In Lisa Gardner’s first-ever short story following thirteen bestselling novels, The 7^th Month takes readers between the novels and into a day in the life of Boston Detective D.D. Warren. In her seventh month of pregnancy, D.D. should be taking it easy. Instead, she accepts a small consulting role on the set of a serial killer film shooting in Boston. D.D. figures she’ll be useful to someone for at least one night, serving as a police expert and making a little extra money in the bargain.Headline
February 2012

A simple task, until a member of the crew, a former Boston cop, is found beaten to death.  Suddenly, D.D.’s date with Hollywood gets serious. Extremely pregnant, on the trail of a killer, surrounded by a hundred and four murder suspects in the middle of a graveyard, D.D. must quickly unravel a tangled web of lies.  As another cast member is attacked, D.D. realizes that like it or not, her priorities have changed—and her last desperate hope is that she can catch a killer before she and her unborn baby face mortal danger.

Packed with the suspense storytelling that has turned Gardner’s novels into New York Times bestsellers, The 7^th Month reveals new insights into a beloved series heroine. Includes an exclusive early look at Catch Me, coming February 2, 2012.

In four days someone is going to kill me…

At 8pm on 21st January, twenty-eight year old Charlie Grant believes she is going to be murdered and she wants Boston’s top homicide detective, D.D. Warren, to handle her death investigation.

Confronting D.D. at her latest crime scene, Charlie lays her cards on the table. For each of the last two years, one of her childhood friends has been murdered leaving Charlie as the only one of the three friends to remain alive.

But as D.D. delves deeper in to the details of Charlie’s case, she begins to question the young woman’s story. Because Charlie can now outfight and outrun anyone she meets and D.D.’s instinct is that she’s hiding a secret. A secret so explosive that Charlie herself may turn out to be the biggest danger of all…

…but the son of a bitch has got to catch me first.

Pushed to the brink by an abusive husband, state police trooper Tessa Leoni finally snapped and shot him in self-defense. But Tessa isn’t talking–not about her dead husband, her battered face, or her missing six-year old daughter. Now, Detective D.D. Warren will have to race against the clock to unearth family secrets, solve a murder and save a child.

He knows everything about you—including the first place you’ll hide.

On a warm summer night in one of Boston’s working-class neighborhoods, an unthinkable crime has been committed: Four members of a family have been brutally murdered. The father—and possible suspect—now lies clinging to life in the ICU. Murder-suicide? Or something worse? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain of only one thing: There’s more to this case than meets the eye.

Danielle Burton is a survivor, a dedicated nurse whose passion is to help children at a locked-down pediatric psych ward. But she remains haunted by a family tragedy that shattered her life nearly twenty-five years ago. The dark anniversary is approaching, and when D. D. Warren and her partner show up at the facility, Danielle immediately realizes: It has started again.

A devoted mother, Victoria Oliver has a hard time remembering what normalcy is like. But she will do anything to ensure that her troubled son has some semblance of a childhood. She will love him no matter what. Nurture him. Keep him safe. Protect him. Even when the threat comes from within her own house.

This is what happened …

It was a case guaranteed to spark a media feeding frenzy-a young mother, blond and pretty, disappears without a trace from her South Boston home, leaving behind her four-year-old daughter as the only witness and her handsome, secretive husband as the prime suspect.

In the last six hours …

But from the moment Detective Sergeant D. D. Warren arrives at the Joneses’ snug little bungalow, she senses something off about the picture of wholesome normality the couple worked so hard to create. On the surface, Jason and Sandra Jones are like any other hardworking young couple raising a four-year-old child. But it is just under the surface that things grew murkier.

Of the world as I knew it …

With the clock ticking on the life of a missing woman and the media firestorm building, Jason Jones seems more intent on destroying evidence and isolating his daughter than on searching for his “beloved” wife. Is the perfect husband trying to hide his guilt-or just trying to hide? And will the only witness to the crime be the killer’s next victim?

Come into my parlor …

For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be true-but prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care.

Said the spider to the fly …

As a member of the Evidence Response Team, dead hookers aren’t exactly Kimberly’s specialty. The young agent is five months pregnant-she has other things to worry about than an alleged lunatic who uses spiders to do his dirty work. But Kimberly’s own mother and sister were victims of a serial killer. And now, without any bodies and with precious few clues, it’s all too clear that a serial killer has found the key to the perfect murder … or Kimberly is chasing a crime that never happened.

Kimberly’s caught in a web more lethal than any spider’s, and the more she fights for answers, the more tightly she’s trapped. What she doesn’t know is that she’s close-too close-to a psychopath who makes women’s nightmares come alive, and if he has his twisted way, it won’t be long before it’s time for Kimberly to … Say Goodbye.

