Things aren't always as they seem.

After Alex Wales crash lands on a planet that doesn't even show up on her navigational map and her ship is damaged, all she wants to do is get help and leave the planet as soon as she can. She's got something to deliver and time is running out. Instead, she stumbles onto a very alluring man who takes her to his village-a seemingly utopian society led by a Priestess.

Stuck on this planet with no way of getting off, Alex finds herself drawn to the alluring Damon. But when locals start turning up dead after being mauled and eaten by some sort of monster, she's thrust into the middle of the investigation.

As the layers of the mystery slowly unravel, Alex and Damon find themselves facing their pasts, and the many lies woven around the planet of Eden.

The first novel to be translated into English from one of Japan's rising literary stars; a tale of murder and desperation set in a desolate seaside town, in online chat rooms and love hotels – with a cast of characters all pushed to the razor's edge.

January 6, 2002. The body of a female insurance saleswoman is found in the southernmost region of Japan, at a spot rumored to be a home to ghosts. Shortly thereafter Yuichi, a young construction worker, is arrested by the Nagasaki police on suspicion of murder. What then unfolds – from multiple points of view – are the events that led up to and follow the murder, as Yuichi and his lover try to elude the police. Moving back and forth in time, the riveting narrative tells the stories of the victim, the murderer, and their families – people of all classes, occupations, economic levels, and emotional situations – stories that come together to give us a unique, visceral, and indelible sense of contemporary Japanese society.

Here is the first appearance in English of a writer who is poised to electrify the American reading public.

Thóra peered at the floor, but couldn't see anything that could have frightened Markús that much, only three mounds of dust. She moved the light of her torch over them. It took her some time to realize what she was seeing- and then it was all she could do not to let the torch slip from her hand. 'Good God,' she said. She ran the light over the three faces, one after another. Sunken cheeks, empty eye-sockets, gaping mouths; they reminded her of photographs of mummies she'd once seen in National Geographic. 'Who are these people?'

'I don't know,' said Markús…

Bodies are discovered in one of the excavated houses at a volcanic tourist attraction dubbed 'The Pompeii of the North'.

Markús Magnússon, who was only a teenager when the volcano erupted, falls under suspicion and hires attorney Thóra Gudmundsdottir to defend him – but when his childhood sweetheart is murdered his case starts to look more difficult, and the locals seem oddly reluctant to back him up…

The third crime novel from international bestseller Yrsa Sigurdardottir, and the third featuring her popular heroine Thora, ASHES TO DUST is tense, taut and terrifying.

La violenta erupción de un volcán en Islandia obliga a desalojar una pequeña isla. Las cenizas y la lava sepultan una población. Sus habitantes se ven en la necesidad de iniciar una nueva vida en duras condiciones, y muchos abandonan la isla.

Treinta años después aquel trauma parece superado, pero el proyecto Pompeya del Norte decide desenterrar algunas de las viviendas. En las excavaciones de una de las casas, junto a objetos y utensilios cotidianos, se realiza un hallazgo sorprendente: cuatro cadáveres habían quedado ocultos por las cenizas todo ese tiempo sin que nadie sospechara de su existencia. Una abogada se ve forzada a investigar qué había ocurrido realmente con aquellos cuerpos y cómo habían llegado allí. La evidencia de un antiguo crimen hará aflorar una sórdida historia de violencia que parece no haber finalizado todavía, estremeciendo la aparentemente tranquila vida de un pueblo de pescadores.

Sommer 2006, im Westen von Island. Auf der Halbinsel Snæfellsnes wird die Architektin eines Wellness-Hotels tot am Strand aufgefunden. Sie wurde vergewaltigt und brutal erschlagen, in ihren Fußsohlen stecken Nadeln. Rechtsanwältin Dóra Guðmundsdóttir findet heraus, dass die Ermordete sich sehr für die Geschichte der verlassenen Gegend interessiert hat. Vor vielen Jahrzehnten standen auf dem Hotelgrundstück die Höfe zweier Brüder. Offenbar ist sie auf ein unaussprechliches Familiengeheimnis gestoßen …

In der Universität von Reykjavik wird die Leiche eines jungen Deutschen gefunden. Der Geschichtsstudent war fasziniert von alten Hexenkulten, und sein Mörder hat ihm ein merkwürdiges Zeichen in die Haut geritzt.

Aber die isländische Polizei glaubt an ein Drogendelikt und verhaftet einen Dealer. Die Eltern des Opfers misstrauen den Ermittlungen: Sie beauftragen die junge Anwältin Dóra Guðmundsdóttir, den Fall noch einmal aufzurollen. Und auf der Suche nach dem wahren Mörder findet Dóra über dunkle Rituale mehr heraus, als ihr lieb ist …

«No hallarás nunca paz ni consuelo. Arde para siempre…»

Así reza la carta que, escrita con la propia sangre de su hijo Harald, recibe en Alemania Amelia Gotlieb, días después de que la policía islandesa encontrara el cadáver del muchacho en la Facultad de Historia de Reykjavik: un cadáver al que, además, le han sacado los ojos y lleva marcados en su cuerpo extraños signos que dejan a los forenses entre el estupor y el espanto. Descontentos con el trabajo de la policía, y deseosos de que la verdad se descubra de la forma más discreta posible, los padres del difunto contratan entonces los servicios de Þóra, una letrada islandesa a la que ayudará Matthew, el abogado alemán que envía la familia.

