Most Popular Books by Ben H. Winters

"[The] weird, beautiful, unapologetically apocalyptic Last Policeman trilogy is one of my favorite mystery series."—John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns Winner of the 2013 Edgar® Award Winner for Best Paperback Original! What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares. The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered? Ebook contains an excerpt from the anticipated second book in the trilogy, Countdown City.

''The most timely of alternate history novels. Ben Winters has created a spellbinding world that forces the reader to look around—and to look within. This is a thriller not to be missed and one that will not be easily forgotten.'' Hugh Howey It is the present-day, and the world is as we know it. Except for one thing: slavery still exists. Victor has escaped his life as a slave, but his freedom came at a high price. Striking a bargain with the government, he has to live his life working as a bounty hunter. And he is the best they’ve ever trained. A mystery to himself, Victor tries to suppress his memories of his own childhood and convinces himself that he is just a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he is desperate to preserve. But in tracking his latest target, he can sense that that something isn’t quite right. For this fugitive is a runaway holding something extraordinary. Something that could change the state of the country forever. And in his pursuit, Victor discovers secrets at the core of his country''s arrangement with the system that imprisoned him, secrets that will be preserved at any cost. ‘It is a rare thing when a writer has a fresh new provocative idea – and then executes it beautifully. This is what Ben H. Winters has done in his novel Underground Airlines. Imagine an America in which slavery still exists. Now imagine a dramatic telling of the story.’ James Patterson

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder. In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime -- and stopping those crimes is Laz''s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to "speculate" on what might have happened. But the Golden State is less of a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.

From the "inventive...entertaining and thought-provoking" (Charles Yu) New York Times-bestselling author of Underground Airlines and Golden State, this sweeping legal thriller follows a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a neurological condition that has frozen him in time—and the team of lawyers, doctors, and detectives who are desperate to wake him up. In 2008, a cheerful ambulance-chasing lawyer named Jay Shenk persuades the grieving Keener family to sue a private LA hospital. Their son Wesley has been transformed by a routine surgery into a kind of golem, absent all normal functioning or personality, walking in endless empty circles around his hospital room. In 2019, Shenk—still in practice but a shell of his former self—is hired to defend Wesley Keener’s father when he is charged with murder . . . the murder, as it turns out, of the expert witness from the 2008 hospital case. Shenk’s adopted son, a fragile teenager in 2008, is a wayward adult, though he may find his purpose when he investigates what really happened to the murdered witness. Two thrilling trials braid together, medical malpractice and murder, jostling us back and forth in time. The Quiet Boy is a book full of mysteries, not only about the death of a brilliant scientist, not only about the outcome of the medical malpractice suit, but about the relationship between children and their parents, between the past and the present, between truth and lies. At the center of it all is Wesley Keener, endlessly walking, staring empty-eyed, in whose quiet, hollow body may lie the fate of humankind.

A follow-up collection of spooky stories in verse is comprised of thirty tales about the scary-but-fun things that haunt kids'' nightmares.

In this "wild and wonderful" (Lou Berney) corporate espionage thriller that takes the adage "time is money" and makes it frighteningly so, an everywoman FDA employee stumbles upon a dark, clandestine conspiracy to harvest and sell people''s time. What if time could be taken from us—the minutes, the hours, the years of our lives, extracted like organs taken for transplant? What would it mean for the world? And what would it do to the person from whom it’s taken? Grace Berney is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Food and Drug Administration, a woman who once brimmed with purpose but somehow turned into a middle-aged single mom with a dull government job and a melancholy sense that life has passed her by. Until the night a strange photo comes across her desk, of a young woman in a hospital bed who has been subjected to a mysterious procedure. Against orders and against common sense, Grace sets out to bring the girl to safety, and finds herself risking her job, her future, and her life on whether she can find the missing girl before an obsessive and violent mercenary who’s also looking. Big Time is a fast-paced thriller and a metaphysical mystery about the very nature of our lives.

FOR RENT: Top two floors of beautifully renovated brownstone, 1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee. Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up. Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs . . . or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.

New York Times bestseller An uproarious tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem inspired by the classic Jane Austen novel—from the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

“A genre-defying blend of crime writing and science fiction.”—Alexandra Alter, The New York Times The explosive final installment in the Edgar® Award winning Last Policeman series. With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank’s safety is only relative, and his only relative—his sister Nico—isn’t safe. Soon, it’s clear that there’s more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it’s up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs out...for everyone.

