Danger in numbers

When a heart attack takes her Florida Department of Law Enforcement partner John Schultz out of commission, Special Agent Amy Larson joins forces with FBI Agent Hunter Forrest to solve the ritualistic murder of a young woman. All signs indicate an active cult deep in the heart of the Everglades and clues at the crime scene point to more murders to come. The locals claim to know nothing, but someone knows more than they're saying. Is there a connection to one of the many local churches? What about the missing woman who's been hiding from someone or something at the old motel? Hunter's inside knowledge of how cults operate and Amy's crime scene sketches give them a starting point, but the twisted mix of faith, greed, and corruption isn't going to be easy to decode and stop. As the case intensifies, so does the attraction between Amy and Hunter. Fans of Allison Brennan's romantic suspense will enjoy this hot new stand-alone from veteran author Graham (Dreaming Death, 2020).

In this uneven suspense novel from bestseller Graham (The Rising with Jon Land), 29-year-old special agent Amy Larson of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and John Schultz, her FDLE partner of two years, look into a young woman's ritualistic murder at a remote site on the edge of the Everglades. Amy's knack for making sketches at crime scenes that have proved useful has earned her the respect of 50-year-old John, a career FDLE agent. The case, one that involves several similar murders, attracts the attention of FBI special agent Hunter Forrest, who specializes in ritualistic killings, extremists, and the occult. When a heart attack sidelines John, Amy joins forces with Hunter to investigate the odd murders, and her sketches lead the agents to a chilling cult. The pair's vivid trek through rural Florida and the growing romantic heat between them help make up for the familiar plot and routine dialogue. Graham's first standalone hardcover in more than 10 years entertains despite its flaws. Agent: Lucy Childs, Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (Mar.)

The prequel to Downing's World War II Berlin-set "Station" series, Wedding Station introduces John Russell, an English crime reporter at a Berlin newspaper whose grim tales of everyday mayhem are increasingly swallowed by the darkness descending upon Germany under new chancellor Hitler. Graham's latest stand-alone, Danger in Numbers, a state police agent links arms with an FBI specialist on cults to solve a ritualistic murder in small-town northern Florida (125,000-copy first printing). In Kayode's Lightseekers, Nigerian investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo travels to a remote town in his country's south to probe the public torture and murder of three university students in what he comes to realize is a lot more than a moment of crowd madness. In her #ownvoices debut, London-based criminal attorney Matheson, of the City University Crime Writing competition, sets DI Anjelica Henley the unenviable task of stopping a criminal imitating The Jigsaw Man before the real hack-up-his-victims killer gets the copycat himself (100,000-copy first printing). In The Red Book, from Patterson and Illinois justice/Edgar Award winner Ellis (Line of Vision), Det. Bill Harney of the Chicago PD's Special Operations Section is fresh on the job and walking the finest of lines when the turmoil surrounding a drive-by shooting turns political (520,000-copy first printing). In Rollins's Kingdom of Bones, Sigma Force faces huge swaths of Africa where the populace has turned quiescent even as plants and animals become cunningly fierce; has the biosphere run amok or is fiendish engineering involved (250,000-copy first printing)?