Criminal defense attorney Martin Vail is brilliant and confident. He is accustomed to fabricating and selling the truth while seeking the glory in the media spotlight. When he learns of the gruesome murder of a local Catholic archbishop, he immediately decides to defend the accused penniless altar boy. But Vail soon discovers that nothing is as it seems, as he becomes tangled in a web of lies, corruption and betrayal.

Sam Spade is a partner in a private-eye firm who finds himself hounded by police when his partner is killed while tailing a man. The woman who asked his partner to follow the man turns out to be someone who is not what she says she is, and is really involved in something to do with the 'Maltese Falcon', a gold-encrusted life-sized statue of a falcon, the only one of its kind.

Jack is a movie sound-effects man who believes he has accidentally recorded a political assassination. He enlists the help of Sally, a possible eyewitness to the crime who may be in danger herself, to uncover the truth. With its jolting stylistic flourishes, intricate plot, profoundly felt characterizations, and gritty evocation of early-1980s Philadelphia, this is an American paranoia thriller unlike any other, as well as a devilish reflection on...

Brendon Frye is a loner, someone who always knows all the angles but has chosen to stay on the outside. When the girl he loves turns up dead, he is determined to find the 'who' and 'why'.

Hank, a retired Sergeant with the Military Police, receives a call informing him that his youngest son, Mike, has gone AWOL. He thought his son was in Iraq, but is informed that Mike returned stateside four days ago with his platoon. When he calls his son's cell phone and gets voice mail, he drives to Fort Rudd and begins to make inquiries, but with each inquiry he comes to a dead end. Then a body is found, dismembered and burned beyond recognition...

Rusty Sabich's been swept up in an obsessive affair with a coworker in the prosecutor's office. When she is murdered, he's asked to lead the investigation. Then, astonishingly, he's accused of the crime. He's the perfect suspect, and his fight to clear his name pulls him into a whirlpool of lies and secrets.