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– O. P.
john gardner
Sometimes the price of fame and fortune is high. John Gardner, one of the handful of espionage writers whose best work will endure (I still think his Garden of Weapons is the greatest spy novel I've read), never quite attained the popular and critical recognition of such contemporaries as John le Carre, Len Deighton, Ken Follett, and Frederick Forsyth. Then, several years after the death of Ian Fleming, he agreed to continue the James Bond series.
Naturally, those books immediately shot to the bestseller lists, giving him the rewards of vast popularity. Equally predictably, critics blasted him for turning his back on his more serious work, saying the Bond books didn't have the depth and power of his other novels-the same ones they'd ignored in the past. Recently, he has produced novels that rank with his best work, notably Maestro, which brought Herbie Kruger back to work, and Confessor.
Gardner wrote (not in this story) that "sex is the glue that holds love together. " That may well be the unifying theme of all his best work, which has as much to do with human relations as it does with international skulduggery.
– O. P.
faye kellerman
Hearts and flowers. Moonlight and roses. Passion and obsession. Sometimes love's magical elixir turns suddenly to venom. In Faye Kellerman's haunting tale of romance-cum-loathing, a young woman is first swept off her feet, then forced to struggle to regain her balance- all in the name of love.
Although every lover wears masks, some are more deceptive than others. And sometimes the deception can take an ominous twist that causes the war between the sexes to move past trivial skirmishes onto a bloody battlefield where only a single wi
Faye Kellerman, a lovely, charming, apparently gentle woman, has written convincingly of the darkest side of love gone wrong. Sales of her novels have not quite reached the heady levels of her husband Jonathan's (also represented in this volume), but the gap closes a bit with each new publication. They seem to revel in each other's successes and are as proud of each other's as of their own accomplishments. By all accounts, there is no dark side to their marriage!
– O. P.
jonathan kellerman
Love isn't always about hearts and flowers: sometimes it's also about smushed carrots and dirty diapers. An infant, in fact, often tugs at the tenderer emotions even more deeply than the most adoring paramour, because the passion felt for a child is about i
In suspense maestro Jonathan Kellerman's confounding tale, mother love certainly seems to be the focus as young mom Karen indulges cute little Zoe in a nearly empty restaurant at lunchtime. Gurgling in her high chair while cleverly pitching peas to the floor, Zoe is oblivious of the table of sinister-looking gents in the corner. Karen, however, is not and, somehow, within the space of a few confused moments, a quick exit is the move she's forced to make.
Jonathan Kellerman is that great rarity-an author who enjoyed enormous success with his first book (When the Bough Breaks, which won an Edgar Allan Poe award from the Mystery Writers of America), and who manages to increase both the high quality of the work and its success, as each subsequent novel has immediately leapt onto the bestseller list.
– O. P.
elmore leonard
Even with the respect finally granted to the art of the best mystery writers in recent years, it still has been rare for authors who write about violent crimes to be taken seriously by critics and sophisticated readers. Probably no crime or mystery writer in history has received the (deserved) acclaim of his contemporaries accorded El-more Leonard.
Hammett and Chandler were recognized for their powerful influence on American fiction only after they died. Ross Macdonald tasted it only near the end of his career. But for more than fifteen years, the most distinguished critics and the most popular and powerful cultural media have recognized the singular achievement of Elmore Leonard's unique prose style.
After years as a western writer (Hombre, The Tall T, Last Train to Yuma, among others), Leonard moved his stories into the present. He didn't change his style, which he describes by saying, "I try to leave out the parts that people skip, " but the subject matter, and he has enjoyed a string of more than a dozen consecutive bestsellers, including Bandits, Glitz, Maximum Bob, Pronto, and Riding the Rap.
This is Elmore Leonard's first short story in more than thirty years. (In a special fiction issue of The New Yorker two years ago, there was a superb piece by him, but it was an excerpt from Riding the Rap.) You will like some of the characters you are about to meet; happily, they will show up again in later work.
– O. P.
michael malone
Every small town has its legends. Thermopylae, North Carolina, gave Stella Dora Doyle to the world and then, with little choice in the matter-four husbands, one murder trial, and a European exile later-took her back. For young Buddy Hayes, a boy who has grown into manhood while Stella's fabled beauty has only ripened, his father's assessment of her powerful aura lingers in his mind long past his first glimpse of the woman herself.
Never to have desired Stella, his dad solemnly tells him as they watch her climb the courthouse steps, accused of killing Hugh Doyle, her childhood sweetheart and latest husband, is to have missed out on being alive. Haunted by the memory of this fearful glamor, Buddy is nonetheless equal to the occasion when his path and Stella's later cross.
Acclaimed novelist Michael Malone, no stranger to the mysteries of the human heart, understands that the combination of memory, myth, and sudden violent death is an irresistible one. In addition to his bestselling novels of small-town southern life, he has written two superb mystery novels about Justin Savile and Cuddy Mangum, Uncivil Seasons and Time's Witness. He recently won an Emmy as the writer of the daytime drama One Life to Live.
– O. P.