After killing a man in the line of duty, Kurt Wallander resolves to quit the Ystad police. However, a bizarre case gets under his skin. A lawyer driving home at night stops to investigate an effigy sitting in a chair in the middle of the highway. The lawyer is hit over the head and dies. Within a week the lawyer’s son is also killed. These deeply puzzling mysteries compel Wallander to remain on the force. The prime suspect is a powerful corporate mogul with a gleaming smile that Wallander believes hides the evil glee of a killer. Joined by Ann-Britt Hoglund, Wallander begins to uncover the truth, but the same merciless individuals responsible for the murders are now closing in on him.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. First published in Sweden in 1994, Mankell's terrific fourth Kurt Wallender mystery opens with the kind of startling image typical of this internationally bestselling series (Firewall, etc.): a lawyer, driving home through the fog, stops after he sees "a human-sized effigy" propped on a chair in the middle of a deserted highway. Gustaf Torstensson gets out of the car to investigate, is hit from behind and was "dead before his body hit the damp asphalt." The police accept the assailant's claim that it was an accident, but when Torstensson's son, Sten, is shot dead just two weeks later, the brooding Wallender, who's on sick leave and vowing to retire from the Ystad police force, decides to pursue the killer and resume his career. The chief suspect—a powerful, globe-trotting Swedish businessman who's the smiling man of the title—leads Wallender on an exquisitely plotted search for motive and evidence. Dark and moody, this is crime fiction of the highest order. (Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistSwedish crime writer Mankell has taken U.S. publishing by storm over the last decade, launching a genre-altering invasion of his fellow Scandinavian mystery authors and (with other Europeans such as John Harvey and Andrea Camilleri) reinterpreting the notion of the hard-boiled hero. No longer the strong, silent, stand-up guy of American fiction, the new European hero, led by Mankell's Kurt Wallander, faces the horrors of the modern world with a sagging spirit, nearly overwhelmed. Lately, though, Mankell has rested Wallander, focusing instead on other cops in and around Ystad, Sweden, including Wallander's daughter, Linda, the star of Before the Frost (2005). Now the series returns to Wallander but backtracks in time. The Man Who Smiled, written in 1994, was the fourth in the series but is only now appearing in the U.S. It finds Wallander on the verge of quitting the Ystad police force; then a friend who had asked for his help is killed, and the would-be retiree is compelled to go back to work. The case that unfolds, involving a the head of a multinational corporation who traffics in the selling of human organs, opens yet another window on the unimaginable horrors of modern life, but this time Wallander responds with new resolve. Devotees of the series will be thrilled to pick up this missing chapter in the ongoing saga, but it is a bit disconcerting to keep the chronology straight. Still, any new Wallander novel--in whatever order--constitutes a major event in crime fiction. Bill OttCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 141
After nearly thirty years in the same job, Inspector Kurt Wallander is tired, restless, and itching to make a change. He is taken with a certain old farmhouse, perfectly situated in a quiet countryside with a charming, overgrown garden. There he finds the skeletal hand of a corpse in a shallow grave. Wallander’s investigation takes him deep into the history of the house and the land, until finally the shocking truth about a long-buried secret is brought to light.INCLUDES AN AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR ReviewPraise for the Kurt Wallander series: • "No crime writer balances genre conventions with personal concerns as well as Mankell." The Boston Globe • "Mankell is that unusual thing: a European thriller writer whose work holds up as literature." The New York Times • "The Wallander series [is] essential reading for all crime-fiction fans." Booklist • "Mankell's lugubrious Swedish detective, Inspector Kurt Wallander, is one of the most impressive creations in crime fiction today.... Like a Baltic Inspector Morse, [Wallander] cogitates gloomily on the increase in cases of child abuse, drug smuggling and racial violence.... An old-fashioned moral force and sense of disquiet of the sort rarely found in contemporary crime fiction." The GuardianAbout the AuthorHENNING MANKELL's novels have been translated into 40 languages and have sold more than 40 million copies worldwide. He is the first winner of the Ripper Award (the new European prize for crime fiction) and has also received the Glass Key and Golden Dagger awards. His Kurt Wallander mysteries were adapted into a PBS television series starring Kenneth Branagh. Mankell divides his time between Sweden and Mozambique. Views: 141
