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Fiction | - 1116 items found in your search |
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... The Drawing of the Three
Signet January 3, 1990 0451163524 / 9780451163523 Paperback
Editorial Reviews&newline;&newline;From Publishers Weekly&newline;Elaborating at great length on Robert Browning's cryptic narrative poem &doublequote;Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,&doublequote; the second volume of King's post-Armageddon epic fantasy presents the equally enigmatic quest of Roland, the world's last gunslinger, who moves through an apocalyptic wasteland toward the Dark Tower, &doublequote;the linchpin that holds all of existence together.&doublequote; Although these minor but revealing books (which King began while still in college) are full of such adolescent portentousness, this is livelier than the first. Roland enters three lives in the alternate world of New York City: junkie and drug runner Eddie Dean, schizophrenic heiress Odetta Holmes and serial murder Jack Mort. If King tells us too little about Roland, he gives us too much about these misfits who are variously healed or punished exactly as expected. Typically, King is much better at the minutiae and sensations of a specific physical world, and several such bravura sequences (from an attack by mutant lobsters to a gun store robbery) are standouts amid the characteristic headlong storytelling. BOMC alternate.&newline;Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.&newline;&newline;Review&newline;King is a master at creating living, breathing, believable characters. -- Baltimore Sun&newline;&newline;This quest is one of King's best...communicates on a genuine, human level...but rich in symbolism and allegory. -- Columbus Dispatch 4.5 Stars
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Abel, Kenneth Cold Steel Rain
New York Putnam Adult September 7, 2000 0399146628 / 9780399146626 Hardcover
From the Publisher&newline;Kenneth Abel's first mystery, Bait, was hailed by kings of the genre. &doublequote;One of the finest crime novels I've ever read,&doublequote; said James Lee Burke. &doublequote;A gripper all the way,&doublequote; praised Elmore Leonard. Robert B. Parker summed it up in a word: &doublequote;Brilliant!&doublequote; Now, Abel makes good on the promise of that debut with a mystery set against the murky world of New Orleans politics, where debts may be postponed but not forgotten, and old loyalties can be unexpectedly betrayed.&newline;&newline;Danny Chaisson is an up-and-coming prosecutor until his longtime benefactor, a Louisiana political boss, calls in his chit. Chaisson performs as commanded, but resigns from the D.A.'s office to preempt additional collisions of conscience and politics. He stoops to running small-time errands for the politico as a second career, until he narrowly misses being present for a lethal hit at a local restaurant. When it looks like he'll be sacrificed as the fall guy in a complex game of public culpability and political spin, Danny goes on the run. He soon allies himself-first professionally, then romantically-with Mickie Vega, a woman from ATF who's also been set up as a scapegoat. The stakes are high and his odds poor, but Danny has a few tricks left to play before he'll be dealt out.&newline;&newline;Combining pitch-perfect dialogue with plot twists reminiscent of L.A. Confidential, Abel has delivered a crime novel tour de force.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;Following his well-received debut mystery, Bait, Abel introduces former assistant D.A. Danny Chaisson in a gripping tale of political misdoing and murder set in New Orleans. Now working for a powerful state legislator, Danny is responsible for delivering wads of political payoff money around the New Orleans area. Things start unraveling when five people die in a restaurant shoot-out, two of them Danny's friends. Soon various odd characters get into the act: Jimmy Boudrieux, the corrupt speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives; his chief legislative aide, Lucas Clay; the New Orleans police; beautiful ATF agent Mickie Vega; Jimmy's daughter, Maura; Danny's ex-wife, Helen; a crooked parish deputy and a crooked land developer. Danny, of course, must sort it all out. While the third-person point-of-view requires readers to deduce characters' loyalties from their statements and actions, Abel cleverly inserts tidbits of information to indicate who is on the good side and who is allied with whom. The novel moves fast, yet it retains an atmospheric aura of lethargy. The New Orleans setting is well integrated into the story; the weather descriptions, the slowness of people's daily activities and the duplicity of many of the characters' actions combine to create a dense miasma of sleaziness. