The Twenty-Three

Кто похитил местного жителя Брайана Гаффни и сделал ему на спине странную татуировку, содержащую признание в убийстве, которого парень не совершал? Кто изуродовал и искалечил насильника, которому удалось в суде избежать наказания? И наконец, кто преследует молодого человека, которого влиятельная родня и ловкий адвокат сумели «отмазать» от автокатастрофы, жертвой которой стала его приятельница? Полицейский Барри Дакуорт и частный детектив Кэл Уивер понимают: в городке действует опасный фанатик, руководствующийся лишь своими представлениями о добре и зле…

That's what Tim Blake finds himself asking when his daughter Sydney vanishes into thin air. At the hotel where she was supposedly working, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends can't tell him what Sydney was really doing in the weeks before her disappearance. Now as the days pass without a word, Tim is forced to face not only the fact that Sydney is missing but that the daughter he's loved and nurtured, the daughter he thought he knew as well as anyone, is a virtual stranger. As he retraces Sydney 's steps, searching for clues to her secret life, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as perfectly ordinary has a darker side. But what he doesn't know is just how dark. Because while he's out searching for his daughter, questioning everyone who might have known her, someone is watching him. For Tim isn't the only one who'll do anything to find Syd. Whatever trouble she's in, there's a lot more on the way.and it's following in Tim's footsteps. The closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent's worst nightmare.and the kind of evil only a parent's love has a chance in hell of stopping.

On the morning she will never forget, suburban teenager Cynthia Archer awakes with a nasty hangover and a feeling she is going to have an even nastier confrontation with her mom and dad. She isn’t. Instead, the house is empty, with no sign of her parents or younger brother Todd. At first she just thinks it’s weird, then more and more scary, until finally the terrfiying reality hits her: in the blink of an eye, without any explanation, her family has simply disappeared. Twenty-five years later the mystery is no nearer to being solved and Cynthia is still haunted by unanswered questions. Were her family murdered? If so, why was she spared? And if they’re alive, why did they abandon her in such a cruel way? Now married with a daughter of her own, Cynthia knows that without answers – however shocking they might prove to be – she will never be emotionally or psychologically whole, living in daily fear that her new family will be taken from her just as her first one was. And so she agrees to take part in a TV documentary revisiting the case, in the hope that somebody somewhere will remember something – or even that her father, mother or brother might finally reach out to her… First nothing. Then just a few crackpots and scam artists coming out of the woodwork. And then the letter, a letter which makes no sense and yet chills Cynthia to the core. And soon she begins to realize that stirring up the past could be the worst mistake she has ever made.

Linwood Barclay is back with more unexpected twists and superb characters in a spine-tingling, mesmerizing thriller about a husband whose wife disappears, along with everything he thought he knew about their life together.

David Harwood, a reporter in Promise Falls, New York, is stressed out. The newspaper he works for is outsourcing jobs to India, he can't get a solid lead on the corrupt for-profit prison moving to town, and his wife, Jan, is struggling with a bout of depression. As a much-needed break, David and Jan decide to take their four-year-old son, Ethan, to a local amusement park for a day of ice cream, rollercoasters, and carefree fun. But revelry is quickly replaced by panic when, within an hour of arriving at the park, Ethan goes missing. Though he is soon found, panic escalates to full-blown terror when Jan suddenly disappears. Confused and worried, David finds himself desperately searching for any clue that could lead him to his wife – even if it means unraveling a tangle of lies and deception that become more complicated at every turn.

Исчезла Клэр Сэндерс – восемнадцатилетняя дочь мэра провинциального городка, а вскоре ее лучшую подругу нашли убитой.

Может, Клэр похитили? Или она сбежала к своему приятелю, который недавно пропал при подозрительных обстоятельствах?

Поиски полиции не дают результатов. И тогда к расследованию подключается частный детектив Уивер – последний, кто видел живой Клэр в дождливую, ненастную ночь ее исчезновения.

