Black Cross (World War II[1])
“A truly fine novel…Totally absorbing and ingenious.”—Nelson DeMille“On fire with suspense.”—Stephen KingIt is January 1944—and as Allied troops prepare for D-Day, Nazi scientists develop a toxic nerve gas that would repel and wipe out any invasion force. To salvage the planned assault, two vastly different but equally determined men are sent to infiltrate the secret concentration camp where the poison gas is being perfected on human subjects. Their only objective: destroy all traces of the gas and the men who created it—no matter how many lives may be lost. Including their own…“Stunning…From the very first page,Greg Iles takes his readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride, juxtaposing tension-filled action scenes, horrifying depictions of savage cruelty, and heart-stopping descriptions of sacrifice and bravery. A remarkable story from a remarkable writer”—BooklistFrom Publishers WeeklyIles's WWII thriller portrays a commando raid on a Nazi concentration camp that is developing poison gases to be used against the Allied forces.From Library JournalThe author of the best-selling Spandau Phoenix (LJ 4/15/93) takes us into Nazi Germany with an American doctor and a Jewish soldier intent on destroying a weapon that could wipe out the D-Day invasion forces.
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Blood Memory
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Blood Memory
From Publishers WeeklyIles's previous thriller, 2003's provocative The Footprints of God, featured an omnipotent supercomputer and an on-the-run duo racing around the globe from North Carolina to Jerusalem. This time, Iles returns to more familiar ground: Natchez, Miss.; New Orleans; and the Mississippi delta, where a serial predator has been killing middle-aged men. Forensic odontologist Cat Ferry, an expert on teeth and the damage they can inflict, is called in by the New Orleans PD to explain the bite marks found on the bodies. Cat, the alcoholic granddaughter of Dr. William Kirkland, owner of the sprawling Malmaison estate and the richest, most powerful man in Natchez, has solved previous murders with her married detective lover, Sean Regan. This time, though, she's pregnant with Sean's baby, and this plus the discovery of old bloody footprints hidden in the carpet fibers of her Malmaison childhood bedroom threaten to plummet her into the depression that's plagued her since she was 15. She thinks one footprint might be hers, made on the night her father died of an ill-explained gunshot wound. Iles weaves in dark strains of child sexual abuse and the resulting repressed memories as Cat searches for the serial killer and for answers about her father's death. This overlong novel lacks the scintillating originality that made Iles's last outing so memorable, but he ties up all the loose ends in an exciting climax.From BooklistIn his ninth book, Iles returns to the Deep South, an old Natchez mansion to be exact, where 31-year-old Catherine Ferry, a forensic specialist, retreats after panic attacks interfere with her work on what appears to be a string of serial killings. No sooner does she arrive than she discovers that the facts of her privileged if troubled youth in the house, where black servants still cater to the whims of Cat's racist, iron-willed grandfather, are an elaborate fiction. In her quest for the truth, especially about the brutal death of her father, she opens the door to a disturbing family history that puts her at both physical and emotional risk-and, eventually, leads her to the doorstep of an unusual serial killer. Iles' dialogue leaves something to be desired this time around ("I have to keep digging until I uncover the truth. If I don't, I'll go mad"), and a heavy dose of melodrama (Cat, a longtime alcoholic with bipolar disease, goes cold turkey when she discovers she's pregnant) gets in the way of the mystery. Still, this provocative tale of twisted lives and dark, agonizing secrets delivers enough atmospheric suspense to keep Iles' many fans entertained till the last page.
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Dead Sleep
From Publishers WeeklyIles continues to amaze with his incredible range, this time around crafting a complex serial killer novel with the intimacy of a smalltown cozy and the punch of a techno-thriller. As different from Spandau Phoenix and 24 Hours as possible, it scores with surefooted plotting, a diverse cast of characters and perfectly calibrated suspense. An anonymous painter's series of candidly posed nudes called The Sleeping Woman bursts on the art scene, each painting selling in the million-dollar range overnight amid rumors that the models are not sleeping but dead. Beautiful, burned-out war photographer Jordan Glass chances into a show and recognizes the subject of a painting as her identical twin, Jane, who was kidnapped near her New Orleans home and never found. Jordan contacts the FBI agent who handled her sister's case, thereby setting in motion a hunt that ties the paintings to the disappearance of at least 11 New Orleans women. Persuading the FBI task force to add her to the team, Jordan tags along to Tulane University, where evidence points to art department head Roger Wheaton, who has a peculiar terminal illness, and his brilliant but disturbed graduate students. Meanwhile, Jordan falls for damaged FBI agent John Kaiser, and together they link her sister's case to a French expat art collector from Vietnam who knew Jordan's war photographer father who disappeared in Cambodia. Are all the women really dead? Is Jordan's father alive and involved? Is there more than one killer? Iles keeps the reader guessing right up to the double surprise ending, delivering the perfect final payoff his readers expect.
