Monday 19 October 2020

Books to Look Forward to from Cornerstone

October 2020 

Three Women Disappear is by James Patterson and Shan Serafin. Three women are on the run, wanted for the murder of a high-ranking mobster in this stunning new stand-alone from the world's bestselling thriller writer James Patterson. Sarah, his personal chef, Anna, his wife, Serena, his maid Mob accountant Anthony Costello has a talent for manipulating both numbers and people. When he's found murdered in his own home, the three people who had most reason to want him dead are missing. Detective Sean Walsh, whose personal connection to the case makes his desire to solve it even stronger, is short on leads to track down the three missing women. But even if he finds them alive, can they be trusted?

November 2020

A scandalous double homicide opens the psychological case files on Alex Cross . . . When a glamorous socialite and high school principal are found murdered, lying half naked in a car, the shocking double homicide dominates tabloid headlines. Kay Willingham was a well-known philanthropist and ex-wife of the US vice president. Randall Christopher was a respected educator with political ambitions, as well as a wife and family. Alex Cross knew both victims well. Especially Kay, who had been his patient once. And maybe more. Cross is left grieving, questioning who would want them dead, and why. While Cross's former Metro Homicide partner John Sampson tracks Christopher's final movements, Cross and FBI Special Agent Ned Mahoney travel to Alabama to investigate Kay's past. They discover that although Kay had many enemies, none of them had a full motive. In a world of trouble, corruption, and secrets, Cross is left facing a desperate choice between breaking a trust and losing his way . . Deadly Cross is by James Patterson.

December 2020

At the wedding of the century, a brazen kidnapper steals the star of the show... Erin Easton's wedding in one of New York's biggest venues may have a TV crew documenting every extravagant detail, but when the bride disappears from the reception, it's no diva turn. Her dressing room is empty except for a blood-spattered wedding dress. Detective Kylie MacDonald of NYPD Red, already at the scene as a plus-one, brings in her partner, Detective Zach Jordan, to search for the missing bride. Unable to rule anything out, every A-list celebrity on the guest list has to be considered either a target of suspicion . . . or a target. NYPD Red 6 is by James Patterson & Marshall Karp.

January 2021

I Know What I Saw is by S K Sharp. She remembers everything. She understands nothing. Only a handful of people in the world have a truly perfect memory. Nicola is one of them. It's more of a curse than a blessing - every moment of sadness, embarrassment and unhappiness is burned into her mind forever - so she plays it down, and tries to live a quiet life. But a body has been found, a discovery that threatens to tear her community apart - and reopen old wounds from decades ago. Nicola was a child, but she remembers the night with perfect clarity. Despite that, she never discovered the truth of what happened. Now she must use her unique memory to solve the murder, or watch the man she loved be wrongly convicted of the crime...

Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman with more regrets than belongings who spends her life doing what no one else will: searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking. A new case brings Frankie to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim's wary family tells Frankie she's on her own. And she soon learns she's asking questions someone doesn't want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing will be her … Before She Disappeared is by Lisa Gardner.

Maximum Ride lost her fight to save the world. But from the ashes of the old world, a phoenix has risen... she calls herself Hawk. Hawk doesn't know her real name. She doesn't know who her parents were, or where they went. The only thing she remembers is that they told to wait on a street corner until they came back for her. That was ten years ago. The day that she finally gives up waiting is the moment her life changes for ever. Because the promise becomes reality: someone is coming for her. But it's not a rescue. It's an execution. Hawk is by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnett.

Your Neighbour's Wife is by Tony Parsons. Tara Carver seems to have the perfect life. A loving mother and wife, and a business woman who runs her own company, she's the sort of person you'd want to live next door to, who might even become your best friend.But what sort of person is she really? Because in one night of madness, on a work trip far from home, she puts all this at risk. And suddenly her dream life becomes a living nightmare when the married man she spent one night with tells her he wants a serious relationship with her. And that he won't leave her or her precious family alone until she agrees. There seems to be only one way out. And it involves murder …

February 2021

The Russian is by James Patterson and James O'Born. As Detective Michael Bennett's wedding day approaches, a killer has a vow of his own to fulfil... Weeks before NYPD Detective Michael Bennett is to marry his long-time love, Mary Catherine, an assassin announces their presence in the city with a string of murders. All of the victims are young women. And each has been killed in a manner as precise as it was gruesome. Tasked with working alongside the FBI, Bennett uncovers multiple cold-case homicides across the country that fit the same distinctive pattern. Bennett promises Mary Catherine that the case won't affect their upcoming wedding. But, as he struggles to connect the killings, Bennett may be walking into a deadly trap.                                                

Serpentine is by Jonathan Kellerman. Ellie Barker is a self-made millionaire by the age of forty, and is obsessed with reopening the coldest of cases: the decades-old death of the mother she never knew. She hires LAPD homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis to help. Twenty-five years ago Ellie's mother was found with a bullet in her head in a torched Cadillac that has overturned on infamously treacherous Mulholland Drive. No physical evidence, no witnesses, no apparent motive. And a slew of detectives have already worked the job and failed. This is a case that calls for the insight of brilliant psychologist Alex Delaware. And as he and Sturgis begin digging, the mist begins to lift. There are too many coincidences. Facts turn out to be anything but. And as they soon discover, very real threats are lurking in the present...