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|&newline;&newline;Internet Book Watch - Internet Book Watch&newline;In New Orleans, former assistant district attorney Danny Chaisson works as a political gopher for powerful state legislature Jimmy Boudrieux. His latest assignment is to exchange money for weapons at the Lotus Flower restaurant. After completing the deal, the restaurant owners Claude and Phuong Raymond ask Danny to do them a favor. He agrees, but leaves without taking the letter with him. He returns to Lotus Flower only to find five dead people including the owners. Before quietly leaving into the night, Danny anonymously calls 911. Someone must take the fall for the headline making homicides that has the ATF investigating. Apparently, a political deal turned deadly. Evidence exists pointing the finger at Danny and the employers of the hired goons decide the lackey is the perfect stooge and set him up to take the rap. Surprisingly, Danny, who always follows orders, refuses to sit back to take the hit, but instead he begins his own inquiries to prove his innocence. Cold Steel Rain is an exciting crime thriller that provides intriguing insight into politics, Louisiana style. The story line is taut and fun as Danny tries to regain his self-esteem even as he struggles to find the guilty party(s). The use of flashbacks to present the cast adds to the ove 4.0 Stars
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Adler, Elizabeth The Property of a Lady
Dell January 1, 1991 0440210143 / 9780440210146 Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;&newline;&newline;The magnificent Ivanoff emerald: It surfaced at Christie's at Geneva, &doublequote;The Property of a Lady&doublequote;-a lady now sought by powerful men intent on seizing a legacy that could tilt the world balance of power . . . &newline;&newline;The terrifying Ivanoff secret: She lived like a pauper with a royal ransom in gems, determined to carry her secret to the grave . . . until an act of love and a public auction brought the world-and the curse-to her door . . . &newline;&newline;The last of the Ivanoffs-pawns in a deadly game: The royal gems are merely the lure to the hidden billions for which nations are willing to kill. The last of the Ivanoffs should have died in 1917. Now, two generations later, they are the prize-and the prey . . . &newline;From war-torn Russia to New York's teeming Lower East Side . . . from Ziegfeld's Broadway and the Hollywood of the moguls to contemporary Washington, Geneva, and Berlin, Elizabeth's Adler's novel of passion, power, and royal privilege will command your attention to the very last page.&newline;&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;From the author of Leonie and The Rich Shall Inherit comes this eventful novel of romantic intrigue, briskly plotted and well researched, centering on a fabulous emerald--a maharajah's gift to a Russian prince on the eve of the Revolution. Fleeing in 1917 with their gems, Princess Anouska Ivanoff, her children and their English guest Verity (``Missie'') Byron, 18, had been waylaid in a snowy wood by drunken Bolshevik peasants. Brutally raped, Anouska had died. her son Alexei was adopted by a kindly officer and raised as a Communist. Missie, however, took Anouska's daughter Xenia to America, became a Ziegfield girl and Hollywood star. Now white-haired, Missie lives in Maryland among her rich memories; her flashbacks eventually illuminate contemporary events. Meanwhile, three drinkers in a Geneva bar want to find the eponymous ``lady'' who put up the newly cut emerald at auction: Genie Reese, the Washington newswoman assigned to the story; likable Bronx-born politician Cal Warrender; and Communist Valentin Solovsky, elegant cultural attache to Washington, who is really Prince Ivanoff's descendant. But Valentin's malevolent half-brother Boris, head of the KGB, is bent on destroying Valentin and the mysterious lady. A boozy gem-cutter in Bangkok, a captive wife, a murderer in Dusseldorf add to the story's zesty cast, whose lives come together in its surprising conclusion. (Feb.)&newline;&newline;School Library Journal&newline;YA-- A sweeping romantic epic. An emerald from an aristocratic Russian family tiara, missing since the Bolshevik Revolution, turns up in Geneva and provides the key to an international cat-and-mouse game of intrigue and espionage. Filled with vivid descriptions of characters and places, the book is at once a love story, a mystery, and a spy thriller that will transport YAs to such exotic locales as Russia, Istanbul, and the teeming streets of New York's Lower East Side. The search for the mystery lady who put the gem up for sale will absorb readers until the novel's conclusion, when all of the characters and events come together in a rich and fulfilling resolution.-- Roberta Lisker, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA 4.0 Stars
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Alther, Lisa Bedrock
New York Knopf May 5, 1990 0394577558 / 9780394577555 Hardcover