Leo Tolstoy meets robots in this “creepy, thrilling, and highly enjoyable” sci-fi mashup of the classic Russian novel Anna Karenina (Library Journal). “ . . . lives up to its promise to make Tolstoy ‘awesomer.’”—The Onion AV Club It’s been called the greatest novel ever written. Now, Tolstoy’s timeless saga of love and betrayal is transported to an awesomer version of 19th-century Russia. It is a world humming with high-powered groznium engines: where debutantes dance the 3D waltz in midair, mechanical wolves charge into battle alongside brave young soldiers, and robots—miraculous, beloved robots!—are the faithful companions of everyone who’s anyone. Restless to forge her own destiny in this fantastic modern life, the bold noblewoman Anna and her enigmatic Android Karenina abandon a loveless marriage to seize passion with the daring, handsome Count Vronsky. But when their scandalous affair gets mixed up with dangerous futuristic villainy, the ensuing chaos threatens to rip apart their lives, their families, and—just maybe—all of planet Earth.

There has been a shocking crime at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. In a glass case in the front hall, a trophy—the trophy, the first trophy ever won in the school’s lackluster competitive history—has been stolen. Even more horrifying, an outraged Principal Van Vreeland has canceled everything fun until the trophy is back, including the eighth graders’ long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime field trip to Taproot Valley. Rock climbing, ropes courses, ecology hikes, s’mores . . . all gone! Luckily, Bethesda Fielding is on the case. As self-appointed sleuth extraordinaire, Bethesda’s confident she’ll be able to track down the culprit in no time and save her class trip! Except it seems like the more she searches for answers, the more mysteries she reveals. . . . Can Bethesda solve this baffling mystery—or are the eighth graders doomed for a Week of a Thousand Quizzes instead?

Ms. Finkleman is just our boring old music teacher. Or is she? It all starts with a Special Project in Mr. Melville''s Social Studies class: Solve a mystery in your own life. For seventh grader Bethesda Fielding, one mystery is too tempting to ignore: Ms. Finkleman. Bethesda is convinced that her mousy Music Fundamentals teacher is hiding a secret life, and she’s determined to find out what it is. But no one is prepared for what she learns. Ms. Finkleman used tobe . . . a rock star? Soon the whole school goes rock crazy, and a giant concert is in the works with none other than timid Ms. Finkleman at the helm! But the case isn’t quite closed, and the questions continue to swirl forBethesda. Could there be even more to the secret life of Ms. Finkleman than she already revealed? With the help of her rock-obsessed classmate Tenny Boyer, Bethesda won’t stop until she solves the real mystery of Ms. Finkleman once and for all!

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm. But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories. Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, The Apocalypse Triptych is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME explores life after the apocalypse. THE END IS NIGH is about the match. THE END HAS COME is about what will rise from the ashes. THE END IS NOW is about the conflagration. * * * * THE END IS NOW table of contents: INTRODUCTION by John Joseph Adams | HERD IMMUNITY by Tananarive Due | THE SIXTH DAY OF DEER CAMP by Scott Sigler | GOODNIGHT STARS by Annie Bellet | ROCK MANNING CAN''T HEAR YOU by Charlie Jane Anders | FRUITING BODIES by Seanan McGuire | BLACK MONDAY by Sarah Langan | ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE by Nancy Kress | AGENT ISOLATED by David Wellington | THE GODS WILL NOT BE SLAIN by Ken Liu | YOU''VE NEVER SEEN EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Bear | BRING THEM DOWN by Ben H. Winters | TWILIGHT OF THE MUSIC MACHINES by Megan Arkenberg | SUNSET HOLLOW by Jonathan Maberry | PENANCE by Jake Kerr | AVTOMAT by Daniel H. Wilson | DANCING WITH BATGIRL IN THE LAND OF NOD by Will McIntosh | BY THE HAIR OF THE MOON by Jamie Ford | TO WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD by Desirina Boskovich | IN THE MOUNTAIN by Hugh Howey | DEAR JOHN by Robin Wasserman.

“A genre-defying blend of crime writing and science fiction.”—Alexandra Alter, The New York Times Detective Hank Palace returns in the second in the speculative mystery trilogy set on the brink of the apocalypse. There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank''s days of solving crimes are over...until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband. Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees. Countdown City presents another fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse--and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond "whodunit." What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you?

Come on up to the attic Come up if you dare Climb up the rickety ladder— Come up and see what’s there… Ben H. Winters brings the fear factor to this collection of thirty spooktastic rhyming stories about witches, zombies, vampires and more! Featuring eerie illustrations by Adam F. Watkins, this book is perfect for nights around the campfire and slumber party ghost stories. Be sure to keep a flashlight close!

