Before she’s even unpacked her office at Georgetown University's forensic pathology department, Dr. Samantha Owens is called to consult on a case that's rocked the capital and the country. An unknown pathogen released into the Washington Metro has caused nationwide panic. Amid the media frenzy and Homeland Security alarm bells, Sam painstakingly dissects the lives of those three victims and makes an unsettling conclusion.

In pre-Civil War Mississippi, cholera claims the life of Amanda Satterfield’s 12-year-old beloved daughter, Becky. Mistress Amanda blames her husband for refusing to call for a doctor in time to save their only child. Grief-stricken and plunged into madness, Amanda orders an ebony-skinned newborn slave girl brought to the great house as a replacement for her daughter.

Piet Barol has an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. He applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on Amsterdam’s grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets --- and soon, quietly, steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of those around him.

LONDON UNDER is a short and comprehensive study of everything that goes on underground in London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern tube stations. Spanning throughout history, Peter Ackroyd reveals stories and secrets of this hidden world.

At age 12, Julia Pandl was initiated into the rite of the Sunday brunch while working at her father's Milwaukee-based restaurant with her eight older siblings. There she learned the ropes of the family business as well as life lessons that would shape her for all the years to come. Her time working at the restaurant was not just a time of growing up, but ultimately of becoming a source of strength and support as the world her father knew began to change into a tougher, less welcoming place.

The rare First Lady who did not write a book, Pat Nixon remains one of the most mysterious and enigmatic public figures in recent history. Ann Beattie, like many of her generation, dismissed Richard Nixon’s wife. Decades later, she wonders what it must have been like to be married to such a spectacularly ambitious and catastrophically self-destructive man.

For years the drifter haunted the background of American life, roaming the side streets and highways that crisscross this vast country. That all changes when he witnesses a brutal assault on a young woman. By the time he reaches her, the assailant is gone, leaving a trail that is all too easy to follow. But playing the good Samaritan may be more trouble than it’s worth, when his moment of conscience hurls him into a shadowy world of violence, intrigue and deception.

SHOCKAHOLIC is the juicy account of the life of Carrie Fisher, daughter of actress Debbie Reynolds and singer Eddie Fisher. Focusing on the Star Wars years and dishing about the various Hollywood relationships she’s formed since she was chosen to play Princess Leia at only 19 years old, this memoir recounts Fisher’s emotional and psychological journey through fame.