If I Fall is by Merilyn Davies. We were told to meet at a rooftop bar. Four friends, bound by one terrible secret. No one knew why we were there. Then we saw a woman, watched as she fell from the edge and plunged to her death. The police think it's suicide, but I know better. Someone is sending a message. Now they're coming for us.

March 2021

Lindsay Boxer has sworn to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As Lindsay prepares to celebrate her own daughter's birthday, she clashes with rising Chief Charlie Clapper over a family case. When a distraught mother pleads with Chronicle reporter Cindy Thomas to investigate the disappearance of her daughter, Linda, and baby granddaughter, Lorrie, Cindy immediately loops in SFPD. But Linda's schoolteacher husband, Lucas Burke, tells a conflicting story that paints Linda as a wayward wife, not a missing person. And there's reason to believe he may be telling the truth. While M.E. Claire Washburn harbours theories that run counter to the police investigation of the Burke case, ADA Yuki Castellano sizes Lucas up as a textbook domestic offender - until he puts forward a theory of his own that unexpectedly connects the dots on a constellation of copycat killings. If what Lucas tells law enforcement has even a grain of truth, there isn't a woman in the state of California who's safe from the reach of such an unspeakable threat. 21st Birthday – Women's Murder Club is by James Patterson.

Win is by Harlan Coben. Over twenty years ago, heiress Patricia Lockwood was abducted during a robbery of her family's estate, then locked inside an isolated cabin for months. Patricia escaped, but so did her captors, and the items stolen from her family were never recovered. Until now. On New York's Upper West Side, a recluse is found murdered in his penthouse apartment, alongside two objects of note: a stolen Vermeer painting and a leather suitcase bearing the initials WHL3. For the first time in years, the authorities have a lead not only on Patricia's kidnapping but also on another FBI cold case - with the suitcase and painting both pointing them towards one man. Windsor Horne Lockwood III - or Win as his few friends call him - doesn't know how his suitcase and his family's stolen painting ended up in this dead man's apartment. But he's interested - especially when the FBI tell him that the man who kidnapped his cousin was also behind an act of domestic terrorism, and that he may still be at large. The two cases have baffled the FBI for decades. But Win has three things the FBI does not:: a personal connection to the case, a large fortune, and his own unique brand of justice …

June 2021

The President's Daugther is by President Bill Clinton and James Patterson.  There's a new administration in the White House. But it's the previous First Family who tops an international assassin's hit list. Michael Keating is a former Navy SEAL - and a former President of the United States, now relocated to rural New Hampshire after a brave but ill-fated military mission cost him his second term. All he wants is to sink into anonymity with his family (and his Secret Service detail). But when he's briefed on an imminent threat against his daughter, Keating's SEAL training may prove more essential than all the power, connections and political acumen he gained as President.

When Chrissie was eight, she killed a child. Fifteen years later, she has one of her own. I killed a little boy today. Held my hands around his throat, felt his blood pump hard against my thumbs. He wriggled and kicked and one of his knees caught me in the belly, a sharp lasso of pain. I roared. I squeezed. Sweat made it slippy between our skins but I didn't let go, pressed and pressed until my nails were white. It was easier than I thought it would be. Chrissie is eight years old, and she has just killed a two-year-old boy. Her playmates are tearful and their mothers are terrified, keeping them locked up indoors. Chrissie knows how to steal sweets from the shop without getting caught, the best hiding place for hide-and-seek, the perfect wall for handstands. Now she has a new secret. It gives her a fizzing, sherbet feeling in her belly. She doesn't get to feel power like this at home, where food is scarce and attention scarcer. Fifteen years later, Julia is working in a fish and chip shop and trying to mother her five-year-old daughter, Molly. She is always worried - about affording food and school shoes, about what the other mothers think of her. Most of all she worries that the social services are about to take Molly away. That's when the phone calls begin. Julia is too afraid to answer, because it's clear the caller knows the truth - that Julia is Chrissie, living under the new name given to her when she was released from prison eight years before. Julia wants to give Molly the childhood she was denied, and that means leaving Chrissie in the past. But Chrissie doesn't want to be left. The First Day of Spring is by Nancy Tucker.

July 2021

Clay Edison 2 is by Jonathan Kellerman. Thirty-six hours is all it's taken for society to break down. It's Monday morning and the power has been out since Friday night. As deputy Coroner Clay Edison arrives at a large, gated house to investigate the sudden death of its wealthy owner in the mist of a city-wide blackout, he knows he has his work cut out for him...











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