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Gas Letal
Enero de 1944. Las tropas aliadas se prepararan para el día D y el mundo entero espera la invasión aliada de Europa. Pero en Inglaterra, Winston Churchill ha descubierto que los científicos nazis han desarrollado un gas nervioso tóxico que puede repeler y eliminar cualquier fuerza invasora, el arma química final. Sólo una jugada desesperada puede evitar el desastre.Para salvar el planificado asalto, dos hombres muy diferentes pero igualmente decididos -un médico pacifista estadounidense y un fanático sionista – son enviados a infiltrarse en el campo de concentración secreto donde está siendo perfeccionado el gas venenoso en seres humanos.Sus únicos aliados: una joven viuda judía que lucha para salvar a sus hijos y una enfermera alemana que es la imagen de la perfección aria. Su único objetivo: destruir todos los rastros del gas y los hombres que la crearon, sin importar cuántas vidas se pueden perder, incluso las suyas propias…Lo que se ven obligados a hacer en el nombre de la victoria y la supervivencia demuestra con terrible claridad que, en un mundo donde todo esta en juego, la guerra no tiene reglas.Desde la primera página, Greg Iles lleva a sus lectores en un viaje en montaña rusa emocional, escenas de acción llenas de tensión, representaciones horribles de crueldad y descripciones de sacrificio y valentía.
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Gas Letal
Enero de 1944. Las tropas aliadas se prepararan para el día D y el mundo entero espera la invasión aliada de Europa. Pero en Inglaterra, Winston Churchill ha descubierto que los científicos nazis han desarrollado un gas nervioso tóxico que puede repeler y eliminar cualquier fuerza invasora, el arma química final. Sólo una jugada desesperada puede evitar el desastre.Para salvar el planificado asalto, dos hombres muy diferentes pero igualmente decididos -un médico pacifista estadounidense y un fanático sionista – son enviados a infiltrarse en el campo de concentración secreto donde está siendo perfeccionado el gas venenoso en seres humanos.Sus únicos aliados: una joven viuda judía que lucha para salvar a sus hijos y una enfermera alemana que es la imagen de la perfección aria. Su único objetivo: destruir todos los rastros del gas y los hombres que la crearon, sin importar cuántas vidas se pueden perder, incluso las suyas propias…Lo que se ven obligados a hacer en el nombre de la victoria y la supervivencia demuestra con terrible claridad que, en un mundo donde todo esta en juego, la guerra no tiene reglas.Desde la primera página, Greg Iles lleva a sus lectores en un viaje en montaña rusa emocional, escenas de acción llenas de tensión, representaciones horribles de crueldad y descripciones de sacrificio y valentía.
