Writing to Learn is a process and product-based writing series that spans four levels - beginning, low-intermediate, high-intermediate, and advanced. The goal of the series is is to take students from writing good sentences to writing clear and effective essays. Each book makes use of students' skills and experiences to generate writing topics. Each of the Writing to Learn texts is designed to help students improve their writing for academic and vocational success. Throughout the series an emphasis is placed on vocabulary acquisition, grammar practice, and writing, editing, rewriting, and journaling skills. Writing to Learn, The Paragraph is for low-intermediate students and focuses on paragraph structure and development.

Abby Endicott is chief of the District Attorney’s homicide unit in Boston, where she investigates and prosecutes the city’s most dangerous killers. A member of Beacon Hill’s elite, and a graduate of the Winsor school and then Harvard Law, the prosecutor’s office is not the prestigious job that would have been expected of her. She has been known to change into an evening gown amidst bodies in the morgue. She loves her job, and is committed to it, refusing all pressure to quit from her upper-crust parents or threats from the city’s most ruthless killers. But among Abby’s many secrets is her longtime affair with fellow prosecutor Tim Mooney, a married father of one.One night, Abby is awakened very late by a phone call from her favorite detective, who reports that there has been a horrific murder but is vague about the specifics. When she arrives at the crime scene and discovers the identity of the victim, Abby knows the terror and tragedy are only beginning.In Mission Hill, debut novelist Pamela Wechsler delivers a gripping and very human portrayal of a woman who will stop at nothing to find the truth, even if it challenges everything she believes about justice.

Product Description: Casey Duncan is a homicide detective with a secret: when she was in college, she killed a man. She was never caught, but he was the grandson of a mobster and she knows that someday this crime will catch up to her. Casey's best friend, Diana, is on the run from a violent, abusive ex-husband...read more

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Natalie's Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhan O'Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It's been a rough year for the O'Sullivans, but it's about to get rougher. One morning, as they're opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table with a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest. With the local garda suspecting the O'Sullivans, and their business in danger of being shunned. It's up to feisty redheaded Siobhán to solve the crime and save her beloved brood.

A taut, erotically charged literary noir set in Houston about a woman caught up in her friend’s shocking murder, and the dark truths she uncovers.Before the drugs, Danielle Reeves was Charlotte Ford’s most loyal and vibrant friend. She helped Charlotte through her mother’s illness and death, and opened up about her own troubled family. The two friends were inseparable, reveling in Houston’s shadowy corners. But then Danielle’s addiction got the best of her and she went to prison for four years. When she gets out, she and Charlotte reconnect. Charlotte hopes this is a new start for their friendship.But then, a detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. Danielle has been murdered, bludgeoned to death.Overwhelmed by grief, Charlotte is determined to understand how the most alive person she has ever known could end up dead. But the deeper Charlotte descends into Danielle’s dark world, the less she understands. Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up. Houston has a way of feeding on bad habits and Charlotte doesn’t want to get swallowed whole, a victim of her own anguished desires.

Product Description: A promising young singer is found dead in a clearing in a forest, gruesomely murdered―her larynx cut out, and an antique music box placed carefully atop her body, playing a mysterious lullaby that sounds familiar, but that no one can quite place...read more

Product Description: The Unquiet Dead author Ausma Zehanat Khan once again dazzles in The Language of Secrets, a brilliant mystery woven into a profound and intimate story of humanity.Detective Esa Khattak heads up Canada's Community Policing Section, which handles minority-sensitive cases across all levels of law enforcement...read more

In the 1960s, post-colonial Libya fell prey to the sprawling industrial greed of the West, driven by the discovery of oil. While the modern quarter of Tripoli, built by the Italians, was small and affluent, the rest of the city--like the rest of the nation--was left to fend for itself amid the arid, sandy stretches of North Africa. As tensions mounted between eastern and western ideals, terror began to supplant justice, and acts of religiously motivated violence began to fill some of Tripoli's darkest corners.Against this backdrop, the teenaged Michele Balistreri--a smart young man plagued by thuggish tendencies and a youthful attraction to Fascism--suffered a succession of personal blows that would scar him for life: the death of his mother; a terrible tragedy that befell his best friend's family; and the consequences of his father's role in Gaddafi's rise to power. Worst of all, an innocent blood pact he made as a teenager would come to haunt him as an adult. Four decades later, journalist Linda Nardi is hard at work investigating the shadowy history of the Vatican Bank's involvement in Libya when she suddenly finds her attention diverted to an irresistible story assignment: covering the collapse of Colonel Gaddafi's forty-two year dictatorship. It is only a matter of time before Nardi's research and Balistreri's investigative work as a police commissario bring them into contact. Together they unearth a deadly conspiracy that goes to the top of Rome's power structure that neither of them will ever be able to forget.

