Death by strangulation is not a pretty sight, but then Ted Baxter, who had driven his wife to suicide, was an ugly character. His wastebasket bulges with hate mail. One letter — inscribed in copperplate letters with striking green ink — stands out: You have been found guilty of crimes against humanity. The death sentence will be carried out in eight days. Signed: The April Rainers. Chief Inspector Webb of the Shillingham CID soon discerns a pattern. Baxter was not the April Rainers’ first victim. The two other known victims were an extortionist and a hostile-takeover artist; both had so many enemies that another threat seemed insignificant — even one inscribed in copperplate letters. What connects the victims? Who are the April Rainers? Why are they warning their victims beforehand? In his most baffling case yet, Chief Inspector Webb must find out who this group is and why its members are taking the law into their own hands … Praise for Anthea Fraser: “A superbly crafted, riveting, page-turner of a read" - Booklist “Ms Fraser is her dependable elegant, guileful self withholding the killer's identity till a dying fall" - Sunday Times “A well-mannered, well-plotted and well-told story” - Birmingham Post “Sympathetic, well-executed book, in which full attention is paid to human feelings and failings” - Yorkshire Post Anthea Fraser has written all her life but did not begin to take it seriously until after marriage, when she found herself at home with two small daughters and embarked on a correspondence course with the London School of Journalism. She wrote short stories before turning to novels of the supernatural, and then to crime. Her novels include ‘The Seven Stars’, ‘The Ten Commandments’, ‘Death Speaks Softly’ and ‘Pretty Maids All in a Row’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now. ** Views: 34
Linguist Jeremy Cook knows how language works, but he doesn't know how marriage works. In fact, he is strangely hostile to the institution. So Cook is naturally uneasy about his job with the Pillow Agency, a St. Louis firm specializing in "the linguistically troubled marriage." His assignment is to move in with Dan and Beth Wilson, a prosperous suburban couple with an impoverished relationship, to analyze their verbal problems and help them-if he can. As Cook catalogs the Wilsons' missed signs and missed signals, he becomes increasingly, most unscientifically, involved. In the tradition of Stephen McCauley's The Onject of My Affection, here is the critically acclaimed fourth novel from the author of Double Negative. The Los Angeles Times praised The Full Catastrophe as "eccentric, hilarious, wildly inventive and eerily accurate . . . a terrific book." Advertising in New York Times Book Review. Views: 33
Orion the Hunter, an eternal being made by the Creators to battle their greatest enemy, and Anya, a Creator who has abandoned her power to accompany him, come closer than ever to understanding and defeating their foe. Views: 33
It was just before Summertide, the time when the twin planets, Opal and Quake, would orbit closest to their sun, subjecting both — but Quake in particular — to vast tidal forces. And it was to be the most violent Summertide ever, due to the Grand Conjunction of the system’s stars and planets, something that happened only every 350,000 years. Access to the unstable Quake was supposed to be prohibited, but some very insistent travelers were determined to make the trip. Professor Darya Lang, who had made a career studying artifacts left by the long-vanished aliens called the Builders, had a hunch that during this unusal Summertide she might find the Builders themselves. Louis Nenda and the Cecropian Atvar H’sial had their own interests in Quake, and would do anything to get there. And Councilor Julius Graves was hunting murderers — if they were hiding on Quake, he needed no one’s permission to search for them. Planetary Administrators Hans Rebka and Max Perry had no choice but to go to Quake themselves — risking their lives to protect the others — and to learn, just maybe, the secret of Summertide and the Builders… Views: 33
From Publishers WeeklyForensic sleuth Gideon Oliver discovers that an alleged avalanche victim actually died of an ice pick wound to the skull. PW called this "well-intentioned but wordy. . . . The repetitive scientific analysis and an overwrought narrative dull the novel's potential for suspense." Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description"Gideon Oliver expects to be amicably bored when he takes on the role of “accompanying spouse” at a lodge in the magnificent wild country of Glacier Bay, Alaska, where his forest ranger wife Julie is attending a conference. But it turns out to be exactly his cup of tea. There is another group at the lodge: six scientists on a memorial journey to the site of a thirty-year-old glacial avalanche that killed three of their colleagues. Their leader is TV’s most popular science personality, the unctuous M. Audley Tremaine, who is the sole survivor of the fatal avalanche. But he doesn’t survive long, and is soon found hanged in his room. If that isn’t upsetting enough, shocked hikers discover human bones emerging from the foot of the glacier—are they the shattered remains of the three who died, finally seeing daylight after their two-mile. three-decade journey within the glacial flow? When the FBI seek expert help, everyone agrees how fortunate it is that Dr. Oliver, the famed Skeleton Detective, is on the scene. Everybody, that is, but the person who wants ancient history to stay that way—and who believes that murder is the surest way to keep the past buried." Views: 33
When a client dies in a car explosion, Orlando detective Fred Carver learns the man may not have been who he said he wasFor Bert Renway, it starts out as a simple proposition: a fat bundle of money to spend a few weeks impersonating Frank Wesley, a local tycoon. But after a while Bert grows suspicious of the easy money, and seeks help in the shape of Fred Carver, an ex–Orlando policeman turned private investigator. Like Bert, Carver smells trouble, and agrees to help him find out who his employers are and why they want him to play Wesley. Neither of them is suspicious enough. A few minutes after Bert leaves, an explosion sounds in the parking lot—the new client’s car gone up in a burst of flame. When they pull his body from the wreckage, dental records identify him not as Bert Renway, but as Frank Wesley. Carver doesn’t care. He’s on the case no matter who the man was. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Lutz including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. Views: 33
In her fine new Virginia school, Dawn Longchamp feels happy and safe, but nothing is what it seems.
