“Leonard’s best work! He brilliantly reaffirms his right to the title of America’s finest crime-fiction writer.” – People
“Unputdownable! Beneath its fast-moving surface, [this] is a novel about growing old, about the way that time changes us, about the old dream of starting over again and its cost.” – The Washington Post Book World
“As intricatelly compelling plot… a strong cast of characters… and and exciting climax.” – The New York Times
“Perfect pitch… incredible pacing…” – An equal opportunity kind of story where the sleazebags come in all colors and genders, and their habits run from blowing people’s brains out to lip-synching. Leonard may write the best dialogue of any contemporary writer; his ear is unerring, he doesn’t miss a nuance." – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
Kapcsolódó könyvek
Lynda La Plante - Deadly Intent
Alexander Fitzpatrick is one of the most wanted men in the Western world. A Howard Marks character, but far more dangerous, his wealth, accrued through drug-trafficking, runs into millions. For the past ten years there has been no sighting of him. Has he gone to ground using an alias, or is he dead? When an ex-police officer from the murder squad is found shot in a dank squat, Ann Travis is pulled onto the case. As the body count rises and the investigation becomes ever more complex, suspicion falls on Fitzpatrick. Is he still alive and in the UK? Could he be the killer, with terrifying access to the most lethal drug in existence?
Lynda La Plante - The Red Dahlia
Anna Travis and James Langton return, and must work together to capture one of the most terrifying killers they have ever encountered. A young girl is found dumped on the banks of the Thames. Horrifically mutilated and drained of blood, her death is an ominous mirror image of an unsolved 1940s case in Los Angeles known as 'The Black Dahlia'. Detective Inspector Anna Travis must race against time to catch this copycat killer, dubbed 'The Red Dahlia' from the flower his victim wore in her hair. But there are no suspects and a media frenzy is spiralling out of control. Anna turns to her mentor, the volatile Detective Chief Inspector James Langton, but the frictions of their romantic relationship are complicating the case. As Anna and Langton close in on the prime suspect, they uncover a shocking web of sadistic sexual evil - and a family's murderous secrets...
Lynda La Plante - Above Suspicion
Young Anna Travis has been assigned to her first murder case - a series of killings that has shocked even the most hardened of detectives. They started eight years ago - now the body count is up to six. The method of killing is identical, the backgrounds of the girls identical - all drug-users and prostitutes. Then a seventh body is found. The modus operandi is the same - but the victim is a young student with the 'face of an angel'. The profile of the murderer has changed dramatically. Determined to earn the respect of her male colleagues, Anna stumbles on a vital piece of information which links one man to the killings, a much-loved actor on the brink of international stardom. His arrest would create a media frenzy. But if he were found innocent, his wouldn't be the only career over - Anna's hard fought for reputation would be destroyed once and for all ...
Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
Child 44 is a thriller set in the terror of 1950s Stalinist Russia, a brutal regime that executed anyone who disagreed with its dogma. It proclaimed to be a perfect society. So, when a series of brutal murders take place, no one is permitted to say that these are the work of a serial killer. In a perfect society there can be no crime.
One man, Leo Demidov, a State security agent, a man who has spent his entire career arresting innocent men and women, decides to redeem himself by catching this killer. To do so, he must buck the system, risking his life and the life of everyone he loves.
Patricia Highsmith - Deep Water
The great revival of interest in Patricia Highsmith continues with this work that reveals the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.
In Deep Water, set in the small town of Little Wesley, Vic and Melinda Meller's loveless marriage is held together only by a precarious arrangement whereby in order to avoid the messiness of divorce, Melinda is allowed to take any number of lovers as long as she does not desert her family. Eventually, Vic tries to win her back by asserting himself through a tall tale of murder—one that soon comes true.
Mara Leveritt - Devil's Knot
On the evening of May 5, 1993, in the small town of West Memphis, Arkansas, three eight-year-old boys disappeared. The next afternoon, the naked bodies of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were found submerged in a nearby stream. The boys had been bound from ankle to wrist with their own shoelaces and severely beaten. Christopher had been castrated. The crime scene had yielded few clues, and despite Christopher's castration, there was a remarkable absence of blood. The police were stymied, and citizens' alarm mounted as weeks passed without an arrest. Finally, a month after the murders, detectives announced three arrests -- and a startling theory of the crime: that the children had been killed by members of a satanic cult.
Detectives attributed their break in the case to a former special education student, seventeen-year-old Jessie Misskelley Jr. Although Jessie insisted he knew nothing of the crime, after eight hours of questioning, police announced that he had implicated himself and accused two other teenagers, eighteen-year-old Damien Echols and sixteen-year-old Jason Baldwin. Damien and Jason both denied Jessie's account, and Jessie himself recanted it within hours, but by then all three had been charged with the murders.
