“Refreshingly smart, witty, and sophisticated . . .” —Natalie Symons author of Lies in Bone, on The Disappearance of Trudy Solomon “Propulsive, addictive, with lush, visceral prose and richly-layered characters . . .” —May Cobb, author of My Summer Darlings, on The Murder of Madison Garcia The summer of ’69: memorable for some, murder for others. Detective Susan Ford and her new partner, Detective Jack Tomelli, are called to a crime scene at the local summer stock theater where they find the director of Murder on the Orient Express gruesomely murdered—naked, face caked in makeup, pillow at his feet, wrists and ankles bound by rope. When Susan describes the murder to her dad, retired detective Will Ford, he recognizes the MO of a 1969 serial killer . . . a case he worked fifty years ago. Will remembers a lot of things about that summer—the Woodstock Festival, the Apollo 11 moon landing, the Miracle Mets—yet he is fuzzy on the details of the decades-old case. But when Susan and Jack discover the old case files, his memories start trickling back. And with each old and new clue, Susan, Jack, and Will must narrow down the pool of suspects before the killer strikes again. For readers who enjoy mysteries by Richard Osman, Stacy Willingham, Charlie Donlea, Benjamin Stevenson, and Shari Lapena.

2020 J. ANTHONY LUKAS PRIZE WINNER From the bestselling author of There Are No Children Here, a richly textured, heartrending portrait of love and death in Chicago's most turbulent neighborhoods. The numbers are staggering: over the past twenty years in Chicago, 14,033 people have been killed and another roughly 60,000 wounded by gunfire. What does that do to the spirit of individuals and community? Drawing on his decades of experience, Alex Kotlowitz set out to chronicle one summer in the city, writing about individuals who have emerged from the violence and whose stories capture the capacity--and the breaking point--of the human heart and soul. The result is a spellbinding collection of deeply intimate profiles that upend what we think we know about gun violence in America. Among others, we meet a man who as a teenager killed a rival gang member and twenty years later is still trying to come to terms with what he's done; a devoted school social worker struggling with her favorite student, who refuses to give evidence in the shooting death of his best friend; the witness to a wrongful police shooting who can't shake what he has seen; and an aging former gang leader who builds a place of refuge for himself and his friends. Applying the close-up, empathic reporting that made There Are No Children Here a modern classic, Kotlowitz offers a piercingly honest portrait of a city in turmoil. These sketches of those left standing will get into your bones. This one summer will stay with you.

A queer poet documents depression and grief in this autobiographical novel-in-verse.

"Gripping . . . Cutter Wood subverts all our expectations for the true crime genre.” —Leslie Jamison, author of The Recovering When a stolen car is recovered on the Gulf Coast of Florida, it sets off a search for a missing woman, local motel owner Sabine Musil-Buehler. Three men are named persons of interest—her husband, her boyfriend, and the man who stole the car. Then the motel is set on fire; her boyfriend flees the county; and detectives begin digging on the beach of Anna Maria Island. Author Cutter Wood was a guest at Musil-Buehler’s motel as the search for her gained momentum. Driven by his own need to understand how a relationship could spin to pieces in such a fatal fashion, he began to talk with many of the people living on Anna Maria, and then with the detectives, and finally with the man presumed to be the murderer. But there was only so much that interviews and transcripts could reveal. In trying to understand how we treat those we love, this book, like Truman Capote’s classic In Cold Blood, tells a story that exists outside documentary evidence. Wood carries the investigation of Sabine’s murder beyond the facts of the case and into his own life, crafting a tale about the dark conflicts at the heart of every relationship.

This book weaves a fascinating narrative that separates surprising fact from entrenched mythology.

It's the era of peace and love in the 1960s, but nothing is peaceful in Caroline's life. Since her beautiful older sister disappeared, fifteen-year-old Caroline might as well have disappeared too. She's invisible to her parents, who can't stop blaming each other. The police keep following up on leads even Caroline knows are foolish. The only one who seems to care about her is Tony, her sister's older boyfriend, who soothes Caroline's desperate heart every time he turns his magical blue eyes on her. Tony is convinced that the answer to Jess's disappearance is in California, the land of endless summer, among the street culture of runaways and flower children. Come with me, Tony says to Caroline, and we'll find her together. Tony is so loving, and all he cares about is bringing Jess home. And so Caroline follows, and closes a door behind her that may never open again, in a heartfelt thriller that never lets up.

Just when everything seems to be going wrong, hope—and love—can appear in the most unexpected places. Summer has begun, the beach beckons—and Francesca Schnell is going nowhere. Four years ago, Francesca’s little brother, Simon, drowned, and Francesca’s the one who should have been watching. Now Francesca is about to turn sixteen, but guilt keeps her stuck in the past. Meanwhile, her best friend, Lisette, is moving on—most recently with the boy Francesca wants but can’t have. At loose ends, Francesca trails her father, who may be having an affair, to the local country club. There she meets four-year-old Frankie Sky, a little boy who bears an almost eerie resemblance to Simon, and Francesca begins to wonder if it’s possible Frankie could be his reincarnation. Knowing Frankie leads Francesca to places she thought she’d never dare to go—and it begins to seem possible to forgive herself, grow up, and even fall in love, whether or not she solves the riddle of Frankie Sky.

Two young women from different social classes meet and form an instant attraction to one another.

Death In Summer - a beautiful and haunting novel by acclaimed writer William Trevor 'Possibly the most perfect of Trevor's novels . . . Astonishing' Los Angeles Times Book Review There were three deaths that summer. The first was Letitia's, sudden and quite unexpected, leaving her husband, Thaddeus, haunted by the details of her last afternoon. The next death came some weeks later, after Thaddeus's mother-in-law helped him to interview for a nanny to bring up their baby. None of the applicants were suitable - least of all the last one, with her small, sharp features, her shabby clothes that reeked of cigarettes, her badly typed references - so Letitia's mother moved in herself. But then, just as the household was beginning to settle down, the last of the nannies surprisingly returned, her unwelcome arrival heralding the third of the summer tragedies. 'William Trevor is an extraordinarily mellifluous writer, seemingly incapable of composing an ungraceful sentence . . . His skill is very real, and equals his great compassion' New York Times Book Review Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Death In Summer. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.

In this “inventive and affecting” historical young adult novel, a black girl and a white boy are pawns in a magical game between Love and Death (Publishers Weekly). Flora and Henry were born a few blocks from each other, innocent of the forces that might keep a white boy and an African American girl apart; years later they meet again and their mutual love of music sparks an even more powerful connection. But what Flora and Henry don’t know is that they are pawns in a game played by the eternal adversaries Love and Death, here brilliantly reimagined as two extremely sympathetic and fascinating characters. Can their hearts and their wills overcome not only their earthly circumstances, but forces that have battled throughout history? In the rainy Seattle of the 1920’s, romance blooms among the jazz clubs, the mansions of the wealthy, and the shanty towns of the poor. But what is more powerful: love? Or death? “Race, class, fate and choice—they join Love and Death to play their parts in Brockenbrough’s haunting and masterfully orchestrated narrative.” —Kirkus Reviews