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.

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?

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.

A sweet and soulful romantic debut about rumors, friendship, and discovering who you really are Alice Dyson knows exactly how she’ll be spending her final year of high school—with her head down, quietly concentrating on her textbooks and homework. She is focused on the future, and nothing and no one is going to get in her way. That is, until a bizarre encounter with Teddy Taualai, the school’s most notorious troublemaker, goes viral, derailing her plans and pushing her into the spotlight. Suddenly Alice’s under-the-radar life is one enormous, messy complication. And the worst part? Teddy Taualai is everywhere she turns. In author Poppy Nwosu’s pitch-perfect debut novel, an unlikely pair of outsiders take the daunting, delicate first steps toward becoming friends and maybe, just maybe, something more. Briskly paced with a complex and appealing cast of characters, this contemporary romance explores the ever-tricky dance of staying true to yourself while opening your heart.