fb2Unlicensed PI Matthew Scudder returns after a three-year absence to investigate the murder of a wealthy couple savagely slain in their Manhattan townhouse. Matt's now 62, and his age shows in this relatively sedate outing. There's less violence than in many cases past, and the urban melancholy that pervaded his earlier tales has dissipated, replaced by a mature reckoning with the unending cycle of life and death. The mystery elements are strong. To the cops, the case is open-and-shut: the perps have been found dead, murder/suicide, in Brooklyn, with loot from the townhouse in their possession. Matt enters the scene when his assistant, TJ, introduces him to the cousin of the dead couple's daughter; the cousin suspects the daughter of having engineered the killings for the inheritance. At loose ends, Matt digs in, quickly rejecting the daughter as a suspect but uncovering evidence pointing to a mastermind behind the murders. Block sounds numerous obligatory notes from Scudder tales past the AA meetings, the tithing of Matt's income, cameo appearances by Matt's love interest, Elaine, and his friend, Irish mobster Mick Ballou and he adds texture with some familial drama involving Matt's sons and ex-wife. His prose is as smooth as aged whiskey, as always, and the story flows across its pages. It lacks the visceral edge and heightened emotion of many previous Scudders, however, and the ending seems patly aimed at a sequel. This is a solid mystery, a fine Block, but less than exceptional. (Nov.)Forecast: All Blocks sell and Scudder's return will do particularly well, especially with the attendant major ad/promo, including a 17-city author tour.
Cass Dollar is a survivor. She's overcome the meltdown of civilization, humans turned mindless cannibals, and the many evils of man.
But from beneath the devastated California landscape emerges a tendril of hope. A mysterious traveler arrives at New Eden with knowledge of a passageway North – a final escape from the increasingly cunning Beaters. Clutching this dream, Cass and many others decamp and follow him into the unknown.
Journeying down valleys and over barren hills, Cass remains torn between two men. One – her beloved Smoke – is not so innocent as he once was. The other keeps a primal hold on her that feels like Fate itself. And beneath it all, Cass must confront the worst of what's inside her – dark memories from when she was a Beater herself. But she, and all of the other survivors, will fight to the death for the promise of a new horizon…
"A new master in the field of suspense." – James Rollins
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache… and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.
Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more – he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.
But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside…
Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look – a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge… It's time the devil had his due…
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache… and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.
Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more – he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.
But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside…
Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look – a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge… It's time the devil had his due…
When a convenience store robbery goes horribly wrong the three young men who perpetrated the crime make a run for it. Hotly pursued by the police they crash into the suburban home of an accountant and take the family hostage, and before they know it, an armed siege ensues. This is the last thing the local sheriff wanted after all, he left the force in L.A. because of the stress, and this is about as stressful as it gets. But the gang have chosen the wrong accountant to hold hostage. He works for the Mafia and he holds all the local Family's financial records. Soon the mob are on the scene and a nightmarish, high tension three way stand off develops.
Nalini Singh writes 'paranormal romance at its best' (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY).
Ashaya Aleine was separated from her son, forced to create a neural implant that will forever enslave her psychically gifted Psy race. After fighting a desperate battle to save her child and escape the PsyNet, she's lead not to safety, but into the lethal danger of a sniper's embrace.
Hard-luck Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl is just itching for the opportunity to sell out. Then good fortune comes knocking at his door in the guise of William Prescott III, a blue-blood attorney from one of the city’s most prestigious firms. Prescott wants Victor to represent a councilman’s aide who is on trial, along with his boss, for extortion, arson, and murder. It’s the juiciest, highest-profile courtroom extravaganza in years – and all Carl has to do is show up, shut up, and follow Prescott’s lead. But it soon becomes clear that someone’s setting him and his client up to take a long, hard fall. Victor Carl may be desperate and unethical but he’s no one’s patsy. And to survive in this legal snake pit of secrets, lies, and lethal double-crosses, he’s going to play the game his way.
Nouvelle ou roman : Franck Thilliez sait comment nous glacer les sangs !
