In 2060 New York, some murders still get more attention than others, especially those in which the victim is a prominent businessman, found in his Park Avenue apartment, tied to the bed—and strangled with cords of black velvet. Fortunately, homicide cop Lieutenant Eve Dallas's billionaire husband, Roarke, happens to own the prime real estate where Thomas Anders's sporting-goods firm is headquartered, giving her some help with access. Before long, she's knocking on doors—and barging through them—to look for the answers she needs.
But some things don't add up—and everyone's alibi checks out, from the wife who was off in the tropics to the nephew who stood to inherit millions. Was this a crime of passion—or a carefully planned execution? It's up to Dallas to solve this sensational case in which those who seem to be intimates sometimes guard secrets from each other—and strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways. . . . Views: 971
A Selection of Barnes & Noble Recommends
A gripping novel about one man's dogged pursuit of a serial killer against the opposition of Stalinist state security forces, Child 44 is at once suspenseful and provocative. Tom Rob Smith's remarkable debut thriller powerfully dramatizes the human cost of loyalty, integrity, and love in the face of totalitarian terror.
A decorated war hero driven by dedication to his country and faith in the superiority of Communist ideals, Leo Demidov has built a successful career in the Soviet security network, suppressing ideological crimes and threats against the state with unquestioning efficiency. When a fellow officer's son is killed, Leo is ordered to stop the family from spreading the notion that their child was murdered. For in the official version of Stalin's worker's paradise, such a senseless crime is impossible an affront to the Revolution. But Leo knows better: a murderer is at large, cruelly targeting children, and the collective power of the Soviet government is denying his existence.
Leo's doubt sets in motion a chain of events that changes his understanding of everything he had previously believed. Smith's deftly crafted plot delivers twist after chilling twist, as it lays bare the deceit of the regime that enveloped an impoverished people in paranoia. In a shocking effort to test Leo's loyalty, his wife, Raisa, is accused of being a spy. Leo's refusal to denounce her costs him his rank, and the couple is banished from Moscow. Humiliated, renounced by his enemies, and deserted by everyone save Raisa, Leo realizes that his redemption rests on finding the vicious serial killer who is eviscerating innocent children and leaving them to die in the bleak Russian woods.
The narrative unfolds at a breathless pace, exposing the culture of fear that turns friends into foes and forces families to hide devastating secrets. As Leo and Raisa close in on the serial killer, desperately trying to stay a step ahead of the government's relentless operatives, the reader races with them through a web of intrigue to the novel's heart-stopping conclusion.
About the Author
The serial killer in Child 44, Tom Rob Smith's first novel, was suggested by the true story of Andrei Chikatilo, who murdered over 50 women and children in Russia during the 1980s. By setting his fiction three decades before Chikatilo's crimes, the author has added powerful elements of political suspense to his page-turning tale. "I moved it to the 1950s," Smith explains, "because that's when opposing the state was most dangerous. You'd lose your life in the '50s; if you did it in the '80s you'd lose your apartment." His considerable research into Stalin's Soviet Union supports the powerful human drama at his story's heart.
Though Child 44 is Smith's first novel, his skill as a storyteller and his experience as a screenwriter are apparent in the book's absorbing plot and suspenseful pacing. He points to his days on commuter trains as another influence. "There was no way to do that journey without a book: a book you could get wrapped up in, a book you could read standing up, a book you'd miss your tube stop for. That was the kind of book I wanted to write."
Originally from Norbury in South London, the 28-year-old Smith started writing plays in school and continued while he attended Cambridge, from which he graduated in 2001. After spending a year in Italy on a creative writing scholarship, he became assistant story editor for a British soap opera, then moved to Phnom Penh with the BBC to be the story consultant for Cambodia's first soap opera. He currently lives in London.
From Our Booksellers
A pulse-raising, edge-of-your-seat thriller!
--Laura Brauman, Bourbonnais, IL
Expertly atmospheric and brilliantly quease-inducing.
--Seth Christenfeld, White Plains, NY
If Thomas Harris had set a story in the Gulag, this would have been it.
--Melissa Willits, Carmel, IN
A fascinating look into Stalinist Russia.
--Michele Williams, Long Beach, CA
A brilliant debut thriller that fans of Gorky Park will devour.
--Margie Turkett, Annapolis, MD Views: 971
The official movie novelization of the latest film in the blockbuster action/horror movie series, Underworld—coming to theaters in January 2009 from Sony Pictures!
Centuries ago...two ageless and terrifying races—the aristocratic vampires and the feral lycans—are bound by a cruel, ancestral relationship between master and servant, and eternally separated by the ongoing, violent rivalry between their two species. But unknown to both nobility and enslaved alike, a clandestine—and forbidden—affair between the lycan servant Lucian and the beautiful vampire noblewoman Sonja burns brightly with an unbridled passion. Seeking to escape Sonja’s tyrannical father, Viktor, and a future in which their love is considered an abomination, Lucian risks the ever-present machinations of the court and his very life to cast himself and his beloved free of their bonds...a daring tactic that will eventually give all lycans the courage to rise up against their oppressive vampire overlords. New alliances are forged even as the chains of slavery are broken...and all that Lucian and Sonja hold dear will be threatened with utter annihilation.... Views: 970
A captivating new novel from Printz Award winner David Almond.
