Family Life Thriller

In his three novellas, In Short Measures, Strong Conspirators, and Sally Forth, Michael Ruhlman delves deeply into the nuanced complexity of romantic and sexual love - and the inevitable evolution of the heart over the span of years and decades. Each novella asks questions about the nature of love in terms of loyalty and fidelity - what are one's obligations toward one's spouse, one's family, and one's heart?

The year is 1796, and a trading ship arrives in the vibrant trading town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. But it's a ghost ship - her entire crew has been decimated by a virulent fever which sweeps through the harbor town, and Newburyport's residents start to fall ill and die with alarming haste. Something has to be done to stop the virus from spreading further.

In the beginning was the Oak, its hungry roots reaching deep into the earth, its gnarled limbs searching the distant heavens. Two hundred years ago, Obediah Magrute worshipped the Oak and died violently beneath it, feeding it with his blood and bone, shouting his chilling curse to the skies. Now, Laura and Mark Avery have come to the bustling little Vermont village.

Trapped in a dead-end town, Justin Warren has had his life defined by the suspicious deaths of his grandparents. The unsolved crime happened long before Justin was born, but the ripple effects are still felt after thirty-eight years. Justin always knew he wouldn’t have much of a future. He just never imagined that his life might take him backward.

Neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life - married to a beautiful police officer, and father of two young boys. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene. When the victim's widow knocks at Eitan's door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money.

After the funeral of her mother, Sally, Alice Kent is approached by a man named Angus Tweedy. He claims to be her father and tells her that he served time in prison for marrying Sally bigamously. What does he hope to gain telling her this now, 30 years on? How can her adored dad Ralph not be her true father? And why did her mother betray her so badly? She had accepted Sally's many faults and her reluctance to never speak of the past. But faced with this staggering deception, Alice knows she must uncover the whole truth about her mother. Whatever the cost.

Jodi Baxter is slowly recuperating from a horrific car accident, but before she’s fully recovered, other problems arise within the Yada Yada Prayer Group—big problems. The turmoil starts when a heroin-addicted woman charges into a prayer meeting with a knife and isn’t afraid to use it. Things really take a turn for the worse when grim accusations are made against Jodi’s husband. Racial division, pain, and pride are tearing this close-knit group of women apart, and Jodi isn’t sure if she and her spiritual sisters will be able to survive the mess.

Never trust anyone. Never trust yourself. Rachel has made poor decisions in the past, but she has always tried her best for her daughter. When Vivian needed a fresh start, Rachel didn't hesitate to move them far from London. She just wishes she could shake the nagging doubt that Vivian is hiding something. Vivian isn't like other teenagers. On the surface she seems the same as her friends, but she knows she is different. When enigmatic Alex takes an interest in her, Vivian's cool demeanour hides an intensity of feeling she has never known before. His touch sets her skin on fire.

Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth - he’s the most powerful curse worker around. A touch of his hand can transform anything - or anyone - into something else. That was how Lila, the girl he loved, became a white cat. Cassel was tricked into thinking he killed her, when actually he tried to save her. Now that she’s human again, he should be overjoyed. Trouble is, Lila’s been cursed to love him. And if Lila’s love is as phony as Cassel’s made-up memories, then he can’t believe anything she says or does.

Ali Cross has always looked up to his father, the famous detective Alex Cross. And after helping to solve two big cases, Ali knows he has what it takes to follow in his father's footsteps. Eager to keep solving crimes, Ali and his friends hack into police calls and go to crime scenes to watch the detectives at work—and try to crack the cases themselves. But when Ali witnesses something horrible, he has to grapple with tough questions about what it means to be a detective, and a detective's son.

The latest in this enchanting and fast-selling series, featuring the beloved ghost Aunt Dimity, opens in a picturesque English cottage where the lovable Lori Shepherd is up to her elbows in pureed carrots and formula bottles, striving to be the perfect mother to twins! Luckily, a beautiful Italian nanny arrives just in time - so Lori can help settle the local civil war stirred up by a visiting archaeologist's excavation. With Reginald, the stuffed pink rabbit, and Edmond Terrance, the stuffed tiger in tow, Lori hunts down a missing document.

Bertie's respite from his overbearing mother, Irene, is over. She has returned home from the Middle East, only to discover that her son has been exposed to the worst of evils: cartoons, movies, and even carbonated beverages. But the one who should be most concerned is her unfortunate husband, Stuart, upon whom her wrath is about to descend.

Jen and Hugh Maddox have just survived every parent's worst nightmare. Relieved, but still terrified, they sit by the hospital bedside of their 15-year-old daughter, Lana, who was found bloodied, bruised, and disoriented after going missing for four days during a mother-daughter vacation in the country. As Lana lies mute in bed, unwilling or unable to articulate what happened to her during that period, the national media speculates wildly and Jen and Hugh try to answer many questions.

If Fiona has learned anything in life, it’s how to keep a secret - even from the father who raised her. She is the only person who knows about her late mother’s affair in Tuscany thirty years earlier, and she intends to keep it that way...until a lawyer calls with shocking news: her biological father has died and left her an incredible inheritance - along with two half siblings.

In Victorian England, orphan Mary Quinn lives on the edge. Sentenced as a thief at the age of 12, she’s rescued from the gallows by a woman posing as a prison warden. In her new home, Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls, Mary acquires a singular education, fine manners, and a surprising opportunity. The school is a cover for the Agency — an elite, top secret corps of female investigators with a reputation for results — and at 17, Mary’s about to join their ranks.

Fredrik Welin is a former surgeon who retired in disgrace decades earlier to a tiny island on which he is the only resident. He has a daughter he rarely sees, and his mailman, Jansson, is the closest thing he has to a friend and to an adversary. He is perfectly content to live out his days in quiet solitude. One autumn evening, he is startled awake by a blinding light - only to discover that his house is on fire. With the help of Jansson, he escapes the flames just in time wearing two left boots.

Sally Proulx and her young boy have mysteriously disappeared in the stormy town of High River. Clare is hired to track them down, hoping against all odds to find them alive. But High River isn’t your typical town. It’s a place where women run to—women who want to escape their past. They run to Helen Haines, a matriarch who offers them safe haven and anonymity. Pretending to be Sally’s long-lost friend, Clare turns up and starts asking questions, but nothing prepares her for the swirl of deception and the depth of the lies.

Three well-off young men - former students at Rome’s prestigious all-boys Catholic high school San Leone Magno - brutally tortured, raped, and murdered two young women in 1975. The event, which came to be known as the Circeo massacre, shocked and captivated the country, exposing the violence and dark underbelly of the upper middle class at a moment when the traditional structures of family and religion were seen as under threat. It is this environment, the halls of San Leone Magno in the late 1960s and the 1970s, that Edoardo Albinati takes as his subject.

Emiliano and his sister Sara have successfully fled organized crime in Mexico, illegally crossing into the United States. But now, Sara is in jail, and Emiliano's reunion with their father in Chicago is more awkward than celebratory. When Emiliano is falsely accused of a crime against a missing local girl, it sets off a tense and dangerous race to find her, before he can even "find himself" in this new place he must call home.

Eli and his family have lived in the Compound for six years. The world they knew is gone. Eli's father built the Compound to keep them safe. Now, they can't get out. He won't let them.