Some from the King
From a Buick 8 (2002) The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous -- and that it would be better if John Q. Public never found out about it. Curt's avid curiosity taking the lead, they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still life painting that breathes -- inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy Ned starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well.... From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.
The dark half (1989) For years, Thad Beaumont has been writing books under the pseudonym George Stark. When a journalist threatens to expose Beaumont's pen name, the author decides to go public first, killing off his pseudonym. Stark isn't content to be dispatched that easily, though. Beaumont's alter ego comes to life and begins to stalk those responsible for his demise. The police suspect Beaumont is responsible for these violent crimes.
Needful things (1991) Leland Gaunt opens a new shop in Castle Rock called Needful Things. Anyone who enters his store finds the object of his or her lifelong dreams and desires: a prized baseball card, a healing amulet. In addition to a token payment, Gaunt requests that each person perform a little "deed," usually a seemingly innocent prank played on someone else from town. These practical jokes cascade out of control and soon the entire town is doing battle with itself. Only Sheriff Alan Pangborn suspects that Gaunt is behind the population's increasingly violent behavior.
Pet Sematary (1983) The road in front of Dr. Louis Creed's rural Maine home frequently claims the lives of neighborhood pets. Louis has recently moved from Chicago to Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their children and pet cat. Near their house, local children have created a cemetery for the dogs and cats killed by the steady stream of transports on the busy highway. Deeper in the woods lies another graveyard, an ancient Indian burial ground whose sinister properties Louis discovers when the family cat is killed.
Rose Madder (1995) Roused by a single drop of blood on the bedsheet, Rosie Daniels wakes from fourteen years of a nightmare marriage and suddenly takes flight. She uses her husband's ATM card to buy a bus ticket, determined to lose herself in a place where Norman won't find her. She'll worry about all the rest later. Alone in a strange city, she begins to make a new life, and good things start to happen. Meeting Bill Steiner is one; and finding a junk-shop painting is another. It may be bad art but it's perfect for her new apartment-and somehow, it seems to want her as much as she wants it. Still, it's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason. Her husband is a cop, with the instincts of a predator. He's very good at finding people. The fact that he's losing his mind might even be an advantage. Rose-maddened and on the rampage, Norman Daniels becomes a force of relentless terror and savageness, a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. For Rosie to survive, for her to have a chance in her brave new world, she must enter her own myth-a world that lies beyond the surface of a work of art-and become a woman she never knew she could be: Rose Madder.
The dead zone (1979) Waking up from a five-year coma after a car accident, former schoolteacher Johnny Smith discovers that he can see people's futures and pasts when he touches them. Many consider his talent a gift; Johnny feels cursed. His fianc饠married another man during his coma and people clamor for him to solve their problems. When Johnny has a disturbing vision after he shakes the hand of an ambitious and amoral politician, he must decide if he should take drastic action to change the future.
(1995) When country milkman Martin Snell makes his usual delivery to fifteenth-century Celandine Cottage one fine spring morning in Kent, he expects to be greeted by the cottage's seductive tenant, Gabriella Patten, not the ugly remains of a fire pointing to murder. A burnt-out chair, a peculiar pattern of soot on the walls, an asphyxiated corpse, two footprints, and a collection of discarded cigarette butts bring Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley and his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers out of their London territory and into conflict with the local investigator whose turf they are invading. Treading carefully, they begin investigating the ripples of shock spreading outward from the crime: from Gabriella Pattern's husband, who knows of his wife's faithlessness and declares himself completely indifferent, to the estranged wife of a member of the national cricket team whose hopes for a reconciliation with her husband have been permanently smashed; from a former lover of Gabriella who has sworn her off to save his marriage, to an angry teenage boy whose holiday with his father was canceled at the crook of a mistress's finger; from a wealthy older widow whose influence has allowed a much younger man to live his dream of playing cricket, to a former prostitute faced with a devastating choice in the wake of a murder whose victim she has never met and yet whose presence has long shadowed her life. As all of England, as well and the magnetic world of national cricket, discovers itself reeling from the shock of this particular crime, Lynley and Havers find themselves working on the most frustrating case of their careers: the perfect crime. When in an act of desperation Lynley breaks department rules to flush out the killer, he risks being pulled from the case and jeopardizes his career with New Scotland Yard.