You have good reason to be afraid …

It was a case that haunts Bobby Dodge to this day-the case that nearly killed him and changed his life forever. Now, in an underground chamber on the grounds of an abandoned Massachusetts mental hospital, the gruesome discovery of six mummified corpses resurrects his worst nightmare: the return of a killer he thought dead and buried.

There’s no place to run …

Bobby’s only lead is wrapped around a dead woman’s neck. Annabelle Granger has been in hiding for as long as she can remember. Her childhood was a blur of new cities and assumed identities. But what-or who-her family was running from, she never knew. Now, a body is unearthed from a grave, wearing a necklace bearing Annabelle’s name, and the danger is too close to escape. This time, she’s not going to run.

You know he will find you …

The new threat could be the dead psychopath’s copycat, his protégé-or something far more terrifying. Dodge knows the only way to find him is to solve the mystery of Annabelle Granger, and to do that he must team up with his former lover, partner, and friend D. D. Warren from the Boston P.D. But the trail leads back to a woman from Bobby’s past who may be every bit as dangerous as the new killer-a beautiful survivor-turned-avenger with an eerie link to Annabelle.

From its tense opening pages to its shocking climax, HIDE is a thriller that delves into our deepest, darkest fears. Where there is no one to trust. Where there is no place left to hide.

When someone you love vanishes without a trace, how far would you go to get them back?

For ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, it’s the beginning of his worst nightmare: a car abandoned on a desolate stretch of Oregon highway, engine running, purse on the driver’s seat. And his estranged wife, Rainie Conner, gone, leaving no clue to her fate.

Did one of the ghosts from her troubled past finally catch up with Rainie? Or could her disappearance be the result of one of the cases they’d been working-a particularly vicious double homicide or the possible abuse of a deeply disturbed child Rainie took too close to heart? Together with his daughter, FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Pierce is battling the local authorities, racing against time and frantically searching for answers to all the questions he’s been afraid to ask.
One man knows what happened that night. Adopting the moniker from an eighty-year old murder, he has already contacted the press. His terms are clear: he wants money, he wants power, he wants celebrity. And if he doesn’t get what he wants, Rainie will be gone for good.

Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, it’s still not enough.

It’s where you’re most vulnerable … It’s where there’s no one to hear you cry for help … It’s the last place you want to be when this killer comes … ALONE

Alone… Massachusetts State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches a tense hostage standoff unfold through the scope of his sniper rifle. Just across the street, in wealthy Back Bay, Boston, an armed man has barricaded himself with his wife and child. The man’s finger tightens on the trigger and Dodge has only a split second to react … and forever pay the consequences.

Alone…that’s where the nightmare began for cool, beautiful, and dangerously sexy Catherine Rose Gagnon. Twenty-five years ago, she was buried underground during a month-long nightmare of abduction and abuse. Now, her husband has just been killed. Her father-in-law, the powerful Judge Gagnon, blames Catherine for his death … and for the series of unexplained illnesses that have sent her own young son repeatedly to the hospital.

Alone … he survived solitary confinement in a maximum security prison where he’d done hard time for the most sadistic of crimes. Now he walks the streets a free man, invisible, anonymous… and filled with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance. What brings Bobby and Catherine together is a moment of violence – but what connects them is a passion far deeper and much more dangerous. For a killer is loose who’s woven such an intricate web of evil no one is above suspicion, no one is beyond harm, and no one will see death coming until it has them cornered, helpless, and alone.

Each time he struck, he took two victims.

Day after day, he waited for the first body to be discovered-a body containing all the clues the investigators needed to find the second victim, who waited … prey to a slow but certain death.

The clock ticked-salvation was possible.

The police were never in time.

Years have passed; but for this killer, time has stood still. As a heat wave of epic proportions descends, the game begins again. Two girls have disappeared … and the clock is ticking.

Rookie FBI agent Kimberly Quincy knows the killer’s deadline can be met. But she’ll have to break some rules to beat an exactingly vicious criminal at a game he’s had time to perfect.

For the Killing Hour has arrived …

The first rule is never blame the victim. They survived what no woman should ever have to endure. Now these three women have the means, the opportunity, and the perfect motive. Are they trying to get away with murder-or is someone trying to make sure that this time they don’t get away at all?

The Survivors Club … that’s what Jillian Hayes, Carol Rosen, and Meg Pesaturo call it. They won’t consider themselves victims. They are survivors. They faced the blazing headlines and helped lead the investigation that caught the man who changed their lives forever. And now that Eddie Como, the College Hill rapist, has been murdered, shot down outside a packed courthouse moments before his trial was about to begin, all three women are openly ecstatic that he’s dead. They are also the prime suspects in his murder.

