Akron Public Library

Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected--and first female, state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn't see many homicides. As Lu prepares for the trial,...

When a routine assignment goes horribly wrong, resulting in her husband’s murder, penetration specialist Jack, now the #1 suspect, goes on the run, deciding who she can trust as she races against time to clear her name and find the real killer.

He's assigned to protect her life, but who will protect his heart? Tense action, detailed investigations and romance are the trademarks of Dee Henderson's exciting O'Malley series that appeals to both men and women. This gripping thriller is no exception as contemporary characters wrestle with universal issues of faith in God's plan. A federal judge has been murdered. There is only one witness, and someone wants her dead. U.S. Marshal Marcus O'Malley...

It is the spring of 1885 and wealthy New York socialite Beret Osmundsen has been estranged from her younger sister, Lillie, for a year when she gets word from her aunt and uncle that Lillie has died suddenly in Denver. What they do not tell her is that Lillie had become a prostitute and was brutally murdered in the brothel where she had been living. When Beret discovers the sordid truth of Lillie's death, she makes her way to Denver, determined to...

A young Algerian, Meursault, afflicted with a sort of aimless inertia, becomes embroiled in the petty intrigues of a local pimp and, somewhat inexplicably, ends up killing a man. Once he's imprisoned and eventually brought to trial, his crime, it becomes apparent, is not so much the arguably defensible murder he has committed as it is his deficient character. In the story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder on a sun-drenched...

For her entire life, FBI agent Atlee Pine has been searching for her twin sister, Mercy, who was abducted at the age of six and never seen again. Mercy's disappearance left behind a damaged family that later shattered beyond repair when Atlee's parents inexplicably abandoned her. Now, after a perilous investigation that nearly proved fatal, Atlee has finally discovered not only the reason behind her parents' abandonment and Mercy's kidnapping, but...

This is the tale of family, memory, love, and living told by 14-year-old Susie Salmon, who is already in heaven. Through the voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and builds out of her family's grief a hopeful and joyful story

When someone shoots visiting Lutheran minister Matthew Walters, Hannah Swenson and cronies investigate Matthew's background, especially his relationship to his creepy, paroled convict cousin, Paul.

Set in a beautiful but economically devastated Pennsylvania steel town, a lush landscape as deceptively promising as the edifices of the abandoned steel mills, "American Rust" is a novel of the lost American dream and the desperation that arises in its absence. Left alone to care for his aging father after his mother commits suicide and his sister escapes to Yale, Isaac English longs for a life beyond his hometown. But when he finally sets out to...

"Savannah Webster and her husband, Hez, have been separated since tragedy tore them apart and he began numbing his grief and guilt with alcohol. She returned to Tupelo Grove University to teach history. When Hez turns up asking for a second chance, she rejects the idea. But twenty-four hours later she's under suspicion for murder, and Hez is the best attorney she knows. They suspect the murder is tied to someone selling off the university's artifacts,...