Just before he dies in a downtown hospital, a doctor passes along the half-formula for a powerful new hallucinogenic drug. Find the other half, and you've got a miracle drug-one that can save lives, save the world, and make a lot of money. Which, of course, makes it worth killing for.

What do you do when clues to an unsolved murder have been coded in a stolen $50 million painting? You try to steal it back. Only you have to deal with corrupt collectors, crazy thieves, lust-powered women, shootouts, betrayals, double-crosses and surprises. And a psychic dog named Hillary.It's not as easy as it sounds.

He was told he had exactly eight days to live. By a blind psychic photographer. Okay, Wooly Cornell was plenty crazy-not to mention a huge asshole-but he asked me to help him. So I did. And as the countdown to his death began and I found myself facing threats, shootouts, a mysterious scarred woman and weird predictions that somehow managed to come true, I could only come to one conclusion: Fate is one strange thing to fight.

The sex tape of a famous actress suddenly turns up on the internet, showing her on the last night of her life. The full version is being offered for sale, and the reason for its high price goes way beyond celeb voyeurism. The video also contains a clue to who killed her. That's why everyone is--literally--dying to see it.

THE LIT-CRIT TAKE: A character-driven thriller, centering on the themes of terrorism, understanding and hope. THE PURE PLOT PITCH: Here's bad day: Guy sets out to rob a bank but ends up pulling a carjacking, and when he's arrested a body is found in the trunk. The victim is a Sunni community leader, and why was he killed? Who killed him? The search for answers takes me into the homegrown Islamic underground, into plots, counterplots, deceptions and love affairs, all leading to an attack on a major NYC landmark.

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven thriller about memory, identity and making peace with the past. The Pure Plot Pitch: Sure, we all know about arrogant, self-centered media executives. But how about one who served time as a teen for murdering her sister? And who suddenly believes she's possessed by the spirit of Indira Gandhi? And now, at the height of her power, a secret from her past is threatening to destroy her empire, while someone from that past is trying to take her life. Stop the damn presses

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven, word-burning thriller about politics, love and the haunting pain of memory. The Pure Plot Pitch: I didn't know-or care-much about the tight race for governor of New York until someone took a shot at one of the candidates and killed his wife instead. The main suspect, it turns out, was an anti-government crazy (and a devoted quilter-yes, you heard that right) I once did time with. Searching for the killer, hoping to stop another attack, I was suddenly sucked into the panicky heart of a closely fought election campaign, an affair with a...

Who killed JFK? Did Hitler really commit suicide? Was Kurt Cobain murdered? Hell, as long as we're asking, did Jesus actually live and if so how did he die? I didn't think we'd ever answer those questions, until I met a savant physicist who could unlock memories coded in DNA. The results were world shaking, to say the least. Too bad the secrets in his own past were just as mysterious, just as deadly.

Or, how a kidnapped actress, a crazy director, a native healer, a psychedelic berry and a wind spirit that follows me from Chinatown to the mountains outside LA nearly cost me my sanity and my life.