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THE UNDEAD is a stunning collection of 23 stories including classic tales of survival in a world populated by the living dead as well as an array of unique takes on the zombie genre: zombies as reality entertainment, glimpses from inside the life of the undead, intergalactic war with the dead turned against us, and everything in between. Features stories from David Wellington and David Moody!<

Falling in love with the teenage Antichrist is dangerous, in this short story from New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow.<

Amazon.com Review

Miranda "Munch" Mancini is quite a woman. She's a recovering drug and alcohol abuser; she's a southern California auto mechanic; she's the sole proprietor of a fledgling limo service; she's a loving mother to her 7-year-old adopted daughter, Asia. Set in the early 1980s, Barbara Seranella's fourth Mancini novel, Unfinished Business, has Munch and her friend, detective Mace St. John, in hot pursuit of a serial rapist-murderer who's killed one of her clients, the socialite Diane Bergman, and raped another, the actress Robin Davies. Worse--for all concerned, including the rapist--the rapist has come close enough to Munch's daughter to pin a note to her coat, and now Munch is getting threatening calls:

The phone rang again. Asia reached for it.

"No," Munch said, with more force than she had intended. Asia jumped back. Munch picked up the receiver, tried to give Asia a comforting smile, and said "Hello?"

"You have a nice house," the strangely distorted voice said. It vibrated, sounding like the voice of that robot in that old television show Lost in Space. The cadence was slow, as if the speaker needed an extra moment to prepare each word. "But you really shouldn't take the same route home every day."

Gritty, creepy in the extreme, and at times positively harrowing, Unfinished Business is a most welcome entry into the Mancini line (No Human Involved, No Offense Intended, Unwanted Company). Seranella's characters are wholly yet finely drawn, their dialogue is true, and the mounting urgency she packs into this novel's pace, particularly down the home stretch, is palpable. --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Seranella's lady mechanic is back fixing cars and catching criminals in this fourth Munch Mancini crime novel (Unwanted Company, etc.), featuring the spunky auto-repair gal and her sidekick, Det. Mace St. John. In mid-'80s L.A., Munch, mechanic to the rich and famous, is distraught when a customer, philanthropic socialite Diane Bergman, is found dead on the side of the freeway, dressed in a negligee with electrocution marks on her body. The details of Diane's murder resemble a rape case Mace has been investigating for a few months; when he discovers that a third case suggests the same modus operandi and that the victim, Robin Davies, is also a customer at Munch's garage, the mechanic and the cop join forces once again. Along with her friend D.W. from the Meals-on-Wheels program, Munch tries to comfort Robin, who has not left her home since being raped. As soon as Robin begins to accept support, Munch starts getting threatening phone calls from the rapist, who knows too much about her life and the routine she follows with her seven-year-old adopted daughter, Asia. Robin disappears, Mace has a heart attack and suddenly Munch is left alone to catch the bad guy. More threats to Munch and her daughter follow, to everyone's dismay, yet the reader feels little trepidation. A cast of one-dimensional secondary characters take their places as stock suspects until the perpetrator's identity is revealed with little clue as to a motive. All flaws considered, Munch is a likable protagonist, and Seranella's 20 years as a mechanic puts an unusual spin on this series. Yet among so many other crime novels boasting strong heroines, this one doesn't stand out.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

SUMMARY: Catherine Blake is the model war widow. Ever since she lost her RAF pilot husband in the Battle of Britain, this beautiful aristocrat has kept a stiff upper lip while caring for victims of the blitz in London's hospitals. The problem is that Catherine Blake is also a deep-cover Nazi spy, charged by Hitler with uncovering the details of D-Day. Her nemesis is Alfred Vicary, a fumbling professor of history barely able to remember where he placed his threadbare tweed jacket, let alone sustain a relationship. But Vicary is also a confidant of Winston Churchill's, who has chosen this reclusive don to run England's critical counterintelligence operations. Against this backdrop comes Daniel Silva'sThe Unlikely Spy, a sophisticated and altogether exceptional World War II thriller. Based on fact, Silva's fast-paced novel moves effortlessly from the Berlin High Command's espionage centers to the U-boat-infested North Sea, from the privileged playgrounds of Long Island to Hyde Park's shadowy paths -- a grand canvas of intrigue that sweeps the reader along in a breathtaking race against time. If Catherine escapes to Germany, the Nazis will know the Allied invasion will be at Normandy; and if Vicary doesn't stop her, all of Britain's greatest wartime deceptions and ploys will have been for naught. But why does it seem as if Vicary's superiors want him to fail? For lovers of Jack Higgins, Frederick Forsyth, and Len Deighton,The Unlikely Spyis a masterpiece of war and deception, a wholly original and spellbinding tale of the Allies' finest hour.<

