Over his acclaimed career, Cook's novels have haunted, riveted, and spellbound readers across the world, and his short stories are equally acclaimed. They range from the intensely focused world of "Fatherhood," the Herodotus prize - winning title story, to the Edgar nominated "Rain," a dark, kaleidoscopic tale of Manhattan on a single, rain - swept night. "The Fix," the story of a famous boxing fix that was, well, not a fix at all, was selected for inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year. "What She Offered," the gripping tale of a one - night stand, was included in The Best Noir Stories of the Century. Like Cook's novels, the range of this collection is, itself, astonishing. From a backwoods Appalachian shack during the Depression ("Poor People") to a Midwestern college campus in the throes of Sixties revolt ("The Sun - Gazer") to a midtown Manhattan bookstore on Christmas Eve, "The Lessons of the Season," this collection demonstrates precisely that, in the words of Michael Connolly, "no one tells a story better than Thomas H. Cook." Views: 40
'Thrilling, unputdownable, a fabulous rollercoaster of a read' B A PARIS, bestselling author of BEHIND CLOSED DOORS The number 1 bestseller is back! Your sister. Her secret. The betrayal. There is no bond greater than blood . . . When the body of a woman is found stabbed to death, the blame falls to her twin sister. But who killed who? And which one is now the woman behind bars? Zara and Miranda have always supported each other. But then Zara meets Seb, and everything changes. Handsome charismatic and dangerous, Seb threatens to tear thesisters' lives apart – but is he really the one to blame? Or are deeper resentments simmering beneath the surface that the sisters must face up to? As the sisters' relationship is stretched to the brink, atraumatic incident in Seb's past begins to rear its head and soon all three are locked in a psychological battle that will leave someone dead. The question is, who? Claustrophobic and compelling, Amanda Robsonis back in a knock-out thriller... Views: 40
Romance/Historical Fiction. 23116 words long. Views: 40
The coauthor of the “excellent” Mr. and Mrs. North mysteries presents another unbeatable team: Captain Heimrich and NYC police officer Nathan Shapiro (The New Yorker). Capt. M. L. Heimrich of the New York State Police may not have the flash of hard-boiled city detectives, but there’s no lead the intrepid investigator won’t follow until his every hunch is satisfied . . . Lt. Nathan Shapiro of the NYPD would rather be anywhere else than rural New York investigating lawyer Stuart Fleming’s claims of bribes and point-shaving schemes involving football players at Dyckman University. He’s a city cop and the country makes him nervous. When he arrives at the headquarters of New York State Police Troop K, Shapiro’s day goes from bad to worse as Captain Heimrich informs him that Fleming’s been shot dead. Now, with a homicide on their hands, the city lieutenant and the country captain must get in the game and investigate the crime together. As they dig into the scandal, Shapiro and Heimrich uncover more than some football dirty dealings. Seems there’s an entire gambling racket that won’t hesitate to tackle any problems with unnecessary roughness . . . Murder Can’t Wait is the 16th book in the Captain Heimrich Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order. “Under the steady hand of old pro Lockridge, this culminates in a murder that requires imaginative police treatment.” —Kirkus Reviews Views: 40
From the bestselling author of The Inspector Lloyd and Sergeant Hill Series...Sixteen years ago, Bill Holt was jailed for the murder of two people: Alison, his lifelong friend whom once people had assumed he'd marry, and a private detective. He knew he was innocent, but jury, judge and all his friends declared him guilty.Now he's out on parole, and his first journey is back to the scene of the crime, the town where he worked and lived and where he had shares in Greystone, his grandfather's firm.He finds that fashion has changed, the currency has changed, even the railway station is different. But the people are all still there;Alison's husband, Bryant, Jeff and Thelma Spencer, his cousin Cassie Stone, smooth Charles Cartwright and Holt's ex-wife, Wendy.One of them is a manipulative killer – one of them framed him, and he's spent sixteen years behind bars while the murderer grew fat and sleek on the profits of his company. Views: 40
In the most ingenious and provocative thriller yet from the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver, a conscience-plagued mobster turned government hitman struggles to find his moral compass amid rampant treachery and betrayal in 1936 Berlin.Paul Schumann, a German American living in New York City in 1936, is a mobster hitman known as much for his brilliant tactics as for taking only "righteous" assignments. But then Paul gets caught. And the arresting officer offers him a stark choice: prison or covert government service. Paul is asked to pose as a journalist covering the summer Olympics taking place in Berlin. He's to hunt down and kill Reinhard Ernst -- the ruthless architect of Hitler's clandestine rearmament. If successful, Paul will be pardoned and given the financial means to go legit; if he refuses the job, his fate will be Sing Sing and the electric chair. Paul travels to Germany, takes a room in a boardinghouse near the Tiergarten -- the huge park in central Berlin but also, literally, the "Garden of Beasts" -- and begins his hunt. In classic Deaver fashion, the next forty-eight hours are a feverish cat-and-mouse chase, as Paul