From New York Times best-selling and Edgar Award-winning author Ben H. Winters, this supernatural page-turner about a real-estate nightmare will make you think twice about your dream home Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment in a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up. Big mistake. Susan awakens every morning with fresh bug bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter, Emma, has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until she makes a chilling discovery in the bonus room. Filled with Hitchcockian suspense, The Bonus Room is a horrifying tale of a dream home that becomes a nightmare. Previously published in 2011 as Bedbugs.

In Boston, Paul Revere etches out a humble living as a silversmith. Americans and British alike hail the exquiste artistry of his work. But when Paul''s revolutionary friends, John Hancock and Samuel Adams pressure Revere to take a stand against British tyranny and join the Sons of Liberty, he worries that supporting the cause of revolution would mean losing his business and risking the safety of his family. Revere must make a choice to do what is easy, or to do what is right.

The authors of the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook series are back with all-new, expert advice designed to help readers fend off hordes of vampires, zombies, werewolves, ghosts, wizards, and other paranormal creatures.

Reading, writing, and—wardrobe disasters? Stop tween troubles in their tracks with help from the series that has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. Homework, hormones, heartache . . . middle school has no shortage of perils. Never fear, the authors of the bestselling Worst-Case Scenario series return with a survival guide for those who are facing—or just about to face—this big transitional time in school and life. The handbook is packed with funny-but-useful tips for the trickiest situations that crop up in middle school, like taking charge of a too-busy homework schedule, dealing with a cold shoulder from a friend who has suddenly become just too cool, avoiding common e-mail and cell phone disasters, and more. Praise for the Worst-Case Scenario Survival series “What this book lacks in spiritual enlightenment, it more than makes up for with the practical advice you thought you’d never need.” —The Irish Times “Though neither written nor read in a humorous manner, the book nevertheless amuses in a strange way . . . affords some camp appeal in the tradition of outdated high school safety films.” —Publishers Weekly “There is something for everyone. It has a wide range of scenarios from dangerous to just downright irritating . . . It is fun, witty, entertaining and you learn something along the way too.” —Quill Quotes

Escape a stalled subway car or a swarm of pigeons; stop a runaway hot dog cart; defeat cockroaches—what every native and visitor needs to survive in the Big Apple.

El co-autor de Sentido y Sensibilidad y Monstruos Marinos, Ben H. Winters, está de regreso con un nuevo colaborador, el legendario novelista ruso León Tolstoi, y el resultado es Android Karenina una edición mejorada de la clásica historia de amor ambienta

Four hundred scenarios from all of the bestselling books in the series—with dozens of new entries—from being kicked by a zebra to breakup texts. With over 10 million copies sold worldwide, the Worst-Case Scenario series has been preparing readers for dangers of all kinds for more than a decade. This handsome compendium is truly the ultimate guide for handling life’s inevitable Worst-Case Scenarios, collecting—for the first time—hundreds of the best and most crucial scenarios from across the entire 26-book series, along with dozens of all new and expanded scenarios, charts, and expert tips. Topical, tabloid-style pages explore more than 100 subjects, from storms to stampedes to technology failures and beyond, with special sections highlighting critical information on starting fires, animal encounters, emergency signals, “Can I eat that?” questions, and more. Packed with expert advice and sturdy enough to stop a tiger bite, this gifty tome will keep longtime fans and new initiates safe and entertained in equal measure. Praise for the Worst-Case Scenario Survival series “What this book lacks in spiritual enlightenment, it more than makes up for with the practical advice you thought you’d never need. Yet it’s only when you read about how to deliver a baby in the back of a taxi, surviving quicksand and mastering awkward lift silences that you realize just how handy a book like this could come in. Some day.” —The Irish Times “There is something for everyone. It has a wide range of scenarios from dangerous to just downright irritating . . . It is fun, witty, entertaining and you learn something along the way too.” —Quill Quotes

WHERE ONCE A CRUEL UNIVERSE BECKONED . . . NOW A CRUEL KINGDOM SHALL REIGN! Oni Press is proud to unveil a spellbinding new chapter in the distinguished lineage of EC history! Enter: Cruel Kingdom—EC’s first-ever dark-fantasy anthology conjuring tales of MAGIC, MYTH, and MURDER from forbidden realms long before our own! Behold the bloody and barbarous age of wizards, knights, and dragons as reimagined in the immutable EC manner as master scribes Al Ewing (Immortal Hulk), Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), Greg Pak (Darth Vader), and Ben H. Winters (Cruel Universe) couple their forces with iron-wrought artists Charlie Adlard (The Walking Dead), Kano (Cruel Universe), Leomacs (Ghostlore), Andrea Mutti (Rebels) and more to forge a terrifying new vision of death, life, and adventure "once upon a time. From the twisted minds that spawned Epitaphs from the Abyss and Cruel Universe, steel thyself for 30+ pages of fatal fantasy and skullduggerous sorcery in one cursed tome of comic book enchantment!