With no physical evidence connecting anyone to the crime, prosecutors contended that the murders bore signs of "the occult" and that the three accused teenagers possessed a "state of mind" that pointed to them as the killers. As proof of the defendants' mental states, they introduced items taken from their rooms -- such as books by Anne Rice and album posters for the rock group Metallica. Jurors found all three teenagers guilty.Jessie and Jason were sentenced to life in prison. Damien was sentenced to death.
While the verdicts were popular in Arkansas, an HBO documentary raised questions about the lack of evidence in the case, and a Web site was formed to support the inmates, now known as "The West Memphis Three." When the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the verdicts, state officials insisted that anyone who questioned the trials simply did not know "the facts."
Now, for the first time, an award-winning investigative reporter examines that official stand. In riveting narrative, "Devil's Knot" draws readers into the drama of a modern-day courtroom dominated by references to Satan. In laying out "the facts" of this still-unfolding case, it offers a frightening look into America's system of justice.
Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera
The little known, brilliant original text by Gaston Leroux has been immortalized by screen and stage adaptations. One of the greatest horror stories of all time, The Phantom of the Opera makes compulsive reading. It abounds with wonderful descriptions, extraordinary events, tragedy, horror, pathos, tremendous humour and a gallery of charming minor characters. Leroux's portrait of the hideous musician, crazed by his own extreme ugliness, shows compassionate insight into a criminally insane mind. MUsic infuses the story, enriching the many dimensions of the novel which is steeped in the glamour of life at the Pris Opera. The author's knowledge of the building itself and the extraordinary history of its construction create a basis of realism in the story. Incredible, seeminly supernatural elements are artfully infused with real facts, with references to real people, places and
events, so that the novel is a dazzling blend of illusion and reality, between which it is hard to distinguish, so that each chilling moment is intensified. Gaston Leroux was a master of his genre.
Nelson DeMille - The General's Daughter
Captain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.
Paul Brenner is a member of the army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the army's "golden girl." And how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.
Dean Koontz - Mr. Murder (angol)
Martin Stillwater has a vivid imagination. It charms his loving wife, delights his two little daughters, and gives him all the inspiration he needs to write his highly successful mystery novels. But maybe Martin’s imagination is a bit too vivid… One rainy afternoon, a terrifying incident makes him question his grip on reality. A stranger breaks into his house, accusing Martin of stealing his wife, his children—and his life. Claiming to be the real Martin Stillwater, the intruder threatens to take what is rightfully his. The police think he’s a figment of Martin’s imagination. But Martin and his family have no choice but to believe the stranger’s threat. And run for their lives.
But wherever they go–wherever they hide–he finds them…
Ian Fleming - Casino Royale (angol)
In the first of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, 007 declares war on Le Chiffre, French communist and paymaster of the Soviet murder organization SMERSH.
The battle begins with a fifty-million-franc game of baccarat, gains momentum during Bond's fiery love affair with a sensuous lady spy, and reaches a chilling climax with fiendish torture at the hands of a master sadist. For incredible suspense, unexpected thrills, and extraordinary danger, nothing can beat James Bond in his inaugural adventure.
Frank Miller - A Dame to Kill For
Because of a shocking ending to the first Sin City book, many people wondered how successful Frank Miller could be with future tales of his no-holds-barred city noir. Enter Dwight McCarthy, a clean-living photographer who tries to avoid trouble because he knows what he's capable of. His tactics don't do him much good when a girl from his past (who he can't say no to) shows up and professes her love for him. When he finds out she's in way over her head, it looks as though trouble has found him. What's going to happen? You guessed it: people get hurt.
Frank Miller - The Big Fat Kill
With The Big Fat Kill Frank Miller is at it again with another comics packed with guns, lovers, losers, and surprises. In Sin City's Old Town, the prostitutes run the show. "The cops stay out. That leaves the girls free to keep the pimps and the mob out." Sounds like an OK place, right? It is until a pushy, loud-mouthed guy who has had one too many drinks comes into Old Town and gets himself killed by the ladies. When they find out who he is, they realize that "it'll be war. The streets will run red with blood. Women's blood."
Michael Connelly - Blood Work
'Blood Work' - that's what Terry McCaleb used to call his job at the FBI. Eight weeks ago he was a dead man, but now someone else's heart is keeping him alive. Then a newspaper report of his brush with death brings him an unwanted visitor. Graciela Rivers reveals to McCaleb that the anonymous donor of his heart was her murdered sister, and that the police investigation into the case is going nowhere. McCaleb feels he has no choice but to take on the investigation.
Nothing about the seemingly random killing makes sense. McCaleb realises that someone is watching his every move - someone who has killed before and will kill again...
Peter Robinson - Playing with Fire
In the early hours of a cold January morning, two narrow boats catch fire on the dead-end stretch of the Eastvale canal. When signs of accelerant are found at the scene, DCI Banks and DI Annie Cabbot are summoned. But by the time they arrive, only the smouldering wreckage is left, and human remains have been found on both boats.