From the Publisher&newline;By all appearances, Clea Shawn has a dream life -- a successful career as a freelance photographer, a handsome rich husband, a townhouse in Manhattan, two kids, a devoted best friend, and as many love affairs as she chooses to pursue. But now, on the brink of menopause, Clea has become bored -- bored with her husband Turner and his endless business trips and dalliances; bored with the New York fast lane; bored with the games of adultery. Clea is ripe for a radical change of scene -- and she thinks she has found it in the seemingly idyllic town of Roches Ridge, Vermont. Falling in love with the town at first sight, Clea buys a decaying but atmospheric old stone house and prepares to embark on a different kind of dream life in the lush green countryside. Only this time her dream collides with a very strange -- and very funny -- dose of reality. Modulating between high comedy, social satire, and serious soul-searching, Bedrock is one of Lisa Alther's most engaging, most fully achieved novels. As Marilyn French puts it, &doublequote;Bedrock is a hoot to read, but humor is only one of its graces. Lisa Alther writes with a profound acceptance of human variety and vagary that is rare in this mean age and that lifts the spirits.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;Irish Times&newline;Funnier....and wiser than Kinflicks. --Irish Times, 9/1/90&newline;&newline;Library Journal&newline;An assortment of odd people inhabits Roches Ridge, Vermont: Loretta Gebo, beehived proprietor of Casa Loretta; Ishtar, owner of the rival Karma Cafe and renegade from a lesbian commune; Daryl Perkins, crippled, aspiring TV preacher, lusting after Loretta; Maureen Murphy, bitter spinster, trying to kill off her aged mother by taking her on exhausting ``pleasure'' trips. But it is to Roches Ridge that Clea Shawn flees to ``detox'' from her successful life--as photographer, wife of an international businessman, mother of two children in college, friend/would-be lover of sculptor Elke. Alther is a fine writer, able to move effortlessly from past to present and among her dramatis personae; and the crazy characters and tongue-in-cheek style exhibit flashes of the wit expected from the author of Kinflicks (LJ 3/1/76). Ultimately, though, the drama of Clea's life becomes tedious, and we never care as much about her as she does about herself.-- Francine Fialkoff, ``Library Journal''&newline;&newline;Washington Post Book&newline;One of the funniest madhouses around... Without ever diminishing the humor, Lisa Alther has managed the difficult fear of using the nuttiness [in our society] as a counterpoint to an examination of love in all its varieties and durations. -- Washington Post Book World, 5/21/90&newline;&newline;London Sunday Times&newline;Alison Laurie meets Armistead Maupin.... There is grandiosity about Alther's writing that any amount of wisecracks and small-town gossip cannot diminish. -- London Sunday Times, 8/19/90&newline;&newline;London List&newline;An intensely funny exploration of the female psyche and its outward bounds... with an exceptional capacity to amuse and disturb. -- London List, 8/90&newline;&newline;Atlanta Journal Constitutio&newline;Clea finds the intimacy she lacks in her marriage in her best friend Elke. The story of their 20-year-old repressed love for each other is the bedrock of the novel. Clea and Elke are temperamental opposites, equally strong-willed, consumed by passion for each other.... Bedrock is well-written and briskly paced, as teeming with eccentric characters and swirling with subplots as a Dickens novel. -- Atlanta Journal Constitution, 6/10/90&newline;&newline;What People Are Saying&newline;Marilyn French&newline;&doublequote;Bedrock is a soothe to read, but humor is only one of its graces. Lisa Alther writes with a profound acceptance of human variety and vaguery that is rare in this mean age and lifts the spirits.&doublequote; 4.0 Stars
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Alther, Lisa Kinflicks: A Novel
New York Galahad Books August 1978 0394498364 / 9780394498362 Hardcover
From the Publisher&newline;In her first novel, Alther traces the troubled, funny, heartbreaking coming of age of Ginny Babcock Bliss during the l950s and '60s. The daughter of one of the first families in Hullsport, Tennessee, Ginny bounces from one identity to another, adopting the values, politics, lifestyle, even sexual orientation of each new partner. In Kinflicks, Alther reels through the ups and downs of Ginny's life by dividing her narrative into two sequences: Ginny herself narrates the adventures of her past while a third-person narrator takes over to describe her present, when she returns to Hullsport as an adult to care for her dying mother. Mary Cantwell, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called Kinflicks&doublequote;an almost flawless balance of light and dark, the skittery and the sad.&doublequote; &doublequote;Ginny is the classic outsider,&doublequote; noted the Saturday Review in a rave review of the book, &doublequote;and her fine sense of the comic permits the novel to approach a kind of high seriousness...A best-seller? Sure. In the august company of The Catcher in the Rye, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Huck? Yes, indeed.