In the fifth gritty mystery of a series, Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton, policeman Jeffrey Tolliver (her ex-husband), and Detective Lena Adams expose the murderous practices of a misogynistic Christian fundamentalist cult. Although Jeffrey has moved back in with Sara, their relationship still involves a great deal of friction, and the two are arguing when they come across the decomposed body of pregnant teenager Abigail Bennett, apparently buried alive and then poisoned with cyanide. Investigation reveals that Abigail's family belongs to the Church of the Greater Good, which apparently has some unique methods of chastising female sinners.

This police procedural by the Edgar Award-winning author of CALIFORNIA GIRL introduces San Diego police lieutenant Robbie Brownlow, who developed synesthesia after an enraged arsonist threw him out a hotel window three years ago. Now, Robbie can judge the emotional content and truth value of people's statements by the colored shapes he "sees" floating out of their mouths. He uses this ability to good purpose when someone murders Garret Asplundh, an investigator for San Diego's Ethics Authority looking into ties between a high-end call girl ring and several prominent city officials.

Dreams really do come true in this paranormal romantic thriller. Ex-phone psychic Isabel Wright is a lucid dream analyst for the Belvedere Center for Sleep Research. When Isabel's boss dies, his son Randolph, skeptical about the practical uses of dream analysis, fires her, unaware that Center's biggest client was a top-secret government agency who used Isabel's analyses to solve crimes. Subsequent to her dismissal, one of the agency's operatives--and one of Isabel's analysands--is instructed to meet with her, and the two become entangled both personally and professionally as they hunt for a killer.

Iris Thorne, a successful, intelligent, and witty investment banker, finds herself embroiled in a 25-year-old conflict surrounding the murder she witnessed at age 14 during the aftermath of the 1971 San Fernando quake. Now people are pressuring her from all sides, as her account of those past events could make a significant difference in the state of a political battle raging in Los Angeles.

CC de Poitiers was disliked by nearly all the Quebecois in the small town of Three Pines, so no one is much bothered when she's electrocuted on an icy pond during Christmas festivities. Still, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache comes to town to investigate, and begins to discover a nefarious plot with eerie connections to a dead homeless woman in Montreal.

For diver, fisherman and sometimes private-eye Aristotle "Soc" Socrates, not even pushy tourists can spoil summer at Cape Cod's Quanset Beach. But everything changes when a swimmer is attacked and killed by an unknown aquatic predator, his body disfigured in a way no one has ever seen before. When more similarly mutilated bodies wash ashore sending the town into a state of panic, Socrates races to solve the mystery.