Most Wanted

February 8, 2016
Christine and Marcus Nilsson, the Connecticut couple at the heart of this uneven standalone from bestseller Scottoline (Every Fifteen Minutes), have decided to use a sperm-bank donor after three years struggling to have a baby. No. 3319’s identity is anonymous, but, like many donors, he submitted two photographs—one as a child, one as an adult. While on early leave from her job as an elementary school teacher, pregnant Christine becomes convinced that the donor is Zachary Jeffcoat, who’s being called “the Nurse Murderer” in a TV newscast after his arrest. Christine begins her own investigation to determine if the biological father of her child is a serial killer, even if it puts her life and her marriage at risk. The plot is strongest when focusing on the trials of a couple desperate for a child and the psychological ramifications of using a sperm donor. But too often the story sinks to the melodramatic, unredeemed by Scottoline’s usual verve for character. Agent: Molly Friedrich, Friedrich Literary Agency. Author tour; 400,000-copy first printing.

April 29, 1996
Published in hardcover as Wild Justice, Pierce's first novel tells of a woman who launches her own investigation of the high-power Washington, D.C. banking exec whom she suspects of murdering her daughter.

March 1, 2016
A Connecticut teacher's long-sought and hard-fought pregnancy turns into a nightmare when Scottoline (Corrupted, 2015, etc.) unleashes one of her irresistible hooks on her. Forced to extreme measures because her dreamy husband, Marcus, is sterile, Christine Nilsson has finally gotten pregnant using sperm from anonymous Donor 3319. At the party the staff at Nutmeg Hill Elementary have thrown to celebrate her departure, she gets a look at a serial killer doing his perp walk on TV, and he's the spitting image of Donor 3319. When the Homestead Bank refuses to confirm or deny the identity of the donor, Christine and Marcus react in dramatically different ways. Marcus is determined to sue Homestead and whomever else is necessary to find out once and for all whether the father of the child he's awaited so long has killed at least three nurses from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Christine persuades her best friend, Lauren Weingarten, to accompany her to West Chester, Pennsylvania, where Zachary Jeffcoat has been incarcerated, to ask him whether he's Donor 3319. But Zachary is considerably shrewder and more manipulative than Christine, and before she knows it, she's helping him instead of vice versa, finding him a raffish lawyer, volunteering to work as an unpaid paralegal to help with his defense, and interviewing the latest victim's neighbors. As usual, the complications aren't quite up to the level of the startling hook, and Christine needs more than a bit of luck to dig up the information she seeks. Along the way, she finds out a good many other things she definitely wasn't looking for. The fairy-tale ending calls for some convenient coincidences and changes of heart, but Scottoline's legion of fans will be too relieved to object.

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March 15, 2016
Christine and Marcus Nilsson are finally experiencing the joy of parenthood after turning to a sperm bank. But when Christine catches a news update on the capture of a serial killer preying on nurses in the Philadelphia area, she's shocked at the killer's resemblance to a photo she's seen of her baby's donor. Homestead Bank claims they can't reveal Donor 3319's full identity. As the stress takes a toll on her marriage, Christine resolves to discover if her donor is the killer and visits Zachary Jeffcoat in prison. Posing as a freelance journalist, she coaxes Jeffcoat to talk about his background and becomes swayed by his protests of innocence. Unable to turn away from Jeffcoat's pleas, Christine helps him retain Griff, a curmudgeonly veteran of death-penalty law, and volunteers to help Griff investigate the case. Is Christine being manipulated by a dangerously smooth killer, or is she the only one who's recognized an innocent man's plight? A gripping, although often incredible, suburban crime tale told with Scottoline's penchant for humor and soul-baring characterization. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Scottoline remains one of crime fiction's top brand names, with demand for her books a given.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

November 15, 2015

What's a poor couple to do? They can't conceive, he's the infertile one, she becomes pregnant with a donor's sperm--and then they discover that the donor has been arrested for a series of blood-chilling murders. With a one-day laydown on April 12.

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