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;Doris Lessing&newline;&doublequote;I very much like this book, am sure Alther will be recognized as a strong, salty, original talent. Is the word I am looking for balanced? She does fuse qualities, being robustly desparing, tenaciously critical, yet vigorously creative, grim but comical -- she had me laughing at four in the morning. No man could have written it, but it is very far from being &doublequote;a woman's book&doublequote;, and it made me wonder what Tom Jones would be like, written now. It is the size and scope of the territory Alther claims which is impressive. -Doris Lessing&newline;&newline;New Yorker&newline;An ambitious, funny, lucid, and unfailingly honest novel...No other writer has yet synthesized (the coming of age in the 60's) as well as Ms. Alther has! -New Yorker, 3/29/76&newline;&newline;Harper's Magazine&newline;So continuously funny that its wisdom takes you by surprise...We are in the presence of a most powerful and remarkable talent. -Alice Adams, Harper's, 5/76&newline;&newline;Doris Grumbach&newline;An extraordinary first novel.... Funny with the touchmark of acute, aching, poignant reality... the most marvelously described teens, adolescent mores and attitudes, sex and sensibilities since Salinger took us on Holden Caulfield's journey... Ginny is the classic outsider and her fine sense of the comic permits the novel to approach a kind of high seriousness... In the august company of The Catcher in the Rye, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Huck? Yes, indeed. -- Saturday Review, 3/20/76&newline;&newline;John Leonard&newline;Amazing... a very funny book... about serious matters, full of people one would like to meet, and oddly invigorating. The tone of voice throughout is a tone that has been missing in American fiction for years -- the speech of breezy survivors, of Holden Caulfield, Augie March, and ultimately Huck Finn. -- New York Times book Review, 3/14/76&newline;&newline;Christopher Lehmann-Haupt&newline;Composed of an adolescence of small-town suffocation, an education of Ivy League respectability, a dropout into lesbian communalism and then a copout into matrimonial conventionality, Ginny's life promises to be the progress of a 1960's pilgrim with all the resoluteness of a cork on a stormy ocean... At the very end, when Ginny at long last takes serious stand, we not only respect her position but we also finally take seriously all the clowning that led up to it. And feel thankful to Lisa Alther for a rewarding reading experience. -- New York Times, 3/16/76&newline;&newline;Alice Adams&newline;&doublequote;So continuously funny that its wisdom takes you by surprise....we are in the presence of a most powerful and remarkable talent.&doublequote; -- Harpers&newline;&newline;What People Are Saying&newline;Joan Crawford&newline;Alther dazzles with her range from the human and tragic to the erotic and comic.... She is the kind of writer you want to hear from again.&newline;&newline;&newline;Joan Crawford&newline;&doublequote;Alter dazzles with her range from the human and tragic to the erotic and comic....she is the kind of writer you want to hear from again.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;&newline;Doris Blessing&newline;&doublequote;A strong, salty, original talent....it made me wonder what Tom Jones would be like written now.&doublequote; 4.0 Stars
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Altman, John The Watchmen
New York Putnam Adult August 5, 2004 0399151737 / 9780399151736 Hardcover
From the Publisher&newline;In a remote safe house in the American Northeast, a terrorist is questioned, a psychiatrist is tested, and an assassin is dispatched. . . . &newline;&newline;His previous novels have been widely praised as &doublequote;sharp and refreshingly literate&doublequote; (Chicago Tribune); and &doublequote;taut and lean and filled with action&doublequote; (Booklist). In The Watchmen John Altman delivers his most gripping thriller yet. &newline;&newline;An Al Qaeda prisoner named Ali Zattout is moved from Pakistan to a CIA safe house for observation and interrogation. He is smart, cooperative, and thoroughly Westernized -but is he too good to be true? The man who must question him, Dr. Louis Finney, regrets his days spent working for the U.S. Government. Years have passed since he and his mentor performed experiments designed to develop multiple personalities in unsuspecting patients, but only recently have his guilty nightmares begun to subside. Now his mentor appears on Finney's doorstep, terminally ill, asking him to consult for a critically important CIA case. &newline;&newline;But the CIA isn't the only group interested in Zattout's information. His capture has aroused concerns at the highest ranks of Al Qaeda. An assassin schooled in ancient arts of meditation and murder is sent to eliminate Zattout before he discloses their secrets. The CIA safe house is as heavily guarded as the secret of its location, but Zattout is not the only traitor within its walls.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;When captured al-Qaeda operative Ali Zattout proves less than forthcoming with his CIA interrogators, they subject him to the manipulations of regretful psychiatrist Louis Finney, who tries everything from mellow conversation to electroshock-induced &doublequote;de-patterning&doublequote; and &doublequote;psychic driving.&doublequote; Meanwhile, Zattout is being stalked by a nameless assassin, alumnus of an Asian temple cult of assassins, whose hypno-meditative regimen makes him so stealthily lethal that he is shudderingly referred to as the &doublequote;ghost wind.