Reading a series? Why not a mystery author who can write.

On a notorious street where propriety and decadence clash, in the basement of a newly renovated bar, the bones of a woman and child are discovered beneath a cement floor. It's an unusually gruesome find, even for Fleshmarket Alley. When Inspector John Rebus is called to investigate, every fact he finds unleashes a host of new questions. Are the bones those of a mother and child? Are they actual human remains or fakes? Were they planted there - and if so, why?It could be nothing more than a ruthless and enterprising pub owner looking to create a local legend that will help lure trade. Or it could be something far worse - something as grisly as the death of a recent immigrant found brutally murdered at a local housing project, or the murder of Donald Cruikshank, a recently paroled rapist whose body is found just as a young woman goes missing. The missing girl is a friend of Inspector Rebus's colleague Detective Siobhan Clarke, and Siobhan is shocked to find herself in the same intricate web of murderers as Rebus - all somehow tied to that pile of bones under Fleshmarket Alley.In a race to stop the killings before more bodies turn up - even as the possibility of romantic entanglements distracts and entices them - Rebus and Siobhan plumb the darkest corners of their beloved city and confront the lawless, conscienceless men who dwell there. Writing with the unstoppable narrative force that has made him one of the bestselling writers in the world, Edgar Award-winner Ian Rankin delivers his most explosive and surprising mystery yet.

A Moscow detective is sent to Chernobyl for a frightening case in the most spectacular entry yet in Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series. In his groundbreaking Gorky Park, Martin Cruz Smith created an iconic detective of contemporary fiction. Quietly subversive, brilliantly analytical, and haunted by melancholy, Arkady Renko survived, barely, the journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russia, only to find his transformed nation just as obsessed with corruption and brutality as was the old Communist dictatorship. In Wolves Eat Dogs, Renko returns for his most enigmatic and baffling case yet: the death of one of Russia’s new billionaires, which leads him to Chernobyl and the Zone of Exclusion—closed to the world since 1986’s nuclear disaster. It is still aglow with radioactivity, now inhabited only by the militia, shady scavengers, a few reckless scientists, and some elderly peasants who refuse to relocate. Renko’s journey to this ghostly netherworld, the crimes he uncovers there, and the secrets they reveal about the New Russia make for an unforgettable adventure.

Welcome to the fabled Gold Coast, that stretch on the North Shore of Long Island that once held the greatest concentration of wealth and power in America. Here two men are destined for an explosive collision: John Sutter, Wall Street lawyer, holding fast to a fading aristocratic legacy; and Frank Bellarosa, the Mafia don who seizes his piece of the staid and unprepared Gold Coast like a latter-day barbarian chief and draws Sutter and his regally beautiful wife, Susan, into his violent world. Told from Sutter's sardonic and often hilarious point of view, and laced with sexual passion and suspense, The Gold Coast is Nelson DeMille's captivating story of friendship and seduction, love and betrayal.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER CELEBRATING THE 20th ANNIVERSARY WITH A NEW FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR Wounded in the line of duty, NYPD homicide detective John Corey convalesces in the Long Island township of Southold, home to farmers, fishermen -- and at least one killer. Tom and Judy Gordon, a young, attractive couple Corey knows, have been found on their patio, each with a bullet in the head. The local police chief, Sylvester Maxwell, wants Corey's big-city expertise, but Maxwell gets more than he bargained for. John Corey doesn't like mysteries, which is why he likes to solve them. His investigations lead him into the lore, legends, and ancient secrets of northern Long Island -- more deadly and more dangerous than he could ever have imagined. During his journey of discovery, he meets two remarkable women, Detective Beth Penrose and Mayflower descendant Emma Whitestone, both of whom change his life irrevocably. Ultimately, through his understanding of the murders, John Corey comes to understand himself. Fast-paced and atmospheric, marked by entrancing characters, incandescent storytelling, and brilliant comic touches, Plum Island is Nelson DeMille at his thrill-inducing best.