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...

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year: After years of grief and rage, a man finds new purpose in investigating a woman's unsolved disappearance. George Gates's little boy was killed seven years ago and he has yet to find the cold comfort of seeing someone pay for the crime. Once a world-traveling writer, he now toils away at a local newspaper, quietly seething and plotting imaginary vengeance against the unknown murderer. Then, during a...

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:...

Lyrical, suspenseful short fiction from an Edgar Award–winning author: "Thomas Cook has long been one of my favorite writers" (Harlan Coben).

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,"

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Will the truth bring peace-or pain? A "once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece" by the Edgar Award–winning author (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Mystery writer Paul Graves, a man with a painful past, has come to an artists' retreat in New York's quiet, picturesque Hudson Valley. But his purpose for being there is not a pleasant escape. He's been tasked with something more unusual. Long ago, when Riverwood was a private estate, a teenage girl was...

A small-town doctor is haunted by the decades-old murder of his first love in this "novel of stunning power" by an Edgar Award–winning author (Booklist). Ben Wade is a middle-aged doctor in Choctaw County, Alabama, and back in 1962 he dreamed of spending the rest of his life with Kelli Troy. But he never had the chance to confess his love for Kelli before her body was found on Breakheart Hill. Decades later, the small town is still haunted by...

Eric Moore has reason to be happy. He has a prosperous business, a comfortable home, a stable family life in a quiet town. Then, on an ordinary night, his teenage son Keith is asked to babysit Amy Giordano, the eight-year-old daughter of a neighboring family. The next morning Amy is missing. Suddenly Eric is one of the stricken parents he has seen on television, professing faith in his child's innocence. As the police investigation increasingly focuses...

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...

A withdrawn architect revisits the darkest moment of his childhood Steve Farris was nine years old in 1959, the youngest child in a family that was about to be snuffed out. Around four o'clock on an ordinary November afternoon, Steve's father loaded his shotgun. With calm precision he killed his teenaged son and daughter, and then turned the weapon on his wife. For two hours he waited for his youngest son to come home from school. When Steve did not...

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,...