“Engrossing . . . beautifully written and carefully crafted . . . [a] work that explores the healing power of truth.”—The Boston Globe For seventeen years, a rural community in Kansas has faithfully tended the grave of an anonymous teenage girl christened the Virgin of Small Plains. And some claim that, perhaps owing to the girl’s intervention, strange miracles and unexplainable healings have occurred. Slowly, word of the legend spreads. But what really happened in that snow-covered field almost two decades ago, when the girl’s naked, frozen body was found? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the shocking discovery, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds, and their best friend, Rex Shellenberger? Now Mitch has returned to Small Plains, reigniting simmering tensions and awakening secrets. Never having resolved her feelings for Mitch, Abby is determined to uncover the startling truth about his departure. The three former friends must confront the ever-unfolding consequences of the night that forever changed their lives—and the life of their small town. Praise for The Virgin of Small Plains “Nancy Pickard . . . has evolved into a writer of substantial literary power. . . . [She] has fashioned a novel that accurately reflects the secrets and silences locked deep within the hearts of all small-town Midwesterners.”—The Denver Post “Tantalizing . . . Pickard writes with insight and compassion about an unresolved crime that continues to haunt a farming community.”—The New York Times Book Review “A class act . . . Pickard has a talent for adding depth to a story that conveys a sense of place and history.”—Orlando Sentinel “Crisply written, this new novel about loss of faith, trust, and innocence is utterly absorbing.”—Tucson Citizen

“Engrossing . . . beautifully written and carefully crafted . . . [a] work that explores the healing power of truth.”—The Boston Globe For seventeen years, a rural community in Kansas has faithfully tended the grave of an anonymous teenage girl christened the Virgin of Small Plains. And some claim that, perhaps owing to the girl’s intervention, strange miracles and unexplainable healings have occurred. Slowly, word of the legend spreads. But what really happened in that snow-covered field almost two decades ago, when the girl’s naked, frozen body was found? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the shocking discovery, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds, and their best friend, Rex Shellenberger? Now Mitch has returned to Small Plains, reigniting simmering tensions and awakening secrets. Never having resolved her feelings for Mitch, Abby is determined to uncover the startling truth about his departure. The three former friends must confront the ever-unfolding consequences of the night that forever changed their lives—and the life of their small town. Praise for The Virgin of Small Plains “Nancy Pickard . . . has evolved into a writer of substantial literary power. . . . [She] has fashioned a novel that accurately reflects the secrets and silences locked deep within the hearts of all small-town Midwesterners.”—The Denver Post “Tantalizing . . . Pickard writes with insight and compassion about an unresolved crime that continues to haunt a farming community.”—The New York Times Book Review “A class act . . . Pickard has a talent for adding depth to a story that conveys a sense of place and history.”—Orlando Sentinel “Crisply written, this new novel about loss of faith, trust, and innocence is utterly absorbing.”—Tucson Citizen

One beautiful summer afternoon, Jody Linder receives shocking news: The man convicted of murdering her father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-three years since that stormy night when her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s three uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night. Now Billy Crosby is free, thanks to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. Despite their long history of carefully avoiding each other in such an insular community, Jody and Collin find that they share an exclusive sense of loss. As Jody revisits old wounds, startling truths emerge about her family’s tragic past. But even through struggle and hardship, she still dares to hope for a better future—and maybe even love. BONUS: This edition contains a The Scent of Rain and Lightning discussion guide.

Jenny Cain was thrilled about the Liberty Harbor Restoration, a picturesque collection of shops, museums and restaurants. But when a runaway truck barreled into the project committee, it seemed someone in Port Frederick was out to sink Liberty Harbor. Then a wooden cross raised in unholy wrath made the message clear. Murderously clear. As director of the town's Civic Foundation, Jenny should have been glad when police detective Geof Bushfield reeled in a prime suspect. Unfortunately, it was the one person she was desperate to prove innocent. Fishing for a ruthless killer, she had to bait her trap fast - before the cold New England waters closed in over her own head!

36 page collectors catalogue of works by Kenneth Spooner to coincide with the exhibition Journeys.

A Jenny Cain mystery by award-winning author Nancy Pickard. As director of the Port Frederick Civic Foundation, Jenny Cain is privy to the charitable intentions of the town's wealthiest citizens. There's eccentric old Arnie Culverson, who's promised millions to the local art museum. Who's found there one bright winter morning, neatly tucked into a priceless antique Chinese bed. With pillow and blanket. Dead. Then another dearly beloved donor dies in the night. And the killer leaves behind a nasty rhyme suggesting rich and beautiful Jenny will be next!

Winner of the Agatha Award and finalist for the Edgar Award. Jenny explores her own family’s unsettling, mysterious past, beginning with her mother’s death in the seventh book in the award-winning Jenny Cain mystery series that was called “excellent” by Publishers Weekly. The layered plot of the latest in the excellent Jenny Cain series finds the Port Frederick, Mass., sleuth probing the cause of her recently deceased mother's insanity. Cain discovers that her mother's mental collapse many years before coincided with the bankruptcy of the family business. The closing of Cain Clams created considerable unemployment locally and countless enemies for the Cains--one such foe may now be trying to prevent the amateur detective from delving further into her family's past and the town's secrets. As she tracks down public mysteries, Cain unearths painful personal issues; an attempt on her life, construed as an effort at suicide, forces her to deal with the legacy of her mother's madness. Pickard masterfully resolves both plot lines in this affecting, provocative novel centering around the mystery at the heart of mother-daughter relationships.

With The Whole Truth and Ring of Truth, award-winning author Nancy Pickard introduced the intrepid Marie Lightfoot, a gutsy and charismatic true-crime writer, and kicked oV a sensational new series that sealed her reputation as one of today's top practitioners of "chilling, fast-paced, and original" thrillers (Detroit Free Press). Now Marie Lightfoot faces an unusually challenging case because this time it's personal -- painfully so, as it concerns the central mystery of her life: her parents' disappearance. My dear Marie, Do you give any thought to life after death? They say that when dead people hover around the living, it is because they are stuck at the place where they died. They can't move on. I hope for your sake that doesn't happen to you, Marie, because I don't think you'll want to linger in the place where I will kill you.... When the first E-mail arrives it seems like a joke: A man writes that he loves Marie's work and wants her to collaborate with him by becoming his victim and writing a book about her own murder right up to the moment of her death. If she doesn't cooperate, he promises, he will hurt someone close to her. Marie is merely unsettled until more threatening E-mails arrive and the young children of her lover, State Attorney Franklin DeWeese, become targets of vicious pranks. Until the police can apprehend her tormentor, Marie has no choice but to play along, following her "co-author's" instructions to write her life story and return to her birthplace, a small town in Alabama. There Marie seeks out a group of the town's most prominent citizens. Forty years ago, they worked clandestinely in the civil rights movement alongside her parents, who disappeared during the explosive summer of 1963. Trying to untangle the divided loyalties, secrets, lies, and misunderstandings that have obscured the truth about her parents, Marie races to unravel the secrets of the past and outwit a killer before she is forced to write her final page. Filled with rich characterizations, steadily escalating suspense, and a rare depth of emotion, The Truth Hurts draws readers into a mystery that spans the present day and the tense, heartbreaking early days of America's civil rights movement. In a novel as complex and captivating as her inimitable heroine, Nancy Pickard keeps readers guessing until the Wnal page is turned.

In his first novel since Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world. Epic in sweep, intoxicating in its sensual detail, Birds Without Wings is an enchantment.

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.