There was a crooked man, who lived with a crooked cat and a crooked mouse all together in a little crooked house. But when their surroundings cause them havoc they have to keep moving ... again and again and again. Grand illustrations accompany this wonderful story in which the crooked man and his friends finally find a home. Now available in paperback for the first time.

People are dying at Huntington Prep. Now the killer has his sights set on beautiful Casey, and she doesn't even know he's watching her every move.

"The Most vivid portrait of a real family anywhere in mystery fiction." —Mary Willis Walker A HOUSE OF CARDS-A PACK OF LIES Her husband, Willis, calls her a "danger junkie." But suburban Texas mom and romance writer E. J. Pugh believes that the truth is something that must always be pursued no matter how perilous the path that leads to it. When her black sheep sister-in-law is arrested for the murder of a young homeless woman, E. J. is unwilling to simply accept the swift judgment of her husband's family that Juney is a lost cause, good for nothing but trouble. The Pughs have never forgiven Juney for the tragic death of Willis's brother, yet E. J. feels certain she's innocent of this crime. But the plucky sometime-sleuth's investigation could topple a very fragile house of cards with shocking revelations of sex, drugs and depravity...and bring E.J.'s own happy homelife crashing down as well. "A GIFTED AND PERCEPTIVE WRITER WHOSE CHARACTERS ARE SECOND TO NONE." —Sharyn McCrumb "EVEN A BRIGHT, SUNNY DAY FEELS MENACING IN THE HANDS OF THIS PRO." —Margaret Maron

IN THE CHILLING TRADITION of Daphne du Maurier and with the acuity of Kate Atkinson comes an atmospheric psychological thriller about an isolated British village and the sinister abandoned house that holds the key to its most shameful secrets. Alison is as close to anonymous as you can get: she has no ties and no home, and her only anchors are her boyfriend and her small backroom job in publishing. Which is exactly how she wants it. Because once, Alison was a teenager named Esme who lived in a remote, dilapidated house by a bleak estuary with her parents and three siblings. One night something terrible happened in the family’s crooked house, leaving Alison the only survivor. In order to escape from the horror she witnessed, she moved away from the village, changed her name, and cut herself off from her past. But now her boyfriend has invited her to a wedding being held in her old hometown, which means returning there for the first time since that night. She decides that she’s never going to overcome the trauma of what happened to her without confronting it, so she accepts his invitation. But soon Alison realizes that the events of that night left their awful mark not just on her but on the entire village, and she begins to suspect that everyone there might somehow be implicated in her family’s murder. Christobel Kent’s The Crooked House is a haunting thriller about one woman’s search for the truth about her past through a closed community full of dark secrets.

“Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best.” --Agatha Christie Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating family mystery. The Leonides are one big happy family living in a sprawling, ramshackle mansion. That is until the head of the household, Aristide, is murdered with a fatal barbiturate injection. Suspicion naturally falls on the old man’s young widow, fifty years his junior. But the murderer has reckoned without the tenacity of Charles Hayward, fiancé of the late millionaire’s granddaughter.

Happily married, fulfilling career, and babies on her mind, Mercy was excited about her future. At 32 years old, life was unfolding exactly as she had envisioned. Then, overnight, her foundation collapsed as one by one she lost her husband, career and home. Her life as she knew it shattered; but then, over the next two and a half years, it was rebuilt in extraordinary ways. Through her short but amazing journey, she shares with us her story of great loss followed by three unexpected miracles. Mercy maintains an amusing attitude, reminding us that even in the most trying times, we can still experience joy. Her story is also one of faith, connecting to intuition and opening her heart and mind to a different life. Most importantly, she sheds light on a population of children that is being dismissed, neglected and mostly forgotten about: adolescent foster kids. She admits she wasn’t aware of the reality of the foster care system until she was thrust into it. She shares the intimate details of the system, the process to become a foster parent and the remarkable gift of becoming a mother. Her story inspires us to stay positive, look to the future and open our hearts to our neighbors and communities.

With the same brilliant combination of humor and warmth that marked Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her two bestselling works of nonfiction, Anne Lamott now gives us an exuberant richly absorbing portrait of a family for whom the joys and sorrows of everyday life are magnified under the glare of the unexpected. The Fergusons make their home in a small California town where life is supposed to resemble paradise, but for thirteen-year-old Rosie (last seen in Lamott's beloved novel Rosie), reality is a bit harsher. Her mother, a recovering alcoholic, is still beset by grief over the early death of her first husband. Rosie's stepfather is a struggling writer plagued by doubts and hilarious paranoia. And Rosie, aching in the bloom of young womanhood and obsessed with tournament tennis, finds that her athletic gifts, initially a source of triumph, now place her in peril, as a shadowy man who stalks her from the bleachers seems to be developing an obsession of his own. Written with enormous emotional honesty, inhabited by superbly realized characters, riotously funny and wonderfully suspenseful, Crooked Little Heart is Anne Lamott writing at the height of her considerable powers.