An affair with the unpredictable Joe led to a marriage that Virginia was determined would work. But Joe had no reason to trust or respect women. As he drew her into one humiliating situation after another, Virginia was forced to admit that her romantic dream had turned into a nightmare. Views: 7
James Parker Pyne is a retired government employee who considers himself to be a
"detective of the heart." Advertising his services in the "Personal" column of
The Times, he works
alongside his secretary Miss Lemon, novelist Ariadne Oliver, handsome "lounge
lizard" Claude Luttrell and disguise artist Madeleine de Sara.
The first six stories deal with Pyne solving cases in England, while the second six stories detail Pyne's
vacation, where he hopes not to have to detective work only to end up helping
others anyway.Contents1 The Case of the Middle-aged Wife2 The Case of the Discontented Soldier3 The Case of the Distressed Lady4 The Case of the Discontented Husband5 The Case of the City Clerk6 The Case of the Rich Woman7 Have You Got Everything You Want?8 The Gate of Baghdad9 The House at Shiraz10 The Pearl of Price11 Death on the Nile [unrelated to Hercule Poirot novel of same name]12 The Oracle at Delphi Views: 7
One of the most significant novels in Latin American literature, written by Cuba's most important modern novelist - to win a bet with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.In the early 1970s, friends Gabriel García Márquez, Augusto Roa Bastos and Alejo Carpentier reached a joint decision: they would each write a novel about the dictatorships then wreaking misery in Latin America. García Márquez went on to write The Autumn of the Patriarch and Roa Bastos I, the Supreme. The third novel in this remarkable trinity is Reasons of State, hailed asthe most significant novel ever to come out of Cuba. As with Garcia Marquez, Reasons of State is a bold story, boldly told --- daring in its perceptions, rich in lush detail, inventive in prose, and deadly compelling in its suspenseful plot. Inexplicably out of print for years, it tells the tale of the dictator of an unnamed Latin American country who has been living the life of luxury in high-society Paris. When news reaches him of a coup at home, he rushes back and crushes it with brutal military force. But returning to Paris he is given a chilly welcome, and learns that photographs of the atrocities have been circulatingamong his well-to-do friends. Meanwhile World War One has broken out, and another rebellion forces the dictator back across the ocean. As he struggles with the Marxist forces beginning to find footing in his own country, and Europe is devastated, Carpentier constructs a masterful and biting satire of the new world order. Views: 7
Eliciting comparisons to Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, Pritchett's meditative work on Spain is comprised of a string of sketches, woven around the author's musings on the Spanish character. Having lived in Spain for four years during the 1920s, Pritchett is well placed to deliver such a report, and his resulting narrative is both well informed and delightfully written. Views: 7
On the day of her wedding, a bride’s ex-lover is found shot deadIn January, Dorcas Whipple was on the cusp of marrying Ronald Drew. One month later, she prepares to walk down the aisle, but Ronald will not be the groom after all. Her family decided he is unsuitable, a fortune hunter, and though Dorcas fought them, in the end she could not resist the pleas of her invalid mother. As she prepares to marry the steady, dependable Jevan Locke instead, she tries to put Ronald out of her mind. But when Ronald calls her the night before her wedding, she rushes to his side. Resisting her passion, Dorcas refuses Ronald’s final plea for her hand. The next morning, when he is found shot dead, Dorcas is the only suspect. If her wedding goes ahead, will the bride wear white, or pinstripes? A spine-tingling novel in which a young bride is accused of murdering her former boyfriend. Views: 7
Chester Cain, a small time hit man and ace gambler, tired of his old life, moves to Las Vegas with all his lifetime savings, only to come across a set of ruthless people who try to use him, implicate him in a crime which he does not commit, and soon the cops are after Cain,who goes on the run, along with Ms. Wonderly, a homeless wayward girl, who is also being framed like him. Views: 7
Written over the course of 1904-6, Soseki's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirizes the follies of upper-middle-class Japanese society during the Meiji era. With acerbic wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten who comments on the follies and foibles of the people around him.The New Yorker called it "a nonchalant string of anecdotes and wisecracks, told by a fellow who doesn't have a name, and has never caught a mouse, and isn't much good for anything except watching human beings in action..." Views: 7
When Alexander Laing first came upon the sinister tale of Gideon Wyck in 1934, his publisher felt obliged to address the following Note to the Reader: “This story was received from a reputable literary agent, who claims to be as ignorant as we are of the author’s identity…Customary royalties will be reserved for the author’s account, should he wish to reveal himself to the agent with satisfactory proofs of identity.” Now, many years later we repeat the same explanation, for in all the time since that first publication none has come forward to confess to the authorship of so harrowing and demonic a tale. Dick Saunders is the name the author gives himself for the purposes of telling the story. He is a medical student of Dr. Gideon Wyck. Saunders begins to see an explanation for Wyck’s eccentric behavior, but does not find it until after a more final discovery is made in the medical school vault. The cadaver of Gideon Wyck is there, as if awaiting the post-mortem scalpel. It is not in Wyck himself, however, but in his laboratory that his monstrous secret is found. A Maine campus offers a seminar in demonology in this classic horror tale. Views: 7
A vampire with a conscience recounts how he departed from human existence and became a vampire but, reluctant to take human life, he sustains himself on the blood of animals. Views: 7
A mob boss is dead, and his widow wants Drake to help him rest in peaceDominic Vennezio is found on the floor of his beachside love nest, murdered on a Sunday night. It looks like an ordinary mob hit, part of a routine power struggle with the East Coast Outfit, but Vennezio’s widow has other suspicions. Her marriage to the kingpin had been strained ever since he began taking his secretary for weekends at the beach house, but even now, she feels a devotion to him. She wants justice for her husband—not just legal, but cosmic—and for cosmic justice, San Francisco can offer no better sleuth than Stephen Drake.A crime reporter with a clairvoyant streak, Drake’s apprehensions about working for the mob are overcome by his sympathy for the noble widow. He starts his investigation in Los Angeles, talking to Vennezio’s replacement, and sees immediately that it doesn’t take a psychic to figure out that this job could be deadly.Review“Collin Wilcox gets better and better.” —Tony Hillerman“One of the three best mystery writers in America, his stories and characters as real as a clenched fist.” —Jack Finney, author of Time and Again“[An] old pro.” —Kirkus ReviewsAbout the AuthorCollin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series.Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge. Views: 7
