Melanie Thernstrom's senior thesis was entitled Mistakes of Metaphor, an account of the mysterious disappearance and murder of her best friend, Bibi Lee. That thesis, reworked as The Dead Girl, was published by Pocket Books in 1990 to major critical acclaim. Berkeley student Roberta (Bibi) Lee went running with her lover Bradley Page on a Sunday in 1984. He came back alone. When she failed to return police mounted one of the largest missing–person searches in California history. Five weeks later Roberta's battered body was found and within hours, Page had confessed to Roberta's murder—a confession he was later to recant. With its enduring themes of innocence and evil, truth and uncertainty, human motives and emotions, The Dead Girl is a complex exploration of the nature of reality and the frail, shifting and suspect ways in which we respond to it.

"This is Alice. She was taken by Ray five years ago. She thought she knew how her story would end. She was wrong."-- [P.4] Cover.

An unflinching story of a troubled friendship -- and one girl’s struggle to come to terms with secrets and shame and find her own power to heal (age 14 and up). Leah Greene is dead. For Laine, knowing what really happened and the awful feeling that she is, in some way, responsible set her on a journey of painful self-discovery. Yes, she wished for this. She hated Leah that much. Hated her for all the times in the closet, when Leah made her do those things. They were just practicing, Leah said. But why did Leah choose her? Was she special, or just easy to control? And why didn’t Laine make it stop sooner? In the aftermath of the tragedy, Laine is left to explore the devastating lessons Leah taught her, find some meaning in them, and decide whether she can forgive Leah and, ultimately, herself.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 An Edgar Award nominee for best critical / biographical Best of 2018 according to Kirkus, The Boston Globe,The New York Times, The Portland Mercury, Bustle, Thrillist, and Electric Lit A New York Times Editor's Choice, a best of summer 2018 according to Bitch Magazine, Harpers Bazaar, The Millions, Esquire, Refinery29, Nylon, PopSugar, The Chicago Tribune, Book Riot, and CrimeReads In this poignant collection, Alice Bolin examines iconic American works from the essays of Joan Didion and James Baldwin to Twin Peaks, Britney Spears, and Serial, illuminating the widespread obsession with women who are abused, killed, and disenfranchised, and whose bodies (dead and alive) are used as props to bolster men’s stories. Smart and accessible, thoughtful and heartfelt, Bolin investigates the implications of our cultural fixations, and her own role as a consumer and creator. Bolin chronicles her life in Los Angeles, dissects the Noir, revisits her own coming of age, and analyzes stories of witches and werewolves, both appreciating and challenging the narratives we construct and absorb every day. Dead Girls begins by exploring the trope of dead women in fiction, and ends by interrogating the more complex dilemma of living women – both the persistent injustices they suffer and the oppression that white women help perpetrate. Reminiscent of the piercing insight of Rebecca Solnit and the critical skill of Hilton Als, Bolin constructs a sharp, perceptive, and revelatory dialogue on the portrayal of women in media and their roles in our culture.

From USA Today bestselling author Carter Wilson comes a psychological thriller about forgotten strangers, dark pasts, and a secret so big it just might destroy everything. They meet on a plane, but nothing about this situation is coincidental... This flight will take them somewhere they never expected to go Jack Buchannan knows the woman sitting next to him on his business flight to Denver—he just can't figure out how he knows her. Clara Stowe isn't in Jake's line of work and didn't go to college with him. They have nearly nothing in common apart from a deep and shared certainty that they've met before. As their airplane conversation deepens, both struggle to figure out what circumstances could have possibly brought them together. Then, in a revelation that sends Jake reeling, Clara admits she's traveling to the Colorado mountains to kill herself, and she disappears into the crowded airport immediately after landing. Though Clara is gone, Jake is determined to track the girl in the city and figure out their connection. The Dead Girl in 2A is the story of what happens to Jake and Clara after they get off that plane, and the manipulative figure, a two-dimensional man who has brought them together decades after they first met. Intensely creepy, beautifully written, and full of Carter Wilson's signature whom-can-you-trust paranoia, this is a psychological thriller unlike any you've read before. When two strangers discover they're connected in ways they could never have imagined, what ensues is a mind-bending race to the truth. This taut, riveting psychological thriller from the award-winning and bestselling author Carter Wilson will leave you reeling. Named one of the best mysteries and thrillers of 2018, The Dead Girl in 2A is: Perfect for fans of Ruth Ware and AJ Finn For readers who enjoy who-can-you-trust mysteries and psychological thrillers

David Loogan’s dark past is revealed in this prequel to Bad Things Happen—the critically acclaimed mystery that Stephen King called a “great f***ing book.” On a rainy night in April, a chance encounter draws David into a romance with Jana Fletcher, a beautiful young law student. Jana is an enigma: living in a run-down apartment with only the barest of possessions, sporting a bruise on her cheek that she refuses to explain. David would like to know her secrets, but he lets them lie—until it’s too late. When Jana is brutally murdered, the police consider David a prime suspect. But as he sets out to uncover the truth, he soon learns that Jana’s death may be related to an earlier murder, one that she was obsessed with during the last weeks of her life. And as he retraces her steps, he begins to realize that he’s treading a very dangerous path—and that her killer is watching every move he makes.

In this brutal, gripping novel, Selva Almada narrates the case of three small-town teenage girls murdered in the 1980's in the interior of Argentina.Three deaths without culprits: 19-year old Andrea Danne, stabbed in her own bed; 15-year old María Luisa Quevedo, raped, strangled, and dumped in wasteland; and 20-year old Sarita Mundín, whose disfigured body was found on a river bank. Almada takes these and other tales of abused women to weave together a dry, straightforward portrait of gender violence that surpasses national borders and speaks to readers' consciousness all over the world.Following the success of The Wind That Lays Waste , internationally acclaimed Argentinian author Selva Almada dives into the heart of this problem with a reported novel, comparable to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood or John Hersey's Hiroshima , in response to the urgent need for attention to the ongoing catastrophe that is femicide.Not a police chronicle, not a thriller, but a contemporary noir novel that lives in the hearts of these women and the men who have abused them. Almada captures the invisible, and with lyrical brutality, blazes a new trail in journalistic fiction.