Dean Koontz and Karen Robards introduce new series lead characters in their latest stories.  In The Silent Corner by Koontz, FBI agent Jane Hawk discovers  that her husband’s unexpected suicide was just one in a series. When she seeks to find out why, she becomes a target in this “edge-of-your-seat, paranoid thriller” (Star-Ledger).   In The Ultimatum, Robards , Bianca St. Ives manages a security firm, a departure from her past as a hired thief.  Now, she’s blackmailed into taking a job that draws her back into her past in this “Bourne-esque  mystery” (Kirkus Reviews).  Meanwhile, Lockdown by Laurie King  abandons her Mary Russell series for a stand-alone about  a shooter seething with resentment who descends on a coastal California school.