Now Dawn and her older brother Jimmy have a chance for a decent, respectable life, and Dawn's secret precious hope to study singing can come true. Philip Cutler, the handsomest boy in school, sets Dawn's heart on fire. She is deeply devoted to her brooding brother; but with Philip, she imagines a lovely dream of romance...
Then Dawn's mother suddenly dies, and her entire world begins to crumble. After a terrible new shock, she is thrust into a different family and an evil web of unspoken sins. Her sweet innocence lost, humiliated and scorned, Dawn is desperate to find Jimmy again... and strip away the wicked lies that will change all their lives forever! Views: 33
Peter Scattergood is a Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney, a relentless and clever prosecutor who has just landed the biggest case of his career--a double homicide, involving the mayor's nephew and his mistress. This is not the best time for his wife to walk out on their crumbling marriage and to disappear. As Peter tries to find his wife, and to build his case, he is drawn into an affair with an alluring stranger named Cassandra, a woman whose greatest skill is arousing suspicion. Break and Enter is an intense, intricate thriller about the thresholds we must cross in order to get at the truth. Views: 32
From Publishers WeeklySaberhagen continues the saga of the 12 magical swords responsible for havoc in a distant time. The first three books of this series recounted the stories of the swords called Woundhealer, Sightblinder and Stonecutter. This volume is focused on Farslayer, which can kill anyone named by the person holding or throwing it. The feuding clans of Malolo and Senones use the weapon to destroy each other, leaving as survivors only youngsters bent on vengeance. Then come strangers hunting for the sword. One party consists of Chilperic and the demon Rabisu, sent by the Dark Master, the Ancient One, the wizard Wood; the others, on the side of light, are Zoltan and the Lady Yambu, from Tasavalta, home of the blades. Zoltan also seeks his love, Black Pearl, turned into a mermaid by a magician's curse. The battle between good and evil and the consequences of the blood feud pile up more bodies, leaving the land sorrier and poorer. In the midst of the bloodshed and death, Saberhagen's appealing characters soldier on. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalTwo rival families wage a war of attrition and vengeance for possession of "Farslayer," one of the 12 Lost Swords made by the gods and imbued with unearthly powers. A grim sense of fatality underlies the deceptive simplicity of the author's style in the latest volume of Saberhagen's popular fantasy series. Recommended.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 32
An electric thriller where spies go to battle, and the free world is at stakeIn the final installment in William DeAndrea’s Clifford Driscoll series, master spy Driscoll is “going tame”—that is, recovering from a near-death accident and enjoying domestic peace. Driscoll, now known as Allan Trotter, hasn’t killed anyone in more than a year. He still works for the Agency—a super-secret intelligence unit of the US government known only to the president and its founding congressman—but he’s too full of pins and plates to be a field agent anymore. To top it off, he’s so smitten with beautiful media mogul Regina Hudson that he’s contemplating settling down.But Trotter’s new life is rudely interrupted when he learns that Soviet spies are bent on taking charge of the upcoming US presidential election. Their instrument is an influential senator, Hank Van Horn, a womanizing bad seed who— despite an upstanding reputation—once murdered one of his own staffers. And as if the election plot wasn’t perilous enough, Van Horn’s relentless son, Mark, soon gets involved in a very bloody way. Views: 32
Northern Ireland, 1963. This is the story of a time muffled and made claustrophobic by unprecedented snow falls, and of people caught in the slow dance of this frozen land. In a house with windows flung defiantly wide, a wife dies before her husband can make his confession. Her coffin is pulled to the church on a sledge by Peter, a young man engulfed by his first feelings of love for an unattainable woman. Elsewhere, an old woman searches desperately for a wedding dress in her dream of love. When the electricity fails, a lonely headmaster is forced to close his school and in shadowy candlelight he is tempted into indiscretion. Meanwhile, in the very heart of the city, the purity of snow is tainted by the murder of a young woman and as one man begins to unravel the dark secrets of the city, he knows he is in race against time to find the murderer before the snow melts. David Park peers into the souls of his characters with an insight and compassion that makes this flawed slice of humanity somehow glorious. He is a writer of rare dignity and talent.From Publishers WeeklyThe central conceit of this acclaimed Irish author's poignant and compelling American debut is a snowstorm that shuts down Northern Ireland. A series of interlocking short stories about various smalltown characters precedes a taut, riveting urban murder-mystery involving a prostitute and