In Stephen Hunter's latest breakneck thriller, ex-Marine sniper Ray Cruz confronts a group of murderous terrorists who have laid siege to America’s largest shopping mall.

In Stephen Hunter's latest breakneck thriller, ex-Marine sniper Ray Cruz confronts a group of murderous terrorists who have laid siege to America’s largest shopping mall.

Black Friday. America’s largest shopping mall. Suburban Minneapolis. 3:00 P.M.

Ten thousand people jam the aisles, the corridors, the elevators, and the escalators of America, the Mall --- a giant Rubik’s Cube of a structure with its own amusement park located in the spacious center atrium. Of those people, 9,988 have come to shop. The other 12 have come to kill.

Stephen Hunter’s hyper-drive, eighth-gear new thriller, SOFT TARGET, chronicles the day when the unthinkable happens: 12 gunmen open fire in the mall corridors, driving the pack before them. Those on the upper floors take cover or get out any way they can; but within a few minutes the gunmen have herded more than a thousand hostages into the amusement park.

Ray Cruz, one of the heroes of Hunter’s last bestseller, DEAD ZERO, is in the mall with his fiancée and her family. The retired Marine sniper thought he was done with stalking and killing --- but among the trapped thousands, he’s the only one with a plan and the guts to confront the self-proclaimed “Brigade Mumbai.” Now all he needs is a gun.

FBI Sniper Dave McElroy has a gun. But positioned on the roof of the vast building, looking down through one of its thickly paned Great Lakes–shaped skylights, and without explosives or fuses --- or the go-ahead from his superiors --- he is effectively cut off from his targets and forced into the role of witness to the horror unfolding below.

Set during the four hours of the terrifying event, the story follows both hostages and gunmen, detailing the complex strategic police response, the full-press media saturation coverage, even the politics of SWAT as both the Minnesota State Police and the FBI struggle to control, confront, and ultimately defuse the crisis.

Having learned the lessons of Columbine, the feds believe that immediate action is the only solution. But Douglas Obobo, the charismatic and ambitious commandant of the state police, orders cooperation, tolerance, communication, and empathy for the gunmen. He feels that with his superior negotiating skills, he can make contact with the shooters and gently nudge them into surrender. But what if their goal all along has been unparalleled massacre --- and they’re only waiting for prime time?

With unrelenting suspense and vivid scenes of violence and chaos in the center of a terror-crazed afternoon in Middle America, thriller master Stephen Hunter takes us into the belly of the softest of soft targets.

When military wife Gretchen Daniels and her two children move closer to her mother, she meets Melissa, her unfriendly neighbor. At this initial encounter, the two women could never guess how their lives will intertwine and change during the course of this heartwarming and endearing story.

From the author of The Christmas Hope series comes a new inspirational novel about an unlikely friendship between two women, but one that will change each of their lives forever.

Gretchen Daniels has recently moved into an apartment with her two children to be closer to her mother, Miriam. She and her children are building a life together in a new community when a mysterious young woman, Melissa McCreary, moves into the apartment next to them. She has few possessions, little personality, and keeps to herself. One day, a local landlord who is looking for Melissa knocks on Gretchen’s door for assistance. Melissa’s mother has died and in the coming weeks the landlord needs Melissa to empty her mother’s apartment. Gretchen reaches out and offers to help, but the apartment is a gut wrenching shamble of a home. There is little worth saving except for a few photos and a note that is discovered on the crate beside the bed. It is unfinished but in the two scribbled lines, Melissa discovers she has a brother and a sister that she never knew about. Even more shocking, she begins to uncover family secrets that show her who she really is. Can two very different women embark on a journey that explores a long-buried need for forgiveness, hope and redemption?

Tim Dorsey offers the perfect antidote for all those sappy feel-good holiday stories with this zany blockbuster extravaganza in which his wonderfully deranged serial killer Floridaphile delivers his special brand of Christmas cheer.

Tim Dorsey offers the perfect antidote for all those sappy feel-good holiday stories with this zany blockbuster extravaganza in which his wonderfully deranged serial killer Floridaphile delivers his special brand of Christmas cheer. 

I’m dreaming of a Serge Christmas...
Palm trees with twinkle lights...
Santa’s big belly protruding over a neon Speedo...

It’s ho, ho, ho time in this hilarious and wacky Florida holiday tale, featuring bighearted psychopath Serge Storms and his sidekick, Coleman. Like Santa, Serge knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. Few can give with the generosity and creativity of Serge, and as December 24 rolls around, he is filling up the Serge sleigh with an unforgettable bag of presents.

But before that, it’s all a big free-range Christmas office party, where Serge will be spreading his special cheer. And there’s that last-minute go-for-broke spree at the mall (just beware of those attacking elves --- they bite). While you’re there, skip the lame photo on Santa’s lap --- Serge will give you a lap ride you’ll never forget. As for that addled elf Coleman, there’s nothing like a white Christmas. Let it snow!

So grab a six-pack, spike the eggnog, and hit the dunes on the beach as Serge and Coleman roast some nuts on an open fire and prove that reindeer really do know how to fly!

This introductory novel in The Clifton Chronicles takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry Clifton must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler"s Germany.

From the internationally bestselling author of KANE AND ABEL and A PRISONER OF BIRTH comes ONLY TIME WILL TELL, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father, but he learns about life on the docks from his uncle, who expects Harry to join him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.

As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question, was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

This introductory novel in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler’s Germany. From the docks of working-class England to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City, ONLY TIME WILL TELL takes readers on a journey through to future volumes, which will bring to life one hundred years of recent history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.

WHITE TRUFFLES IN WINTER imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy and the Ritz.

WHITE TRUFFLES IN WINTER imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy and the Ritz.

WHITE TRUFFLES IN WINTER imagines the world of the remarkable French chef Auguste Escoffier (1846-1935), who changed how we eat through his legendary restaurants at the Savoy and the Ritz. A man of contradictions --- kind yet imperious, food-obsessed yet rarely hungry --- Escoffier was also torn between two women: the famous, beautiful, and reckless actress Sarah Bernhardt and his wife, the independent and sublime poet Delphine Daffis, who refused ever to leave Monte Carlo. In the last year of Escoffier's life, in the middle of writing his memoirs, he has returned to Delphine, who requests a dish in her name as he has honored Bernhardt, Queen Victoria, and many others. How does one define the complexity of love on a single plate?

N. M. Kelby brings us the sensuality of food and love amid a world on the verge of war in this work that shimmers with beauty and longing.