Detective Sergeant Sam Holland has a chance to redeem her career when she is assigned to investigate a senator's murder, but when she is teamed up with a former fling, she must separate her reignited passions from the case at hand.

Washington, D.C., Metro Police Detective Sergeant Sam Holland needs a big win to salvage her career-and her confidence-after a disastrous investigation. The perfect opportunity arises when Senator John O'Connor is found brutally murdered in his bed, and Sam is assigned to the case. Matters get complicated when Sam has to team up with Nick Cappuano, O'Connor's friend and chief of staff?and the man Sam had a memorable one-night stand with years earlier. Their sexual chemistry still sizzles, and Sam has to fight to stay focused on the case. Sleeping with a material witness is another mistake she can't afford-especially when the bodies keep piling up.

In 1866 a gang from Indiana led by men named Reno and Sparks pulled off the first train robbery in history. Four years later in a copy-cat crime, the Central Pacific Railroad's Overland Express was robbed of over $41,000 in gold coin by a bunch of petty criminals. Strangely enough, the latter robbery took place near the Nevada cities of Reno and Sparks. It was the West's first train robbery and the first of the new transcontinental railroad. The robbers were quickly caught, tried, and imprisoned, thanks to the determination of a lawman whose dogged perseverance is mindful of Inspector Javert, Jean Valjean's pursuer in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. A year later the robbers instigated the largest prison escape in the country's history, as twenty-nine inmates breached the gates and scattered. Two men were murdered by rioting convicts. Several others, including Nevada's lieutenant governor, were seriously wounded in the battle at the state prison in Carson City. Six of the convicts headed south and along the way killed a young mail rider from the mining camp of Aurora, Nevada, which not long before had been the home of the young Samuel Clemens. The murder was so gruesome that it put the town on the warpath. The convicts holed up in a canyon in the Eastern Sierra near present day Mammoth Lakes, California, some one hundred fifty miles south of Carson City. Using Henry rifles stolen from the prison armory, they outgunned a posse out to take them dead or alive. Two more men were killed, including a popular merchant and Wells Fargo agent. An enraged citizenry from two states would ignore the law in wreaking swift and terrible retribution. The story is told in the context of its time: the construction of the Central Pacific over the Sierras, Reno's birth as a railroad town and its emergence as Nevada's then largest city, the violence of life in the mining camps, the tribulations of imprisoned men, and the preference for vigilantism over tiresome judicial procedures. In some chapters a modified historical fiction approach is used to give some immediacy to the lives-and anxieties-of the desperate men involved, two of whom were murderous psychopaths. The title of the book-"The Fatal Affair in Monte Diablo Canyon"-is taken from a September 30, 1871, article in the Inyo Independent, the newspaper of record in nearby Inyo County. The article describes the gun battle in the canyon and its aftermath. The peak, then called Monte Diablo, is now Mount Morrison, named in memory of the Wells Fargo agent killed in the battle. The lake in the canyon is now Convict Lake, a well known Sierra destination.

Don’t miss Faith Martin’s fiendishly clever new novel, Murder by Candlelight, set in the 1920s and described as ‘the perfect village mystery’ by J.M. Hall ‘The pairing of Ryder and Loveday is a stroke of genius.’ Clare Chase, author of the Eve Mallow and Tara Thorpe mysteries

Washington, D.C., Metro Police Detective Sergeant Sam Holland needs a big win to salvage her career—and her confidence—after a disastrous investigation. The perfect opportunity arises when Senator John O’Connor is found brutally murdered in his bed, and Sam is assigned to the case. Things get complicated when Sam has to team up with Nick Cappuano, O’Connor’s friend and chief of staff…and the man Sam had a memorable one-night stand with years earlier. Their sexual chemistry still sizzles, and Sam has to fight to stay focused on the case. Sleeping with a material witness is another mistake she can’t afford—especially when the bodies keep piling up.

Standing over the body of a Supreme Court nominee, Lieutenant Sam Holland is hip-deep in another high-profile murder case. That she was one of the last people to see Julian Sinclair alive only complicates things even more. With her relationship with Senator Nick Cappuano heating up, they’re attracting a lot of unwanted media attention and blinding flashbulbs. The pressure is on for Sam to find Sinclair’s killer, but a new lead in her father’s unsolved shooting puts her in unexpected danger. When long-buried secrets threaten to derail her relationship with Nick, Sam realizes that while justice can be blind, mixing romance with politics has the potential to be fatal.

“[We] can’t get enough of Christie’s plush and murderous thrills.” —Entertainment Weekly From the Queen of Mystery—this all-new collection of stories about love gone horribly wrong will get your heart racing. Love can propel us to our greatest heights . . . and darkest depths. In this new compendium of Agatha Christie short stories, witness the dark side of love—crimes of passion, games of the heart, and deadly deceits. This pulse-pounding compendium features beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, master of charades Parker Pyne, the enigmatic Harley Quin, and the adventurous Tommy and Tuppence, all at the ready to solve tantalizing mysteries. In “The Face of Helen,” a night at the Royal Opera could reach a fatal crescendo for a woman caught in a dicey love triangle; “Finessing the King” delivers a curious ad in the personals that could mask sinister intentions; who’s in danger of getting stung in “Wasps’ Nest” depends on rounding up suspects and solving a murder—before it even happens. These are just a few of the tales in this collection featuring essential reading that Christie fans old and new will simply love to death.