el coraz&ón de la ciudad, en una siniestra partida con el destino en la que todas las cartas est&án marcadas. Thomas H.Cook recoge la esencia de la mejor novela negra en esta historia de suspense, con un ritmo creciente y unos personajes excepcionalmente retratados que se encaminan, cada uno con su bagaje de pecados, faltas y deudas, hacia un climax tan inevitable como sobrecogedor.

In this tight, suspenseful tale of a race against the clock to get a confession out of the chief suspect in the death of young Cathy Lake, every cop has his own private burden, his own reason for wanting to crack Albert Jay Smalls wide open and confirm him as the killer. Jack Pierce has the memory of his own murdered daughter and the promise he made to Cathy's mother. Norman Cohen has the vision of the terrible things he saw at the liberation of a concentration camp, the certain knowledge of the presence of evil in the world. Thomas Burke, the chief of police, has a dying son who's been dead to him for a long time. Cook weaves the tragedies of all their lives almost seamlessly into the last 12 hours of their interrogation of the suspect; when it's over, if there's no confession, they must let Smalls go. This suspenseful thriller showcases Cook's skill at interpreting the psychological complexities of his well-drawn characters and his ability to turn an otherwise ordinary police procedural into a tense, haunting, and resonant novel. --Jane Adams

Trois personnes ont été témoins de la présence d'extraterrestres sur Terre. Pendant soixante années, le gouvernement cherche à dissimuler la vérité mais ces trois personnes ne peuvent oublier ce qu'elles ont vu.

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 INTERROGATION Albert 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. I It 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.

In autumn 1937, a mysterious woman arrives in Port Alma, a coastal village in Maine, bringing with her a wealth of unspoken secrets. This fragile, green-eyed beauty, with nothing but the clothes on her back, will soon leave the village on the same bus that brought her, but not before irrevocably altering the lives of two brothers—one will die, and the other will spiral into madness. Dora March, the enigmatic newcomer, is hired by the wealthiest man in town, who soon dies, leaving her everything in his will. The townspeople gossip, suggesting she was only after his money and even insinuating her involvement in his demise. Yet, she departs as mysteriously as she arrived, telling lawyers she wants nothing. Her presence deeply impacts the two brothers: one falls in love and tragically dies, while the other believes Dora is to blame and becomes obsessed with finding her to seek revenge. This haunting tale explores themes of love, loss, and obsession, making it a compelling addition to contemporary American literature.

Im Sommer 1962 verschwindet die Schülerin Kelli Troy in Choctaw, Alabama, und wird tot aufgefunden. Dreißig Jahre später rekonstruiert ihr ehemaliger Klassenkamerad Ben Wade die Ereignisse, um die Hintergründe der Bluttat zu ergründen, die ihn bis heute verfolgt.

Úzké spojení mezi touhou po spravedlivém potrestání a temným násilím činí z Cookova díla nejen napínavý příběh odehrávající se většinou na romantickém zámku Riverwood, ale příběh plný zvratů a nečekaných odhalení ,vtahujících čtenáře do neklidného soukromí hlavní postavy spisovatele kriminálních románů Gravese.Graves se stává vlastně proti své vůli nebývale důsledným detektivem.Žene ho určitá příbuznost jeho tragické události z dětství ,při níž krutou smrtí zahynula jeho sestra ,a vraždy pubertální dívky z Riverwoodu.Celý příběh vyznívá jako konfrontace vlastní minulosti s pátráním.

Thomas Cook is one of today's most acclaimed writers of psychological thrillers, penning hypnotic tales of forbidden love and devastating secrets. Now he has written an unforgettable novel that weaves one man's tortured life with a deadly mystery that spans five decades....Riverwood is an artists' community in the Hudson River valley, a serene place where writers can perfect their craft. But for all its beauty and isolation, it was once touched by a terrible crime--the murder of a teenage girl who lived on the estate fifty years ago. Faye Harrison's killer was never caught--and now her dying mother is desperate to learn the truth about her daughter's murder.Enter Paul Graves, a writer who draws upon the pain of his own tragic past to write haunting tales of mystery. Graves has been summoned to Riverwood for an unusual to apply the art of fiction to a crime that was real, and then write a story that will answer the questions that keep Faye's mother from a peaceful death. Just a story. It doesn't have to be true. Or does it?