You were an explorer who challenged the farthest reaches of existence. Until your technology failed and you found yourself trapped in the endless void of space, drifting amongst the nebulae, with only one question rattling through your tiny, dying, all-too-human brain: What if the horrors of this reality are too great to comprehend? What if they were NEVER supposed to be explored at all? GOOD THING YOU STILL HAVE THIS COMIC TO KEEP YOU COMPANY, SPACEMAN! Test the boundaries of our cold and unforgiving CRUEL UNIVERSE with four bizarre tales of time and space by eight modern masters of the science-fiction form: Christopher Cantwell (Thanos, Iron Man) and David Lapham (Stray Bullets); Chris Condon (That Texas Blood) and Javier Rodriguez (Amazing Spider-Man); Stephanie Phillips (Harley Quinn, Grim) and Riley Rossmo (The Sandman); and a very special surprise from Ben H. Winters (CBS’ Tracker) and Leomacs (Rogues). . . . EC Comics dares you to look into the void and ponder what fate awaits us all! (It’s OBLIVION!)

Compelled to OBLIVION, driven to ENTROPY, all life in our cosmos can only end in one place: COMPLETE ANNIHILATION! For the first time in 70 years, the limitless fury of EC Comics rages back to life to shred the very fabric of the universe itself—and wrench bizarre tales of time and space into our dimensional plane! Our guides across this double-sized, 40-page introduction to a cosmic maelstrom of strange extraterrestrial entities, malevolent scientists, and terrifying technological catastrophes? Learn to fear the void with the irradiated imaginations of Hugo Award nominee Corinna Bechko (Invisible Republic, The Space Between), rising star Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), Eisner Award nominee Matt Kindt (BRZRKR, Mind MGMT), and Edgar Award winner Ben H. Winters (The Last Policeman) as they collide with the wondrously destructive visions of artists Jonathan Case (Green River Killer), Kano (Immortal Iron Fist), Artyom Topilin (I Hate This Place), and Caitlin Yarsky (Black Hammer: Reborn)! The unpredictable return of EC Comics continues here with the quantum comics event of the millennium! Galaxies will collapse. Space-time will be distorted. And your very will to exist, too, shall be broken . . . Just remember: it''s all in the name of SCIENCE!

A treasury of thirty haunting love poems, accompanied by eerie illustrations, celebrates romances that are not quite as they appear.

Only human arrogance would lead us to believe that we are alone in this vast universe. The real question is, who will find us first? Allies to help us grow and flourish as members of larger cosmic society? Or others who would use up the earth for its resources, enslave the human race, and destroy everything we know and love? Do we live in a limitless realm of possibilities, or a deep dark Cruel Universe? Cozy thoughts, aren’t they? While you ponder those questions, you’ll find no comfort in the pages of our latest cruel offering . . . featuring the astronomical talents of EC veterans Matt Kindt (BRZRKR, Mind MGMT) and Ben H. Winters (CBS’ Tracker), while welcoming newcomers Cecil Castellucci (Shade the Changing Girl) and Matt Bors (Toxic Avenger) to the void. . . . Their harsh words are brought to terrible fruition by artists Alison Sampson (Hit-Girl), Kano (Gotham Central), and more!

Hedendaagse versie met zeemonsters van de klassieke roman uit 1811 van Jane Austen, waarin twee geheel verschillend geaarde zusters eind 18e eeuw verliefd worden op mannen die hen zeer teleurstellen.

This deluxe desk reference includes a hardbound volume of the most popular scenarios from all 11 "Worst-Case Scenario" handbooks, plus the entire contents of all the books on a fully searchable CD.

C''est dans ta tête, chérie... À Brooklyn Heights, quartier prisé de New York, Susan et Alex Wendt ont enfin trouvé l''appartement de leurs rêves ! Certes, la propriétaire, qui vit au rez-de-chaussée, paraît un peu excentrique, mais quelle importance ? Susan, qui s''était arrêtée de peindre à la naissance de leur fille, Emma, va enfin pouvoir reprendre ses toiles. Pour le jeune couple, un nouveau départ s''annonce... Sauf que. Un redoutable fléau s''est invité dans le home sweet home des Wendt. Des punaises de lit. Envahissantes, assoiffées de sang, et apparemment indestructibles. Invisibles, également, sauf pour Susan. Inexorablement, la petite mécanique du bonheur domestique se détraque. Est-ce le fruit de son imagination ou une véritable invasion ? A moins que la jeune femme au bord de la crise de nerfs soit, tout simplement, en train de perdre la raison ? Apprêtez-vous à ne pas fermer l''oeil de la nuit ! Jouant avec nos obsessions et nos angoisses les plus intimes, Ben H. Winters nous prend au piège d''un récit d''une rare intensité, aussi dérangeant que captivant.

