Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York and The Gangs of Chicago, turns his attention to chronicle the seedy underworld of San Francisco, from its gold-rush glories to its subterranean opium dens. Houses of ill-repute play host to shanghaied sailors, and the Chinese tong wars rage around the city. San Francisco's historic past is here brought to life in all its scintillating and infamous glory.

The fourth book in the bestselling Gangs of... series, by the author of The Gangs of New York, this time chronicling the criminal underbelly of early 20th-century San Francisco

Herbert Asbury was born into a strictly Methodist family in Missouri in 1889. His pious background and his subsequent rejection of Methodism greatly influenced both his philosophy of life and his career as reporter and author. Indeed, many of his books deal with the darker, seamier side of American life. He died in 1963 of chronic lung problems, the legacy of a gas-attack in France during the first World War.

Lionel Walk, better known as Train, is a young black caddy at an elite Los Angeles golf course, where he comes to know a police detective he calls ‘The Mile-Away Man’.
Norah Still is unwillingly at the center of the criminal investigation, as the only survivor of an attempted boat hijacking gone violently wrong. Sergeant Miller Packer – Train’s ‘Mile-Away Man’ – is in charge of the case and he finds himself drawn to the beautiful widow.
Miller’s interest in Norah and Train soon moves beyond his professional obligations. He tries to shield Norah from the events on the boat, fighting her need to hold on to the past and becomes a kind of manager as Train competes as a golfer on a lucrative underground gambling circuit. Miller’s oddly personal concern binds the three of them together in an uneasy triangle.
Pete Dexter’s remarkable new novel brings to life the most violent and tender impulses of his characters as they struggle to come to terms with the difference between a gift and a passion, between their abilities and their desires.

When Linda Balfour, a young mother, is found butchered in small-town southern Illinois, a coded inscription stamped in blood on the back of her head brands her mutilated body. For Chief Prosecutor Martin Vail, the Bloody insignia drags up memories he'd like to forget - memories of Bishop Rushman, slashed and dismembered ten years ago by an altar boy, Aaron Stampler. But if Stampler is locked away, he cannot have murdered Linda. With his career - and his life - on the line, Vail needs answers fast before the killer signs someone else's life away.

Lawyer Martin Vail has never lost a case - now he must catch a psychotic killer, or he'll lose his life.

William Diehl is the author of the international bestsellers Sharky's Machine, Thai Horse, 27, Primal Fear and Show of Evil. Several of his novels have been filmed. He lives in Woodstock, Georgia, with his wife, Emmy Award winner Virginia Gunn.

In the Vatican, the pope is dying as priestly vultures gather around, whispering the names of possible successors. In a forgotten monastery on Ireland's gale-swept coast, a dangerous document is hidden, waiting to be claimed. And in a family chapel in Princeton, New Jersey, a nun is murdered at her prayers. Sister Valentine was an outspoken activist, a thorn in the Church's side. When her brother, lawyer Ben Driskill, realizes that the Church will never investigate her death, he sets out to find the murderer himself - and uncovers a dangerous, explosive secret.

John Grisham is the author of fourteen bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi

High school All-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty. As Coach Rake's 'boys' sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they love Eddie Rake - or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, who struggles to come to terms with his explosive relationship with the Coach, his dreams of a great career in the NFL, and the choices he made as a young man, the stakes are especially high.

John Grisham is the author of thirteen previous bestselling novels. He lives with his family in Virginia and Mississippi.

Irish Independent ‘Hunter choreographs the violence in steely prose and Earl Swagger ... remains one of crime fiction’s most engaging heroes’
Scottish Sunday Herald ‘Hunter’s snappy prose and colourful setting make Havana a book to roar through’

High summer in Cuba, 1953, and Havana gleams with possibility. Flush with booming casinos, sex, and drugs, Havana is a lucrative paradise for everyone from the Mafia and United Fruit to pimps, porn-makers, and anyone looking to grab a piece of the action - including the Cuban government, which naturally honours the interests of its old ally, the United States of America. Of course, where there's paradise, trouble can't be far behind. Trouble, in this case, makes its entrance in the terrifically charismatic and silver-tongued form of a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro. The Caribbean is fast becoming a strategic Cold War hub, and Soviet intelligence has taken Castro under its wing. The CIA's response is to send the one man capable of eliminating Castro: the legendary gunfighter and ex-Marine hero Earl Swagger, who proved his lethal talent in Stephen Hunter's previous bestsellers Hot Springs and Pale Horse Coming. In Cuba, Earl finds himself up to his neck in treacherous ambiguity, where the old rules about honour and duty don't apply, and where Earl's target seems to have more guts and good luck than anyone else in Cuba. Blending real-world figures into a lightning-paced narrative, Stephen Hunter once again proves himself the master of literary adventure and suspense.

Stephen Hunter, film critic for the Washington Post and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for criticism, is the author of twelve novels. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

When the corpse of an American archaeologist is found floating in the Yangtze river near the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam, David Stark, international attorney, and Liu Hulan, inspector for The Ministry of Public Security, are called in to investigate. Although the initial verdict is that it was an accident, Hulan and David soon discover that this is only one of many apparently work-related' deaths to have plagued archaeological sites in the area and that numerous priceless artefacts are disappearing, only to reappear outside China on the international art market.
The murder trail leads David and Hulan to the heart of the mighty three Gorges Dam project itself. China's biggest undertaking since The Great Wall 2,000 years ago the dam, when finished, will cause flooding that will displace millions of people from their homes and bury thousands of archaeological sites forever. In the resulting frenzy of archaeological activity, the area has become a target for both modern-day pirates and for a more shadowy, sinister group, possessed of seemingly ultimate power who will stop at nothing to gain their mysterious prize.
As they pick their way through the maze of international and industrial politics, David and Hulan come to realise that what is at stake is the safety of both their homelands. And as the killers focus their attention more clearly on David and Hulan, human is pitted against nature in the final battle for China's 'Dragon Bones'.