Tara Beckley is a senior at idyllic Hammel College in Maine. As she drives to deliver a visiting professor to a conference, a horrific car accident kills the professor and leaves Tara in a vegetative state. At least, so her doctors think. In fact, she's a prisoner of locked-in syndrome: fully alert but unable to move a muscle. Trapped in her body, she learns that someone powerful wants her dead - but why? And what can she do, lying in a hospital bed, to stop them? 

When 13-year-old Jace Wilson witnesses a brutal murder, he's plunged into a new life, issued a false identity and hidden in a wilderness skills program for troubled teens. The plan is to get Jace off the grid while police find the two killers. The result is the start of a nightmare. The killers, known as the Blackwell Brothers, are slaughtering anyone who gets in their way in a methodical quest to reach him.

Former US Marine Jess Winslow reenters civilian life a new widow, with little more to her name than a falling-down house, a medical discharge for PTSD, and a loyal dog named Lucy. The only thing she actually cares about is that dog, a pit bull mix who helps her cope with the devastating memories of her time in Afghanistan. After 15 years - nearly half his life - in state prison, Mason Burke owns one set of clothes, a wallet, and a photo of Lucy, the service dog he trained while behind bars. Seeking a fresh start, he sets out for Deception Cove, Washington, where the dog now lives.

Adam Austin hasn't spoken to his brother in years. When they were teenagers, their sister was abducted and murdered, and their devastated family never recovered. Now Adam keeps to himself, scraping by as a bail bondsman. Kent Austin is the beloved coach of the local high school football team, a religious man and hero in the community. After years of near misses, Just before playoffs begin, the town and the team are thrown into shock when horrifically, impossibly, another teenage girl is found murdered.

 Kimberly Crepeaux is no good, a notorious jailhouse snitch, teen mother, and heroin addict whose petty crimes are well known to the rural Maine community where she lives. So when she confesses to her role in the brutal murders of Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly, the daughter of a well-known local family and her sweetheart, the locals have little reason to believe her story.  

Jason Bennett is a suburban dad who owns a court-reporting business, but one night, his life takes a horrific turn. He is driving his family home after his daughter’s field hockey game when a pickup truck begins tailgating them, on a dark stretch of road. Suddenly two men jump from the pickup and pull guns on Jason, demanding the car. A horrific flash of violence changes his life forever.

Thirty years ago, Wilde was found as a boy living feral in the woods, with no memory of his past. Now an adult, he still doesn't know where he comes from, and another child has gone missing. No one seems to take Naomi Pine's disappearance seriously, not even her father - with one exception. Hester Crimstein, a television criminal attorney, knows through her grandson that Naomi was relentlessly bullied at school. Hester asks Wilde - with whom she shares a tragic connection - to use his unique skills to help find Naomi.

Investigator Wayne Weston is found dead of an apparent suicide in his home in an upscale Cleveland suburb, and his wife and six-year-old daughter are missing. Weston’s father insists that private investigators Lincoln Perry and Joe Pritchard take the case to exonerate his son and find his granddaughter and daughter-in-law. As they begin to work, they discover there is much more to the situation than has been described in the prevalent media reports.

In an isolated stretch of Eastern Kentucky, on a hilltop known as Blade Ridge, stands a lighthouse that illuminates nothing but the surrounding woods. For years the lighthouse has been considered no more than an eccentric local landmark - until its builder is found dead at the top of the light, and his belongings reveal a troubling local history.

Markus Novak just wants to come home. An investigator for a Florida-based death-row defense firm, Novak's life derailed when his wife, Lauren, was killed in the midst of a case the two were working together. Two years later her murderer is still at large, and Novak's attempts to learn the truth about her death through less-than-legal means and jailhouse bargaining have put his job on the line.

It started with a documentary. The beautiful Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to unearth the life story of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose childhood is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job, even though the only clues to Bradford's past are his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life. In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary past.

Henry North is a down-on-his-luck cybersecurity expert from New Orleans. Adam Zhang is the cofounder of one of Austin’s most successful venture capitalist firms. These two men didn’t know each other. They had never met. Yet they died together, violently, in a place neither had any business being. When Henry doesn’t return from a business trip, his wife, Kirsten, panics - and then gets an anonymous phone call: “Your husband is dead in Austin.”

