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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
NPR • Cosmopolitan • Kirkus Reviews • BookPage

A page-turning thriller for readers of Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and Stieg Larsson, Night Film tells the haunting story of a journalist who becomes obsessed with the mysterious death of a troubled prodigy—the daughter of an iconic, reclusive filmmaker.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.

For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.

The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page.

Praise for Night Film

“Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl’s deft touch with character.”—Joe Hill, The New York Times Book Review

“Mysterious and even a little head-spinning, an amazing act of imagination.”—Dean Baquet, The New York Times Book Review

“Maniacally clever . . . Cordova is a monomaniacal genius who creeps into the darkest crevices of the human psyche. . . . As a study of a great mythmaker, Night Film is an absorbing act of myth-making itself. . . . Dastardly fun . . . The plot feels like an M. C. Escher nightmare about Edgar Allan Poe. . . . You’ll miss your subway stop, let dinner burn and start sleeping with the lights on.”—The Washington Post

“Haunting . . . a suspenseful, sprawling page-turner.”—USA Today

“Entrancing and delightful . . . [a] whipsmart humdinger of a thriller . . . It feels, above all things, new.”—The Boston Globe 

“Gripping . . . a masterful puzzle . . . Pessl builds up real suspense.”—Entertainment Weekly

“A very deeply imagined book . . . sprints to an ending that’s equal parts nagging and haunting: What lingers, beyond all the page-turning, is a density of possible clues that leaves you leafing backward, scanning fictional blog comments and newspaper clippings, positive there’s some secret detail that will snap everything into focus.”—New York

“Hypnotic . . . The real and the imaginary, life and art, are dizzyingly distorted not only in a Cordova night film . . . but in Pessl’s own Night Film as well.”—Vanity Fair

Vineland, a zone of blessed anarchy in northern California, is the last refuge of hippiedom, a culture devastated by the sobriety epidemic, Reaganomics, and the Tube. Here, in an Orwellian 1984, Zoyd Wheeler and his daughter Prairie search for Prairie's long-lost mother, a Sixties radical who ran off with a narc. Vineland is vintage Pynchon, full of quasi-allegorical characters, elaborate unresolved subplots, corny songs ("Floozy with an Uzi"), movie spoofs (Pee-wee Herman in The Robert Musil Story), and illicit sex (including a macho variation on the infamous sportscar scene in V.).

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Excerpt:

He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of old New York—he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a young New York, the mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire mountains. A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure town, with throngs of eager travelers hurrying from the ferry boats and rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings when as a boy he had ushered there for the sake of hearing the music, how the rich joy of being alive, of being young, of being loved, had shone out of women's eyes. Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jeweled slippers, shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles, swift glances, ripples, bursts of laughter, an exciting hum of voices. Then silence, sudden darkness—and music, and the curtain. The great wide curtain slowly rising....

But all that had passed away...

"Doctors take days off--why not PIs?" V.I. Warshawski demands. But when America's hardest-working private eye goes clubbing, a stranger is shot and dies in her arms.

V.I. has been visiting Club Gouge, Chicago's edgiest nightspot, where a woman known as the Body Artist turns her naked body into a canvas for the audience to paint on.

The show attracts all kinds of people, from a menacing off-duty cop to Ukrainian mobsters and Iraq war vets--and V.I.'s impetuous cousin, Petra. A tormented young painter shows up, too, and the intricate designs she creates on the Body Artist drives on of the vets into a violent rage.

When the painter is shot, the cops figure it's an easy collar--PTSD vet goes off the rails, stalks then kills young woman. But the vet's family hires V.I. to clear his name, and the detective uncovers a chain of ugly truths that stretch all the way from Iraq to Chicago's South Side.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Paretsky's superb 14th novel featuring PI V.I. Warshawski (after Hardball) delves into Chicago's avant-garde art scene. At the trendy Club Gouge, where Warshawski is keeping an eye on Petra, a young cousin who caused trouble in the previous book, performance artist Karen Buckley (aka the Body Artist) invites members of the audience to step on stage to paint her nude body. The intricate design that one woman paints on Karen's back provokes a violent outburst from Chad Vishneski, a troubled Iraqi war veteran. When two nights later, someone shoots the woman who upset Chad outside the club, Chad is the logical murder suspect. Hired by Chad's estranged parents to clear his name, Warshawski straddles a minefield that reaches from the Windy City's neighborhoods to the Gulf War battlefields. Scenes with her aging neighbor and a new love interest give a much needed balance to the serious plot. This strong outing shows why the tough, fiercely independent, dog-loving private detective continues to survive.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon--Private eye Doc Sportello surfaces, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era

“His most accessible book...the author's comical mystery (musings about the end of national innocence) as well as the wordplay so relentlessly present in any of his books, keep Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" from being just another thriller — and ensure it is never less than entertaining”—The Denver Post

In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre that is at once exciting and accessible, provides a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.

It's been a while since Doc Sportello has seen his ex- girlfriend. Suddenly she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. It's the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like "trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Undeniably one of the most influential writers at work today, Pynchon has penned another unforgettable book.

One of the most famous poems in the English language, "The Raven" first appeared in the January 29, 1845, edition of the New York Evening Mirror. It brought Edgar Allan Poe, then in his mid-30s and a well-known poet, critic, and short story writer, his first taste of celebrity on a grand scale. "The Raven" remains Poe's best-known work, yet it is only one of a dazzling series of poems and stories that won him an enduring place in world literature.