&doublequote; Altman (A Gathering of Spies) excels at taut psychological confrontations, engrossing procedural and nerve-wracking action set pieces, replete with the theory and practice of mind control, interrogation techniques, cryptanalysis and murder. But the intrigue and mayhem spring from recognizable human motives. Like the Americans here, Altman's terrorists have affecting backstories and a sense of duty and payback that explains their acts, and they feel misgivings at the brutality they inflict. Orientalist clich s are off-loaded onto the assassin, a representative of the &doublequote;True East,&doublequote; whose violence, unlike that of Muslims and Westerners, is not a tragic product of ideology and history but a mystic pathway to enlightenment, though even he is plagued by doubts and depression. Altman's blend of suspense, action, psychological depth and moral murk makes this a wonderful espionage thriller for a Code Orange age. Agent, Richard Curtis. BOMC main selection, Doubleday Book Club alternate. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. 4.5 Stars
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America, Western Writers of Tales of the American West
Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated June 2001 0451203275 / 9780451203274 Mass Market Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;From the Western Writers of America-the most respected Western author organization in America-comes this extraordinary anthology featuring fifteen Spur Award-winning classics of Western fiction including: Loren D. Estleman, Richard Matheson, Elmer Kelton, Judy Alter, Win Blevins, Harry W. Paige, Frank Roderus, Ed Gorman, R.C. House, Joyce Gibson Roach, Jory Sherman, Gavy Svee, Glendon Swarthout, Sandra Whiting, and Jeanne Williams.
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Andrews, Robert A Murder of Promise
Berkley April 1, 2003 0425189422 / 9780425189429 Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;When legendary Washington Post reporter Mary Keegan is found murdered, homicide detectives Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps pull up the file on another open case. There as here, the victim was a female who had been hacked to death in a public park. And there is one other link: each was missing a little finger, a grisly souvenir - perhaps the calling card of a serial killer. When, a week later, a third woman is found in similar circumstances, they're sure of it. &newline;&newline;Kearney and Phelps are certain the killer will strike again and know they're working against time. Using the best evidence modern forensics and computer science can supply and the good guesswork twenty-five years of homicide investigations have sharpened, they begin to see some patterns, but not enough to connect up the dots. Then the finger of one of the victims is found sealed inside a plastic baggie in a raided crack house. Cutting corners, pulling in favors, they track the evidence back to what they believe will be the killer, only to find he is one step ahead of them. In a climactic nightmare chase, Kearney races to save the person dearest to him as he faces off against a cunning homicidal maniac.&newline;&newline;Los Angeles Times&newline;A perceptive profile of intra-police relations.&newline;&newline;New York Times&newline;A thoughtful, discreetly told tale about the abuses of power.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;Somewhere between the seedy streets of George P. Pelecanos and the upscale enclaves of such Old Guard novelists as Ward Just lies the Washington, D.C., patrolled by Frank Kearney and Jos Phelps, the veteran homicide detectives introduced in Andrews's memorable A Murder of Honor (2001) and now brought back for a second, equally excellent outing. As before, it's Kearney the erudite son of a judge and a Vietnam vet whose nights are still occasionally haunted by visions of that war who gets the most ink, while his heftier African-American partner seems defined more by his physical attributes and more amusing habits. When Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Mary Keegan is found hacked to death in a Georgetown park, the last thing their supremely political homicide commander wants to hear is that it might be the work of a serial killer. So Kearney and Phelps dig into the subjects of a book about fathers and sons that Keegan was working on: a legendary Kennedy-era diplomat and his less flashy bureaucratic offspring; and a smooth, supposedly retired black drug lord and his straight-arrow son. Keegan's brother, an Irishman with a political agenda, also bears some looking into, as well as a sharply sketched Internet entrepreneur whose signature online game might provide a clue. The author of four thrillers (Last Spy Out, etc.) before he turned to police procedurals, Andrews has drawn once again on his insider's knowledge of Washington to produce a first-rate entertainment. Agent, Robin Rue. (Mar. 4) Forecast: With blurbs from Robert B. Parker and George Pelecanos, as well as his Washington connections (he was once a national security advisor to a senior U.S. senator), Andrews is well positioned to build this series into a winner. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.&newline;&newline;Library Journal&newline;Washington, DC, police detectives Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps are assigned to investigate the murder of Mary Keegan, a prize-winning reporter found knifed to death in a DC park. The experienced officers link the case to another brutal slaying with striking similarities. Through their investigation, we pick up tidbits of information on newspaper reporting, Washington politics, police procedure, computer crime, and drug dealing. This makes for a plot with lots of interesting elements; the description of the DC area is also entertaining. The characters, drawn from the same spheres, are intriguing; unfortunately, with the exception of Frank and Jose, they are a bit flat, and because there are some loose ends in the plot, the book lacks a certain spark. David Daoust gives an adequate but uninspired performance. Recommended for collections where mystery and police procedurals are popular.-Christine Vale 4.0 Stars
