Thomas H Cook

A "gripping" mystery revolving around a family tragedy, and a woman who may or may not be descending into madness, by the Edgar Award–winning author (Entertainment Weekly). David Sears grew up terrorized by the ravings of his schizophrenic father, a frustrated literary genius who openly preferred David's sister, Diana, for her superior intelligence. When the old man died, David thought the madness had finally left with him. But the Sears family...

"Edgar–winner Cook examines the slow collapse of a prominent Southern family in this magnificent tale of suspense." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father's Delta estate, Great Oaks, to start what he considers a noble act: teaching at the local high school. Leading a class discussion on historical evil, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer,...

A "marvelously tense" novel of psychological suspense centered on a long-ago crime of passion, from an Edgar Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly, starred review). With dreams of academic greatness, Lucas Paige rose from humble and sordid beginnings to attend Harvard. But his achievements since then have been meager. Arriving in St. Louis to give yet another sparsely attended reading, he happens upon a face from the past he's tried to forget:...

Samuel Madison always wondered what Sandrine saw in him. He's a meek, stuffy doctorate student, and she's a brilliant, beautiful bohemian with limitless talent and imagination. Yet on the surface their marriage seemed perfectly tranquil. Then one night Sandrine is found dead in their bed from a deadly overdose of pain medication and alcohol, and Samuel is accused of poisoning her. As the truth of their turbulent marriage comes to light, Samuel must...

What drove a woman to murder in 1920s New England? "Few readers will be prepared for the surprise that awaits at novel's end" in this Edgar Award–winning novel (Publishers Weekly, starred review). It was referred to as the Chatham School affair-a tragic event that destroyed five lives, shook a coastal Massachusetts community to its core, and traumatized a boy named Henry Griswald. Now Henry is an aged, unmarried lawyer, and as he writes his will,...

Ray Campbell, a former aid worker who was stationed Africa twenty years earlier, is distraught when a friend from that period of his life turns up murdered in New York, and he must discover how this tragedy is connected to the earlier tragedy of Martine Aubert, the only woman Ray ever loved.

Thomas H. Cook's novels, including Instruments of Night and Breakheart Hill, pull readers deep into their webs of obsession, passion, and fear. A best-selling author, Cook won the Edgar Award for The Chatham School Affair. In 1937, a slender young woman arrived in a small Maine town. Dora March was lovely, quiet, and mysterious. Soon the tragedies began: a house fire, a murder, a suicide. Within a year, Dora vanished, leaving behind dark, unanswered...

In a debut volume, the collected short stories of Thomas H. Cook, one of America's most celebrated crime fiction authors Over his acclaimed career, Cook's novels have haunted, riveted, and spellbound readers across the world, and his short stories are equally acclaimed. They range from the intensely focused world of "Fatherhood," the Herodotus Award–winning title story, to the Edgar-nominated "Rain," a dark, kaleidoscopic tale of Manhattan on a...

Frank Clemons, an ex-cop turned private detective, faces a pair of perplexing cases on the mean streets of New York City The first case is simple. A wealthy man's wife has grown distant, and he asks Frank Clemons, a private eye hardened by his past work on Atlanta's homicide beat, to find out why. There are a number of simple reasons why a young woman might withdraw from her older husband, but the spurned spouse rejects them all. Her jewelry is disappearing,...

A mobster sends his bagman to track down his runaway daughter-in-law in this novel by "one of the most accomplished writers in the crime/thriller genre" (Financial Times). Sara Labriola is certain that if she stays in her marriage, someone is going to wind up dead-and it'll probably be her. So she flees her coastal Long Island home for New York City, where she changes her identity and finds work singing at a bar. Her husband is upset, of course....