Lila Nash is on the verge of landing her dream job - working as a prosecutor under the Hennepin County Attorney - and has settled into a happy life with her boyfriend, Joe Talbert. But when a woman is pulled from the Mississippi River, barely alive, things in the office take a personal turn. The police believe the woman’s assailant is local photographer Gavin Spenser, but the case quickly flounders as the evidence wears thin. It seems Gavin saw this investigation coming - and no one can imagine how carefully he has prepared.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Tech millionaire Miles Cookson has more money than he can ever spend and everything he could dream of - except time. He has recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and there is a 50 percent chance that it can be passed on to the next generation. For Miles, this means taking a long hard look at his past. Two decades ago, a young, struggling Miles was a sperm donor. Somewhere out there, he has kids - nine of them. And they might be about to inherit both the good and the bad from him - maybe his fortune, or maybe something much worse. 

Far upstate, in New York’s ancient forests, a drowned village lays beneath the dark, still waters of the Chilewaukee reservoir. Early in the 20th century, the town was destroyed for the greater good: Bringing water to the millions living downstate. Or at least that’s what the politicians from Manhattan insisted at the time. The local families, settled there since America’s founding, were forced from their land, but they didn’t move far, and some didn’t move at all... Now, a century later, the repercussions of human arrogance are finally making themselves known.

Tara Beckley is a senior at idyllic Hammel College in Maine. As she drives to deliver a visiting professor to a conference, a horrific car accident kills the professor and leaves Tara in a vegetative state. At least, so her doctors think. In fact, she's a prisoner of locked-in syndrome: fully alert but unable to move a muscle. Trapped in her body, she learns that someone powerful wants her dead - but why? And what can she do, lying in a hospital bed, to stop them? 

Set in the wilds of Maine, this is an explosive tale of an estranged son thrust into the hunt for a murderous fugitive - his own father. Game warden Mike Bowditch returns home one evening to find an alarming voice from the past on his answering machine: his father, Jack, a hard-drinking womanizer who makes his living poaching illegal game. An even more frightening call comes the next morning from the police: They are searching for the man who killed a beloved local cop the night before - and his father is their prime suspect.

Landon Gray, a skillful "ferry pilot" who delivers planes to customers has one final drop in Alabama before Christmas. But when an EMP causes the plane he’s in to crash on the remote, snow-covered mountains of North Carolina, he’s rescued by Beth "Bluebird" Sullivan, who claims to have lived off the grid since she was born. Beth brings him back to an isolated cabin to recover while waiting for her father to come back from the nearby town. When he doesn’t return, Beth grows increasingly worried while Landon struggles with being far from home.

From the twisted imagination of best-selling author Christian Galacar comes a dark mystery thriller about the difference between living the stories we’re given and living the stories we dare to make for ourselves. At the height of a blizzard, Molly Rifkin goes missing in her small New England community of Rockcliffe Island. But when she is found dead of an apparent suicide, the story doesn’t add up. There are more questions than answers. And there are those who would like to see the whole thing just go away. But it won’t be that easy...

Eighteen years ago, Jenna Luckman disappeared, presumed murdered. Her boyfriend, Jake Olson, hasn't been home since. Now he's coming back to find her killer. When a body is discovered at the frozen Hangman Falls, Jake is beset by a snowstorm of anger and revenge. Hounded by grudges and feared by the townsfolk, Jake is determined to uncover the truth behind his girlfriend's disappearance. But he still has enemies in town and they have other plans for him.

Alex Reid, a member of the US Coast Guard, is on the brink of divorce. On the day his wife arrives on the east coast to have him sign papers, the nation's crippled by a string of increasingly bizarre disasters. When the internet, communication, and power grid goes down, and explosions erupt across America, they soon find themselves fighting to stay alive. Desperate to protect family, they're forced to venture across a chaotic and powerless country in search of their daughter. As the world ends and panic takes hold, they must overcome more challenges than a broken marriage to survive. 

John Beck is the hero we don't deserve, but he's exactly who we need when the world falls apart. When a surprise EMP attack kills the power grid across most of the United States, the nation crumbles - but a hero rises. John Beck makes it his mission to help the weak against the strong in a new, lawless wilderness. All the while, he fights the demons of his past as he searches for the only family he has left.

When collegiate baseball phenom Chase Fulton suffers a freak injury on the field that shatters his dreams of becoming a Major League catcher, his future looks bleak until he’s recruited into quasi-governmental covert operations, where his training as an assassin and covert intelligence operative launches him into a world fraught with danger, intrigue, and unexpected passion. 

Former US Marine Jess Winslow reenters civilian life a new widow, with little more to her name than a falling-down house, a medical discharge for PTSD, and a loyal dog named Lucy. The only thing she actually cares about is that dog, a pit bull mix who helps her cope with the devastating memories of her time in Afghanistan. After 15 years - nearly half his life - in state prison, Mason Burke owns one set of clothes, a wallet, and a photo of Lucy, the service dog he trained while behind bars. Seeking a fresh start, he sets out for Deception Cove, Washington, where the dog now lives.