Þóra y Matthew inician una investigación que les llevará desde la moderna Reykjavik al extremo noroeste de la isla, una zona inhóspita y salvaje donde, como en tantos otros lugares de Europa, se llevaron a cabo ejecuciones de decenas de personas acusadas de brujería. A los dos abogados no les quedará otro remedio que sumergirse en los restos y documentos de aquel nefasto episodio de la historia de Islandia para encontrar la clave de un asesinato que parece haber sido inspirado en ancestrales rituales.

Università d’Islanda. In un mattino di fine ottobre, il silenzio del dipartimento di Storia viene lacerato da un grido. Aprendo la porta di uno stanzino, il direttore si vede crollare addosso un cadavere senza occhi e con una runa magica incisa sul petto. Il corpo è quello di Harald Guntlieb, enigmatico dottorando tedesco con la passione per il cupo periodo della caccia alle streghe. Ma chi era veramente Harald? Per la polizia, che chiude frettolosamente il caso con l’arresto di un piccolo spacciatore, era solo uno stravagante ragazzo ricco in vena di emozioni forti, dalle perversioni sessuali alle modificazioni corporee estreme. Per Matthew Reich, inviato in Islanda dalla famiglia Guntlieb per riaprire le indagini, era uno dei massimi esperti europei di magia nera, grazie a un’inestimabile quanto agghiacciante collezione ereditata dal nonno. Per Thora Gudmundsdottir, l’avvocatessa incaricata di assistere l’affascinante Matthew, era solo un figlio non amato, incamminatosi fra le tenebre per inseguire un miraggio. Non resta dunque che ripercorrere i passi del giovane in un folle labirinto sulle tracce di un libro maledetto, fra antichi sortilegi e moderne rivalità accademiche, per svelare un mistero sempre più tetro, complesso e intrigante…

Jónas, el propietario de un moderno complejo hotelero especializado en terapias alternativas, acude a Þóra, una ahogada de Reykiavik, para que investigue una serie de sucesos relacionados con lo sobrenatural, pero el mismo día de su llegada a Snæfellsnes encuentran el cadáver de Birna, la arquitecto a la que Jónas había encargado la construcción de un ala del hotel.

Þóra, con la inestimable ayuda de su compañero Matthew, se propone demostrar la inocencia de su cliente, pero nada es lo que parece en aquel paraje idílico, repleto de leyendas y misterios y donde se concentra una fuerte carga telúrica y espiritual. No dejan de circular historias de desapariciones, se producen nuevos crímenes y las pistas, por extraño que pueda parecer, conducen a los antiguos propietarios de las tierras donde esta ubicado el hotel, en cuyo pasado se oculta un terrible secreto que alguien parece interesado en ocultar.

"Dark, deep and icy as an Icelandic fjord; this is a rich and rewarding debut novel of ancient mysteries and very modern murder." – Mark Billingham

The spellbinding debut and international sensation being published in thirty countries featuring Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, a smart, sexy lawyer and investigator whose hunt for a modern murderer points to a very odd-and evil-chapter in Iceland's past.

After the body of a young German student-with his eyes cut out and strange symbols carved into his chest-is discovered at a university in Reykjavík, the police waste no time in making an arrest. The victim's family isn't convinced they have the right man, however, so they ask Thóra Gudmundsdóttir, attorney and single mother of two, to investigate. The fee is considerable-more than enough to make things a bit easier for the struggling lawyer and her children.

It's not long before Thóra and Matthew Reich, her new associate, discover something unusual about the deceased student: He had been obsessed with the country's grisly history of torture, execution, and witch hunts-a topic made all the more peculiar by the fact that unlike witch hunts in other countries, those in Iceland had targeted men… not women.

As Thóra and Matthew dig deeper, they make the connection between long-bygone customs and the student's murder. But the shadow of dark traditions conceals secrets in both the past and the present, and the investigators soon realize that nothing is as it seems… and that no one can be trusted.

When all contact is lost with two Icelanders working in a harsh and sparsely populated area on the northeast coast of Greenland, Thora is hired to investigate. Is there any connection with the disappearance of a woman from the site some months earlier? And why are the locals so hostile?

Already an international bestseller, this fourth book to feature Thóra Gudmundsdóttir ('a delight' – Guardian) is chilling, unsettling and compulsively readable.

It's late at night when Florida sheriff's deputy Sara Cross arrives at the scene of a roadside shooting along a deserted highway. Another deputy, Billy Flynn, her former partner, who also happens to be her former lover, has fatally shot a twenty-two-year-old man during what started out as a routine traffic stop, and she's the first to arrive on the scene. He claims that the man pulled a gun, and that when he didn't respond to Billy's commands to drop it, Billy shot him. Billy is clearly upset, shaken up; Sarah sees the gun in the dead man's hand and the bag of illegal weapons in the trunk of his car and believes Billy's actions were justified.

Up north in New Jersey, Mikey-Mike runs a major drug operation and is tightening his hold on the competition, making a deal with a new supplier. Morgan, a middle-aged enforcer for Mikey who's been in the life too long, would like to make one last score, walk away, and retire for good. Mike asks Morgan to head to Florida to find out what's holding up his new deal, and Morgan sees the job as a possibility for his last big payday.

As more details of the roadside shooting emerge with Sara's investigation, and as Morgan follows the trail Mikey lays out for him, the two storylines begin to merge into a much darker, more menacing scenario than either Morgan or Sara imagined. Sara, in order to protect herself and her son, must follow the truth no matter where it leads.

Acclaimed crime writer Wallace Stroby delivers a gripping novel that is part modern noir, part intense character study--and totally compelling from start to finish.