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Archer, Jeffrey As the Crow Flies
HarperTorch May 15, 1992 0061099341 / 9780061099342 Mass Market Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;&newline;&newline;Growing up in the slums of East End London, Charlie Trumper dreams of someday running his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow. That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as &doublequote;The Honest Trader&doublequote;. But the brutal onset of World War I takes Charlie far from home and into the path of a dangerous enemy whose legacy of evil follows Charlie and his family for generations.&newline;&newline;Encompassing three continents and spanning over sixty years, As the Crow Flies brings to life a magnificent tale of one man's rise from rags to riches set against the backdrop of a changing century. 4.5 Stars
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Archer, Jeffrey As the Crow Flies
HarperTorch May 15, 1992 0061099341 / 9780061099342 Mass Market Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;&newline;&newline;Growing up in the slums of East End London, Charlie Trumper dreams of someday running his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow. That day comes suddenly when his grandfather dies leaving him the floundering business. With the help of Becky Salmon, an enterprising young woman, Charlie sets out to make a name for himself as &doublequote;The Honest Trader&doublequote;. But the brutal onset of World War I takes Charlie far from home and into the path of a dangerous enemy whose legacy of evil follows Charlie and his family for generations.&newline;&newline;Encompassing three continents and spanning over sixty years, As the Crow Flies brings to life a magnificent tale of one man's rise from rags to riches set against the backdrop of a changing century. 4.5 Stars
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Archer, Jeffrey Sons of Fortune
St. Martin's Paperbacks November 25, 2003 0312993536 / 9780312993535 Mass Market Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;The best-selling author of Kane and Abel returns with a powerful tale of twinsseparated by fate and reunited by destiny. In Hartford, Connecticut, in theearly 1950s, a set of twins is separated at birth by accident. One brothergrows up to be a war hero in Vietnam and a successful 1990s bank executive,while the other distinguishes himself as a lawyer and politician. Sons ofFortune is as much the story of the making of these two men -- and how theyeventually find each other -- as it is the chronicle of a nation in transition.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;Veteran novelist and British politician Archer (Kane and Abel) is currently serving a prison sentence for perjury, so readers can perhaps forgive him if this latest effort falls short of his usual standard. The implausibly plotted novel follows fraternal twin boys separated at birth by a bizarre set of circumstances. Nat Cartwright and Fletcher Davenport are born in Hartford, Conn., in the early 1950s. A meddlesome nurse sends them home with different families. Nat is raised in a lower-middle-class household, attends the University of Connecticut, serves heroically in Vietnam and goes into banking. Fletcher, the wealthy Yalie, becomes a lawyer and a politician. The men are repeatedly thrown into competition with each other, whether for admission to college or in their professional lives, their rivalry culminating when they both run for governor of their home state. The characters are too thin, and their respective worlds too littered with clich s, to offer a satisfying portrait of the baby boomer generation. Contrived plot twists offer little distraction, while the dialogue sometimes reads like a set of photo captions-information without emotion. &doublequote;When you think about it, they are the obvious predator,&doublequote; says Nat about a takeover threat. &doublequote;Fairchild's is the largest bank in the state; seventy-one branches with almost no serious rivals.&doublequote; Archer is usually a skillful storyteller, but he drops the ball here. (Jan.) Forecast: Archer, who has had to resign from political office three times because of financial and sexual scandals, usually draws reliable sales, but this weak offering may break the mold. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.