Rendered prone to hallucinations by overwork, Quirke investigates suspicions of foul play in the aftermath of a fatal car crash before teaming up with Inspector Hackett to search for a missing pregnant woman who had been in fear of her life. By the award-winning author of The Black-Eyed Blonde. (mystery & detective).

"Fasten your seat belts and prepare to be entertained!" --Maddy Hunter on Toured to DeathFanny and Amy Abel, the dynamic mother-and-daughter owners of a NYC travel agency, have just booked their biggest trip yet. But with danger in the air, the itinerary may include murder... Paisley MacGregor, a maid to the rich, made a dying request to send all of her wealthy employers on a first-class wake to spread her ashes around the world. Amy has her suspicions about these "mourners," especially when one has a life-threatening "accident" at the first stop in Paris. And when a mysterious American stranger tagging along with the group has his ticket punched in the shadow of the Taj Mahal, Amy knows she may have a killer on her tour. Who was this stranger, and what's the connection to someone in her group? Digging for clues while continuing on with the trip is a lot for Amy to manage, especially when another mourner has a possibly fatal encounter with a Hawaiian volcano. Back in the States, Fanny and Amy start to piece together a secret worth killing for, but someone is hot on their trail, and ready to send them on a one-way trip--to the morgue!

In this tour de force of psychological suspense, bestselling author Lisa Black draws from her experience as a forensic investigator to create two of the most fascinating characters in crime fiction: a killer with a unique sense of justice and a woman in a lifelong relationship with death…That DarknessAs a forensic investigator for the Cleveland Police Department, Maggie Gardiner has seen her share of Jane Does. The latest is an unidentified female in her early teens, discovered in a local cemetery. More shocking than the girl's injuries--for Maggie at least--is the fact that no one has reported her missing. She and the detectives assigned to the case (including her cop ex-husband) are determined to follow every lead, run down every scrap of evidence. But the monster they seek is watching every move, closer to them than they could possibly imagine. Jack Renner is a killer. He doesn't murder because he enjoys it, or because he believes himself omnipotent, or for any reason other than to make the world a safer place. When he follows the trail of this Jane Doe to a locked room in a small apartment where eighteen teenaged girls are anything but safe, he knows something must be done. But his pursuit of their captor takes an unexpected turn. Maggie Gardiner finds another body waiting for her in the autopsy room--and a host of questions that will challenge everything she believes about justice, morality, and the true nature of evil. . .

When a twisted killer sets his sights on her, a beautiful woman finds herself back in the arms of her ex-husband, who also happens to be the detective assigned to the case. Original.

USA Today best-selling author For nine long days, the mayor and district attorney of Reno, Nevada, have been missing. Vanished without a trace. Their vehicles were found parked side-by-side at Reno-Tahoe International Airport. Did they fly somewhere together? They aren t on any flight manifest. Did the two of them take off with a big pile of the city s money? If so, the city accountants can t find it. Were they murdered? There s no sign of foul play. Their disappearances have finally made national news. Enter Mortimer Angel, who d just quit a thankless job as an IRS agent. Mort is Reno s newest gumshoe, a private-eye-in-training at his nephew s detective agency. Just four hours into his new career, Mort finds the mayor make that, the mayor s head in the trunk of Mort s ex-wife s Mercedes. The news-hungry media speculates: Did Mort kill the mayor? Did Mort s ex? As events begin to spin out of control, Mort realizes things have been out of control since the night before he started his new career, the night he found the unknown naked blonde in his bed."

Detective Jenna Murphy comes to the Hamptons to solve a murder-but what she finds is more deadly than she could ever imagine.Trying to escape her troubled past and rehabilitate a career on the rocks, former New York City cop Jenna Murphy hardly expects her lush and wealthy surroundings to be a hotbed of grisly depravity. But when a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead in the abandoned Murder House, the gruesome crime scene rivals anything Jenna experienced in Manhattan. And what at first seems like an open and shut case turns out to have as many shocking secrets as the Murder House itself, as Jenna quickly realizes that the mansion's history is much darker than even the town's most salacious gossips could have imagined. As more bodies surface, and the secret that Jenna has tried desperately to escape closes in on her, she must risk her own life to expose the truth-before the Murder House claims another victim. Full of the twists and turns that have made James Patterson the world's #1 bestselling writer, The Murder House is a chilling, page-turning story of murder, money, and revenge.