The evidence points towards a deliberate attack. But who was the intended victim? Was it Tina, the sixteen-year-old who had been living a drug-fuelled existence with her boyfriend? Or was it Tom, the mysterious, lonely artist?
As Banks makes his enquiries, it appears that a number of people are acting suspiciously: the interfering 'lock-keeper', Tina's cold-hearted step-father, the wily local art dealer, even Tina's boyfriend . . .
Then the arsonist strikes again, and Banks's powers of investigation are tested to the limit . . .
Patricia Highsmith - The Two Faces of January
Three of them are waiting. Rydal Keener is waiting for something exciting to happen in his grubby little Athens hotel.
At forty-odd, Chester MacFarland has been waiting much longer, expecting his life of stock manipulation and fraud to catch up with him. And Colette, Chester's wife, is waiting for something altogether different.
After a nasty little incident in the hotel, they all wait together. As the stakes, and the tension, in their three-cornered waiting game mount, they learn that while passports and silence can be bought, other things can cost as much as your life.
Peter Robinson - Piece of My Heart
As volunteers clean up after a huge outdoor rock concert in Yorkshire in 1969, they discover the body of a young woman wrapped in a sleeping bag. She has been brutally murdered. The detective assigned to the case, Stanley Chadwick, is a hard-headed, strait-laced veteran of the Second World War. He could not have less in common with -- or less regard for -- young, disrespectful, long-haired hippies, smoking marijuana and listening to the pulsing sounds of rock and roll. But he has a murder to solve, and it looks as if the victim was somehow associated with the up-and-coming psychedelic pastoral band the Mad Hatters. In the present, Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. This is not the first time that the Mad Hatters, now aging rock superstars, have been brushed by tragedy. Banks finds he has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornets' nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up.
Dan Brown - The Da Vinci Code
Harvard professor Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call while on business in Paris: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been brutally murdered inside the museum. Alongside the body, police have found a series of baffling codes. As Langdon and a gifted French cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, begin to sort through the bizarre riddles, they are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Leonardo Da Vinci - and suggests the answer to a mystery that stretches deep into the vault of history. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, a stunning historical truth will be lost forever...
Kathy Reichs - Flash and Bones
Kathy Reichs—#1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the FOX television hit Bones—returns with a riveting new novel set in Charlotte, North Carolina, featuring America’s favorite forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan.
Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story. Twelve years earlier, Wayne Gamble’s sister, Cindi, then a high school senior and aspiring racer, disappeared along with her boyfriend, Cale Lovette. Lovette kept company with a group of right-wing extremists known as the Patriot Posse. Could the body be Cindi’s? Or Cale’s?
At the time of their disappearance, the FBI joined the investigation, only to terminate it weeks later. Was there a cover-up? As Tempe juggles multiple theories, the discovery of a strange, deadly substance in the barrel alongside the body throws everything into question. Then an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention goes missing during Race Week. Tempe can’t overlook the coincidence. Was this man using his lab chemicals for murder? Or is the explanation even more sinister? What other secrets lurk behind the festive veneer of Race Week?
A turbocharged story of secrets and murder unfolds in this, the fourteenth thrilling novel in Reichs’s “cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series” (The New York Times Book Review). With the smash hit Bones about to enter its seventh season and in full syndication—and her most recent novel, Spider Bones, an instant New York Times bestseller—Kathy Reichs is at the top of her game.
Mitch Cullin - A Slight Trick of the Mind
It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now 93, lives in a remote Sussex farmhouse with his housekeeper and her young son. He tends to his bees, writes in his journal, and grapples with the diminishing powers of his mind. But in the twilight of his life, as people continue to look to him for answers, Holmes revisits a case that may provide him with answers of his own to questions he didn’t even know he was asking–about life, about love, and about the limits of the mind’s ability to know. A novel of exceptional grace and literary sensitivity, A Slight Trick of the Mind is a brilliant imagining of our greatest fictional detective and a stunning inquiry into the mysteries of human connection.
John Grisham - The Rainmaker
In his final semester of law school, Rudy Baylor is required to provide free legal advice to a group of senior citizens, and it is here that he meets his first "clients," Dot and Buddy Black. Their son, Donny Ray, is dying of leukemia, and their insurance company has flatly refused to pay for his medical treatments. While Rudy is at first skeptical, he soon realizes that the Blacks really have been shockingly mistreated by the huge company, and that he may have just stumbled upon one of the largest insurance frauds anyone's ever seen - and one of the most lucrative and important cases in the history of Tennessee law. The problem is, Rudy's flat broke, has no job, hasn't even passed the bar, and is about to go head to head with one of the best defense attorneys - and powerful industries - in America.