stalks Ernst through Berlin while a dogged Berlin police officer and the entire Third Reich apparatus search frantically for the American. Garden of Beasts is packed with fascinating period detail and features a cast of perfectly realized locals, Olympic athletes and senior Nazi officials -- some real, some fictional. With hairpin plot twists, the reigning "master of ticking-bomb suspense" (People) plumbs the nerve-jangling paranoia of prewar Berlin and steers the story to a breathtaking and wholly unpredictable ending.Amazon.com ReviewJeffery Deaver's Garden of Beasts introduces anti-hero Paul Schumann, a notorious rubout man for the New York Mafia known for his cold and professional approach to his job. But the jig is up when he is duped by high-ranking feds who give him a choice--prison or one more impossible job: assassinate the man who's running Hitler's plan for rearming Germany. The hard-nosed German-American lands on the streets of Berlin where immediately the best-laid plans of the United States Government go awry. Schumman finds himself in a city living in fear, tracked by Berlin's best homicide detective. As the intricate chase wears on, both men will discover that the greatest evil is the ascendant Nazi party. Deaver's novel, equal parts noir thriller and historical extrapolation, is a page-turner that offers a twisting visceral experience of the tension in Berlin during that fateful summer. He draws sympathetic portraits of everyday Germans caught between duty to country and their consciences. Into this mix, Deaver drops his coldly dangerous hitman who brawls with brownshirts, chums with Olympic athletes, collaborates with criminals, fraternizes with poets, and discovers the hero inside his hardened soul. --Jeremy PughAmazon.com InterviewWhen starting a new book by author Jeffery Deaver, expect to have the wool pulled over your eyes. His plots twist and turn and juke and jive like no others, never ending as expected and always including a jaw-dropping plot development. His latest effort, Garden of Beasts, is no exception. Amazon.com caught up with Deaver to discuss plotting, characters, and the perils of soap opera acting. From Publishers WeeklyDeaver fans expect the unexpected from this prodigiously talented thriller writer, and the creator of the Lincoln Rhyme series and other memorable yarns (The Blue Nowhere, etc.) doesn't disappoint with his 19th novel, this time offering a deliciously twisty tale set in Nazi Berlin. The book's hero is a mob "button man," or hit man, Paul Schumann, who's nabbed in the act in New York City but given an alternative to the electric chair: to go to Berlin undercover as a journalist writing about the upcoming Olympics, in order to assassinate Col. Reinhard Ernst, the chief architect of Hitler's militarization, seen as a threat to American interests. A German spy onboard Paul's transatlantic liner grows suspicious and sends a warning to Germany before Paul discovers and kills him. Then in Berlin, Paul, en route to meet his contact, kills a second suspicious man who may be a storm trooper, setting Insp. Willi Kohl of the Berlin police, or Kripo, on his trail. Deaver weaves the three manhunts—Paul after his target, Kohl after Paul and the Nazi hierarchy after Paul—with a deft hand, bringing to frightening life the Berlin of 1936, a city on the brink of madness. Top Nazis, including Hitler, Himmler and Göring, make colorful cameos, but it's the smart, shaded-gray characterizations of the principals that anchor the exciting plot. An affecting love affair between Paul and his German landlady goes in surprising directions, as do the main plot lines, which move outside Berlin as heroes become villains and vice versa. This is prime Deaver, which means prime entertainment. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Views: 40
It's autumn of 1881, and Inez Stannert, still the co-owner of Leadville, Colorado's Silver Queen saloon, is settled in San Francisco with her young ward, Antonia Gizzi. Inez has turned her business talents to managing a music store, hoping to eventually become an equal partner in the enterprise with the store's owner, a celebrated local violinist.Inez's carefully constructed life for herself and Antonia threatens to tumble about her ears when the badly beaten body of a young musician washes up on the filthy banks of San Francisco's Mission Creek canal. Inez and Antonia become entangled in the mystery of his death when the musician turns out to have ties to Leadville, ties that threaten to expose Inez's notorious past. And they aren't the only ones searching for answers. Wolter Roeland de Bruijn, "finder of the lost," has also been tasked with ferreting out the perpetrators and dispensing justice in its most final form. Leadville's leading madam Frisco Flo, an unwilling... Views: 40
Mercy Watts Mysteries [8]Coming home never felt so bad.
Mercy Watts and her grandad, Ace, survived the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and are racing home ahead of a stalker whose plans for the Watts clan remain unknown.
But they’re too slow and what Mercy finds at home spins her in a new and darker direction, taking her back out to her least favorite place on Earth, Hunt Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Soon she’s sucking up to a serial killer and going toe-to-toe with a rogue rapist.
Mercy wants to hand this case off to her father, Tommy Watts, but the great detective is missing in action, just when his family needs him most. So it’s up Mercy and her nerd crew and they’re going to have to power through, battling the cops, the FBI, and a killer who has connections and no scruples. Views: 40