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Mortal Fear (Mississippi[1])
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Mortal Fear (Mississippi[1])
By day, Harper Cole works as a commodities trader and at night he leads quite a different life, serving as a systems operator for an exclusive erotic online service that caters to the rich and famous. But a stranger has now penetrated the network's state-of-the-art security, brutally murdering six celebrated female clients. Falsely accused of these horrible crimes, Harper realizes he must lure an elusive madman into the open--and place everything he holds dear directly in the killer's path! Amazon.com ReviewRaymond Chandler once proclaimed that the first-person narrator should never turn out to be the villain in a good mystery or thriller. Luckily, the excellent writer Greg Iles has seemingly ignored Chandler's advice. Iles has created a character--Harper Cole, a futures trader and online pornographer--who could very well be the person killing off subscribers to his Internet sex service. Or is it Miles Turner, Cole's very odd colleague? If you thought that stalking a killer on the Internet had been done to death in books and bad movies, this one will have you pushing the reload button on your browser. From Publishers WeeklyYet another serial killer stalks the Internet, this one courtesy of the talented Iles (Black Cross; Spandau Phoenix). When futures trader Harper Cole, who moonlights as the systems operator of an erotic online services called EROS, contacts the New Orleans police with information about the murder of celebrated author-and EROS subscriber-Karin Wheat, he immediately becomes the prime suspect in six other murders of EROS subscribers across the country. Also on the FBI's short list is Cole's eccentric friend and EROS colleague Miles Turner, who has dubbed the killer "Brahma." When Cole learns that the man he thought was Brahma was killed a year ago and that his online identity was stolen, a tense cat-and-mouse game commences. Professional hunters, like FBI psychiatric profiler Arthur Lenz, have the online tables turned on them time and again by an insanely brilliant murderer, and it's up to Cole to render justice. His digging leads to an exciting payoff when he goes online and poses as a potential victim, using as bait a secret that endangers the mother of his child, as well as his wife. While Cole's obsession over this guilty secret makes him less than likable at times, a nailbiting climax erases any doubts about his character-and any lingering questioning about the storytelling abilities of Iles, who here uses rich first-person narration and clever plotting to tell a sizzler of a thriller.
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Sleep No More (Mississippi[4])
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The Devils Punchbowl (Penn Cage[3])
With his gift for crafting “a keep-you engaged- to-the-very-last-page thriller” (USA Today) at full throttle, Greg Iles brings back the unforgettable Penn Cage in this electrifying suspense masterpiece.A new day has dawned . . . but the darkest evils live forever in the murky depths of a Southern town.Penn Cage was elected mayor of Natchez, Mississippi—the hometown he returned to after the death of his wife—on a tide of support for change. Two years into his term, casino gambling has proved a sure bet for bringing new jobs and fresh money to this fading jewel of the Old South. But deep inside the Magnolia Queen, a fantastical repurposed steamboat, a depraved hidden world draws high-stakes players with money to burn on their unquenchable taste for blood sport and the dark vices that go with it. When an old high school friend hands him blood-chilling evidence, Penn alone must beat the odds tracking a sophisticated killer who counters his every move, placing those nearest to him—including his young daughter, his renowned physician father, and a lover from the past—in grave danger, and all at the risk of jeopardizing forever the town he loves.From Publishers WeeklyIles's third addition to the Penn Cage saga is an effective thriller that would have been even more satisfying at half its length. There is a lot of story to cover, with Cage now mayor of Natchez, Miss., battling to save his hometown, his family and his true love from the evil clutches of a pair of homicidal casino operators who are being protected by a homeland security bigwig. Dick Hill handles the large cast of characters effortlessly, adopting Southern accents that range from aristocratic (Cage and his elderly father) to redneck (assorted Natchez townsfolk). He provides the bad guys with their vocal flair, including an icy arrogance for the homeland security honcho, a soft Asian-tempered English for the daughter of an international villain and the rough Irish brogue of the two main antagonists. One of the latter pretends to be an upper-class Englishman and, in a moment of revelation, Hill does a smashing job of switching accents mid-sentence.
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The Footprints of God
From Publishers WeeklyThe shoot-'em-up potential of spiritual subject matter has recently been profitably exploited by a number of writers (most notably James BeauSeigneur in his Christ Clone trilogy). In this compelling, science-based entry, Iles (Sleep No More; 24 Hours; The Quiet Game) gives his own particular spin on biblical mayhem. "My name is David Tennant, M.D. I'm professor of ethics at the University of Virginia Medical School, and if you're watching this tape, I'm dead." Tennant works for Project Trinity, a secret government organization attempting to build a quantum-level supercomputer. Using advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques, Tennant and five other top scientists have supplied Trinity, the experimental computer, with molecular copies of themselves as models for a neurological operating system. As Trinity comes to life, the men who control the experiment begin to split into competing factions, each determined to use the computer for his own ends. When Tennant tries to shut the project down because of ethical considerations, he is marked for death by the beautiful but physically and psychologically scarred Geli Bauer, head of security. Iles writes himself onto a high wire that stretches over a dangerous fictional chasm as Tennant begins to have narcoleptic seizures and see life through the eyes of Jesus Christ. That this talented author makes it to the other side without falling is testament to his ingenuity and intelligence. Armageddon looms as nuclear missiles streak toward the United States, and the fate of mankind rests on Tennant's ability to reason with the omnipotent Trinity. Readers interested in the exploration of religious themes without the usual New Age blather or window-dressed dogma will snap up this novel of cutting-edge science.