Ce n'était vraiment pas son jour. À la fin d'une journée de travail en plein cœur des Cévennes, Léa, jeune photographe animalière, tombe en panne de voiture sur une route de montagne sinueuse et peu fréquentée. Elle est soulagée quand un homme finit par passer et s'arrêter pour l'emmener. Malheureusement, lorsqu'un projectile frappe la voiture, Marc, par réflexe, fait un écart et c'est la chute. Léa et Marc se retrouvent pris au piège en contrebas de la route, dans la forêt, prisonniers dans la voiture, sans eau, sans nourriture, sans téléphone. Le tableau semble désespéré, pourtant le pire n'est pas toujours où l'on croit…
Hostiles a été adaptée en fiction radiophonique ; elle a été récompensée par le prix Italia 2014, dans la catégorie Fiction.
First in the long-running series of erotic horror tales! Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Robert R. McCammon, Graham Masterton, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell, David J. Schow, Lisa Tuttle, F. Paul Wilson, Theodore Sturgeon, and other masters of the macabre take readers into their private world of fear, fantasy, and fatal attraction — in 24 tales of dread and debauchery, riveting stories of sex and terror.
One night at Elaine’s, Stone Barrington – back in Manhattan after chasing down the bad guys in the Caribbean – meets Barton Cabot, older brother of his sometime ally, CIA boss Lance Cabot. Barton’s career in army intelligence is even more top secret than his brother’s, but he’s suffering from amnesia following a random act of violence. Amnesia is a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chockfull of state secrets, so Lance hires Stone to watch Barton’s back. As Stone discovers, Barton is a spy with a rather unusual hobby: building and restoring antique furniture. The genteel world of antiques and coin dealers at first seems a far cry from Stone’s usual underworld of mobsters, murderers, and spies. But Barton also is a man with a past, and one event in particular – in the jungles of Vietnam more than thirty years earlier – is coming back to haunt his present in ways he’d never expected. Stone soon finds out that Barton, and some shady characters of his acquaintance, may be hiding a lot more than just a few forged antiques.
It’s not often that Stone Barrington finds a woman as accustomed to the jet-set lifestyle as he, so he’s pleasantly surprised when he meets a gorgeous pilot who’s soon moving to New York, and available for closer acquaintance. Their travels together lead them from Wichita to Europe, but trailing them is some unwanted baggage: his new lady love’s unstable, criminal ex-boyfriend.
And while Stone is fending off his newest adversary, trouble is brewing on the international stage. Several enemy operatives are at large, and only a coordinated intelligence effort will have any chance of stopping their deadly plot. But the clock is ticking... and time has nearly run out.
Es ist Montagabend. In dem luxuriösen St. Gregory Hotel in New Orleans herrscht Hochbetrieb. Doch alles klappt wie am Schnürchen: beim Empfang, auf den Etagen, in den weitläufigen Restaurationsräumen, in der Bar, in Küche und Keller. Man könnte zufrieden sein. Doch unter der gleißenden Oberfläche knistert es, denn das Hotel befindet sich in finanziellen Schwierigkeiten. Nicht nur der Hotelbesitzer Warren Trent ist davon betroffen. Auch seine Assistentin Christine Francis, der tüchtige Geschäftsführer Peter McDermott, der bestechliche Chefportier, der im trüben fischende Hoteldetektiv und viele andere...
Aber auch Gäste werden davon berührt. Da sind Curtis O'Keefe, Besitzer einer internationalen Kette von Hotels, der zu Kaufverhandlungen ins St. Gregory kommt, der dekadente Herzog von Croydon und seine eiskalte Gattin, der unscheinbare, zurückhaltende Albert Wells und zahlreiche andere, die mit dem Hotel durch unsichtbare und mitunter geheimnisvolle Fäden verbunden sind.
Este libro forma pareja con otro éxito del mismo autor, la célebre novela Aeropuerto. Célebres ambas por las magníficas versiones cinematográficas, adquirieron a través del cine dos matices diferentes y fuertemente contrastados. Aeropuerto fue todo tragedia y Gran Hotel toda sensibilidad; ambas, sin embargo, profundamente enraizadas en el estilo de un autor que ha sabido pintar con dúctil pincelada la realidad de la vida que lo rodea.