Уивер убежден: он должен сделать все, чтобы найти девушку, иначе она станет следующей жертвой таинственного убийцы…

In the too-quiet town of Oakwood, only the lucky die of boredom… and new homeowner Zack Walker isn’t feeling lucky. Whoever said the burbs were boring will think twice after reading Linwood Barclay’s hilarious debut mystery, in which Dad learns the hard way that he doesn’t always know best.

Zack wouldn't blame you for thinking he's safety-obsessed. True, he masterminded a plot to trade his family’s exciting city lifestyle for one of suburban tranquillity. True, even after this strategic move, Zack still has issues with family members who forget their keys in the front door, leave their cars unlocked, or park their backpacks at the top of the stairs – where you could kill yourself tripping over them. Just ask his wife, Sarah, or his teenage kids, Paul and Angie, who endure their share of lectures.

Zack knows that he needs to chill out and assume the best for once – but we know what happens to those who assume.

When Zack realizes their two-faced developer sent a petty thief to fix their leaky shower, he starts fighting hard to ignore the fact that Oakwood isn’t the crime-free paradise he was hoping for. But his brief state of denial comes to an abrupt end when, during a walk by the creek, he stumbles across a dead body. Even more shocking, Zack actually knows who the victim is – and who might want him dead.

With a killer roaming around their neighborhood and Zack’s overactive imagination in overdrive, he’s sure things can't get any worse. But then another local is murdered – and Zack’s paranoid tendencies get him implicated in the crime. While his wife is trying to remember why she married him in the first place, and his kids are considering whether it’s time to have him committed, Zack decides there's only one thing he can do. To protect his family – and avoid being busted for a crime he didn’t commit – he’s going to have to override his safety-first instincts, tap into his delusions of machismo, and track down the killer himself.

Zack Walker is back and on the job as a features writer for the city paper. While researching his first assignment Zack stumbles upon a homicide that may be linked to a gang that's been terrorizing the city’s high-end shopping district. Suddenly, he finds himself at the center of a violent crime wave and destined for a confrontation with Barbie Bullock – a ruthless criminal with a disturbing obsession. As worlds begin to collide and boundaries between family and foes blur, Zack must be ever vigilant to outwit the evil at large, whether in the suburbs, the city, or in his own imagination. Heaven help the bad guys when this resourceful father comes to make good on a deal gone bad.

Metropolitan newspaper writer Zack Walker has a knack for stumbling onto deadly stories. But it’s one that his good friend Trixie Snelling doesn’t want told that’s about to unleash a storm of trouble. As a professional dominatrix in the suburbs, Trixie has her share of secrets, but Zack has no idea what she’s really hiding when a local newspaperman threatens to do an exposé on her… not until Zack finds a dead body strapped to the bondage cross in her basement dungeon.

Now Zack is implicated in a murder, Trixie is missing, and everything he thought he knew about his friend, his town, even his own marriage, reveals a darker side. Zack’s twisted trail to the truth will lead to a long-unsolved triple homicide, bikers, drug wars, and a stone-cold killer hell-bent on revenge. It’s a story that’s already cost him his job and possibly his wife, and, if Zack’s not very lucky, it will cost him his life.

Newspaper writer, family man, and reluctant hero Zack Walker has stumbled onto some dicey stories before, but nothing like what he’s about to uncover when a mutilated corpse is found at his father’s lakeside fishing camp. As always, Zack fears the worst. And this time, his paranoid worldview is dead-on.

While the locals attribute the death to a bear attack, Zack suspects something far more ominous – a predator whose weapons include arson, assault, and enough wacko beliefs to fuel a dozen hate groups. Then another body is discovered and a large supply of fertilizer goes missing, evoking memories of the Oklahoma City bombing. But it’s when he learns that his neighbor is a classic Lone Wolf – FBI parlance for a solo fanatic hell-bent on using high body counts to make political statements – that Zack realizes the idyllic town of his childhood is under siege. The fuse is lit to a catastrophe of unimaginable terror. And with time running out, Zack must face off with a madman.