These were the dark days for Matthew Scudder. An ex-New York cop, he had drowned his career in booze. Now he was drinking away his life in a succession of seedy establishments that opened early and closed late, reduced to doing paid "favors" for the cronies who gathered with him to worship the bottle. Now, in a sad and lonely place like so many before it, opportunity comes knocking - a chance to help the ginmil's owner recover his stolen doctored...

On Thanksgiving Day 2007, as the country teeters on the brink of a recession, three generations of the Olson family gather. Eleanor and Gavin worry about their daughter, a single academic, and her newly adopted Indian child, and about their son, who has been caught in the imploding real-estate bubble. While the Olsons navigate the tensions and secrets that mark their relationships, seventeen-year-old Kijo Jackson and his best friend Spider set out...

Early spring in Maine is not the season for swimming nor for the spurts of unexpected violence that begin to erupt when strangers move in to a tranquil country village.

When novelist Eden Winter emerges from completing her latest fictional adventure, she finds that life around her has changed. The usually tranquil coastal community of Job's Harbor is all abuzz over the return of the elderly Edmond sisters. Old-timers breathlessly recount how sixty years ago, Marianne, a brilliant young pianist, eloped with the scoundrel Guy Rigby. Guy, a married man and a respected banker, cleaned out the vault when he left, ruining...