"Fans of traditional mysteries will welcome Axelrod's entertaining fifth outing for Nantucket police chief Henry Kennis...That Henry believes in an 'old school low-tech version of police work' allows the reader to readily follow the clues." —Publishers Weekly The fifth Henry Kennis mystery takes us into the closed, gossip-riddled, back-stabbing world of Nantucket's community theater. Horst Refn, the widely disliked and resented Artistic Director of the Nantucket Theater Lab, has been found stuffed into the meat freezer in his basement. Most of the actors, all the technical crew, and quite a few of the Theater Lab Board members, whom Refn was scamming and blackmailing, are suspects in his murder. The island's Police Chief Henry Kennis has to pick his way through a social minefield as he searches for the killer. At the same time, daughter's new boyfriend, football star Hector Cruz, has been accused of sexting her. Carrie knows the offending pictures didn't come from him, and Henry has to prove it before the boy gets suspended, which means probing into the family secrets of Hector's father, a firebrand agitprop playwright, who happens to be a prime suspect in Refn's murder. Every story is a fiction, every identity proves false, and every statement a lie. The counterfeit bills found at the scene of the crime are the most obvious symbol of the deceptions and distractions that obscure the investigation. The truth lies buried in the past, in Refn's earlier crimes and the victims who came to Nantucket seeking revenge. When the culprit has been revealed, the last masks torn off, and final murder foiled—live, on stage, during the opening night of Who Dun It, the eerily prescient opening drama of the Theater Lab Season—Jane says to Henry, "Is everything counterfeit?" He smiles. "Almost."

When a despised local theater director, who was scamming and blackmailing cast and crew, is murdered, Police Chief Henry Kennis must wade into the closed, gossip-riddled, back-stabbing world of Nantucket's community theater.

It's wedding season on Nantucket, and two unwelcome guests are crashing the party... When people begin disappearing from the island, Nantucket Police Chief Henry Kennis is baffled. The victims are not random—they're all Nantucket High School alumni. And the only clues left behind are pennies dropped at the sites of the kidnappings. There's an old island tradition of tossing a penny from the ferry as you depart to ensure your eventual return... Has someone come back to the island with a sinister grudge to settle? Sippy Bascomb and Doug Fraker were childhood best friends—bonded as fellow victims of bullying at the hands of their classmates. The two men hadn't seen each other in years, but when Sippy comes across Doug's blog airing grievances from the past, the two reconnect and hatch a plan to return to the island. Both seek revenge, but Doug wants their tormentors to face a tribunal and appoints himself judge, jury, and executioner... When Henry's fiancée joins the missing, he enlists the aid of former intelligence agent Mitch Stone, a native who has returned to the island hoping for a peaceful retirement. The two men know they must find where their friends are being put on trial for their childhood crimes—before their deadly sentences can be carried out.

Read Along or Enhanced eBook: Do you believe everything you read in the newspaper? Early in August 1937, a news flash came: a sea monster had been spotted lurking off the shore of Nantucket Island. Historically, the Massachusetts island had served as port for whaling ships. Eyewitnesses swore this wasn’t a whale, but some new, fearsome creature. As eyewitness account piled up, newspaper stories of the sea monster spread quickly. Across the nation, people shivered in fear. Then, footprints were found on a Nantucket beach. Photographs were sent to prominent biologists for their opinion. Discussion swirled about raising a hunting party. On August 18, news spread across the island: the sea monster had been captured. Islanders ran to the beach and couldn’t believe their eyes. This nonfiction picture book is a perfect tool to discuss non-political fake news stories. Back matter discusses the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Quotes from Thomas Jefferson make it clear that fake news has always been one of the costs of a free press. A Timeline lists actual events in the order they occurred. A vocabulary list defines relevant words.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK “A con artist story, a pop-feminist caper, a fashionable romp . . . Counterfeit is an entertaining, luxurious read—but beneath its glitz and flash, it is also a shrewd deconstruction of the American dream and the myth of the model minority. . . . Chen is up to something innovative and subversive here." — Camille Perri, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Washington Post • People • Entertainment Weekly • USA Today • Time • Cosmopolitan • Today show • Harper’s Bazaar • Vogue • Good Housekeeping • Parade • New York Post • Town & Country • GMA.com • Buzzfeed • Goodreads • Oprah Daily • Popsugar • Bustle • theSkimm • The Millions • and more! For fans of Hustlers and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, the story of two Asian American women who band together to grow a counterfeit handbag scheme into a global enterprise—an incisive and glittering blend of fashion, crime, and friendship from the author of Bury What We Cannot Take and Soy Sauce for Beginners. Money can’t buy happiness… but it can buy a decent fake. Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home—she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling: her marriage is falling apart, her expensive law degree hasn’t been used in years, and her toddler’s tantrums are pushing her to the breaking point. Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China, who abruptly dropped out under mysterious circumstances. Now, twenty years later, Winnie is looking to reconnect with her old friend. But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange. The secret to her success? Winnie has developed an ingenious counterfeit scheme that involves importing near-exact replicas of luxury handbags and now she needs someone with a U.S. passport to help manage her business—someone who’d never be suspected of wrongdoing, someone like Ava. But when their spectacular success is threatened and Winnie vanishes once again, Ava is left to face the consequences. Swift, surprising, and sharply comic, Counterfeit is a stylish and feminist caper with a strong point of view and an axe to grind. Peering behind the curtain of the upscale designer storefronts and the Chinese factories where luxury goods are produced, Kirstin Chen interrogates the myth of the model minority through two unforgettable women determined to demand more from life. "If you appreciate a good caper, you’ll want to pick up Kirstin Chen’s novel . . . Fast-paced and fun, with smart commentary on the cultural differences between Asia and America." — TIME “Propulsive and captivating . . . A provocative story of fashion, friendship, and fakes (in more ways than one).” — VOGUE

During a long winter and short, chilly spring, a series of disturbing incidents rock the small resort island of Nantucket. A Land Bank executive dies in a suspicious hunting accident, a prominent local family's historic summer cottage burns down in an arson fire, and a teenage girl lies comatose from a drug overdose.When spring turns to summer and the tourists flood the island, the mysterious cycle of violence spins faster. A young Jamaican boy is found dead in the harbor, a sex-for-drugs pornography ring is exposed, and a beloved local hero is murdered in cold blood. Could all of these events be part of the same sinister conspiracy?Poetry-writing Police Chief Henry Kennis, back for his third case in NANTUCKET GRAND by Steven Axelrod, doubts it. But his new girlfriend, Jane Stiles, an author of cozy mysteries, is certain that all these terrible events are connected. In one of her books, they would all be related. Henry scoffs, but as the cords pull tighter, drawing him into a scandal that would change Nantucket forever, he begins to realize that Jane might be right, after all. But is it already too late?The case comes to shattering conclusion as a vengeful father, a damaged beauty, a ruthless billionaire, and a stone-cold killer converge on the 150-foot luxury yacht that gives the book its title. Henry, putting his own life at stake, must take desperate action to set things right and save the world-his world-the little comma of scrub pine and dune grass he has come to call home.