Recounts the cases of individuals who have murdered spouses, loved ones, or perfect strangers, and tries to differentiate between crimes of passion and psychopathic murders

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE INSTANT #1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER USA Today bestseller Edgar + ITW Thriller Award nominee for Best First Novel “Think: Dexter but sexier.”—theSkimm “A dark and irresistible debut.”—People “Will shock even the savviest suspense readers.”—Real Simple Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith in this wildly compulsive debut thriller about a couple whose fifteen-year marriage has finally gotten too interesting... Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored. We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with. We all have our secrets to keeping a marriage alive. Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.

Recounts the cases of individuals who have murdered spouses, loved ones, or perfect strangers, and tries to differentiate between crimes of passion and psychopathic murders

Based on five years of investigative reporting and research into forensic psychology and criminology, Erased presents an original profile of a widespread and previously unrecognized type of murder: not a “hot-blooded,” spur-of-the-moment crime of passion, as domestic homicide is commonly viewed, but a cold-blooded, carefully planned and methodically executed form of “erasure.” These crimes are often committed by men with no criminal record or history of violence whatsoever, men leading functional and often successful lives until the moment they kill the women, and sometimes children, they claimed to love. A surprising number go on to kill a second or even third wife or girlfriend, often in exactly the same way. In more than fifty chilling case studies, Marilee Strong examines the strange and complex psychology that drives these killers—from the murder a century ago that inspired the novel An American Tragedy to Scott Peterson, Mark Hacking, Jeffrey MacDonald, Ira Einhorn, Charles Stuart, Robert Durst, Michael White, Barton Corbin, and many others. Erased also looks at how these men manipulate the legal system and exploit loopholes in missing persons procedures and death investigation, exposing how easy it can be to get away with murder.

“A first-rate collection of novellas that will break your heart and fill you with hope at the same time.” —Denver Rocky Mountain News In the tradition of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes Wives and Lovers, from the author the Boston Globe calls “One of the most expert and substantial of our writers.” Requisite Kindness—published here for the first time—tells the story of a man who must comes to terms with a life of treating women badly when he goes to live with his sister and dying mother. Rare and Endangered Species demonstrates how a wife and mother’s suicide reverberates in the small community where she lives, and affects the lives of people who don’t even know her. Finally, Spirits is about the pain that men and women can—and do—inflict upon each other. Three very different stories that illuminate the unadorned core of love—not the showy, more celebrated sort, but what remains when the more ephemeral emotions such as lust, jealousy, and passion have been stripped away.

What if you discovered your husband was a serial killer? Megan Miller is an ordinary woman with a young family — until a shocking discovery shatters her perfect world. When two young boys are brutally murdered in their tight-knit village community, Megan slowly begins to realise the signs all point to the lovable local primary school teacher — her husband. But when she begins to delve deeper into her husband's secret life, she makes discoveries that will make her question everything she knows — and make her fear for her young daughter's life. Facing an impossible decision, she is desperate to uncover the truth. But once you know something, it can’t be unknown. And the more she learns, the more she wishes she never knew anything at all...

USA TODAY BESTSELLER “This is a scary, thrilling, page-turning, race-against-the-clock novel if ever there was one, with a true shocker of an ending. Miss this one at your own peril.” —Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter How far would you go to save your child? Five years ago Elizabeth Piccioni’s husband was arrested for being a serial killer. Her life suddenly turned upside down, she did what she thought was best for her newborn baby: she took her son and ran away to start a new life. Now, living in a quiet part of the Midwest with a new identity, Elizabeth is ready to start over. But one day she receives a phone call from a person calling himself Cain. Cain somehow knows about her past life. He has abducted her son, and if Elizabeth wants to save him she must retrieve her husband’s trophies — the fingers he cut off each of his victims. With a deadline of one hundred hours, Elizabeth has no choice but to return to the life she once fled, where she will soon realize that everything she thought she knew is a lie, and what’s more shocking than Cain’s identity is the truth about her husband. For fans of James Patterson, Harlan Coben, and John Sandford.

KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS chronicles the astonishing crimes that horrified 20th-century Scotland. Taking each decade in turn, Reg McKay tells the true tales of the crimes that shook the nation, often the world. And these crimes will shock you still. From serial killers to armed mobsters and poisoners to cops who killed, KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS takes you from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Aberdeen to Dundee and from the Highlands to the Borders. As well as well-known cases like the world's first serial killer Peter Manuel who was hanged for the murder of seven people, wealthy landowner Max Garvie whose kinky parties led to his murder and the strange case of the death of SNP activist Willie McRae, Reg McKay tells the story of many of Scotland's less well-known but equally fascinating cases - including a police showdown with armed members of the IRA, the murder of a wealthy socialite and a committed Christian who went to extraordinary lengths to cover up his part in the brutal murder of his wife. KILLERS, CROOKS AND CONS is Scotland's very own criminal record from a century of shame.