(1996) Hailed as the "king of sleaze," tabloid editor Dennis Luxford is used to ferreting out the sins and scandals of people in exposed positions. But when he opens an innocuous-looking letter addressed to him at his tabloid The Source, he discovers that someone else excels at ferreting out secrets as well. He learns from this letter that ten-year-old Charlotte Bowen has been abducted, and if Luxford does not admit publicly to having fathered her, she will die. But Charlotte's existence is Luxford's most fiercely guarded secret, and acknowledging her as his child will throw more than one life and career into chaos. Luxford knows that the story of Charlotte's paternity could make him a laughingstock and reveal to his beautiful wife and son the lie he's lived for a decade. Yet it's not only Luxford's reputation that's on the line: It's also the reputation-and career-of Charlotte Bowen's mother. For she is the Undersecretary of State for the Home Office, one of the most high-profile Junior Ministers and quite possibly the next Margaret Thatcher. Knowing that her political future hangs in the balance, Eve Bowen refuses to let Luxford damage her career by printing the story or by calling the police. So the editor turns to forensic scientist Simon St. James for help. It's a case that fills St. James with disquiet, however, for none of the players in the drama seem to react the way one would expect, considering the gravity of the situation. Then tragedy occurs and New Scotland Yard becomes involved. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley soon discovers that the case sends tentacles from London into the countryside, and he must simultaneously outfox death as he probes Charlotte Bowen's mysterious disappearance. Meanwhile, his partner Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, working part of the investigation on her own and hoping to make the coup of her career, draws closer to a grim solution-and to danger-than anyone knows
(1997) Balford-le-Nez is dying seatown on the coast of Essex. But when a member of the town's small but growing Asian community is found dead near its beach, the sleepy town ignites with unrest. Intrigued by the involvement of her London neighbor-Taymullah Azhar-in what appears to be a potential racial conflagration, Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers takes off for the town of Balford-le-Nez and discovers at the head of the investigation Detective Chief Inspector Emily Barlow, an officer whom Havers has long known. During the course of the investigation, Havers discovers the social differences between the English and Pakistani communities in England, and she experiences first hand the racial divide that separates people whose cultures are like polar extremes.The victim of the crime is Haytham Querashi, who came to England from Pakistan to take part in an arranged marriage with Sahlah, the willing daughter of Akram Malak whose business interests in the town have revitalized it and made him a well-respected citizen. But Akram is unknowingly at odds with Agatha Shaw, a longtime resident of Balford-le-Nez who is determined to be its benefactress at any price. Suspects in the crime are many because the climate in Balford-le-Nez is rife with cultural misunderstandings and racial bias. While the Pakistani community demonstrates and argues that the murder is a crime of hate aimed at an entire ethnic group, the police turn their attention to the leader of the Pakistani demonstrators, a young man who has long been a thorn in the side of the local constabulary.
The plot: The place is St Oswald’s, an old and long-established boys’ grammar school in the north of England. A new year has just begun, and for the staff and boys of the School, a wind of unwelcome change is blowing. Suits, paperwork and Information Technology rule the world; and Roy Straitley, Latin master, eccentric, and veteran of St Oswald’s, is finally – reluctantly - contemplating retirement. But beneath the little rivalries, petty disputes and everyday crises of the School, a darker undercurrent stirs. And a bitter grudge, hidden and carefully nurtured for fifteen years, is about to erupt. Who is “Mole”, the mysterious insider, whose cruel practical jokes are gradually escalating towards violence - perhaps even murder? And how can an old and half-forgotten scandal become the stone that brings down a giant?
(Am Ende des Schweigens) (At the end of the silence) Three german couples and their children, in a peaceful Yorkshire cottage, where they usually spend Easter, Christmas and summer time. They all love the house, the surrounding and the relaxing nights together, the escape from everyday life that Stanbury House provides. But this escape can suddenly change into a nightmare, when hidden tensions, envies and old jealousies surface.
(Das Haus der Schwestern) (The sisters' house) A married german couple spends Christmas at a charming english cottage, with the hope to save their marriage. A very heavy snow left them completely isolated, with no food and no way to heat the house. Searching around, Barbara finds an old diary written by the original owner of the cottage, a fascinating and rebellious woman, and the reading intrigues her more and more. But the diary holds old secrets that eventually bring danger in Barbara and Ralph lives.
(Die Rosenzüchterin) (The woman of the roses) Franca Palmer, a young teacher, has left her husband, impulsively fleeing from the life she could not stand anymore. She goes to the island of Guernsey and settles down in the village of Le Variouf in an old house where roses are bred. But the old building and his inhabitants are surrounded by a secret. It is a secret that started when German forces occupied this idyllic island — and one that will threaten Franca’s life…
(Der Verehrer) (The man who loved too much) A young woman brutally murdered in a wood near Augsburg, leaving her sister dealing with a broken family and a father to take care of. Another young woman in Frankfurt kills herself by jumping from the balcony of her flat, leaving an ex-husband, a brother and a witness in distress. Leona, the witness, just dropped by her husband for another woman, is suddenly the center of two episodes that seem to have nothing in common, but that can eventually put her own life at risk.
( Die Täuschung) (Double life) Laura seems to have the perfect life. But when her husband Peter is killed in a wood in Provence, near their holiday house, Laura leave her little daughter in Germany to follow the investigation. She will soon find out that her beloved husband was on the edge of bankrupcy, that he had a lover with whom he was planning to escape in South America, and that he had lied to her for many years about almost everything. And in the little village, a killer is moving closer to her.