Detective Sergeant Roan Griffin knows all too well what can drive even the best people to cross the line. But he has never seen a case quite like this one. No one doubts that the murder of Eddie Como was a professional job, especially when the gunman is killed only blocks away from the shooting. But questions taunt Griffin: Who ordered the deaths of Eddie Como and his killer? Could three ordinary women have been driven to do the unthinkable? Had someone in the Survivors Club become a killer?

Griffin seeks the truth-and finds himself confronted with the leader of the Survivors Club. Jillian Hayes is beautiful, successful, cool as ice, and she harbors a pain that mirrors Griffin’s own. Did the horror of what happened to her push her over the thin and desperate line that separates survival and revenge? And if it did, could he blame her-or anyone in the Survivors Club?

Then another woman is brutally attacked … Suddenly, with the city on the ragged edge of panic, gripped in a media and political firestorm of controversy, cover-up, and conspiracy, the hunt is on for a ruthless and cunning killer. For Griffin, this may well be the case that shatters his career. For Jillian, the harrowing nightmare is beginning all over again. Someone is out there. Someone who wants to finish what was started. Someone who wants to make sure that no one survives the Survivors Club.

What do you do when a killer targets the people you love most? How do you protect them when he knows their most secret fears and hidden desires? When he knows just when to strike? And, most of all, when he knows the same about you?

These are the questions that haunt FBI Special Agent Pierce Quincy. The official police report concluded that his daughter’s death was an accident. Amanda Quincy was driving drunk when her car careened out of control. Pierce knew about his daughter’s problem with alcohol. He knew about her loneliness and insecurity. And so, he is certain, did the man who killed her. Quincy is prepared to risk everything to learn the dangerous truth about Amanda’s death—and there’s only one person willing to help.

Rainie Conner knows all too well the dark side of the human heart. An ex-cop haunted by her own violent past, she had once been paired professionally—and personally—with the brilliant, supremely logical FBI profiler. Quincy had helped Rainie through the harrowing case that shattered her career and left her charged with first-degree murder. Now it’s time for Rainie to return the favor.

But this killer is like none these two hard-boiled pros have ever encountered. This twisted psychopath has an insatiable hunger for revenge … and for fear. He isn’t satisfied with taking his victim’s lives. He wants to get inside their minds, strip them of every defense, render them powerless to resist. He’s already killed twice; now he’s taunting Quincy and Rainie by making it no secret who his next victim will be: Quincy’s only surviving daughter.

The killer’s plan is chilling, brilliant, and unstoppable. The cops won’t help; the FBI can’t be trusted. As the clock ticks down to the final minutes of one unspeakable intimate act of vengeance, the only way Rainie can unmask this faceless killer is to step directly in his murderous path. She will become a murder waiting to happen. She will be … the next accident.

The past isn’t over.

An unspeakable act has ripped apart the idyllic town of Bakersville, Oregon, and its once peaceful residents are demanding quick justice. But though a boy has confessed to the horrific crime, evidence shows he may not be guilty.

Officer Rainie Conner, leading her first homicide investigation, stands at the center of the controversy. It’s hitting too close to home, bringing back her worst nightmares, threatening to expose her secret sins. But with the boy’s life at stake, she won’t let anything stop her from finding the real killer.

With the help of FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, Rainie comes closer to a deadly truth than she can imagine. Because out there in the shadows a man watches her and plots his next move. He knows her secrets. He kills for sport. He’s already brought death to Bakersville and forever shattered the community. But what he has really come for is Rainie-and he won’t leave until he has destroyed her.

Finalist for WHSmith’s “A Thumping Good Read.”

What you don’t know can kill you.

In Texas a serial killer is executed, taking to his grave the identity of his only child. In Boston a nine-year-old girl is abandoned in a hospital, then adopted by a wealthy young couple. Twenty years later, Melanie Stokes still considers herself lucky. Until …

Melanie had lost all memory of her life before the adoption, and now someone wants to give it back. Even if it includes the darkest nightmare the Stokes family ever faced: the murder of their first daughter in Texas. As Melanie pursues every lead, chases every shadow in the search for her real identity, two seemingly unrelated events from twenty years ago will come together in a dangerous explosion of truth. And with her very life at stake, Melanie will fear that the family she loves the most may be the people she should trust the least

Jim Beckett was everything she’d ever dreamed of. But two years after Tess married the decorated cop and bore his child, she helped put him behind bars for savagely murdering ten women. Even locked up in a maximum security prison, he vowed he would come after her and make her pay. Now the cunning killer has escaped-and the most dangerous game of all begins…

After a lifetime of fear, Tess will do something she’s never done before. She’s going to learn to protect her daughter and fight back, with the help of a burned-out ex-marine. As the largest manhunt four states have ever seen mobilizes to catch Beckett, the clock winds down to the terrifying reunion between husband and wife. And Tess knows that this time, her only choices are to kill-or be killed.