Finalist for Sunday Express Book of the Year: A moving and sensual story of secrets, sacrifice, and enduring love from bestselling author Mary WesleyAt eighteen, Rose falls passionately, irreversibly in love with Mylo Cooper. Although he proposes moments after they meet, the penniless Frenchman isn't a suitable husband for Rose. Trading love for security, Rose weds Ned Peel. She becomes mistress of Ned's grand country house and promises never to leave him. But Mylo is never far from her thoughts or heart.Set against the backdrop of World War II and beyond, Not That Sort of Girl dances between the past and the present to tell the story of a woman who flouts social convention and risks her marriage, family, and more to be with the man she loves. Views: 141
This morning I stood naked beside the icy waters of Lake Riley, high in the Appalachians of north Georgia, above the fall line where the tame Atlanta winters end and the freezing wild mountain winters begin. A mile away, in my dead mother’s hometown, Riley, people were just breaking the ice on their gravel roads and barnyards and church lots and sidewalks, stomping the mountain bedrock before little stores with mom-and-pop names, most of which belong to heavy-footed Rileys. But there I was, alone as always, Odd Alice, the daughter of a reckless young mother and an unknown father who passed along some very strange traits. I had slipped out to the lake from my secluded cabin for my morning swim, stripping off my dowdy denim, doing the impossible. It is February, with a high of about twenty-five degrees, and the lake has an apron of ice like the white iris on a dark eye, narrowing my peculiar view of the deep world beneath. Not that that scares me. The water is the only element in my life I never fear. I stood there in the cold dawn as usual, not even shivering. As I stretched and filled my body with frigid air, I looked out over the icy mountain world and heard a thin trickle of sound stroking the frosty branches of tall fir trees so far around a bend in the lake my ears shouldn’t be able to recognize it if I were like anyone else. The sound was a child screaming. And then I heard a splash. I may be a freak or a monster—some unnatural quirk of nature too odd for normal people to accept or for anyone to love—but I couldn’t let a child drown just to keep my secrets. So there I went, into the cold, safe water, deep into the heart of the lake, faster than anyone imagines a person can swim, fluting the currents with the iridescent webbing between my bare toes, able to go farther, deeper, quicker, and for much, much longer in that netherworld than any human being possibly can. We are all bodies of water, guarding the mystery of our depths, but some of us have more to guard than others. I’ve never known quite who I am, but worse than that, I’ve never known quite what I am. And after today, I won’t be the only person asking that question. Views: 141
A romantic, high-spirited romp through England and Africa by the bestselling author of The Camomile LawnWhen her father dies and leaves her a fortune, Poppy Carew suddenly becomes much more popular. Would-be author Victor Lucas, who may have drowned his wife, and his cousin Fergus, of Furnival's Fine Funerals, are just two of the men who passionately pursue her. There's also besotted farm owner Willy Guthrie, not to mention Poppy's ex-lover, Edmund Platt, who recently dumped her for a rich new girlfriend—before his ex became richer.Which man will Poppy choose? Will she go back to the treacherous Edmund, who is so determined to rekindle their affair that he abducts Poppy from her father's wake? From England to Africa and back again, Mary Wesley sends Poppy Carew on an exhilarating journey of liberation and self-discovery. Views: 141
The Region where the Grays and Carys lived lies too far from the centres of modern progress to be laid down on any map that will be accessible. And, as “he who maps an undiscovered country may place what boundaries he will,” it need only be said, that it lies in the South, somewhere in that vague region partly in one of the old Southern States and partly in the yet vaguer land of Memory. It will be spoken of in this story, as Dr. Cary, General Legaie, and the other people who used to live there in old times, spoke of it, in warm affection, as, “the old County,” or, “the Red Rock section,” or just, “My country, sir.” It was a goodly land in those old times—a rolling country, lying at the foot of the blue mountain-spurs, with forests and fields; rich meadows filled with fat cattle; watered by streams, sparkling and bubbling over rocks, or winding under willows and sycamores, to where the hills melted away in the low, alluvial lands, where the sea once washed and still left its memory and its name. The people of that section were the product of a system of which it is the fashion nowadays to have only words of condemnation. Every ass that passes by kicks at the dead lion. It was an Oligarchy, they say, which ruled and lorded it over all but those favored ones who belonged to it. But has one ever known the members of a Democracy to rule so justly? If they shone in prosperity, much more they shone in adversity; if they bore themselves haughtily in their day of