Akron Public Library

Three teen girls get caught up in a real estate battle between a commune and an exploitative megachurch in their small Montana town, and they devise a plot to exact revenge and make a profit by kidnapping the pastor's son and demanding ransom money.

The late citizens of a small Missouri community wake up underground after death and reconnect with loved ones over the course of 150 years before some of them begin to actually disappear, prompting a town-wide investigation.

In New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy laments the approaching close of summer and the advent of sixth grade. Growing up in a household with an overworked father whom he rarely sees, an alcoholic mother who paints wonderful canvases that are never displayed, an older brother who serves as both tormentor and protector, and a younger sister who inhabits her own secret world, the boy takes his amusements where...

Throughout his day, a young boy thinks of his father who is working in the coal mine that is located underneath the ocean.

"Sheriff Jess Carey and his oddball band of sidekicks have pulled off the impossible, taming Hell's Half Acre, the most lawless town in Texas, infamous for murder, mayhem, prostitution, and every random act of bloodshed imaginable. Now the no-good politicians in Austin have decided it's cheaper to dump hordes of criminals on Jess Carey's town than hanging 'em. In one dreadful week it seems as if the gates of Hell have burst open. Freed outlaws, gunslingers,...

A mysterious stranger sparks mistrust and violence in a gripping tale of small-town prejudice, jealousy, and murder from Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Bill Pronzini The arrival of big, ugly John C. Faith in a battered Porsche sends up warning flags throughout the small Northern California resort community of Pomo. No one trusts the stranger who refuses to talk about why he is there. And when a local beauty with questionable morals is found...

A pony tries to convince his cranky owner to take a ride into town.

The proud tradition of Ralph Compton's epic Westerns carries on with the scintillating work of bestseller Joseph A. West. Blood on the Gallows features John McBride, a former New York City lawman who's moved west to pursue a more peaceful existence. But easy living just isn't in the cards. And when a town sheriff with a Texas-size chip on his shoulder decides to make trouble, McBride knows that one way or another, somebody's headed for an early grave....

Ever since she can remember, seventeen-year-old Margot Nielsen has been living with her mother in a run-down, single-bedroom apartment where she has to follow a strange set of rules laid down by her mother, Jo. Longing to know of her past, Margot comes upon a family bible with a photograph and phone number, taking her on a journey to rural Nebraska where she discovers her grandmother Vera, living on the family homestead. Margot soon realizes the warm...

"Jack Reacher hits the pavement and sticks out his thumb. He plans to follow the sun on an epic trip across America, from Maine to California. He doesn't get far. On a country road deep in the New England woods, he sees a sign to a place he has never been: the town where his father was born. He thinks, 'What's one extra day?' He takes the detour. At the same moment, in the same isolated area, a car breaks down. Two young Canadians had been on their...