&newline;&newline;Kirkus Reviews&newline;Twins separated at birth are reunited decades later after many, many twists of fate. The Oxford-educated Archer (The Eleventh Commandment, 1998, etc.) has deposited yet another pile of pages upon us but will likely escape prosecution for the crime. This time, he gives us a pair of twins born in 1950s Connecticut. Through a chain of obtusely convoluted events, the boys are mixed up at the hospital and raised by separate parents, never knowing of their siblinghood. It's a long, long road until they meet again. One, Nat, is a smart but headstrong lad who could have gotten out of Vietnam but feels honor-bound to go, returns a celebrated hero after helping rescue some trapped soldiers, and goes into banking. The other, Fletcher, equally smart and headstrong, becomes a lawyer. Each marries a gorgeous, smart woman and starts riding a rocket to the top. Pretty much the only difference between the two is that Nat has a nemesis from school, Roger Elliot, a cartoonishly rotten brat who always plays dirty. Elliot is an archetype of archetypes who pops up occasionally just to inflict a wrong upon saintly Nat. The 1970s grumble on with only the occasional nod to the passage of time, and eventually the twins are both running for governor of Connecticut-Nat a Republican, Fletcher Democrat-and a final dirty trick by Elliot brings them together in a courtroom where Fletcher defends Nat against a murder charge-while the election is still going on. Most distressing about this dreary business is not that Archer's plot points are so ridiculous or contrived, but that he fails to make it at all entertaining. Flat, bland, covered in wastelands of cliché. 3.0 Stars
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Archer, Jeffrey The Eleventh Commandment: A Novel
HarperTorch April 7, 1999 0061013315 / 9780061013317 Mass Market Paperback
Editorial Reviews&newline;Review&newline;&doublequote;A first rate, well-crafted and very readable international&newline;&newline;thriller...Archer delivers.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;-- -- Denver Post&newline;&newline;&doublequote;A nonstop, rocketing ride...Wheels spin within wheels until the&newline;&newline;slam-bang climax...It's fun.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;-- -- Publishers Weekly&newline;&newline;&doublequote;Entertaining and sprightly paced suspense...There is plenty of&newline;&newline;fun amidst the action.&doublequote;&newline;&newline;-- -- Chicago Tribune &newline;&newline;&doublequote;A nonstop, rocketing ride...Wheels spin within wheels until the slam-bang climax...It's fun.&doublequote; -- Publishers Weekly&newline;&newline;&doublequote;A first rate, well-crafted and very readable international thriller...Archer delivers.&doublequote; -- Denver Post&newline;&newline;&doublequote;Entertaining and sprightly paced suspense...There is plenty of fun amidst the action.&doublequote; -- Chicago Tribune Product Description&newline;The Eleventh Commandment. &newline;&newline;Connor Fitzgerald is a professional's professional. Holder of the Medal of Honor. Devoted family man. Servant of his country. CIA assassin. Days before his retirement from the Company, Fitzgerald comes face to face with an enemy who, for the first time, even he cannot handle--his own boss, Helen Dexter, Director of the CIA. &newline;&newline;Thou Shalt Not Be Caught.&newline;&newline;But Dexter's stranglehold on the agency is threatened by a power greater than her own, and her only hope is to destroy Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a new threat to national security is emerging: a ruthless hardline Russian president who is determined to force a military confrontation between the two superpowers. It's up to the intrepid Fitzgerald to pull off his most daring mission yet--save the world.and his own life. 3.5 Stars
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Archer, Jeffrey The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
St. Martin's Press March 20, 2007 0312375204 / 9780312375201 Paperback
From the Publisher&newline;The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot sheds new light on the the mystery of Judas--including his motives for the betrayal and what happened to him after the crucifixion--by retelling the story of Jesus through the eyes of Judas, using the canonical texts as its basic point of reference. Ostensibly written by Judas's son, Benjamin, and following the narrative style of the Gospels, this re-creation is provocative, compelling, and controversial.&newline;&newline;The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot is the result of an intense collaboration between a storyteller and a scholar: Jeffrey Archer and Francis J. Moloney. Their brilliant work--bold and simple--is a compelling story for twenty-first-century readers, while maintaining an authenticity that would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;&newline;&newline;Not to be confused with the historic Gospel of Judas(2006, National Geographic), this is a novella by &doublequote;Benjamin Iscariot&doublequote;-a fictionalized son of Judas who is eager to rehabilitate his father's reputation. This collaboration between novelist Archer and Roman Catholic theologian Moloney changes a few things from the traditional story, e.g., refuting the notion that Judas committed suicide and attributing his betrayal of Jesus to the altruistic motive of trying to save his master's life. But surprisingly, this fictionalized gospel doesn't have enough fiction; it hews so closely to the chronology and cadence of the New Testament that character development suffers. And although the gospel adds some meticulously researched historical background, helping readers understand the context of first-century Judaism, other features that are prominent in the New Testament record-particularly miracles, healings, and the resurrection-are almost nonexistent. Desmond Tutu's voice is marvelous in the narration, his lilting South African cadence breathing life into a disappointingly staid text. The final disc includes a brief video interview with Tutu and several minutes of footage of him in the recording studio. Simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hardcover. (Apr.)Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information 2.5 Stars
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Arvin, Reed The Last Goodbye
New York HarperCollins February 17, 2004 0060555513 / 9780060555511 Hardcover
From the Publisher&newline;&newline;&newline;When a down-on-his-luck attorney gets mixed up with a gorgeous singer with a secret past, it results in a volatile tale of love, betrayal and murder in the tradition of Richard North Paterson and other bestselling authors. &newline;&newline;Jack Hammond is a man haunted by the sins of his past. Once a member of a white-shoe law firm, he lost his once-promising career because of a transgression with a beautiful female client. Now he works out of a seedy office in downtown Atlanta. The only income he can count on is as the court-appointed attorney to the dregs of the court system. When his friend-a former addict and computer whiz who'd turned his life around-is found dead in his apartment with a syringe stuck in his arm, Jack knows there's something very wrong. In his attempt to get to the bottom of Doug's murder, Jack is drawn into the spellbinding world of a gorgeous black opera singer with whom Doug had been secretly in love. &newline;&newline;As the story deepens, Hammond gets pulled into the worlds of high-tech, biological research, big business, and high society. Arvin pulls all these threads together in riveting fashion. &newline;&newline;Reed Arvin's new novel introduces an unforgettable hero whose flawed humanity and wry humour will keep readers rooting for him, and a fast-paced story with enough twists and turns to keep readers turning the pages.&newline;&newline;Publishers Weekly&newline;&doublequote;As usual, the story begins with a woman crying.&doublequote; So says Atlanta lawyer Jack Hammond in this mesmerizing thriller about a good man caught in a web of bad love and murder. Beautiful client Violeta Ramirez is doing the crying on behalf of her dope-dealer boyfriend when Jack tumbles so hard for her his high-flying legal career is grounded and Violeta ends up dead. Two years later, Jack is working out of his one-man law office fishing for clients at the bottom of the criminal pool when he begins investigating the suspicious overdose death of his old college pal, Doug Townsend. With the help of a local hacker, Nightmare, Jack unlocks Doug's computer and stumbles into a quagmire involving the deaths of eight hepatitis C patients who were all enrolled in an experimental drug trial gone horribly wrong. Doug was also strangely obsessed with beautiful African-American opera singer Michele Sonnier, as is Jack after one look at her photos and a night at the opera. That her husband is the billionaire CEO of a local drug firm with its own hep C drug makes the liaison even more dangerous. After finding the disgraced researcher who headed the botched drug trial, Jack and his lowlife helpers begin to make real headway in solving the case. Even though melancholy, wisecracking Jack is a lawyer, this isn't a legal thriller so much as a knight-in-shining armor tale with the hero cast in the mold of the great Travis McGee. It's not Grisham that Arvin (The Will) should be compared to, but the incomparable John D. MacDonald. Those readers who value intelligence, fine writing and action will find it all in this outstanding novel. 100,000 first printing. (Feb. 17) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.&newline;&newline;Library Journal&newline;Unlike his more original debut, The Will, Arvin's sophomore effort treads familiar ground. Jack Hammond's catastrophic decision to sleep with a client led to his ouster from a high-powered corporate law firm. Two years later, Jack is living case by case as a public defender and has convinced himself that nothing truly matters. His cynical, self-imposed isolation ends when he learns of the supposed suicide of a former college friend, Doug Townsend. Jack doesn't believe the official report and is determined to give Doug the justice he deserves. Soon, however, he is in over his head in a case that involves gang bangers, a powerful drug company about to go public, and a beautiful opera singer. Faced with emotional and physical danger, Jack struggles not only to survive but also to make sense of his life and the decisions he has made. Unfortunately, Jack is a highly unoriginal reworking of a dozen other down-but-not-out, reluctantly heroic lawyers who must fight the good fight. The plot als 4.0 Stars
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