A terrible fire in a wealthy suburban home leaves a married couple dead and Detective Lindsay Boxer and her partner Rich Conklin searching for clues. And after California's golden boy, Michael Campion has been missing for a month, there finally seems to be a lead in his case--a very devastating lead. As fire after fire consume couples in wealthy, comfortable homes, Lindsay and the Murder Club must race to find the arsonists responsible and get to the bottom of Michael Campion's disappearance. But suddenly the fires are raging too close to home. Frightened for her life and torn between two men, Lindsay must find a way to solve the most daunting dilemmas she's ever faced--at work and at home. Views: 9
Nicholas Duncan is a semi-retired shipping magnate who resides in idyllic Beautiful Bay in Indonesia, where he is known as the old patriarch of the islands. He is grieving the loss of his beautiful Eurasian wife, Anna, and is suffering for the first time from disturbing flashbacks to WWII, the scene of their first meeting and early love. His other wartime lover is the striking Marg Hamilton, a powerful and influential political player in Australia who has remained close to Nick. Marg suspects Nick is suffering the onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and organises for a specialist to meet with him in Sydney. But when they meet, Tony Freedman stirs long-buried emotions in Nick and the two men don?t hit it off. Nick leaves in an explosion of anger and finds himself in hospital after being hit by a car. Tony visits and encourages Nick to write as a form of therapy ? to write about Anna.So he sets about writing about the woman who has inspired him since his late teens, and in doing so draws us into the compelling tale of the life he has lived post war-hero days building a shipping empire, navigating international corruption, supporting his wife's third-world education crusade and loving the women who inspire him. Views: 9
The eighth annual of the very best of British crime-writing from established bestsellers and newcomers alike. Thirty-five stories from top contemporary names in British crime fiction, such as Christopher Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Reginald Hill, and Colin Dexter. Publishing News calls it "an essential read for all crime fans." Views: 9
EDITORIAL REVIEW: In the tradition of Caleb Carr's *The Alienist* and Eric Larsen's *The Devil in the White City* comes a gripping tale of murder and the art of crime solving, atmospherically set during the 1889 Paris World's Fair. It is 1889, and the entire world breathlessly anticipates the Paris World's Fair and the opening of Monsieur Eiffel's iconic tower. The Twelve Detectives—a society of the twelve most famous, compelling, and dazzling detectives from around the world—have been asked to discuss the secrets of their trade as part of the fair's lineup of events. The Twelve travel to Paris to convene as a single body for the first time, but also, if some whispers are to be believed, to debate the very philosophy that underlies their pursuit of the world's most wanted criminals. But one detective is conspicuously absent: the legendary founding member of The Twelve, Renato Craig, will not attend. In his place he sends his novice assistant, Sigmundo Salvatrio—son of a shoemaker, a lifelong detective-arts devotee, and the only remaining student of Craig's famed Academy for Detectives in Buenos Aires. Salvatrio arrives in Paris, carrying a secret message meant only for Craig's best friend and cofounder of The Twelve, the brilliant, brooding, and fiercely competitive Viktor Arzaky. When a member of The Twelve is discovered dead at the foot of the gleaming Eiffel Tower, the first in what turns into a series of grisly murders, Arzaky and Salvatrio find themselves in a race against time around glorious fin de siècle Paris, encountering all manner of secret societies, solving philosophical puzzles, while also trying to save a dangerously beautiful woman. The pair soon realizes that the stakes involved are unimaginably high; they must not only catch the stalking murderer but also alter the fate of their precious brotherhood. Written in a strikingly original voice, and poignantly evoking a world about to lose its innocence forever, The Paris Enigma opens a window onto crime solving's early days, when wit, common sense, and intelligence were the only tools a detective could rely on. Views: 9
With less than an hour to go before her best friend, Grace, is to walk down the aisle, Evie is attempting to fulfil her most important bridesmaid role: to deposit the bride at the start-line at the appointed time. But with a bride famed for her chaotic sense of time, and the bride's daughter busy mashing Molton Brown into the expensive hotel carpet, minus underwear, the odds are stacked against her . . .At least she has her new 'chicken fillet' boob-enhancers to make her feel special. That is, until these are spotted poking over the top of her dress. So spotted by Jack - the most ruggedly attractive man Evie has ever laid eyes on.Evie is twenty-seven; a sparkly, down-to-earth journalist. She has never been in love and has started to fret that she never will be. Small wonder, then, that the prospect of being bridesmaid at no less than three impending weddings is one that fills her with trepidation.Things get worse when Evie learns that Jack is her friend Valentina's date. Valentina is beautiful, shallow and self-obsessed. Her dates tend to be mirror-images. Which can mean only one thing: Jack can't possibly be as good as he seems. But as they sit together talking late into the night, Evie finds herself yearning to believe he's all real. Views: 9
In Alison Kent's brand-new novel set in Miami's sultry South Beach, Finn finds a woman who can melt his ice-cool exterior with one look, and a case that could land them both in hot water. . . Finn McLain is no stranger to unusual assignments. But the gorgeous stranger who just asked him to photograph her for an erotic art exhibit--that's definitely a first. Finn came to Miami to dig into the personal life of boutique manager Roland Green for a lovesick gallery owner, and hadn't planned on sticking around. But the boutique's owner, Olivia Hammond, has just made him a proposal that's as hard to ignore as Olivia herself. She's got caramel-kissed skin, a body that makes grown men tremble, and a wild sideline as an exhibitionist. Ooookay. Yet despite her willingness to "let people look," Finn's convinced there's a hell of a lot Olivia's not revealing. And that's the most intriguing prospect of all. . . Olivia has never been shy about using her sexuality to get... Views: 9
