Science Thriller

Doc may have made a terrible mistake toying with one of the most powerful witches in existence, and it’s not Abigail Jury! Edgar Achaean and his remaining Acolytes are far from finished, and if Doc can’t derail their plans ASAP, all his efforts thus far won’t mean a damn thing. In the face of annihilation, playing by the rules is not an option. Fortunately, Doc has never been one for playing by the rules. Unfortunately, some rules were never meant to be broken...

Will her first case be her last? Lillian Knudsen, a war vet, amputee, and local shooting range owner, has someone out to kill her, but she's clueless as to who. Thankfully, she isn't clueless about where to turn for help. Werewolf Sara Flores got her P.I. license for one reason — to give cops an excuse why they might find her near dead bodies — lots of dead bodies. It turns out evildoers who attack innocents aren’t interested in giving them up. Not without a fight.

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

When the rule of law fails, dishonest politicians get even dirtier. Shane and Julianna can’t compete with the debased dictators of Jackson County unless they are willing to bend a few rules of their own. Shane Black escaped the city by the skin of his teeth. But his well-stocked mountain retreat is now the target of a local despot who gained his power through bribes, payoffs, and shady politics. Mayor Hayes had few scruples before the collapse. Now that he’s the only law around, he’s down-right ornery. Road trips are always a bad idea in the apocalypse.

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep. But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways. The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade.

In the high mountains of Tibet, rumors are spreading. People whisper of an outbreak, of thousands of dead, of bodies pushed into mass graves. It is some strange new disease...a disease, they say, that can kill in minutes. The Chinese government says the rumors aren't true, but no one is allowed in or out of Tibet. At the Pentagon, admiral James Curtiss learns that satellite images prove that a massive genocide is underway. This is no disease. It's a weapons test. Chinese scientists have developed a way to kill based on a person's genetic traits.

Humans made a deal with the Stryxian males: Help us defend Earth, and when the war is over, we’ll send you women to help rebuild your dying species. Now, the war appears to be over and Trinity Bentzer’s number has been called in the lottery. Only, instead of winning a boatload of money, she’s getting some badass winged alien she’s never met. Trin’s not thrilled to be shipped off and matched up, until she meets Raig. Maybe she hit the jackpot, after all.

The body of a young girl is found mangled and murdered in the woods of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, in the shadow of the abandoned Godfrey Steel Mill. A manhunt ensues - though the authorities aren’t sure if it's a man they should be looking for.

Amelia Scarcliffe’s monstrous brood, harbingers of Cthulhu, will soon spawn. Her songs spell insanity, death...and illimitable wealth. And Moriarty will do anything to get his hands on gold, even if it means tearing down the walls between this world and a realm of horrors. Meanwhile, after Sherlock Holmes’s last tangle with the Order of Dagon, horrifying monsters haunt the Thames, and madness stalks the streets of Whitechapel. Gang war between Moriarty’s thugs and the powerful cult can only bring more terror - unless Holmes and Dr. Watson can prevent it.

Blue Magic, the latest designer drug linked to a rash of overdoses, might explain the needle mark on the arm of a young woman found dead in her Kansas City apartment. But when star reporter Rich Azadian digs deeper, the clues point to a far more explosive story: MaryLee Stock was a special protege of evangelical megapastor and power broker Cobalt Becker, who is poised to deliver his followers and the presidency to a firebrand right-wing senator in the next election.

A winter storm has buried North Dakota in snow and ice. With accidents being reported across the region, Deputy Ron Weller must patrol along the main road through a normally tranquil forest in Beeman County. The night grows menacing as he discovers vehicles that have been run off the road, their drivers mysteriously missing. Strange tracks lead through a region of thick forest known as Devil's Rock. There, Weller makes a horrifying discovery. A monster has awakened. Its hunger is insatiable, and its ferocity has no limits.

Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the chilling sequel to the Printz Honor Book Scythe from New York Times best seller Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwind dystology.

In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: They become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent; and while they sleep they go to another place.... The men of our world are abandoned, left to their increasingly primal devices. One woman, however, the mysterious Evie, is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease.

As a private eye in New York City, it’s Jessica Jones’s job to investigate humanity’s worst, unleashed impulses. Possessing superhuman strength and endurance does nothing to help her process other people’s tragedies, much less her own slate of unresolved traumatic issues. Realizing drinking and hitting things is no way to cope with her problems—no matter how much fun it is—Jessica gives therapy a try. But she finds it hard to look after herself when so many people need help.

When Allison is asked to play Cinderella-turned-fiancé at a Halloween ball, the last thing she expected was to be accused of murder. She has to find the killer or she'll be put to death for the crimes she didn't commit. To make matters worse, the victims are all werewolves.

Normally, not even drunk on a bet would Violet Parker go to Slagton, a creepy ghost town inhabited by those too stubborn - or deranged - to leave. But a certain bullheaded Deadwood detective has a problem - his informant from Slagton has gone missing. When Violet is shanghaied into taking a hunting trip to the ghost town to search for the missing snitch, she stumbles into trouble that will take more than a double-barreled shotgun to escape. Will Violet survive this new hell that haunts her, or will she end up on Slagton's growing list of those "gutted and hung"?

Evan Michaels struggles with being different, with having the complete memories of two other people who lived sequentially before him. He fights loneliness and believes he is unique until he meets Poppy. She recognizes his struggle because she is like him, except that she is much older, remembering seven consecutive lives. But there is something else she must share with Evan - she is a member of the secretive Cognomina. They are, in effect, immortals - compiling experiences and skills over lifetimes into near superhuman abilities that they have used to drive history over centuries.

When Ishmael Jones and his partner, Penny, are asked to escort a VIP on the late-night train to Bath, it would appear to be a routine case. The Organisation has acquired intelligence that an attempt is to be made on Sir Dennis Gregson’s life as he travels to Bath to take up his new position as Head of the British Psychic Weapons Division. Ishmael’s mission is to ensure that Sir Dennis arrives safely. How could anyone orchestrate a murder in a crowded railway carriage without being noticed and with no obvious means of escape?

Ambitious college student Daniel Walker has his world turned upside down when he begins having prophetic dreams about the judgment coming upon America. Through one of his dreams, Daniel learns of an imminent threat of an EMP attack that will wipe out America's electric grid and all computerized devices, sending the country into a technological dark age. Living in a nation where all life-sustaining systems of support are completely dependent on electricity and computers, the odds for survival are dismal.