"Firefighter Cole Brannigan is on the verge of retirement after 30 years on the job, and a decade fighting dragons. But during his final fire call, he discovers he's immune to dragon smoke. It's such a rare power that he's immediately conscripted into the elite dragon-fighting force known as the Smoke Eaters. Retirement cancelled, Brannigan is re-assigned as a lowly rookie, chafing under his superiors. So when he discovers a plot to take over the...

An ordinary housecat is seen from the different perspectives of a child and various animals.

From a contemporary master of the short story: a dazzling new collection-his first in fifteen years-that explores the unpredictable and mysterious in seemingly ordinary experience. These interrelated stories are arranged in two sections, one devoted to virtues ("Bravery," "Loyalty," "Chastity," "Charity," and "Forbearance") and the other to vices ("Lust," "Sloth," "Avarice," "Gluttony," and "Vanity"). They are cast with characters who appear and reappear...

During the darkest time of the year in Lapland, Finland, a beautiful Somali immigrant is found dead and mutilated in a snowfield, and as Inspector Kari Vaara looks into the killing, he tries to keep the case out of the headlines; the investigation puts a strain on his marriage to his young American wife as he tracks down the prime suspect, who may be the wealthy man his ex-wife left him for years earlier.

"After a mysterious, silent child is found abandoned on the beach clutching a handheld video game, residents and tourists alike find themselves utterly unable to sleep. Exhaustion impairs judgment, delusions become hysteria, and mob rule explodes into shocking violence. Told from three perspectives: Chief of Police Mays tries to keep order, teenaged tourist Cort and her friends compete in a dangerous social media contest for the most hours awake,...

"Make Something Up is a compilation of 21 stories and one novella (some previously published, some not) that will disturb and delight. The absurdity of both life and death are on full display: In "Zombies," the best and brightest of a high school prep school become tragically addicted to the latest drug craze: electric shocks from cardiac defibrillators. In "Knock, Knock," a son hopes to tell one last off-color joke to a father in his final moments,...

Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the Navy, and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D.L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are. Hounded...

Chiro, a young bat, is nervous about flying into the world for the first time without his mother, especially on a very dark night, but he soon learns to rely on his "song" to find his way and stay safe.

The authors chronicle the last months of their six-year-old daughter Elena's life after a cancerous tumor was found lodged in her brain stem, covering their attempts at experimental treatment and struggle with grief and anger while trying to remain positive.

"As investigators brought out the bagged remains of several dozen young men from a small Chicago ranch home and paraded them in front of a crowd of TV reporters and spectators, attention quickly turned to the owner of the house. John Gacy was an upstanding citizen, active in local politics and charities, famous for his themed parties and appearances as Pogo the Clown. But in the winter of 1978-79, he became known as one of many so-called "sex murderers"...