While home on Christmas holiday, a seventeen-year-old Senate page takes her dog out for a walk and never returns. Reporter Cassidy Shaw is the first to break the story. The media firestorm that ensues quickly ensnares Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce and FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedge . . . who just happen to be Cassidy's best friends. It appears the young page was romantically involved with a senator-a senator now under suspicion for her disappearance.

As time begins to run out for the missing girl, Cassidy, Allison, and Nicole fight to locate her before it's too late, even while each fights her own personal battles-a stalker, single-motherhood, and an abusive relationship.

A taut, psychological thriller ripped from today's headlines, Shock Point deftly explores the cutting edge issue of behavioral drugs while taking readers on a roller coaster ride of action and suspense.

MSTBF8
(must be fate)

A sophisticated art expert tells Claire the painting isn't valuable. Why, then, is she being followed, her hotel room getting ransacked, and her life being thrown in a state of havoc that reaches back to her quiet home in Portland? The closer Claire comes to the truth about her inherited masterpiece, the more questions--and trouble--she uncovers. Though offers of help are arriving in very intriguing packages, Claire is caught in the middle of a dangerous tug-of-war that can leave her either richer in body, soul, and bank book--or broken, battered, and pushing up daisies.

For others, Henry's vivid and nightmarish 14-page description is more than up to the task.

In Learning to Fly, the pileup is triggered by a freak eastern Oregon dust storm. Nineteen-year-old heroine Free Meeker is headed home--though not exactly rushing--to tell her laid-back, nonjudgmental, aging hippie parents that she's pregnant. Even more unexpected than the horrific 52-car collision from which she's walked away is the fact that the next day, before she can contact her family, the newspaper reports her among the fatalities.

"She didn't feel like a dead person--but she didn't feel real, either. Wearing only a borrowed muumuu, she was sitting cross-legged on a sagging double bed in a room at the Stay-A-While Motor Inn, three blocks from the hospital. During the night Free has gotten only snatches of sleep. Each time she closed her eyes, she saw dead people, cars cartwheeling through the air, the orange bloom of fire. Over and over again, she has flinched awake, hearing the squeal of tearing metal and the terrible boom of impacts in her dreams."

This is a substantially loaded deck, and Free's intuitively self-preserving ability (after all, she has another life to consider) to play her own hand in response is what makes the novel, Henry's fourth, such compulsive reading. A classic tale of an innocent on the lam, Learning to Fly has the kind of plot that would have made Hitchcock smile in evil anticipation of its cinematic possibilities. And it's the kind of story that makes A Simple Plan by comparison look... simple. --Otto Penzler

Once upon a time, Clair Montrose was a mousy employee in the Oregon State License Plate Division approving vanity plates. Now this part-time sleuth has an artist boyfriend in New York City and a quirky group of friends and family that keep her happy in Portland. But danger is never far away...

Helpp!

When her friend and former coworker, Lori, calls with an urgent request, Claire can't say no. Lori's son is ill, and his only hope is a bone marrow transplant from a sibling. Long ago, Lori had a baby -- a girl she gave up for adoption to a secretive agency. Now, she needs Clair to find her long-lost daughter.

Dangrus

Scouring the city, Claire has little to go on besides common sense and her own two feet. Using her wits, charm, and savvy sleuthing skills, she begins to dig up old secrets -- secrets someone will kill to keep buried. Now, it's not just a young boy's life hanging in the balance, but Clair's as well.

Hand of Fate begins with a suspected terrorist attack, when outspoken radio talk show host Jim Fate is killed by poisonous gas while his show, "The Hand of Fate" is on the air. In the ensuing panic, downtown Portland is evacuated and FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges is trapped in a high-rise building.  Crime reporter Cassidy Shaw is the only journalist brave enough to report from the scene as chaos overtakes the streets.  And federal prosecutor Allison Pierce ends up rescuing a toddler separated from her family and taking her to one of the city's overwhelmed hospitals.  In the days following Fate's murder, the three colleagues and friends team up to uncover the secrets behind it - and reveal a few secrets of their own.

While home on Christmas break, a seventeen-year-old Senate page takes her dog out for a walk and never returns. Reporter Cassidy Shaw is the first to break the story. The resulting media firestorm quickly ensnares Federal Prosecutor Allison Pierce and FBI Special Agent Nicole Hedges. The three unique women are life-long friends who call themselves The Triple Threat--a nickname derived from their favorite dessert and their uncanny ability to crack cases via their three positions of power.

Though authorities think Katie might have been kidnapped or run away, those theories shatter when Nicole uncovers Katie's blog. They reveal a girl troubled by a mysterious relationship with an older man. Possibly a U.S. Senator.

As the three women race against time to find Katie alive, their increasing emotional involvement brings out their own inner demons and external enemies. There are many faces of betrayal, but they must find one face in a crowd of growing suspects before they become the next victims.

In Face of Betrayal, Lis Wiehl's expertise in law, politics, and criminal investigation merges with April Henry's narrative genius to create a gripping mystery filled with rich characters, real danger, and a shocking yet satisfying final twist.