New Year, New James Patterson Books to Discover

Every song tells a story. 
She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. 
She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past. 
Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny.  It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her.  And destroy her. 

As Chicago’s special-ops leader Detective Billy Harney knows well, money is not the only valuable currency. The billionaire he’s investigating is down to his last twenty million. But he’s also being held in jail.
For now.
Billy’s unit is called to the jail when six inmates escape, and two others are missing. Two correctional officers are dead. Approaching the scene, Billy spots something in an empty lot. 
Two Kevlar vests.  Two helmets.  Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note:
Hi, Billy
Are you having fun yet?

SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer has guns on her mind.
There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.
Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:
You talk, you die.
Now it’s Lindsay’s turn to choose. 

Related: The 10 Best Books in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club Series

NYPD master homicide investigator Michael Bennett and top FBI abduction specialist Emily Parker have a history.

When Emily is found strangled in Washington, DC, only Bennett knows her well enough to find the perpetrator — or so he thinks. At every turn, Bennett discovers that she was a woman as adept at keeping secrets as she was at forging powerful connections. And that those closest to her had both the means and the motives to permanently silence her.

Bennett aches to return home to his new wife and the familiar chaos of his family. Yet he's driven to perform the most brilliant detective work of his career, even as the dangerous shadows in Emily's past are closing in around him.

Emily Atkinson leads a complicated life in New York City. She’s a successful marketing executive who lives in a luxury apartment and enjoys a glamorous existence until she lands in the hospital with a double diagnosis: she parties too much—and she’s pregnant. Her nurse and new best friend, Betsey, helps Emily rediscover how much she loves morning runs in the park and quiet nights at home. But as a series of women in her wealthy social circles go missing, Emily’s pregnancy becomes decidedly high-risk.    

US President Keegan Barrett has swept into office on his success as Director of the CIA. Six months into his first term, he devises a clandestine power grab with deadly consequences.
Barrett personally orders Special Agents Liam Grey and Noa Himel to execute his plan, but their loyalties are divided. The CIA serves at the pleasure of the president, yet they’ve sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
When the threat comes directly from the Oval Office, that’s where the blowback begins

O’Brien’s veteran partner. The young woman is also a brilliant escape artist. Her bold flight from police custody makes the case impossible to solve—and, for Walter, even more impossible to forget.
By the time Walter’s promoted to detective, his fascination with the missing, gray-eyed woman is approaching obsession. And when Walter discovers that he’s not alone in his search, one truth is certain. This deadly string of secrets didn’t begin in his home city—but he’s going to make sure it ends there.   

Related: What is a Police Procedural?

Imagine everyone’s surprise when Carter von Oehson, a sophomore in Dr. Dylan Reinhart’s Abnormal Psychology class, posts on Instagram that he plans to kill himself. 24 hours later and still no one has seen him.
Release the hounds. A massive search ensues. But when Carter’s sailboat rolls in with the tide without him or anyone else on it, the worst seems to be confirmed. He really did it . . . Or did he? 
The one person convinced he’s still alive is his father, Mathias von Oehson, founder and CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund. But what Mathias knows and how he knows it would ultimately reveal a secret so damaging that it would be as if he were committing suicide himself. There’s no way he can go to the police. But there’s still someone he can turn to.
Dylan now finds himself wrapped up in multi-million-dollar secrets and danger and it’s going to take every bit of his wit, and the brilliant and headstrong NYPD Detective, Elizabeth Needham, to stay ahead of both his enemy . . . and his employer.