fb2Alex and Susan Wendt are the perfect couple in search of the perfect brownstone-and they find their dream house in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric, and the handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the previous tenants. But the rent is so low, it's too good to pass up!
Big mistake: Susan soon discovers that the brownstone is crawling with bedbugs... Or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. Exterminators search the property and turn up nothing. Neighbors insist the building is clean. Susan fears that she's going mad-but as the mysteries deepen, a more sinister explanation presents itself: She may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from hell.
An understated horror story filled with loving references to Rosemary's Baby and other classic tales of urban paranoia, Bedbugs will keep your skin crawling into the wee hours of the night.
Ben H. Winters is the New York Times best-selling author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Quirk, 2009). His most recent book, the YA novel The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman (HarperCollins, 2010), was nominated for an Edgar Award.
The Last Policeman received the 2013 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original—along with plenty of glowing reviews.
Now Detective Hank Palace returns in Countdown City, the second volume of the Last Policeman trilogy. There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank’s days of solving crimes are over… until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband.
Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace—an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone. With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees.
Countdown City presents another fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse—and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond “whodunit.” What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you?
À quoi bon tenter de résoudre un meurtre quand tout le monde va mourir ?
Concord, New Hamsphire. Hank Palace est ce qu’on appelle un flic obstiné. Confronté à une banale affaire de suicide, il refuse de s’en tenir à l’évidence et, certain qu’il a affaire à un meurtre, poursuit inlassablement son enquête.
Hank sait pourtant qu’elle n’a pas grand intérêt puisque, dans six mois il sera mort. Comme tous les habitants de Concord. Et comme tout le monde aux États-Unis et sur Terre.
Dans six mois en effet, notre planète aura cessé d’exister, percutée de plein fouet par 2011GV1, un astéroïde de six kilomètres de long qui la réduira en cendres. Aussi chacun, désormais, se prépare-t-il au pire à sa façon.
Dans cette ambiance pré-apocalyptique, où les marchés financiers se sont écroulés, où la plupart des employés ont abandonné leur travail, où des dizaines de personnes se livrent à tous les excès possibles alors que d’autres mettent fin à leurs jours, Hank, envers et contre tous, s’accroche. Il a un boulot à terminer.
Et rien, même l’apocalypse, ne pourra l’empêcher de résoudre son affaire.
Sans jamais se départir d’un prodigieux sens de l’intrigue et du suspens, Ben H Winters nous y propose une vision douloureusement convaincante d’un monde proche de l’agonie.
Le lecteur est tiraillé par cette interrogation lancinante : que ferions nous, que ferions nous réellement si nos jours étaient comptés.
A shocking vision of our future that is one part Minority Report and one part Chinatown.
Lazlo Ratesic is 54, a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service, from a family of law enforcement and in a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else. This is how Laz must, by law, introduce himself, lest he fail to disclose his true purpose or nature, and by doing so, be guilty of a lie.
Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth—the Objectively So—is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz’s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths—to “speculate” on what might have happened in the commission of a crime.
But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.
« This is the end. »
Tragique, superbe et sans concession, la conclusion magistrale d’une série apocalyptique unique en son genre.
Les derniers jours sont arrivés. Ancien agent des forces de police de Concord (New Hampshire), Hank Palace a trouvé refuge dans les bois de Nouvelle-Angleterre, où d’anciens collègues se sont rassemblés pour attendre la fin. Mais son esprit n’est pas encore en paix. Il lui reste une affaire à régler, la plus importante peut-être : celle de la disparition de sa soeur Nico, qui semble liée aux activités d’un énigmatique culte pseudo-survivaliste qui entend encore sauver le monde, envers et contre tout.
L’humanité entre maintenant dans ses derniers soubresauts. En route pour l’Ohio, où l’attend manifestement une révélation tragique, l’inoxydable Hank, accompagné du chien Houdini et de son ami Cortez, découvre à bicyclette ce qui reste de l’Amérique : un monde en ruine et déserté par la technologie, un territoire hostile peuplé de gangs fanatiques, d’immigrants illégaux, de groupuscules religieux… et d’une communauté amish qui pourrait bien l’amener à reconsidérer toute sa perception des choses.
