THE STAND – STEPHEN KING

A FAMILY IN TURMOIL. A COUNTRY IN CRISIS. ALL DEBTS MUST BE SETTLED   Sarah Lund is contacted by old flame Mathias Borch from National Intelligence. Borch fears that what first appeared to be a random killing at the docks is the beginning of an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Troels Hartmann. The murder draws attention towards the shipping and oil giant, Zeeland, run by billionaire Robert Zeuthen. When Zeuthen’s 9-year-old daughter, Emilie, is kidnapped the investigation takes on a different dimension as it soon becomes clear that her disappearance is linked to the murder of a young girl in Jutland some years earlier. Hartmann is in the middle of an election campaign, made all the more turbulent because of the mounting financial crisis. He needs Zeeland’s backing. Lund needs to make sense of the clues left by Emilie’s perpetrator before it’s too late. And can she finally face the demons that have long haunted her? Lund’s last case is now adapted from screen to page in the final instalment of The Killing trilogy. This is an adaptation — not a novelisation. So if you’ve seen The Killing III on TV expect plenty of surprises, included a changed cast and an entirely different ending.

Homeland Security Secretary Catherine Blaine receives a frightening communication from a hacker identified only by the pseudonym Janus. The message is the latest in a series correctly predicting natural disasters around the world—disasters that, Janus claims, were manufactured, not natural at all. And, according to the email, unless the United States does as Janus instructs, another disaster is coming—a Category 5 hurricane that will hit the Eastern Seaboard and destroy the lives of tens of millions of people. Unaware of the crisis in Washington, investigative journalist Jon Mallory stumbles on a list of seven prominent scientists who have been murdered over the past dozen years. When the person who gave him the list disappears herself, Jon realizes he has unwittingly become part of a deadly chain of events and contacts his brother, private intelligence contractor Charles, for help. Meanwhile, Catherine Blaine has also come to Charles for help tracking down the hacker Janus and uncovering the frightening new weather technology that threatens the world.

Opar, the lost colony of Atlantis, is hidden deep in the heart of Africa, awash with incredible riches. From this ancient city comes Hadon, an impoverished but ambitious young man who sets out to win the great games of Klakor, and thus become king of the Khokarsan Empire. As his quest for the throne leads him into the wild lands beyond the empire's edge, Hadon finds himself embroiled in a bloody civil war. Featuring a brand-new introduction and afterword by Christopher Paul Carey (Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost Khokarsa)