a city councilman. The book starts on a wistful note as schoolteacher Martin Stevenson prepares for the death of his wife from a terminal illness that is wicking away her beauty and energy. From there, Park moves to a precocious young man's attraction to an older woman when the storm forces him and his father to help her husband after a minor auto accident. Other short interludes include a woman's efforts to buy a wedding dress for her daughter, and an encounter involving a prudish principal who winds up sleeping with one of his teachers. Park saves the best for last, when the mysterious death of a prostitute sparks a young detective named Swift to defy his boss and pursue a prominent councilman in the title novella. Park is a superb writer who focuses on interiority in the early stories, briefly but sharply bringing his characters to life with compassion and verve as they grapple with their passions and shortcomings. The impeccable plotting in the murder mystery is just as noteworthy, as Park focuses on Swift's head butting with his boss to increase the tension for the final pursuit. Structurally, the story line poses challenges, but the author incorporates a stunning beauty and a sense of mystery into his prose that makes it smooth and seamless.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From BooklistFour short stories and a novella, set during the 1960s in the north of Ireland in the midst of a blinding blizzard, are linked by the theme of love. In "The Light of the World," a husband is haunted by his memories of infidelity as his wife lays dying; "Snow Trails" follows a student's infatuation with a wealthy woman and her rarefied world; an old woman buys a wedding dress and slips into madness in "The Wedding Dress"; and a deeply lonely schoolmaster forges an unexpected connection in "Against the Cold." In the moving title story, a new detective doggedly searches for the murderer of a beautiful woman, somehow convinced that his investigation will lead him to love. In setting these explorations of passionate human emotions against the austerely beautiful, snow-covered landscape, Park throws his themes into sharp relief. Skillfully depicting how the snow has transformed the neighborhood into something only partly recognizable and temporarily released people from the predictable, Park uses the imagery of his setting in every conceivable fashion and to powerful effect. Masterful fiction. Joanne WilkinsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 32
ReviewProduct DescriptionAs the dim lights of the train station faded, Christine Bennett wondered if she would ever see home again. With the death of her grandfather, Christine experienced a deep loneliness she’d never felt before.The words of his will rang in her ears: “In the event of my granddaughter’s death, everything will go to Vince Jeffers.” Jeffers watched her with an evil look that made her shiver.Now, afraid of what might happen, she was obeying a note she had received saying she was in danger and must leave town immediately.After escaping to the community of Baxter, Christine begins to piece together a new life. The love she finds there, along with newfound faith, sustains her as she faces the threat of danger. Views: 32
Everyone wants to be good in bed ... but what if it's the bed that makes you good?It's said the dead live on in our memories, but what if only the dead remember you?What if the most infernal dealmaker in creation visited Hollywood, where everyone's a dealmaker, to get a little help from his friends?The answers aren't what you'd expect, but then again, these aren't the sort of questions asked by your average writer of horror fiction.In Lost Angels, David Schow pushes the envelope of his already far-reaching talent, forsaking horror's usual melodrama in favor of penetrating character studies and profound examinations of the human condition. Lost angels are victims of the rigors of love in the City of Night. Los Angeles is where love is found, earned, stolen, sought, regained . . . and ultimately lost again. Features an Introduction by Richard Christian Matheson and an Afterword written especially for this edition. Also includes a brand-new short story, "Calendar Girl". Views: 32
Slowly she turned to face the door just as Graham came through at full stride. At the sight of him a wild kind of joy seized her. Graham halted on the threshold. He drew in his breath sharply, and in spite of himself, his pulse thundered at the sight of the tall, willowy figure. The last time he had seen Avril she had been a child. Here in her place was a graceful young woman. 'Avril, my dear,' he said, finding his voice. 'Welcome home!' Fortune's Bride, the third in a series of award-winning novels by Jane Peart, is a revision of the story of Avril Dumont, a wealthy young heiress and orphan, who gradually comes to terms with her lonely adolescence. There is romance and heartbreak, true love and fulfillment in this story of Avril's seemingly unreturned but undaunted love for her bachelor guardian, Graham Montrose. Readers of Fortune's Bride will be smitten with the charm of the old South as they follow Avril's development into womanhood, and meet the people who give her a sense... Views: 32