Die Quelle der Furcht - Thriller - bk90; Bastei Lübbe Verlag; Thomas H. Cook; pocket_book; 1999

A high school wallflower serves up justice at her 20th reunion, while a submissive wife sends her domineering husband to hell. A writer orchestrates a murder to eliminate his enemy. This captivating collection features twelve of America's finest authors exploring the theme of revenge-driven killings. The anthology showcases a stellar lineup, offering a satisfying feast of stories centered on the dark allure of vengeance. In Lawrence Block's chilling tale, a serial killer turns one victim's brother into an unwitting defender, leading to dire consequences. Mary Higgins Clark's "Power Play" presents a thrilling scenario where an ex-president and his congresswoman wife outsmart terrorists. Phillip Margolin's character, a career criminal, faces a twist of fate with an alibi that complicates his self-defense. Joyce Carol Oates delivers a gripping narrative in "Murder-Two," where a brilliant lawyer defends her worst enemy's son. Peter Straub's "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" reveals the steep price of revenge for a betrayed husband. This anthology also includes contributions from Thomas H. Cook, Vicki Hendricks, Joan Hess, Judith Kelman, Eric Lustbader, David Morrell, and Shel Silverstein, creating an unforgettable exploration of cold-blooded retribution. Otto Penzler, a prominent figure in the mystery genre, curates this wickedly entertaining volume.

DIE TOTE VON ATLANTA Angelica Devereaux, eine junge Frau, deren magischer Anziehungskraft sich keiner entziehen konnte, wird ermordet aufgefunden. Polizeioffizier Frank Clemons pendelt zwischen den Luxusvierteln der Reichen und den Ghettos von Atlanta hin und her, um den Tod der Kindfrau und die Geheimnisse ihres Lebens aufzuklären. BLUTSPUREN In den letzten Wochen vor seinem Tod hat sich Kriminalkommissar Ray Tindall mit einem mysteriösen Mädchenmord befasst, der vor vier Jahrzehnten geschah und nie völlig aufgeklärt wurde. Aus purer Neugier beschließt sein Freund, der Sache nachzugehen. Was er herausfindet, verändert sein ganzes Leben.

Attorney Henry Griswald has a secret: the truth behind the tragic events the world knew as the Chatham School Affair, the controversial tragedy that destroyed five lives, shattered a quiet community, and forever scarred the young boy. Layer by layer, in The Chatham School Affair, Cook paints a stunning portrait of a woman, a school, and a town in which passionate violence seems impossible...and inevitable. "Thomas Cook's night visions, seen through a lens darkly, are haunting," raved the New York Times Book Review, and The Chatham School Affair will cement this superb writer's position as one of crime fiction's most prodigious talents, a master of the unexpected ending.

A tale of constipation and greed in an a small Texas town during the summer when a traveller return.

A haunting tale.. [that] defies expectations... [with] an ending that is both surprising and devastating".-- "Chicago Tribune" "Harrowing... Terror builds and the ending to this chilling study... is a dizzying jolt".-- "Publisher's Weekly" Along with Jamie and my mother, Laura died at approximately four in the afternoon. It was almost two hours later that Mrs. Hamilton, a neighbor from across the street, saw my father drive away. During those long two hours in which he remained in the house, my father washed my mother's body and arranged her neatly on the bed. After that, he made a ham sandwich and ate it at the table in the kitchen. He drank a cup of coffee, leaving both the plate and the cup in the sink. He didn't pack anything, because he left with nothing. He didn't reenter either Laura's of Jamie's room. He made no attempt to clean up the frightful mess that had been made of them. And yet, for no apparent reason, he remained in the house for a full two hours. What had he been waiting for? "Haunting... Don't pick this up unless you've got time to read it through... because you will do so whether you plan to or not".-- "Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

Vor fast vier Jahrzehnten ist ein junges Mädchen auf einer Bergstraße spurlos verschwunden – nur sein blutiges Kleid wurde im Wald gefunden. Ein Mann aus dem Dorf gestand den Mord, seitdem irrt die Mutter des Mädchens umher auf der Suche nach dem Leichnam ihres Kindes. Jackson Kinley wuchs im selben Ort auf, bevor er nach New York übersiedelte, um Kriminalromane nach wahren Begebenheiten zu schreiben. Als er zur Beerdigung seines Freundes, des Kriminalkommissars Ray Tindall, kommt, stellt er fest, daß dieser sich in den letzten Wochen seines Lebens mit dem mysteriösen Mordfall befaßt hat. Aus purer Neugier beschließt Ray, der Sache nachzugehen. Was er am Ende herausfindet, verändert sein ganzes Leben.

From the acclaimed author of the Thumping Good Read Award nominee BREAKHEART HILL – a haunting tale of psychological suspense and mystery.