Three friends descend upon an art auction in search of some excitement. Mike Mackenzie-retired software mogul, bachelor and fine art enthusiast-wants something that money can't buy. Fellow art-lover Allan Cruickshank is bored with his banking career and burdened by a painful divorce. And Robert Gissing, an art professor, is frustrated that so many paintings stay hidden in corporate boardrooms, safes and private apartments. After the auction-and a chance encounter with crime boss Chib Calloway-Robert and Allan suggest the "liberation" of several paintings from the National Gallery, hoping Mike will dissuade them. Instead, he hopes they are serious.

As enterprising girlfriends, clever detectives, seductive auctioneers and a Hell's Angel named Hate enter the picture, Ian Rankin creates a highly-charged thriller, a fast-pasted story of second guesses and double crosses that keep changing the picture, right until the harrowing finish.

<I>The Monster In The Box is the latest addition to Ruth Rendell's classic and beguiling Inspector Wexford series. In this enthralling new book, Rendell, "the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world" (<I>Time), takes Inspector Wexford back to his days as a young policeman, and to the man he has long suspected of murder -- serial murder.<P>Outside the house where Wexford investigated his first murder case -- a woman found strangled in her bedroom -- he noticed a short, muscular man wearing a scarf and walking a dog. He gave Wexford an unnerving stare. Without any solid evidence, Wexford began to suspect that this man -- Eric Targo, he learned -- was the killer.

Over the years there are more unsolved, apparently motiveless murders in the town of Kingsmarkham, and Wexford continues to quietly suspect that the increasingly prosperous Targo -- van driver, property developer, kennel owner, and animal lover -- is behind them.<P>Now, half a lifetime later, Wexford spots Targo back in Kingsmarkham after a long absence. Wexford tells his longtime partner, Mike Burden, about his suspicions, but Burden dismisses them as fantasy. Meanwhile, Burden's wife, Jenny, has suspicions of her own. She believes that the Rahmans, a highly respectable immigrant family from Pakistan, may be forcing their daughter, Tamima, into an arranged marriage -- or worse.

In <I>The Monster in the Box, the twenty-second book in the Inspector Wexford series, fans will be thrilled to meet the now-aging inspector in the robust early days of his career. For new readers, no introduction to this spectacular writer and her compelling protagonist could be finer.

It's late in the fall in <ST1:PLACE w:st="on">Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on his desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong.
Rebus discovers that an elite delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, looking to expand its interests. And as Rebus's investigation gains ground, someone brutally assaults a local gangster with whom he has a long history.
Has Rebus overstepped his bounds for the last time? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, controversial career, will Rebus even make it that far?

Everything in Texas is bigger...even murder.<P>Meet Tres Navarre...tequila drinker, Tai Chi master, unlicensed P.I., with a penchant for Texas-size trouble.

Jackson "Tres" Navarre and his enchilada-eating cat, Robert Johnson, pull into San Antonio and find nothing waiting but trouble. Ten years ago Navarre left<br>town and the memory of his father's murder behind him. Now he's back, looking for answers. Yet the more Tres digs, trying to put his suspicions to rest, the
fresher the decade-old crime looks: Mafia connections, construction site payoffs, and slick politicians' games all conspire to ruin his homecoming.
It's obvious Tres has stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble. He gets attacked, shot at, run over by a big blue Thunderbird--and his old girlfriend, the one he<br>wants back, turns up missing. Tres has to rescue the woman, nail his father's murderer, and get the hell out of Dodge before mob-style Texas justice catches<br>up to him. The chances of staying alive looked better for the defenders of the Alamo....

At night the summer sky stays light over Edinburgh. But in a shadowy, crumbling housing development, a junkie lies dead of an overdose, his bruised body surrounded by signs of Satanic worship. John Rebus could call the death and accident--but won't. Instead, he tracks down a violent-tempered young woman who knew the dead boy and heard him cry out his terrifyng last words: "Hide! Hide!" Now, with the help of a bright, conflicted young detective, Rebus is following the girl through a brutal world of bad deals, bad dope and bad company. From a beautiful city's darkest side to the private sanctums of the upper crust, Rebus is seeking the perfect hiding place for a killer.<br>

<P>Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measuer of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors--among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on attractrive, unsuspecting ladies as they prepare for bed. And when an elderly woman is found brutally slain in her home, Chief Inspector Banks wonders if the voyeur has increased the awful intensity of his criminal activities. But whether relatied or not, perverse local acts and murderous ones are combining to profoundly touch Banks's suddenly vulnerable perosonal life, forcing a dedicated law officer to make hard choices he'd dearly hoped would never be necessary.

Dazzling psychological suspense. Razor-sharp dialogue. Plots that catch and hold like a noose. These are the hallmarks of crime legend Ruth Rendell, “the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world” (Time magazine). From Doon with Death, now in a striking new paperback edition, is her classic debut novel -- and the book that introduced one of the most popular sleuths of the twentieth century.<br><br>There is nothing extraordinary about Margaret Parsons, a timid housewife in the quiet town of Kingsmarkham, a woman devoted to her garden, her kitchen, her husband. Except that Margaret Parsons is dead, brutally strangled, her body abandoned in the nearby woods.

Who would kill someone with nothing to hide? Inspector Wexford, the formidable chief of police, feels baffled -- until he discovers Margaret's dark secret: a trove of rare books, each volume breathlessly inscribed by a passionate lover identified only as Doon. As Wexford delves deeper into both Mrs. Parsons’ past and the wary community circling round her memory like wolves, the case builds with relentless momentum to a surprise finale as clever as it is blindsiding.

In <i>From Doon with Death, Ruth Rendell instantly mastered the form that would become synonymous with her name. Chilling, richly characterized, and ingeniously constructed, this is psychological suspense at its very finest.

“One of the most remarkable novelists of her generation.” —People

“She has transcended her genre by her remarkable imaginative power to explore and illuminate the dark corners of the human psyche.” —P.D. James

<DIV>Detective John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer, he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle... <br><br><i>Knots and Crosses introduces a gifted mystery novelist, a fascinating locale and the most compellingly complex detective hero at work today.<br>

The second volume of the Eisner and Harvey Award-winning GOTHEM CENTRAL series is collected in hardcover, brought to you by acclaimed writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka, and artist Michael Lark, with additional art by Greg Scott, Brian Hurtt and Stefano Gaudiano. This volume also features an introduction by Duane Swierczynski.

Cops just don't have it easy in the city of the bat. Not only do they have to deal with the violence and corruption of the world's most notoriously crime-infested city, catering to some of the most insane and homicidal criminals, but they also have to deal with a vigilante who's hellbent on playing by his own rules. <br><br>And to make things worse, the Joker is terrorizing the city at Christmastime--randomly executing people with a rifle, and no one from the Mayor on down is safe!  Plus, more stories involving the girl whose job it is to turn on the Bat-signal, a series of gruesome murders that grab the attention of The Huntress, and an old case of unfinished business for disgraced detective Harvey Bullock.

Collects issues 11-22 of the original series

"Realistic, gritty, and most importantly, a treat to read!"--AIN'T IT COOL NEWS