Darby Lane and Russell Gunn had been inseparable friends from their early years in the Horseshoe, their wonderful Baton Rouge neighborhood of Southern comforts and childhood fancies, all the way through to graduate-school dreams and beyond. Then the unthinkable happens: a tragic accident takes Russ's life, and Darby's world is shattered. Returning to the Horseshoe in utter despair, Darby clings to the only family she's ever known: the three wily and...

Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families - the Trasks and the Hamiltons - whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Adam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink...

The last and greatest of Dostoevsky's novels, The Brothers Karamazov is a towering masterpiece of literature, philosophy, psychology, and religion. It tells the story of intellectual Ivan, sensual Dmitri, and idealistic Alyosha Karamazov, who collide in the wake of their despicable father's brutal murder. Into the framework of the story Dostoevsky poured all of his deepest concerns -- the origin of evil, the nature of freedom, the craving for meaning...

In the 1960s, Tommy Bedford has the magnificent luck of escaping boarding school and moving to Hollywood to live with his older sister, rising ingénue Diane Reed, and her beau, suave cowboy actor Ray Montane. For a time, life is full and glamorous. But Hollywood has a darker side, and one day a shocking and deadly confrontation forces Diane and Tommy to flee. Decades later, Tom Bedford has retreated into the isolated wilds of Montana. His biggest...

As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.

Allan Armadale makes a startling deathbed confession to be shared with his young son once he reaches adulthood-he murdered another man named Allan Armadale. It's a dark secret that inevitably looms over the child of the perpetrator and his victim. Before dying, Allan Armadale reveals that he previously killed a man also named Allan Armadale. It's a revelation meant for his young son who discovers the information as an adult. At this point, he's...

In June of 1989 Paul McLeod, a newspaper publisher and recent widower, travels to Greece, where he falls for a young American artist and reflects on the complicated truth about his marriage. . ..Six years later, again in June, Paul’s death draws his three grown sons and their families back to their ancestral home. Fenno, the eldest, a wry, introspective gay man, narrates the events of this unforeseen reunion. Far from his straitlaced expatriate...

Just before the Christmas holiday, distinguished London mathematician Henry Rathbone comes to the aid of an old friend whose son Lucien has gone missing. Enlisting the aid of Squeaky Robinson and Crow, Henry soon discovers that Lucien may be involved with a murdered prostitute and a major drugs dealer.

Before he died on a storm-wracked night, Jimmy Tock’s grandfather predicted that there would be five dark days in his grandson’s life—five dates whose terrible events Jimmy must prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his twentieth year, the last in his thirtieth. What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five critical days? What challenges must he survive? The path he follows will defy every expectation and will take all the love,...

A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on...