À quoi bon tenter de résoudre un meurtre quand tout le monde va mourir ? À quoi bon tenter de résoudre un meurtre quand tout le monde va mour Concord, New Hamsphire. Hank Palace est ce qu''on appelle un flic obstiné. Confronté à une banale affaire de suicide, il refuse de s''en tenir à l''évidence et, certain qu''il a affaire à un meurtre, poursuit inlassablement son enquête. Hank sait pourtant qu''elle n''a pas grand intérêt puisque, dans six mois il sera mort. Comme tous les habitants de Concord. Et comme tout le monde aux États-Unis et sur Terre. Dans six mois en effet, notre planète aura cessé d''exister, percutée de plein fouet par 2011GV1, un astéroïde de six kilomètres de long qui la réduira en cendres. Aussi chacun, désormais, se prépare-t-il au pire à sa façon. Dans cette ambiance pré-apocalyptique, où les marchés financiers se sont écroulés, où la plupart des employés ont abandonné leur travail, où des dizaines de personnes se livrent à tous les excès possibles alors que d''autres mettent fin à leurs jours, Hank, envers et contre tous, s''accroche. Il a un boulot à terminer. Et rien, même l''apocalypse, ne pourra l''empêcher de résoudre son affaire. Sans jamais se départir d''un prodigieux sens de l''intrigue et du suspens, Ben H Winters nous y propose une vision douloureusement convaincante d''un monde proche de l''agonie. Le lecteur est tiraillé par cette interrogation lancinante : que ferions nous, que ferions nous réellement si nos jours étaient comptés.

Susan e Alex non hanno dubbi: è la casa perfetta. In quel quartiere e a quel prezzo, non potrebbero trovare di meglio. E c''è persino una stanzetta in più - non segnalata nell''annuncio -, ideale per le esigenze di Susan, che ha deciso di lasciare il lavoro per dedicarsi a tempo pieno alla figlia, la piccola Emma, e alla sua grande passione, la pittura. Inoltre la signora Scharfstein, la padrona di casa che abita al pianoterra, sembra proprio una simpatica e disponibile vecchietta. Ma, ben presto cominciano ad accadere cose strane, che turbano la quiete domestica: nel suo studio, Susan sente un odore sgradevole, che nessun altro percepisce. Poi, una mattina, nota che la federa del suo cuscino è sporca di sangue e che il suo corpo è costellato da quelli che sembrano i morsi di qualche insetto. Tuttavia né la figlia né il marito hanno quei segni. Per non correre rischi, Susan chiama una ditta di disinfestazione, che però non trova nulla. Sembra una follia, eppure lei è convinta che la casa brulichi d''insetti: sono lì, annidati da qualche parte, non c''è altra spiegazione. Mentre la signora Scharfstein diventa sempre più invadente e il marito preoccupato, Susan capisce di dover dimostrare a tutti che non è paranoica. Altrimenti potrebbe rischiare di perdere non soltanto quell''appartamento, ma anche la sua famiglia.Considerato dalla critica il degno erede di Rosemary''s Baby e dei classici della suspense psicologica, Una casa perfetta è un thriller in cui il labile confine tra realtà e immaginazione diventa un luogo oscuro e molto pericoloso?

Qual o sentido de se investigar um crime quando o planeta tem apenas seis meses de vida? O detetive Hank Palace enfrenta essa questão desde que o asteroide 2011GV1 foi avistado em rota de colisão com a Terra. Em face da tragédia iminente, a maioria das pessoas abandona seus trabalhos, casas e famílias e as instituições começam a ruir, mas Palace insiste em investigar um suposto suicídio. Ganhador dos prêmios Edgar, dedicado à literatura policial e de mistério, e Philip K. Dick, voltado para livros de ficção científica, O último policial é a combinação perfeita do clássico romance noir com o melhor da ficção científica atual. Primeiro de uma trilogia, o livro pinta um retrato fascinante dos Estados Unidos pré-apocalipse através de um enredo original e envolvente e de um protagonista carismático. "Estranha, bela e assumidamente apocalíptica. Uma das minhas séries de mistério favoritas." – John Green