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The Quiet Game (Penn Cage[1])
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The Quiet Game
If anyone knows death, Penn Cage does. He has sent 16 men to their fate as District Attorney. And now his young wife is gone too, leaving him alone with their young daughter. He decides to go home, and home means facing the ghosts of his past.
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The Spandau Phoenix (World War II[2])
The Spandau Diary—what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and sexually tormented to get it? Why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode? Why did the world's entire history of World War II have to be rewritten as the future hung over a nightmare abyss?From Publishers WeeklyA neo-Nazi/South African cartel plots to destroy Israel. From Library JournalRudolph Hess--Spandau prisoner number 7--dies in 1987. When a secret "Hess diary" is found at Spandau by a West German policeman, the various police and intelligence agencies stationed in Berlin become even more interested in Hess's 1941 flight to England. Did Hess have highly placed contacts there? Was he alone? Was his well-trained double captured instead? The chain reaction from the diary's discovery explodes around West Germany, England, and South Africa, uncovering secret alliances and double agents. This first novel, which attempts to fill in history's blanks and to tie the past with the present, has action, characters, and violence to spare. But the body count is high, even for this genre, and the novel loses its impact long before the end of the drawn-out plot. -
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Third Degree
From New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes his latest tour de force thriller – an unforgettable plunge into a world of sex, violence, marital betrayal, medical malpractice, and Southern intrigue… all of which takes place in the span of one furious, terrifying day.In Third Degree, Greg Iles takes us to the idyllic town of Athens Point, Mississippi, to probe beneath the surface of the modern American marriage – where the appearance of perfection conceals a soul-searing conflict of unnerving intensity and violent possibility. Packed with the storytelling brilliance and twisting suspense that mesmerized readers of True Evil, Turning Angel, and Blood Memory, Iles’s newest novel delivers a powerful, revelatory reading experience.Laurel Shields, thirty-five and mother of two, awakens to find that her husband, Warren, a prominent local physician, is not in bed with her. Creeping out to the kitchen of their palatial home, she sees him through the doorway of his study, wildly pulling books from the shelves. Two weeks earlier, Warren and his partner were informed by the IRS that their medical practice was being audited; since then the stress on Dr. Shields has steadily ratcheted up.But Laurel has problems of her own. Quickly returning to the bedroom, she locks herself in the master bath, opens a home pregnancy testing kit, and fearfully tests herself. PREGNANT, announces the digital readout. Laurel closes her eyes as though absorbing news of a death, then quickly hides the evidence. She is not sure who the father is. Summoning all her strength, she walks into the kitchen to carry out the acting performance of her life.Later that morning, Laurel returns home and is surprised to find her husband’s car still parked in the driveway. The house has a strange stillness to it. In the den, she finds Warren sitting on the sofa in the same clothes he wore the previous day. His face is pale and unshaven, his eyes hollow with fear. Then, in come the children, innocent of it all…So begins the most terrifying day in the history of a marriage, one that in less than five hours will make the Shields house the vortex of a nerve-wracking siege. While a nervous ring of armed men awaits its chance to storm the suburban home, inside the house the clock ticks down on exposure of Laurel’s terrible secret. But she is not alone in her lies. Before the siege is through, this terrifying drama will pull in desperate characters from the town and drive Dr. Shields, his wife, and her lover to the very brink of sanity and survival.Rich with Southern atmosphere, and perceptively laced with the tacit deceptions and psychological cracks found in nearly all marriages, Third Degree delivers another knockout, page-turning read from Greg Iles, “the poster boy of southern gothic thrillers” (Kirkus Reviews), and proves again that Iles is today’s unparalleled master of the suspense novel.