Amazon.com Review

Munch Mancini's past catches up with her in this sixth adventure featuring the reformed bad girl turned garage mechanic and single mother--a series that's gaining fans with every new outing for a good reason--Munch is an authentically original creation with grit, wit, and determination, which often serve her better than her loyalty to old friends. Now one of those friends turns up murdered, and when homicide Detective Mace St. John finds Munch's prints and photo on the corpse's records, a bloody part of her past threatens to blow Munch and her daughter's future away. If that's not enough, the teenage son of another old friend turns up on Munch's doorstep, but of course it's no coincidence. By the time Sernaella ties a boy named Bug, a drug-fueled murder spree the cops have long since closed the books on, and a dead woman in a storm drain together in a fast-placed plot, she's brought another piece of Munch's history into sharper focus, making her hard-fought struggle to turn her life around even more interesting, involving, and inspiring. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

While Seranella has been justly praised for the grittiness of her Munch Mancini novels (No Man Standing, etc.), this, the sixth installment, could have benefited from less grit and more storytelling gruel. When homicide detective Mace St. John runs prints on a murdered woman, he finds Munch's photo in the arrest report, since 10 years earlier Munch used the dead woman's name in beating a DUI charge. But now Munch, in an attempt to clean up her act, has moved on to the quiet life, bringing up her eight-year-old daughter and keeping a lid on her past transgressions. Unfortunately, the past won't stay past. Rico Chacon, her boyfriend-detective, discovers a link between the current case and a triple homicide. Pressed to the wall, Munch deliberately baits the killer and runs the risk of winding up on his hit list. The author has the makings of a suspenseful mystery here, but she overdoes the down and dirty elements. A cast of junkies, bikers, criminals and assorted forms of lowlife overwhelm the reader, with nary a ray of hope among the unrelieved gloom. Realism may have been the intended goal, but after awhile the effect is simply depressing. Another, equally serious drawback is the unconscionable amount of padding throughout. The inevitable result is tedium rather than tension, ennui instead of edginess. Let's hope that better things lie ahead for Munch. For now, the unpaid dues are to the reader.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

In Sokoloff's serviceable supernatural thriller, two Duke University psychology professors, Laurel MacDonald and Brendan Cody, stumble on suppressed findings of an inquiry into poltergeist activity conducted under the auspices of Duke's Rhine parapsychology lab nearly half a century earlier. All the participants appear to have died, disappeared or, in the case of Laurel's enfeebled uncle, gone mad. Determined to advance their academic careers, the pair corral two students with strong paranormal potential to camp out at the spooky Folger House, site of the original experiment. No sooner do they begin their study than they're confronted with uncanny phenomena that suggest they've awakened a malignant presence that pervades the house. Sokoloff (_The Price_) keep her story enticingly ambiguous, never clarifying until the climax whether the unfolding weirdness might be the result of the investigators' psychic sensitivities or the mischievous handiwork of a human villain. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"THE UNSEEN takes you on a breathless ride you'll never forget. Atmospheric, spooky, intense. The suspense starts on page one, tightening the noose on every page with increasing velocity to a stunning, fearsome climax. Ms. Sokoloff has created a chilling, fantastic supernatural thriller that will have you fearing what you can't see." --Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author of SUDDEN DEATH

Praise for The Price:

“Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.” ---The New York Times Book Review

“A stunning, riveting journey into terror and suspense.” ---Michael Palmer, New York_ Times_ bestselling author of The Second Opinion

“It’s been a long, long time since a book scared, exhilarated, uplifted, frenzied, and made me green with jealousy. This is the book of 2008. It is beyond stunning. It is harrowing in the true sense of real art.” ---Ken Bruen, award-winning author of Once Were Cops

“_The Harrowing _was immensely creepy and satisfying, a first novel and a wonderful book. Alex Sokoloff's The Price is another notch in this author's golden belt---a psychological roller coaster that keeps the reader on edge with bone-chilling thrills throughout. I couldn't put it down. Miss Sokoloff is an author not to be missed.” ---Heather Graham, bestselling author of The Séance

“Sokoloff is simply amazing.”_---Bookreporter.com_

“A sublime second novel . . . Rest assured that Sokoloff will suffer none of the signs or symptoms of a sophomore slump with this confident follow-up to her Stoker-nominated debut. . . .  Her gooseflesh-inducing imagery jumps right off the pages, and her rich, graceful prose calls to mind names like King, Saul, and Levin.” ---Dark Scribe Magazine