This volume contains "The Raven" and 40 others of Edgar Allan Poe's most memorable poems, among them "The Bells," "Ulalume," "Israfel," "To Helen," "The Conqueror Worm," "Eldorado," and "Annabel Lee." Together they reveal the extraordinary spectrum of Poe's personality — his idealism; his visionary qualities; his responsiveness to beauty, to love, and to women; and his susceptibility to the eerie and the morbid. They reveal, too, his virtuoso command of poetic language, rhythms, and figures of speech — command that would make his one of the most distinctive voices in all of poetry.

Sad, funny and perverse - the characters in these short stories are as diverse as the face of modern America. Set in Arizona, the trailer-park dwellers, crystal-reading gurus and disaffected teenagers show that Arizonians have their own way of coping with the emotional connections that shape lives.

Three adult siblings are reunited when one of them is hospitalized with a life-threatening illness. As Julia and Peter face the reality of their younger sister's condition, they are also forced to face unpleasant truths about growing up as missionary kids. As they reminisce about both good and bad memories of their childhood in Africa, Julia and Peter find hope, healing, and forgiveness.

1886 Montana stands on the brink of statehood, and Dianne Selby finds her world turned upside down. Cole takes her and the children to Kansas to care for his dying father, but after the funeral, Cole's mother insists he stay and take over his inheritance. Unable to deal with her mother-in-law's cruel treatment, Dianne takes the children back to Montana alone. There, blizzards devastate the area, trapping a now pregnant Dianne at the ranch. Through the twists and turns of life and nature, Dianne comes to realize that the hope within Jesus Christ is the only hope that lasts.

Love can redeem a man...but secrets and lies can condemn him.

"A frothy brew of mystery, sex, and small-town secrets."
-- People

"Gripping.... You'll be riveted by this multilayeredtale of small-town intrigue."
-- Glamour

"Picoult has carved her own niche with her novels -- one part romance, one part courtroom thriller, two parts social commentary.... She keep[s] the reader constantly guessing."
-- The Dallas Morning News

A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past: Once a teacher at a girls' prep school, Jack St. Bride was destroyed when a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation. Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine, and Addie finds this unassuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls, a quartet of teenage girls harbor dark secrets -- and they maliciously target Jack with a shattering allegation. Now, at the center of a modern-day witch hunt, Jack is forced once again to proclaim his innocence: to a town searching for answers, to a justice system where truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray, and to the woman who has come to love him.

“Since I Laid My Burden Down has a fearless (sometimes reckless) humor as Brontez Purnell interrogates what it means to be black, male, queer; a son, an uncle, a lover; Southern, punk, and human. An emotional tightrope walk of a book and an important American story rarely, if ever, told.” —Michelle Tea, author of Black Wave

DeShawn lives a high, creative, and promiscuous life in San Francisco. But when he’s called back to his cramped Alabama hometown for his uncle’s funeral, he’s hit by flashbacks of handsome, doomed neighbors and sweltering Sunday services. Amidst prickly reminders of his childhood, DeShawn ponders family, church, and the men in his life, prompting the question: Who deserves love?

A raw, funny, and uninhibited stumble down memory lane, Brontez Purnell’s debut novel explores how one man’s early sexual and artistic escapades grow into a life.

I knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be. . . . And yet, I couldn't help staring at him, wondering. However fleeting, there was the slightest hint of doubt in my mind.

Didi Randall doesn't think her life can get much worse than public humiliation when her boyfriend is the subject of a vicious rumor on campus. Despite their four-year relationship, the rumor puts a wedge between her and Drake, but Didi is hopeful that they can reconnect on the winter break cruise. She, Drake, and a handful of Lan-U students will be sailing the high seas of the Caribbean just before the start of the New Year and new semester.

The cruise turns out to anything but happy and carefree when ugly secrets and grudges between friends are revealed. But Didi's troubles go beyond simple public humiliation when she wakes up on deck early in the morning, disoriented, and then learns that Drake is missing. It quickly becomes clear that he must have gone overboard. But was it an accident―or was it murder?

Three-time Edgar Award-winner T. Jefferson Parker, contemporary crime fiction's most critically acclaimed writer, delivers his dark masterpiece. 

Year after year, T. Jefferson Parker delivers powerful novels of depth and intelligence that make it clear that Dutton is not just publishing one of the best crime writers of his generation, but perhaps one of the greatest crime writers ever. The novels in the Charlie Hood cycle are the most accomplished in Parker's long career, and The Border Lords is the pinnacle of what has become the most groundbreaking crime series in decades. 

In this riveting new novel, Parker demonstrates once again why The Washington Post said he writes "the best of today's crime fiction," and why he has won the Edgar Award three times. 

ATF agent Sean Ozburn is deep undercover supporting the sicarios of the Baja Cartel when he suddenly goes completely dark, his only communications being the haunting digital videos he sends to his desperately worried wife, Seliah. Charlie Hood must determine if Oz is simply chasing demons deeper undercover than anyone has ever gone, or whether his friend has suffered a permanent break with his mission and his moral compass. 

A crime novel of unprecedented scope and unrivaled storytelling ambition by one of our most treasured talents, The Border Lords revisits the fevered landscape of America's southern border-and confronts the unexplored depths of humanity's dark soul.

Carrie Seyers, the half sister who appears in the novel Kara, has taken a job caring for two motherless children. Gone for weeks at a time, their handsome father seems to be running from mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of his wife. Carrie find the rumors and innuendos about her boss both frightening and unbelievable.

Should she help Nathan clear his name and conscience? Or will the truth leave her with another broken heart?