The days of summer are numbered. As Eiji Miyake's twentieth birthday nears, he arrives in Tokyo with a mission - to find the father he has never met.number9dream follows Eiji on a search that leads through the seething city's underworld, its lost property offices and video arcades; through his own imaginings, dreams and memories; via his alcoholic mother's letters, the manuscript of an attic fabulist, and the journal of a wartime torpedo pilot; to encounters with a syndicate of organ harvesters, John Lennon, and the god of thunder; and finally back to the rainy southern island of Yakushima, where everything that matters to Eiji began and ended.David Mitchell's second novel belongs in a Far Eastern, multi-textual, urban-pastoral, road-movie-of-the-mind, cyber-metaphysical, detective/family chronicle, coming-of-age-love-story genre of one. Views: 9
Mountain man or mountain lion? In his case-one and the same. A Feral Attraction story. When Rachel arrives in Cougar Falls for a reading of her aunt’s will, she finds herself in a typical mountain town. Except that it’s not quite…typical. It’s full of the requisite, rough-hewn mountaineers, but these men seem more animal than man. And one of the rude strangers brings out the animal in her during an embarrassingly orgasmic-and scorching-sexual encounter in an alley. The fantastic tales that the townsfolk tell about the Ac-Taw, a clan of people who can shift into animals, are nothing but folklore. Or are they? Burke is stunned by his response to Rachel, and even more so when she innocently shows signs of possessing Ac-Taw blood. And this puts her in more danger than she knows, danger that only increases the urgency to mark her as his own. Rachel comes to realize she’s inherited much more than just property. She has also inherited a destiny to protect her newfound home. For the Ac-Taw aren’t just legend-they’re real. Warning, this title contains the following: graphic language, ménage a trois, growling, and hot, steamy sex between shifters in love :) Views: 9
From Publishers WeeklyFormer BritishVogue editor Picardie (_My Mother's Wedding Dress_) gives us a fictional life of Rebecca novelist Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) that founders in obsession. In the late 1950s, du Maurier, determined to establish herself as a serious writer, researched and wrote a biography of Branwell Brontë, the often-overlooked real-life brother of sisters Emily and Charlotte. Flash forward to the present, in which a nameless graduate student seeks out lost secrets about the relationship between du Maurier and John Alexander Symington, the Brontë expert and curator to whom du Maurier dedicated her eventual Brontë book. Picardie's novel quickly becomes a tangle of redundancies, as the student, in one plot line, grows increasingly obsessed with du Maurier and loses touch with reality. Meanwhile, in another thread, du Maurier and Symington both flirt with madness in their separate Branwell quests. Du Maurier's fictional characters, especially Rebecca, haunt the story unproductively, as do the Brontës, Brontë protagonists, and Barrie's Peter Pan and the Lost Boys (who were inspired by du Maurier's cousins). Picardie does best with Symington, whose career ended in scandal: she portrays his dissolution coldly, letting observations rip in a way she never quite manages with the fictive Daphne. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. FromLiterary allusions, references, and mysteries pile up in this book-lover’s dream of a novel inside a biography, inside a novel, inside a biography. Three, or maybe more, stories intersect and inform each other. The first is a biography of writer Daphne du Maurier in the 1950s as she struggles with family ghosts and writing a biography of Branwell Brontë, the long-neglected brother of the Bronte sisters. Years later, a nameless, orphaned graduate student, clearly meant to echo the narrator of du Maurier’s Rebecca, follows du Maurier’s work, to the distaste of the student’s older husband and the fascination of his beautiful ex-wife. Also in the middle of this is the du Maurier family’s relationship with J. M. Barrie and the Lleweyn Davies family of Peter Pan fame, as well as a possible literary forgery involving the Brontës. Exposition of all the relevant novel plots and literary relations slows down the beginning of the book. However, like a du Maurier novel, mystery and gothic plotting make the remainder of the novel a page-turner. A novel for anyone who loves novels. --Marta Segal Block Views: 9
She’s going to be a mum! Discovering she’s pregnant fills Annalise with joy! She doesn’t have a clue about babies, but with her husband by her side they can learn the ropes together… But Dominic feels shell-shocked by the news. The truth is that he’s still reeling from an unhappy experience of parenthood from his past – a fact he’s kept secret from everyone, even his beloved Annalise. So, even while he longs to share her pleasure and excitement, the fear that history might repeat itself is keeping him from the one person he loves most – his wife. Now it’s up to her to prove that he really can be a daddy in a million! Unexpectedly Expecting! Views: 9
CJ Roshe knows she can never relax her vigilance, especially when her grip on her secrets begins to slip. Contact with the good-hearted Karita Hanssen leaves CJ wishing for impossible things--friends, roots, a lover who knows her real name. With a life cheerfully balanced between all the things that she loves, Karita gives freely of her time and affection. She isn't looking for more until something in CJ's eyes suggests that there could be feelings deeper, stronger--and more dangerous--than any she has ever felt. CJ is committed to only tonights with her body and certainly no tomorrows when it comes to her heart. Karita has always lived for today while she waits for tomorrow to happen. One kiss couldn't change all that--unless it's the kiss that counted. Views: 9