“Sokoloff’s straightforward writing style perfectly enhances her chilling and mysterious novel, in which she blurs the lines between what is real and what is merely a hallucination.” ---Romantic Times

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From Publishers Weekly

Sketch artist Kendra Smith, the heroine of Mariah Stewart's (The President's Daughter, etc.) Until Dark, has experienced more than her share of sorrow: her father died of cancer, her brother and cousin are presumed murdered and her mother recently committed suicide. Still, she agrees to lend her skills when her ex-boyfriend, Special Agent Adam Stark, asks for her aid in searching for the Soccer Mom Killer, who targets blonde single mothers. The sexual chemistry between Adam and Kendra simmers on the back burner as they work the case, which may disappoint those looking for more sparks. But when Ian's watch shows up near one of the murder scenes and victims turn up bearing crosses and butterfly clips identical to the ones Kendra wears, tension of another sort heats up. Savvy readers may immediately suspect who the killer is, but this thriller packs a few extra punches for those who are overconfident in their powers of deduction.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Mariah Stewart is fast becoming a brand-name author.”
–Romantic Times

“A heart-pounding book that had me enthralled from the first page to the last.”
–CARLA NEGGERS
New York Times bestselling author of The Harbor

Amazon.com Review

Just when things seem to be going relatively well for recovering addict, ex-prostitute, ex-con, and whiz-bang auto-mechanic-cum-limo-service-magnate Miranda "Munch" Mancini and her 6-year-old adopted daughter, Asia, she encounters a world of good-intentioned hurt from an old druggie friend, Ellen. Fresh out of prison and just 16 days sober, Ellen is determined to get her life back on track. When things on the outside don't go according to plan, she turns to Munch, who does the right thing by offering Ellen a couch to sleep on and a part-time job as a limo driver. Before you can say "That Ellen, she's going to be trouble," that Ellen becomes trouble when she drives Victor, a Romanian diplomat with a taste for the seedier side of Western life, and Raleigh, a misogynistic and unscrupulous CIA agent, to Tijuana. And, naturally, she doesn't tell Munch.

Serial murder, mayhem, and numerous foreign and domestic intrigues follow in Unwanted Company, ex-mechanic Barbara Seranella's fast-paced third novel. Like No Human Involved and No Offense Intended, it features a cast of well-defined if invariably impaired characters, including Munch's refreshingly normal--that is to say, normally troubled without being psychologically tortured--pal Detective Mace St. John and his partner, the self-doubting Detective Cassiletti. Stylish, spare, and finely tuned, Unwanted Company is an early entry in what promises to be a long and happy run for Barbara Seranella (certainly) and Munch Mancini (please). --Michael Hudson

From Publishers Weekly

Hanging on to a marginal existence by her fingernails, ex-addict Miranda "Munch" Mancini supplements her income as a Los Angeles auto mechanic by scrupulously running her own limo service--consisting of one sparkling Cadillac. But as this energetic novel rapidly shows, Munch takes on more than she bargained for when she accepts unscrupulous federal agent Raleigh Ward; his charge, sleazy Romanian diplomat Victor Draicu; and two beauteous female friends as week-long customers. It's 1984, the Olympics are coming to Los Angeles and the Eastern Bloc is to be pampered. But a serial killer is loose, viciously stabbing young women, and Munch gets involved in that nightmare when the two women last seen in her limo apparently become the murderer's latest victims. Matters complicate when Munch's reckless friend Ellen, just released from jail, takes Victor and Raleigh (and the limo) to Tijuana, only to see her two passengers actively involved in a triple homicide. Could either Raleigh or Victor--busy with their own highly illegal scam involving contraband weapons--be the serial killer? Unfortunately, this third in the Munch series (after No Offense Intended) shows its hand far too soon, yet its plot is still confusing. Yet despite these flaws and a pat ending, the novel's dizzying pace, married to Seranella's incisive portraits of flawed, vulnerable characters, makes for a satisfying novel. Agent, Sandy Dijkstra. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

Enid is terrified of men, but she finds herself falling in love with the man who claimed her.

Having been abused by men, Enid doesn’t trust easily and cannot stand to be touched. When she’s claimed as a sex slave on another planet, she fears what will happen to her. Bastian is a pleasant surprise -- patient and caring, he’s not what she expected in an owner. As she gets to know him, she finds herself doing the unthinkable -- falling in love.