Liam and his friend Max are playing in their neighborhood when the call of a bird leads them out into a field beyond their town. There, they find a baby lying alone atop a pile of stones—with a note pinned to her clothing. Mystified, Liam brings the baby home to his parents. They agree to take her in, but police searches turn up no sign of the baby’s parents. Finally they must surrender the baby to a foster family, who name her Allison. Visiting her in Northumberland, Liam meets Oliver, a foster son from Liberia who claims to be a refugee from the war there, and Crystal, a foster daughter. When Liam’s parents decide to adopt Allison, Crystal and Oliver are invited to her christening. There, Oliver tells Liam about how he will be slaughtered if he is sent back to Liberia. The next time Liam sees Crystal, it is when she and Oliver have run away from their foster homes, desperate to keep Oliver from being sent back to Liberia. In a cave where the two are hiding, Liam learns the truth behind Oliver’s dark past—and is forced to ponder what all children are capable of.
From the Hardcover edition. Views: 967
Now entering his sixty-seventh year, Chris McCool can confidently call himself a member of the Happy Club: he has an attractive and exceedingly accommodating Croatian girlfriend and has been told he bears more than a passing resemblance to Roger Moore. As he looks back on the glory days of his youth, he recalls the swinging sixties of rural Ireland: a decade in which the cool cats sang along to Lulu and drove around in Ford Cortinas, when swinging meant wearing velvet trousers and shirts with frills, and where Dolores McCausland - Dolly Mixtures to those who knew her best - danced on the tops of tables and set the pulses of every man in small-town Cullymore racing. Chris McCool had it all back then. He had the moves, he had the car, and he had Dolly, a woman who purred suggestive songs and tugged gently at her skin-tight dresses, a Protestant femme fatale who was glamorous, transgressive and who called him her very own 'Mr Wonderful'. She was, in short, the answer to this bastard son of a Catholic farmer's prayers. Except that there was another Mr Wonderful in town, a certain Marcus Otoyo - a young Nigerian with glossy curls and a dazzling devoutness that was all but irresistible. Although Chris, of course, was interested in Marcus only because of their shared religious fervour and mutual appreciation of the finer things. That was all. Besides, Mr McCool was always a hopeless romantic - some even described him as excessively so - but is there anything wrong with that? Spiked with macabre humour and disquieting revelations, The Holy City is a brilliant, disturbing and compelling novel from one of Ireland's most original contemporary writers. Views: 966
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them. Views: 966
Best friends and unofficial brothers since they were six, ninth-graders T.C. and Augie have got the world figured out. But that all changes when both friends fall in love for the first time.
Enter Al. She's pretty, sassy, and on her way to Harvard. T.C. falls hard, but Al‚ is playing hard to get. Meanwhile, Augie realizes that he's got a crush on a boy. It's not so clear to him, but to his family and friends, it's totally obvious!
Told in alternating perspectives, this is the hilarious and touching story of their most excellent year, where these three friends discover love, themselves, and how a little magic and Mary Poppins can go a long way. Views: 965
Ashley spencer considers her birthday to be the most important event next to . . well, okay, it's just the most important event, period. Hello. So when the invite list is cast and the custom embossed invitations are sent, it's a who's-who list of San Francisco's best tweens. If people don't yet know whether they are in or out, this party is sure to draw the lines of coolness in the most permanent of inks. Ashley intends to prove that there's a reason she's been at the top of the social food chain her entire life, and she's not about to be unseated by some lame website ranking. She'd also like to solve the problem of losing her boyfriend. Will all her birthday wishes come true? Or is it more like it's her party and she'll freak if she wants to? Views: 965
The Judas Valley By Randall Garrett, Robert Silverberg Views: 963
A youth is lying dead in Gray Square, Bloomsbury. Constable Wiseman is at the scene, as is the handsome Frank Merril, nephew of rich John Martin. Also there is May Nuttall, whose father was the best friend Martin ever had. A small, shabby man in an ill-fitting frock coat and large gold rimmed spectacles pulls a newspaper advertisement from the deceased\'s waistcoat pocket. \'At the Yard,\' whispers the constable to Frank, \'we call him The Man who Knows.\' Views: 963
A collection of five spooky Victorian stories. Views: 962
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club. Her father's "bunny rabbit." A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.
Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer and possibly a criminal mastermind. This is the story of how she got that way.
Frankie Landau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them. When she knows Matthew's lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done. Views: 959
Nevvie Barton has never truly felt loved or like she belonged anywhere, ever. Abandoned by her adopted family and trapped in an abusive relationship, she takes a job with Tyler Paulson and Thomas Kinsey as their cleaning girl.
Nevvie knows her fantasies about "the boys" will always be just that--the two handsome men are devoted, loving life-partners. Then Tyler and Thomas fall in love with Nevvie and hatch a secret plan to seduce her and make her their permanent third.
For the first time in her life, she feels attractive and wanted. When they ask her to move in and be their personal assistant, Nevvie jumps at the chance. Her planned escape doesn't go without a hitch, and the boys must rescue her from a brutal man who would rather kill her than let her go.
Can Tyler and Thomas heal Nevvie's wounded body and soul and prove to her that she really is their dream come true? Views: 958
In Heroes Die and Blade of Tyshalle, Matthew Stover created a new kind of fantasy novel, and a new kind of hero to go with it: Caine, a street thug turned superstar, battling in a future where reality shows take place in another dimension, on a world where magic exists and gods are up close and personal. In that beautiful, savage land, Caine is an assassin without peer, a living legend born from one of the highest-rated reality shows ever made. That season, Caine almost single-handedly defeated–and all but exterminated–the fiercest of all tribes: the Black Knives. But the shocking truth of what really took place during that blood-drenched adventure has never been revealed . . . until now.
Thirty years later, Caine returns to the scene of his greatest triumph–some would say greatest crime–at the request of his adopted brother Orbek, the last of the true Black Knives. But where Caine goes, danger follows, and he soon finds himself back in familiar territory: fighting for his life against impossible odds, with the fate of two worlds hanging in the balance.
Just the way Caine likes it.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 957
