Winter Kill

Thanks to an elderly spinster sleuth and her ingenious cat, Christopher Holmes has enjoyed a celebrated career as a bestselling mystery writer. Until now. Sales are down and his new editor is allergic to geriatric gumshoes. On the advice of his agent, he reinvents his fortyish, frumpy, recently dumped self into the sleek, sexy image of a literary lion, and heads for a Northern California writers conference to try and resurrect his career.

A crippling knee injury forced Elliot Mills to trade in his FBI badge for dusty chalkboards and bored college students. Now a history professor at Puget Sound university, the former agent has put his old life behind him, but it seems his old life isn't finished with him.

Special Agent Jason West is seconded from the FBI Art Crime Team to temporarily partner with disgraced and legendary "manhunter" Sam Kennedy when it appears that Kennedy's most famous case, the capture and conviction of a serial killer known as the Huntsman, may actually have been a disastrous failure. The Huntsman is still out there...and the killing has begun again.

When crusading lawyer Vikram Pandey sets out in search of a missing youth, his investigations take him to Holywell Street, London's most notorious address. He expects to find a disgraceful array of sordid bookshops. He doesn't expect one of them to be run by the long-lost friend whose disappearance and presumed death he's been mourning for 13 years. Gil Lawless became a Holywell Street bookseller for his own reasons, and he's damned if he's going to apologize or listen to moralizing from anyone. 

Someone's out to get Los Angeles bookseller Adrien English. His best friend has been viciously murdered, now he's getting weird phone calls and sinister gifts from a mysterious "admirer." The cops think he's trying to divert suspicion from himself - with the exception of sexy and homophobic homicide detective Jake Riordan. Is Riordan really such a great detective - or does he have a few secrets of his own? Is his offer to help Adrien on the level or is he out to nail his favorite suspect - to the wall?

Three years ago, Bear McKenna’s mother took off for parts unknown with her new boyfriend, leaving Bear to raise his six-year-old brother Tyson, aka the Kid. Somehow they’ve muddled through, but since he’s totally devoted to the Kid, Bear isn’t actually doing much living. With a few exceptions, he’s retreated from the world, and he’s mostly okay with that - until Otter comes home. Otter is Bear’s best friend’s older brother, and as they’ve done for their whole lives, Bear and Otter crash and collide in ways neither expect.

His romantic weekend in ruins, shy 20-something artist Perry Foster learns that things can always get worse when he returns home from San Francisco to find a dead body in his bathtub. A dead body in a very ugly sportscoat - and matching socks. The dead man is a stranger to Perry, but that's not much of a comfort; how did a strange dead man get in a locked flat at the isolated Alton Estate in the wilds of the 'Northeast Kingdom' of Vermont? Perry turns to help from 'tall, dark and hostile' former navy SEAL Nick Reno.

I left my family and tiny Texas hometown 15 years ago to escape small-town gossips and to give my mom and sister the chance at a better life. But when a phone call from an attorney back home informs me that my sister passed away, leaving me custody of her newborn baby, I'm shocked out of the steady life I've built for myself running a tattoo shop in San Francisco. The thing is: I don't do babies. And I don't do small towns. Or commitment. And I especially don't do family.

Demoted to the cold case squad after shooting a suspect in the line of duty, Detective Ronan O'Mara knows that his career with the Boston Police Department is hanging by a thread. His first assignment is the case of Michael Frye, a five-year-old boy who has been missing for seven years. With no new leads or witnesses to interview, Ronan has to start from scratch to solve this mystery. When he sees a handsome local psychic on television, Ronan figures he's got nothing to lose in enlisting the man's help to find Michael.

Matthew Elliot is one of LA’s best detectives. He’s been labeled the golden boy of the Fab Four: a team of four detectives who’ve closed down drug-rings all over the city. He’s smart, tough and exceptionally good at his job. He’s also a closeted gay man. Enter Kira Takeo Franco, the new boxing coach at the gym. Matthew can’t deny his immediate attraction to the man his fellow cops know as Frankie. But in allowing himself to fall in love with a man known to his colleagues, Matthew risks outing them both.

Former cat burglar Rook Stevens stole many a priceless thing in the past, but he's never been accused of taking a life - until now. It was one thing to find a former associate inside Potter's Field, his pop culture memorabilia shop, but quite another to stumble across her dead body.

Gary should be living it up in his South Tower unit of Metropolis, but he's having a hard time adjusting to his newly single status. It's not easy to walk away from five years with his ex, who he discovered was cheating on him with some North Tower twink. After a night out partying, licking his wounds, he goes to bed alone. When he wakes the next morning, there's a naked guy in his bed. Not just any guy. A stud from North Tower. But hot as he is, what the hell is he doing in his room?

Spencer Cohen is the guy who gets answers to relationship questions. Playing the role of the new lover, his job is to make his client's ex realize one of two things: he doesn't want to break up or he really does. Either way, his client gets answers. The ex would either apologize and beg, or turn and walk. But in the end, Spencer's client won. If he wanted his ex back and got him, it was great. If the guy walked away, then as hard it was for the client, he knew it was over. Regardless of the outcome, Spencer's work was done.

Crispin Tredarloe never meant to become a warlock. Freed from his treacherous master, he's learning how to use his magical powers the right way. But it's brutally hard work. Not everyone believes he's a reformed character, and the strain is putting unbearable pressure on his secret relationship with waste-man Ned Hall. Ned's sick of magic. Sick of the trouble it brings, sick of its dangerous grip on Crispin and the miserable look it puts in his eyes, and sick of being afraid that a gentleman magician won't want a street paper-seller forever....

David Lauriston is struggling to build his reputation in Edinburgh's privileged legal world. His humble origins are enough of a hurdle, never mind his recent decision to defend a group accused of treason, prompting speculation that he may harbour radical sympathies. David's personal life is no more successful. Tormented by his forbidden desires for other men, David tries to live a celibate existence. But then into David's repressed and orderly world bursts Lord Murdo Balfour. Cynical, hedonistic, and utterly unapologetic, Murdo could not be less like David.