T. Ryder Smith

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.

Featuring his witty, beloved cartoons throughout, a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist sketches out his life in this memoir in which he discusses his hapless place in his indelibly dysfunctional family, professes his love for New York City, and explores the origins of creativity.

David Binder is a young, successful writer living in Chicago and suffering from writer's block. He stares at the blank page, and the blank page stares back harder. So when his agent suggests maybe a lighter sophomore novel, maybe something genre that they can sell real quick and buy him some more time to pen his magnum opus, he's quick to recall an old ghost story he once heard. With his pregnant wife and his young daughter in toe, he sets out for...

The first book of James Thompson's Inspector Vaara series won immediate critical acclaim for a sterling tale set in the brutal cold and soul-testing isolation of kaamos, Finland's two weeks of utter darkness. Even as the unrelenting winter conditions tighten their grip on the residents of the Lapland town, a lovely Somali movie star is found murdered, a racial slur cut into her chest. "Masterful."-Michael Connelly

The author of nine novels, Clyde Edgerton has built a reputation as a sage commentator on the American experience. In The Night Train, Edgerton weaves the ultimately uplifting tale of friends Dwayne, a James Brown-inspired crooner, and Larry, apprentice to a jazz musician. One black, one white, Dwayne and Larry face daunting challenges to their friendship-and futures-in 1960s America.

It is the time of the Great Depression. Thousands have left their homes looking for a better life, a new life. But Marcus Connelly is not one of them. He searches for one thing and one thing only. Revenge. Because out there, riding the rails, stalking the camps, is the scarred vagrant who murdered Connelly's daughter. No one knows him, but everyone knows his name, Mr. Shivers. In this extraordinary debut, Robert Jackson Bennett tells the story...

A hardened young veteran from the First World War, Ludwig now works for a monument company, selling stone markers to the survivors of deceased loved ones. Though ambivalent about his job, he suspects there's more to life than earning a living off other people's misfortunes. A self-professed poet, Ludwig soon senses a growing change in his fatherland, a brutality brought upon it by inflation. When he falls in love with the beautiful but troubled Isabelle,...

"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"...

A musician and songwriter, Clyde Edgerton has penned multiple best-sellers and has had five of his novels named New York Times Notable Books. In The Bible Salesman, Preston Clearwater is scoring cash working a car-theft ring in post-World War II North Carolina. When he picks up 19-year-old Bible salesman Henry Dampier, Preston convinces the kid that he's an FBI spy. And before Henry knows what's up, he finds himself in way over his head with no apparent...

With several acclaimed novels under her belt, Nanci Kincaid is praised for her raw, edgy Southern tales. Leaving their sleepy Mississippi home behind, brother and sister Truely and Courtney Noonan head west. There they drift apart, only to reunite, as they lay down new roots in Southern California.