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Third Degree
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True Evil
"If you wanted to kill your spouse and get away with it, you had to do something truly ingenious: something that wouldn't even be perceived as murder. And that was the service that Andrew Rusk had found a way to provide. Like any quality product, it did not come cheap. Nor did it come quickly. And perhaps most important of all, it was not for those with weak constitutions. Demand was high, of course, but few people were truly suitable clients. It took a deep-rooted hatred to watch your spouse die in agony, knowing that you had brought about that pain. But on the other hand, some people bore up remarkably well."With these words, New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles returns to his trademark Southern milieu in this terrifying thriller, an unnerving tale of evil lurking beneath the veneer of idyllic suburban life. Brimming with the masterful suspense and intense psychological drama that made Turning Angel, Blood Memory, and The Quiet Game bestsellers, True Evil tells the chilling story of a divorce attorney who may be orchestrating the deaths of his clients' spouses, bringing new meaning to the phrase "'til death do us part."Dr. Chris Shepard is thirty-six years old, newly married, and well on his way to a perfect life. Or so he believes. But that future is forever cast into doubt the day Special Agent Alexandra Morse walks into his office and drops a bombshell: Dr. Shepard's beautiful new wife is plotting his murder. Shepard is so shocked that he almost throws Agent Morse out of his office. Yet once he is alone, doubt begins to gnaw at him. Paranoia magnifies the small cracks in his marital relationship, and soon he can have no peace unless he knows the truth. When Agent Morse reappears, Chris agrees to act as bait to help her unravel the divorce lawyer's scheme, which may already have cost nine unsuspecting spouses their lives.At the center of the mystery lies a maddeningly simple question: If these people really were murdered, why can't the FBI prove it? Rigorous autopsies have uncovered no forensic evidence of foul play, and the police believe no crimes have occurred. As Dr. Shepard and Agent Morse struggle against an invisible adversary, Shepard realizes that he's working with a desperate woman. The reason: the killer's last known victim was Alex Morse's sister, who from her deathbed accused her husband of murder and extracted a vow that Alex save her ten-year-old nephew from his father. This has driven Alex to risk both her life and her career to fulfill that vow. But Chris Shepard soon feels desperation of his own. As he probes his wife's hidden past, he is confronted by the probability that the woman he loves wants him dead.He has adopted her son and given her everything he has to give, and yet somewhere out there, a killer with the brilliance to outwit the top forensic scientists in the world is closing in on him.
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True Evil
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Turning Angel
Turning Angel marks the long-awaited return of Penn Cage, the lawyer hero of The Quiet Game, and introduces Drew Elliott, the highly respected doctor who saved Penn's life in a hiking accident when they were boys. As two of the most prominent citizens of Natchez, Drew and Penn sit on the school board of their alma mater, St. Stephen's Prep. When the nude body of a young female student is found near the Mississippi River, the entire community is shocked – but no one more than Penn, who discovers that his best friend was entangled in a passionate relationship with the girl and may be accused of her murder.On the surface, Kate Townsend seems the most unlikely murder victim imaginable. A star student and athlete, she'd been accepted to Harvard and carried the hope and pride of the town on her shoulders. But like her school and her town, Kate also had a secret life – one about which her adult lover knew little. When Drew begs Penn to defend him, Penn allows his sense of obligation to override his instinct and agrees. Yet before he can begin, both men are drawn into a dangerous web of blackmail and violence. Drew reacts like anything but an innocent man, and Penn finds himself doubting his friend's motives and searching for a path out of harm's way.More dangerous yet is Shad Johnson, the black district attorney whose dream is to send a rich white man to death row in Mississippi. At Shad's order, Drew is jailed, the police cease hunting Kate's killer, and Penn realizes that only by finding Kate's murderer himself can he save his friend's life.With his daughter's babysitter as his guide, Penn penetrates the secret world of St. Stephen's, a place that parents never see, where reality veers so radically from appearance that Penn risks losing his own moral compass. St. Stephen's is a dark mirror of the adult world, one populated by steroid-crazed jocks, girls desperate for attention, jaded teens flirting with nihilism, and hidden among them all – one true psychopath. It is Penn's journey into the heart of his alma mater that gives Turning Angel its hypnotic power, for on that journey he finds that the intersection of the adult and nearly adult worlds is a dangerous place indeed. By the time Penn arrives at the shattering truth behind Kate Townsend's death, his quiet Southern town will never be the same.
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24 Hours
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