The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner Rozan, set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11.

For twenty years now, Frederick Busch has been a relentless chronicler of the human heart. Except for an occasional foray abroad, he has tended to set his fiction in a physical territory--the Northeast, upstate New York especially--which he has given literary shape. With the capaciousness of a Dickens and the control of a Hemingway, Busch's novels have come in steady counterpoint, raising and answering by turns insistent questions that worry even the plainest of domestic lives. In this his fifth book of stories, the Absent Friends of the title are the lost characters the author has so compassionately detailed, who long to recover their absent selves. But they are also, as Richard Bausch comments in The Philadelphia Inquirer, "friends we have failed, or who have failed us; it is the emotional cost of that estrangement that interests Frederick Busch."

Three friends relive their youth in a local pub while mourning the loss of a recently deceased childhood friend.

School life, family argumentColins fiancee died two months ago. How comforting for Paul and Diana, Colins closest friends, to invite him for a small Saturday tea party to ease his grief. When, however, everyone else is left shattered and grieving, it is clear that Dianas plans have not gone quiet according to plan!, passion, love and broken love these subjects lie at the heart of this selection of short stories.

When seventeen-year-old Paige dies in a freak fall from the roof during Physics class, her spirit is bound to the grounds of her high school. At least she has company: her fellow ghosts Evan and Brooke, who also died there. But when Paige hears the rumor that her death wasn't an accident—that she supposedly jumped on purpose—she can't bear it. Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get to the most popular girl in school and stop the rumors once and for all.

Detective Carl Morck investigates the twenty-year-old murders of a brother and sister whose confessed killer may actually be innocent, a case with ties to a homeless woman and powerful adversaries.

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a world of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and—because this is New York City—real estate in this new mystery by Edgar Award-winning novelist S. J. Rozan. The death of Chinatown’s most powerful mogul, a powerful Chinatown crime boss, thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith into a world of double-dealing, murder, and real estate scandal in this new mystery by the award winning novelist S. J. Rozan. Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests—including Lydia's brother Tim—and a real estate developer who's desperate to get his hands on it. When Lydia, Bill, and Choi's niece go to the building, they discover the Tong members are equally divided on the question of whether the niece should hold onto the building, or sell it—and make them rich. Entering Choi's private living quarters they find the murdered body of Choi's chief lieutenant. The battle for the building has begun. Can Lydia and Bill escape being caught in the crossfire?

Rebecah Propst is a college graduate who worked as a legislative liaison for a statewide trade association, spent some time as a broadcast journalist in the National Guard, earned a black belt, ran a marathon, wrote operations manuals, and managed a small business. The only problem is . . . she remembers none of this. All memories of her life before age forty-seven have been erased-as if someone deleted the files on her mind's hard drive. With no prior experiences to draw upon, Beki initially saw life through the eyes of a child: as a fascinating adventure. But as an adult without a past-without any knowledge of the cultural norms and codes of behavior most of us take for granted-the world was a frightening place where she didn't belong. She had to learn how to survive in a reality as volatile as mercury. "Absent Memories: Moving Forward When You Can't Look Back" is Beki's firsthand account of a life passage beyond imagination. Her journey to self-sufficiency and self-assurance is an inspiration for all of us.