triumph, they have borne defeat with splendid fortitude. Their old family seats, with everything else in the world, were lost to them—their dignity became grandeur. Their entire system crumbled and fell about them in ruins—they remained unmoved. They were subjected to the greatest humiliation of modern times: their slaves were put over them—they reconquered their section and preserved the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon. No doubt the phrase “Before the war” is at times somewhat abused. It is just possible that there is a certain Caleb Osbaldistonism in the speech at times. But for those who knew the old County as it was then, and can contrast it with what it has become since, no wonder it seems that even the moonlight was richer and mellower “before the war” than it is now. For one thing, the moonlight as well as the sunlight shines brighter in our youth than in maturer age; and gold and gossamer amid the rose-bowers reflect it better than serge and crêpe amid myrtles and bays. The great thing is not to despond even though the brilliancy be dimmed: in the new glitter one need not necessarily forget the old radiance. Happily, when one of the wise men insists that it shall be forgotten, and that we shall be wise also, like him, it works automatically, and we know that he is one of those who, as has been said, avoiding the land of romance, “have missed the title of fool at the cost of a celestial crown.” Views: 141
Deep in the isolated Northwest Territories, four friends are on the trip of a lifetime. Dropped by helicopter into the remote Canadian wilderness, Hutch, Terry, Phil, and David are looking to escape the events of a tumultuous year--a bitter divorce, bankruptcy, depression, and job loss--for two weeks of hunting, fishing, and camping.Armed only with a bow and arrow and the basics for survival, they've chosen a place far from civilization, a retreat from their turbulent lives. But they quickly discover that another group has targeted the remote region and the secluded hamlet of Fiddler Falls for a more menacing purpose: to field-test the ultimate weapon.With more than a week before the helicopter rendezvous and no satellite phone, they must risk everything to help the townspeople who are being held hostage and terrorized. An intense novel of character forged in the midst of struggle, survival, and sacrifice, Deadfall is highly-acclaimed author Robert Liparulo's latest rivetingly smart thriller. From Publishers WeeklyUtilizing more than a few narrative elements from James Dickey's 1970 classic Deliverance, Liparulo sends a quartet of middle-aged Colorado buddies on a 10-day vacation in the remote wilds of northern Saskatchewan in this slow-moving techno-thriller. Journalist and avid bow-hunter John Hutch Hutchinson and his fellow urban professionals are all tired of dealing with their own personal adversities and looking forward to a few idyllic days of hunting and fishing. When they encounter crazed millionaire Declan Gabriel Page and his plan to obliterate an entire town and its 242 residents with a space-based laser, their wilderness retreat turns into a nightmarish battle for survival. The implausible technology and all-too-predictable ending will leave readers longing for a few guitar-banjo duels. (Nov.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewDeadfall is Liparulo at his absolute best. Very rarely does a writer come along who can entertain at the highest level while exploring human character so effectively. With titles like Comes a Horseman, Germ, and now Deadfall under his belt, Liparulo is proving that he is an author who demands to be noticed. -- Jake Chism, Bookshelf Reviews, September 2007 Views: 141
What Makes Sammy Run?Everyone of us knows someone who runs. He is one of the symp-toms of our times--from the little man who shoves you out of the way on the street to the go-getter who shoves you out of a job in the office to the Fuehrer who shoves you out of the world. And all of us have stopped to wonder, at some time or another, what it is that makes these people tick. What makes them run?This is the question Schulberg has asked himself, and the answer is the first novel written with the indignation that only a young writer with talent and ideals could concentrate into a manuscript. It is the story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York's East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic--his congenital incapacity for friendship.An older and more experienced novelist might... Views: 141
