"Three Pines is a village just above the U.S. border where everybody knows everything about each other--until now. Everybody in Three Pines is shocked when their favorite local bistro becomes the scene of a devastating crime. A stranger's corpse has turned up there, and Chief Inspector Gamache is called to investigate. But no one can believe it when Olivier, the owner of the bistro, becomes a suspect: Why does every lead in the investigation find...

"Cal Hooper thought a fixer-upper in a bucolic Irish village would be the perfect escape. After twenty-five years in the Chicago police force and a bruising divorce, he just wants to build a new life in a pretty spot with a good pub where nothing much happens. But when a local kid whose brother has gone missing arm-twists him into investigating, Cal uncovers layers of darkness beneath his picturesque retreat, and starts to realize that even small...

"A teenage girl has gone missing. The whole community has been called upon to join the search. And now an interviewer arrives, intent on capturing the community's unstable stories about life in the weeks and months before Becky Shaw vanished"--

"The secret town of Rockton has seen some rocky times lately; understandable considering its mix of criminals and victims fleeing society for refuge within its Yukon borders. Casey Duncan, the town's only detective on a police force of three, has already faced murder, arson, and falling in love in the several months that she's lived there. Yet even she didn't think it would be possible for an outsider to locate the town and cause trouble in the place...

"Ming survived the famine that killed his parents during China's "Great Leap Forward", and lives a hard but adequate life, working in the fields. When a group of city boys comes to the village as part of a Communist Party re-education program, Ming and his friends aren't sure what to make of the new arrivals...But despite his reservations, Ming befriends a charming city boy called Li. The two couldn't be more different, but slowly they form a bond...

"Yan Lianke has secured his place as contemporary China's most essential and daring novelist, "with his superlative gifts for storytelling and penetrating eye for truth" (New York Times Book Review). His newest novel, The Day the Sun Died--winner of the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, one of the most prestigious honors for Chinese-language novels--is a haunting story of a town caught in a waking nightmare. In a little village nestled in the Balou...

"Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see—to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves—and inspires readers to open their hearts to these mysteries as well."— Washington Post Book World

From the author

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"Judy Glassman lives with her brother, Ira, and father, Noah, in a village at the foot of Evil Rock. Every winter, Ira accompanies their dad up to the mansion at the top of the mountain to assist the rich, eccentric Grendel family with their house repairs. But this year, Judy convinces her dad to let her come too. Judy has heard whispers about the Beast of Evil Rock -- a half-human creature who stalks the crags. And she's determined to find out for...