La fin du monde ? Elle arrive. Dans 77 jours maintenant, l’astéroïde 2011GV1 va s’écraser sur Terre, quelque part en Indonésie, et c’en sera fini de l’humanité.
Plutôt que de se lever le matin pour aller travailler, les Américains – et on les comprend – préfèrent concrétiser d’urgence la liste des 100 choses qu’ils ont envie de faire avant de mourir avec, évidemment, tous les excès que cela implique. Pourtant, il reste un homme, un seul, bien décidé à faire son job jusqu’au bout : Hank Palace, ancien flic de la police de Concord.
Déterminé à retrouver Brett Cavatone, le mari de sa nounou qui a mystérieusement disparu, Hank se lance dans une quête désespérée, et rien ne semble pouvoir l’arrêter. Mais son courage et sa droiture suffiront-ils ? Car rien n’est simple dans un pays livré à une anarchie sans nom, où l’électricité et les télécommunications ont rendu l’âme, où les pillages sont quotidiens et qui pourtant est synonyme de terre promise pour des milliers de personnes qui tentent de fuir la zone d’impact…
An anthology of stories edited by Mary Higgins Clark
From Wall Street to Harlem, the borough of Manhattan is the setting for all-new stories of mystery, murder, and suspense, presented by best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark and featuring Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver, S. J. Rozan, and other top Mystery Writers of America authors.
In Lee Child's "The Picture of the Lonely Diner," legendary drifter Jack Reacher interrupts a curious stand-off in the shadow of the Flatiron Building. In Jeffery Deaver's "The Baker of Bleecker Street," an Italian immigrant becomes ensnared in WWII espionage. And in "The Five-Dollar Dress," Mary Higgins Clark unearths the contents of a mysterious hope chest found in an apartment on Union Square. With additional stories from T. Jefferson Parker, S. J. Rozan, Nancy Pickard, Ben H. Winters, Brendan DuBois, Persia Walker, Jon L. Breen, N. J. Ayres, Angela Zeman, Thomas H. Cook, Judith Kelman, Margaret Maron, Justin Scott, and Julie Hyzy,Manhattan Mayhem is teeming with red herrings, likely suspects, and thoroughly satisfying mysteries.
What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?
Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.
The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.
The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?
What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway?
Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.
The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.
The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.” What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?
There has been a shocking crime at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School.
In a glass case in the front hall, a trophy—the trophy, the first trophy ever won in the school’s lackluster competitive history—has been stolen.
Even more horrifying, an outraged Principal Van Vreeland has canceled everything fun until the trophy is back, including the eighth graders’ long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime field trip to Taproot Valley. Rock climbing, ropes courses, ecology hikes, s’mores… all gone!
Luckily, Bethesda Fielding is on the case. As self-appointed sleuth extraordinaire, Bethesda’s confident she’ll be able to track down the culprit in no time and save her class trip! Except it seems like the more she searches for answers, the more mysteries she reveals…. Can Bethesda solve this baffling mystery—or are the eighth graders doomed for a Week of a Thousand Quizzes instead?
Escape a stalled subway car or a swarm of pigeons; stop a runaway hot dog cart; defeat cockroaches—what every native and visitor needs to survive in the Big Apple.
Homework, hormones, heartache… middle school has no shortage of perils. Never fear, the authors of the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario series return with a survival guide for those who are facing—or just about to face—this big transitional time in school and life. The handbook is packed with funny-but-useful tips for the trickiest situations that crop up in middle school, like taking charge of a too-busy homework schedule, dealing with a cold shoulder from a friend who has suddenly become just too cool, avoiding common e-mail and cell phone disasters, and more.
Critically acclaimed author Ben H. Winters delivers this explosive final installment in the Edgar Award winning Last Policeman series. With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank’s safety is only relative, and his only relative—his sister Nico—isn’t safe. Soon, it’s clear that there’s more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it’s up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs out… for everyone.