“Leave it to Peter Heller to imagine a postapocalyptic world that contains as much loveliness as it does devastation. His hero, Hig, flies a 1956 Cessna (his dog as copilot) around what was once Colorado, chasing all the same things we chase in these pre-annihilation days: love, friendship, the solace of the natural world, and the chance to perform some small kindness. The Dog Stars is a wholly compelling and deeply engaging debut.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have ShiftedA riveting, powerful novel about a pilot living in a world filled with loss—and what he is willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds, connection, love, and grace.Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life—something like his old life—exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return—not enough fuel to get him home—following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face—in the people he meets, and in himself—is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for.Narrated by a man who is part warrior and part dreamer, a hunter with a great shot and a heart that refuses to harden, The Dog Stars is both savagely funny and achingly sad, a breathtaking story about what it means to be human.Amazon.com ReviewAmazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Adventure writer Peter Heller's The Dog Stars is a first novel set in Colorado after a superflu has culled most of humanity. A man named Hig lives in a former airport community--McMansions built along the edge of a runway--which he shares with his 1956 Cessna, his dog, and a slightly untrustworthy survivalist. Hig spends his days flying the perimeter, looking out for intruders and thinking about the things he's lost: his deceased wife, the nearly extinct trout he loved to fish. When a distant beacon sparks in him the realization that something better might be out there, it's only a matter of time before he goes searching. Poetic, thoughtful, and transformative, this novel is a rare combination of literary and highly readable. --Chris SchluepAmazon Exclusive: Author Peter Heller on the Star of The Dog StarsThe inspiration for Jasper, a Blue Heeler mix, who is an integral part of this novel.Our Hero, Hig, lives at a little country airstrip which he shares with his beloved blue heeler Jasper, and a mean gun nut named Bangley. It's nine years after a super-flu has killed 99.7% of the people on the planet. Hig sleeps out under the open sky at night with Jasper. He does it because he loves to see the stars, and because it's safer: if marauders come he won't be trapped in one of the nearby houses.He used to have a book of the stars, but now he doesn't, so when he's lying out at night he makes up constellations. Mostly they are animals, and he makes one for his best friend Jasper. The Dog Stars. It's Hig's way of reinventing the lost world, and keeping in touch with the things he loves.Jasper, to me, is the star of the book. He is fiercely loyal, and he gives Hig something to live for when there is not much else to hold on to.Review“Take the sensibility of Hemingway. Or James Dickey. Place it in a world where a flu mutation has wiped out ninety-nine percent of the population. Add in a heartbroken man with a fishing rod, some guns, a small plane. Don't forget the dog. Now imagine this man retains more hope than might be wise in such a battered and brutal time. More trust. More hunger for love—more capacity for it, too. That's what Peter Heller has given us in his beautifully written first novel. The Dog Stars is a gripping tale of one man's fight for survival against impossibly long odds. A man who has lost nearly everything but his soul. And what's so moving about Heller's book is that he shows us how sometimes a big soul is the only thing a man needs: the keystone, the center pillar, the hunk of masonry upon which all else will rise or fall.” —Scott Smith, author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins“Heller is a masterful storyteller and The Dog Stars is a beautiful tribute to the resilience of nature and the relentless human drive to find meaning and deep connections with life and the living. In this chillingly realistic post-apocalyptic setting, readers will root for Heller's characters and be moved by their toughness as well as their tenderness.” —Julianna Baggott, author of Pure“The Dog Stars is a giant of a novel that goes about its profound business with what looks alarmingly like ease. For all those who thought Cormac McCarthy's The Road the last word on the post-apocalyptic world—think again. Peter Heller has dark and glittering news from the future, and delivers it in prose that stops you like a wolf in the snow. Make time and space for this savage, tender, brilliant book.” —Glen Duncan, author of The Last Werewolf and Talulla Rising Views: 141
"The articles and columns in The Scandal of the Century demonstrate that his forthright, lightly ironical voice just seemed to be there, right from the start. . . . He's among those rare great fiction writers whose ancillary work is almost always worth finding. . . . He had a way of connecting the souls in all his writing, fiction and nonfiction, to the melancholy static of the universe." —Dwight Garner, The New York TimesFrom one of the titans of twentieth-century literature, collected here for the first time: a selection of his journalism from the late 1940s to the mid-1980s—work that he considered even more important to his legacy than his universally acclaimed works of fiction. "I don't want to be remembered for One Hundred Years of Solitude or for the Nobel Prize but rather for my journalism," Gabriel García Márquez said in the final years of his life. And while some of his journalistic writings have been... Views: 141
