Sophocles .

The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. While working to solve the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci -- clues visible for all to see -- yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Langdon joins forces with a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, and learns the late curator was involved in the Priory of Sion -- an actual secret society whose members included Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Da Vinci, among others.

In a breathless race through Paris, London, and beyond, Langdon and Neveu match wits with a faceless powerbroker who seems to anticipate their every move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can deipher the labyrinthine puzzle in time, the Priory's ancient secret -- and an explosive historical truth -- will be lost forever.

THE DA VINCI CODE heralds the arrival of a new breed of lightening-paced, intelligent thriller utterly unpredictable right up to its stunning conclusion.

Buried
by Mark Billingham

"Teenager Luke Mullen is missing. He was last seen by schoolmates getting into a car with an older woman, and it is unclear whether he has disappeared voluntarily or been abducted." "Police looking For the boy are pretty certain they are dealing with a missing-persons case. The son of a former police officer. Luke has no history of being out of touch, no track record of truancy or misbehavior. And they know that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead. Then the videotape arrives ..." "On special assignment, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne searches desperately for the boy and for anyone who might have a grudge against him or his father, former detective Tony Mullen. As someone responsible for convicting many tough villains in his time, Luke's father is asked to list a few potential suspects. But it is the names Mullen carefully omits from the list that intrigue Thorne. Has Mullen simply forgotten about the criminal who threatened him.Is he so distraught in the emotional trauma of his son's disappearance Or is he hiding something?" "When the kidnapper demonstrates, shockingly, that he is not reluctant to kill, Thorne knows he does not have the luxury of time. He must dig hard and deep into old cases and past lives. He learns that secrets are as easily hidden as bodies, and that even if Luke Mullen is still alive, making assumptions is the quickest way to get him dead and buried."

Nothing Lasts Forever
by Sidney Sheldon

Three young doctors - their hopes, their dreams, their unexpected desires - Dr. Paige Taylor. She swore it was euthanasia, but when Paige inherited a million dollars from a patient, the D.A. called it Murder. Dr. Kat Turner. She vowed never to let another man too close again - until she accepted the challenge of a deadly bet. Dr. Honey Taft. To make it in medicine, she knew she'd need something more than the brains God gave her.

Nothing Lasts Forever races from the life-and-death decisions of a big San Francisco hospital to the tension-packed fireworks of a murder trial. It lays bare the ambitions and fears of healers and killers, lovers and betrayers.