"New to town and delusionally confident, Slide imagined himself living in a glossy building with doormen and sweeping views of the skyline. Instead he's landed in a creaking, stuffy apartment with two roommates: a loping giant who hardly leaves his room, and a weight-obsessed neurotic who keeps no fewer than forty-seven lamps throughout the house, blazing at all hours. Unwilling to accept this fate, Slide--a barber with an opaque past--embarks on...

Protecting a brilliant freshman whose homeschooled life has left her unprepared for the outside world, Jennifer invites the vulnerable girl home for a Christmas break that embroils Sheriff Joanna Brady in a volatile missing-persons case. Returning to Northern Arizona University for her sophomore year, Jennifer Brady becomes a big sister to her new roommate, Beth Rankin, a brilliant yet sheltered, homeschooled, sixteen-year-old freshman. With her...