Central Skagit Library District

Elmore Leonard is the undisputed master, the 'King Daddy of crime writers' (Seattle Times), in the august company of the all-time greats of mystery/noir/crime fiction genre: John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, et al. The creator of such unforgettable classics as Stick, Out of Sight, and Get Shorty-not to mention the character of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, lately of TV's hit series Justified-Leonard is in fine form with Mr. Paradise....

Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape shifter, a "skin man," Roland Deschain takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime, "The Wind through the Keyhole." The novel can be placed between Dark Tower...

"Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters...

"From UK bestselling author Gillian McAllister comes an astonishing, compulsively twisty psychological thriller about a mother who witnesses her teenage son stab a man and then seizes on an unconventional way to try to save him. Can you stop a murder after it's already happened? Late October. After midnight. You're waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He's late. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn't alone: he's...

When a chance encounter with a stranger in a hotel results in murder, Wendy Gould, framed for the crime and desperate to clear her name, forms an unlikely alliance with the only witness--a woman who knows a shocking secret that could get them both killed.

"In 1850, Sophie Neumann flees New York with her two young charges after witnessing a crime. Reinhold Weiss has finally purchased his own small farm when an old friend shows up, pleading for help. But how can he help her when mounting debts and past scars still haunt him?"-- 1850. After witnessing a crime, Sophie Neumann needs to flee New York with her two young charges. She manages to find passage to Illinois on an orphan train, with the aid of...

"When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic. Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's...

Inheriting a house tucked away in the Swedish woods from her cruel grandmother, Eleanor, seeking the truth about her grandmother's murder and the killer, soon regrets disturbing what rests in this place with a dark past.

Rennie Beckman is a dishonored ex-cop with only two things on his mind: his new boat, the Triggerfish, and his hot date, an environmentalist named Vicki. After the two unknowingly dock the boat in the same secluded cove as a Mexican cartel's drug submarine, the date ends with a bang. With the cartel's coke-for-guns deal with local bikers torched by Beckman, he's forced to go on the run with half the underworld chasing him through the streets of Vancouver...

From Allentown, Pennsylvania, to Brooklyn Heights, New York, Fred Rosen investigates the horrifying true story of 2 brothers who murdered their family - and the legacy of dysfunction behind their crimes. Raised as Jehovah's Witnesses and frustrated with their parents' repressive rules, Bryan and David Freeman rebelled as teenagers. Encouraged by an acquaintance he met while institutionalized at a reform school, Bryan became a neo-Nazi. Bryan then...