Rebus comes out of retirement...to save his nemesis. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is feeling the heat. She's investigating the death of a senior government prosecutor, David Minton, who has friends in high places. When one of their own is killed, the powers that be want answers fast. But Clarke is puzzled: if Minton died in a robbery as everyone thinks, why is nothing missing from his home? The answer may lie not in what was taken, but in what was left behind at the scene -- an ominous note. Malcolm Fox is feeling useless. Shunned by his colleagues because of his past in the Complaints bureau, he's been reassigned to a grunt detail, helping a surveillance team -- one that trusts him even less than his own boss does -- track a notorious Glasgow crime family. Helping Clarke with the Minton case is the only thing that makes Fox feel like a real cop. Newly minted civilian John Rebus is feeling restless. Being a cop is in his blood and he's failing miserably at retirement. So when Clarke and Fox ask for his help, Rebus doesn't need long to consider his options. But before he can get his bearings, a call comes from Rebus's old nemesis -- "Big Ger" Cafferty. Someone just fired a bullet through his front window -- and sent him a note identical to Minton's. The normally unflappable old gangster is on edge, but for the life of him Cafferty can't figure out who he's wronged. And the only man he trusts with his life is Rebus. As the cases collide, it's up to Clarke, Fox, and Rebus to connect the dots and save their unlikely ally Cafferty, whose past harbors a shocking secret that implicates Minton's friends in an unspeakable crime. Even Dogs in the Wild reunites crime fiction legend Ian Rankin's greatest characters in an explosive story exploring the darkest corners of our desires.

Even Dogs in the Wild brings back Ian Rankin's greatest characters in a novel that explores the darkest corners of our instincts and desires.Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is investigating the death of a senior lawyer that occurred during a robbery. The case becomes more complex when a note is discovered, indicating that this may have been no random attack. When local gangster Big Ger Cafferty receives an identical message, Clarke decides that the recently retired John Rebus may be able to help. Together the two old adversaries might just stand a chance of saving Cafferty's skin.But a notorious family tailed by a team of undercover detectives has also arrived in Edinburgh. There's something they want, and they'll stop at nothing to get it. As the cases collide, it's a game of dog eat dog-in the city as in the wild.

It's just another day at the office for Detective Edgar "Lefty" Mendieta: abandoned by the woman he loves, demoralized by his city's (nad his nation's) ubiquitous corruption, and in dire need of some psychotherapy. Against this backdrop, he catches the case of Bruno Canizales, a high-powered lawyer with a double life, who was killed by a single silver bullet.Throwing himself into his work, Mendieta begins to piece together the details of Canizales' life. The son of a former government minister, and the lover of a drug lord's daughter, Canizales it seems had a penchant for cross-dressing and edgy sex.In the sweltering city of Culiacán, Mexico's capital of narco-crime, Mendieta scrambles to follow several leads. His dogged pursuit of the killer takes him from glitzy mansions to drug dens, from down-at-the-heels reporters to glamorous transsexuals. When a second, apparently related murder surfaces, Mendieta discovers that his desire to unearth the truth has become as overpowering as any drug.

Assisting a client who would fend off the unwanted attentions of a tenacious man, Stone Barrington is forced to probe into his client's life to clear her name of two brutal crimes only to discover links to a famous missing historical artifact. By the Edgar Award-winning author of Chiefs. (action & adventure). Simultaneous.

An extraordinarily beautiful Amish woman, a dangerous femme fatale, is the central figure in Linda Castillo's Her Last Breath, a story that reveals a dark side of Painters Mill and its seemingly perfect Amish worldA rainy night, an Amish father returning home with his three children, a speeding car hurtling toward them out of nowhere.What at first seems like a tragic, but routine car accident suddenly takes on a more sinister cast as evidence emerges that nothing about the crash is accidental. But who would want to kill an Amish deacon and two of his children? He leaves behind a grieving widow and a young boy who clings to life in the intensive care wing of a hospital, unable to communicate. He may be the only one who knows what happened that night. Desperate to find out who killed her best friend's husband and why, Kate begins to suspect she is not looking for a reckless drunk, but instead is on the trail of a cold blooded killer amid the residents of Painter's Mill. It is a search that takes her on a chilling journey into the darkest reaches of the human heart and makes her question everything she has ever believed about the Amish culture into which she was born.

A Smithsonian Best Book of the YearFukuoka Prison, 1944.  Beyond the prison walls, the war rages.  Inside, a man is found brutally murdered.  What follows is a searing portrait of Korea before their civil war, and a testimony to the redemptive power of poetry.  Watanbe Yuichi, a young guard with a passion for reading, is ordered to investigate a murder. The victim, Sugiyama, also a guard, was feared and despised throughout the prison and inquiries have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanbe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the suspect and Yun Dong-ju, a talented Korean poet, he starts to realize that the fearsome guard was not all he appeared to be... As Watanbe unravels Sugiyama's final months, he begins to discover what is really going on inside this dark and violent institution, which few inmates survive: a man who will stop at nothing to dig his way to freedom; a governor whose greed knows no bounds; a little girl whose kite finds an unlikely friend. And Yun Dong-ju―the poet whose works hold such beauty the can break the hardest of hearts. As the war moves towards its devastating close and bombs rain down upon the prison, Watanbe realizes that he must find a way to protect Yun Dong-ju, no matter what it takes. As he digs further and further in to his investigation, the young guard discovers a devastating truth. At once a captivating mystery and an epic lament for lost freedom and humanity, The Investigation, inspired by a true story, is a sweeping and gripping tale by an international literary star.