Hotel es la historia de un poderoso establecimiento hotelero en Nueva Orleans, la ciudad francesa de los Estados Unidos. Un edificio tradicional y un gerente tradicional que quiere conservar el legado de sus mayores aún a costa de luchar a contracorriente de las nuevas realidades económicas. Un hombre a la antigua, un viejo caballero que ha hecho-de su profesión un mundo y de ese mundo su vida. Peter McDermott es un empleado fiel que se ha hecho a sí mismo dentro de los acogedores muros del hotel y ha llegado a ser ayudante personal del inaccesible Warren Trent, hosco e impredecible personaje que lucha en las sombras de su ático contra la ruina y la inevitable decisión de modernizarse o morir. Mientras tanto, un cúmulo de personajes puebla los pasillos y las lujosas suites ajenos a la realidad que péndula sobre el hotel que los hospeda.
En este marco humano tan característico del sur de los Estados Unidos se entabla la lucha entre el progreso y la tradición, la farsa y la realidad, la miseria y la opulencia. Los personajes, de un impresionante realismo, van y vienen, olvidan y mienten, roban y son espléndidos.
Un libro que ha ganado por mérito propio el calificativo de un auténtico clásico.
A brand-new page-turning Holly Barker novel from the perennially entertaining New York Times-bestselling author Stuart Woods.
After Special Agent Holly Barker lets international terrorist Teddy Fay slip through her fingers for a second time, the CIA thinks she might want a long vacation, at least until Teddy is captured and the bad publicity has blown over. So Holly returns to her hometown of Orchid Beach, Florida, where she had been police chief for many years. But a very unpleasant surprise awaits her. Many years earlier, Holly and another female army officer had brought charges against their commanding officer for sexual harassment, attempted rape, and rape. Holly had managed to fight him off, but the other woman, a young lieutenant, had not. The officer in question was acquitted of all charges, and has also left the army – for a job as Orchid Beach 's new police chief.
Will Holly return to the CIA? Or will she challenge her old nemesis for control of the Orchid Beach Police Department?
A seductive nighttime world
Dr. Emily Drake’s patients tend to be a little unusual. Instead of the typical therapist’s caseload of midlife crises and mother fixations, Emily treats vampires with blood phobias and sex-demons looking for meaningful relationships. But her gift for recognizing and healing the Other—those creatures of the night that most humans don’t even know exist—requires a few house rules. First: Never trust a shifter. Especially not one like Detective Colin Gyth whose gold-flecked eyes and predatory air make Emily realize how much she’s been longing to lose control…
A dark and dangerous hunger
Colin can’t believe the doctor he’s been assigned to work with on the Night Butcher murder investigation is the one person who could expose his true identity as a wolf shifter. Smart, sexy, and stubborn as hell, Emily brings out the alpha male in Colin, unleashing a wild, heady desire that takes them both over the edge. But in the shadows, the Night Butcher waits…eager to spill Emily’s blood and taste her terror. And he’ll use any means to destroy her, including the one person she has grown to trust…
In Hotter Blood, sex and horror are coupled to an ecstatic effect. This is the second in the provocative anthology series that defined a genre and spanned a generation. Grant Morrison’s Bram Stoker- nominated “The Braille Encyclopedia” spearheads a collection of 24 original stories, with additional contributions from horror stars like Richard Laymon and Nancy Collins, comic book talents Kurt Busiek and John Byrne, and superstar horror director Mick Garris. Explore the dark side of having your lover in “The Tub” with you, find out when “Confession” isn’t good for the soul, and feed your hunger for erotic horror with this delectable collection…
Cemetery Dance called Hotter Blood “outstanding,” Gauntlet labeled it “aggressive and riveting, a virtual Who’s Who of modern horror,” and to 2AM Magazine, it’s “Amazing… highly recommended.”
As a series of brutal murders darkens the Wrightsburg, Virginia countryside, the killer taunts police by leaving watches on the victims set to the hour corresponding with their position on his hit list. What's more, he strives to replicate notorious murders of the past, improving on them through savage attention to detail. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell are already investigating a crime involving an aristocratic and dysfunctional Southern family, but when they're deputized to help in the serial killer hunt they realize the two cases may be connected. Adding to the tension is the appearance of a second killer, this one imitating the murders of the first. Soon, the two killers are playing a game of cat and mouse, with King and Maxwell racing to solve the intricate puzzle of their identities-before the body count escalates.