Entombed

Series heroine Alexandra Cooper, head of Manhattan's sex crimes unit, returns in a novel that might have been titled "Nevermore,": focused as it is on the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe. When the body of a two-decades-old skeleton is found bricked up behind a wall in a soon-to-be-demolished building where Poe once lived, it looks like a very cold case indeed. But then that old murder is linked to a more current slaying, one that at first looks like the work of the Silk Stocking Rapist, Alex's old enemy, who terrorized the upper East Side of Manhattan several years ago but hasn't been heard from since.

The Diamond Throne by David Eddings

Sparhawk, Pandion Knight and Queen's Champion returns from a long spell of exile to find his native land overrun with evil, intrigue and his young queen grievously ill. Ehlana lies magically entombed within a block of crystal, doomed to die unless a cure can be found within the year.