Latest Books: March 2009 Archives
On leave from the New Orleans Police Department after a freak accident, Detective Rick Bentz is obsessed with getting back to work----and not behind a desk. He intends to return to homicide, his partner and to the complex, difficult cases that earned him accolades and a reputation for heroism. Haunted by depression and frustration, nagged by pain that until recently made even walking impossible, Bentz begins to question his sanity when he begins seeing visions of his late wife. Certain he's being set up, he follows the clues back to Los Angeles and to his past. It's where his ex-wife died and where he poured himself into a bottle after mistaking a twelve-year-old boy with a toy gun for a murderer about to kill his partner and shooting him dead. Within forty-eight hours of his return to LA, a killer duplicates the double homicide that helped end his LAPD career, and a killing spree begins in which each victim is a part of his ex-wife's past, each corpse points to Bentz as the killer, and a murderer is determined to keep at it until Bentz has finally paid for his sins. "A vengeful ex-wife appears to have returned from the dead to stalk her ex-husband in this gripping thriller from bestseller Jackson,,, Jackson heightens the creep factor by including the viewpoint of a character whose hatred for Rick for past wrongs inspires another extreme killing spree." -- Publishers Weekly on MALICE
"Solidifies Jackson's sttus as the queen of the modern-day suspense thriller." -- The Providence Journal on LOST SOULS
"Expect the unexpected." -- The Clarion Ledger on LOST SOULS
Lisa Jackson can't keep away from murderers, especially serial killers. She's been killing people from Savannah, New Orleans and Baton Rouge to San Francisco, Los Angeles and the Pacific Northwest--and it's been worth it. Readers come back again and again. Her book Fatal Burn was a number one New York Times paperback bestseller, and her first hardcover, Shiver, hit the top five on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Readers made WICKED GAME, written with her sister, novelist Nancy Bush, and the paperback reprint of LOST SOULS, national bestsellers. Lisa's next book, MALICE is on sale March 31st.
You obviously have a great 'hook for your books' in the Mary Russell series, an apprentice and wife who helps the ultimate detective solve crimes. How brave did you have to be to take on the sacrosanct Sherlock Holmes as a continuing character?Well, I prefer the take on the series that the Random House marketing department came up with: "Meet the world's greatest detective--and her husband, Sherlock Holmes." The real fun of the books is that Holmes is a supporting character, and Russell what Sherlock Holmes would look like were Holmes a young, 20th century female. Sherlockians were dubious at first, but once they saw that I had respect and affection for both Holmes and Conan Doyle, they decided to play along, and in fact have invited me to some of the annual Baker Street Irregular dinners.
In your series, your heroine, Mary Russell, has an interesting character arc. Since your hero, Sherlock Holmes, is so well known, have you been able to develop a character arc for him also?
That's the reason I wanted to pick the character up after Conan Doyle was finished with him, at the eve of the Great War. Pastiches can't really permit a lot of development, since you have to brush the character off and put him back where you found him, but to start with him at a point of immense change for Britain as a whole--well, as one of the LRK fan sites says, "After 1914, Holmes is ours." There were a lot of ways Conan Doyle didn't even try to permit his character to grow, not only because he didn't take the man seriously, but because he assumed that the personality of Holmes wouldn't survive the post-war changes. I did.
Continue reading The Language Of Bees by Laurie R. King.
Father's day is a dark and atmospheric tale of an ex-cop from Philadelphia asked to track down the missing daughter of an old friend. The investigation takes him deep into his past, into the darkest corners of the city where the ghosts of his most painful memories await his return.He uncovers truths about the alleged suicide of his friend, a fellow officer with the Philadelphia police department; truths about the accusations that ended both their careers; truths about the woman who had come between them; truths about the tortured life of the girl he's trying to find and naturally, truths about himself.
Father's Day is a novel with multiple layers of meaning, taught psychological depth, strong noir elements and stark visual imagery. It is a terrifying exploration of the emotions behind our deepest fears.
"Gilman has a cop's eye for detail and a hardboiled humor that can't be faked. A palpable evil fills the pages of FATHER'S DAY that is both terrifying and relentless. Gilman writes sharply and knows where all the bodies are buried; his Philadelphia is worth a visit." -- William Lashner - New York Times bestselling author of A KILLER'S KISS.
"The best fiction has this feeling that someone's just leaned close to whisper in our ear: 'I've something important to tell you.' FATHER'S DAY, Keith Gilman's debut novel has, and sustains, that quality from the first page. You know right away that you're in the hands of a natural and very fine storyteller. Authenticity, voice, the sense of lives beyond the page, all those things we crave as readers and for which we work so hard as writers, tossing the bones, hoping the magic will work -- all are solidly, soundly in place."-- James Sallis, author of Drive and the Lew Griffin series
Keith Gilman is a cop. He was born and raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania and he's been a police officer in the Philadelphia area for over fifteen years. He knows how cops think. He knows what cops know. He's seen things most people only see in their nightmares. He walks the walk and he talks the talk, and in FATHER'S DAY, his debut novel from St. Martin's Minotaur, he pulls back the curtain on his disturbing vision of a decaying urban world, haunted by shadows of deceit and death.
Airline pilot Mike Rendell's day started simply enough. He flew his Boeing 737 out of Chicago expecting a relaxing flight west. But then he encountered bad weather. Mechanical malfunctions further complicated his life. Could things get worse? Well yes, if you consider a hijacking a problem.Squawk 7500 is the kind of thriller that screws the tension on tight and every minute feels real because the author, Captain Steve Reeves, has been there and done that. In fact, after reading this book you might not think it belongs in the fiction section of bookstores. If so, Reeves would agree with you.
"The book is a fictionalized recounting of a true adventure so, I'd prefer that it be placed in the "True Adventure" section," he says.
Squawk 7500 is a fiction thriller, but it's based on Reeves' real life experiences as a commercial pilot. His 12,500 hours flying civilian, military, and commercial aircraft allow him to truly give an insider's eye view of what it takes to fly a jumbo jet while juggling a series of crises that most of us would not want to face, but love to read about. Reeves says he has seen many of the same problems in his 21 years of flying commercial airplanes.
"I've had to contend with tornadoes, hurricanes, and tropical storms," Reeves says. "I've had my fair share of drunks on board but this is the first time that I had someone go crazy and hijack the plane."
Continue reading Squawk 7500 by Steve A. Reeves.
Many mysteries surround Shakespeare's life? People argue if he even wrote the plays. Where was he during 'the missing years?' Who was the 'Dark Lady' in his life? But now the most intriguing mystery: Why was William Shakespeare registered to wed two different women in the same church marriage bond book? 'The true story of Shakespeare in love' is suspense novelist Karen Harper's MISTRESS SHAKESPEARE out from Putnam. Also in audio book from Brilliance."A story of love, loss, and a legend in the making, "Mistress Shakespeare" is a riveting must-read." -- Strand Bookstore, New York City.
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Harper
has been published for 25 years. She is the winner of the 2006 Mary
Higgins Clark Award. A former college and high school English
instructor, Harper currently writes contemporary suspense for Mira
Books and historical novels for Putnam. She and her husband divide
their time between Columbus, Ohio and Naples, Florida. ThrillerFest
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