90 results for "Love"

Seasonal Work Stories

Laura Lippman
New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman showcases why she is one of today's top crime writers in this acclaimed collection of suspenseful stories featuring fierce women--including one never-before-published novella. "A first-rate collection, an obvious must for the legions of Lippman fans, but also great reading for anyone who savors short crime fiction." -- Booklist (starred review) The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published "Just One More," a married couple--longing for that old romantic spark--creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences. Lippman's beloved Baltimore PI Tess Monaghan keeps a watchful eye on a criminally resourceful single father in "Seasonal Work," while her mother, Judith, realizes that the life of "The Everyday Housewife" is an excellent cover for all kinds of secrets. In "Slow Burner," a husband's secret cell phone proves to be a dicey temptation for a suspicious wife. A father's hidden past piques the curiosity of a young snoop in "The Last of Sheila-Locke Holmes." Plus seven other brilliantly crafted stories of deception, murder, dangerous games, and love gone wrong--irrefutable evidence that Laura Lippman's riveting fiction will more than satisfy any crime reader.
HarperCollins Publishers 2023-01-31 336 pages

Careful What You Wish For A Novel

Hallie Ephron
From the New York Times bestselling author of There Was an Old Woman comes a novel about a professional organizer with a deadly problem she may not be able to clean up. Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. He’s filled their basement, attic, and garage with his finds. Like other professionals who make a living decluttering peoples’ lives, Emily has devised a set of ironclad rules. When working with couples, she makes clear that the client is only allowed to declutter his or her own stuff. That stipulation has kept Emily’s own marriage together these past few years. She’d love nothing better than to toss out all her husband’s crap. He says he’s a collector. Emily knows better—he’s a hoarder. The larger his “collection” becomes, the deeper the distance grows between Emily and the man she married. Luckily, Emily’s got two new clients to distract herself: an elderly widow whose husband left behind a storage unit she didn’t know existed, and a young wife whose husband won’t allow her stuff into their house. Emily’s initial meeting with the young wife takes a detour when, after too much wine, the women end up fantasizing about how much more pleasant life would be without their collecting spouses. But the next day Emily finds herself in a mess that might be too big for her to clean up. Careful what you wish for, the old adage says . . . now Emily might lose her freedom, her marriage . . . and possibly her life.
HarperCollins 2019-08-06 400 pages

Lip Service

M. J. Rose
Crackling with eroticism and suspense, the seductive new book that everyone is talking about probes the secret world of phone sex and one woman who becomes empowered by what she discovers there. Not since Erica Jong's Fear of Flying has a novel so masterfully mined the relationship between sexuality and identity. On the surface, Julia Sterling's life seems blessed. Married to a renowned psychiatrist and living on Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, Julia deeply loves her stepson and is forging a career as a journalist. When a writing job exposes her to the world of phone sex, Julia glimpses a world that stirs her erotic fantasies but threatens her carefully constructed reality. As she explores her emotional and sexual connections to the men she knows and several she will never meet, she confronts evil, perversity, and her own passions. Tracing the currents of desire, illusion, and psychological manipulation, Lip Service is an astonishingly vivid glimpse into one woman's inner life. At the same time, this electrifying thriller grips the reader as it builds toward a shattering climax. M.J. Rose has delivered a debut novel unlike anything yet experienced in erotic fiction. Lip Service establishes her as a powerful storyteller.
Atria Books 2000-07-01 320 pages

High Crimes

Joseph Finder
"Exciting . . . deliciously absorbing . . . full of hair-pin turns." — The Washington Post Meet Claire Heller Chapman. A criminal defense attorney who's made a name for herself by taking on—and winning—the toughest cases, Claire still manages to have a relatively calm life as a Harvard Law School professor, devoted wife, and proud mother to six-year-old Annie. Until one night, when the family is out having dinner, a team of government agents bursts onto the scene...heading straight for Claire's husband. "A powerhouse tale." — Chicago Tribune Tom Chapman has been arrested for an atrocious crime he swears he did not commit. Claire is desperate to believe him—and prove his innocence—even when she learns that Tom once had a different name. And a different face. Now, in a top-secret court-martial conducted by the Pentagon, Claire will put everything on the line to defend the man she loves. But as the evidence keeps piling up, the less she knows who her husband really is...and the more he appears to be a cold-blooded murderer. "Provocative and chilling." —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Macmillan 2011-03 400 pages

Flesh and Blood

Jonathan Kellerman
Perennial bestseller and acknowledged master of the psychological thriller, Jonathan Kellerman has created his most riveting and memorable work to date in the Alex Delaware novel about a troubled and elusive young woman whose brutal murder forces the brilliant psychologist-detective to confront his own fallibility. Lauren Teague is a beautiful, defiant, borderline-delinquent teenager when her parents bring her to Alex Delaware's office. But for all Alex's skill and effort, Lauren resists--angrily, provocatively. Reluctantly, the psychologist chalks Lauren up as one of the inevitable failures of a challenging profession. But years later, when Alex encounters Lauren as a stag party's featured entertainment, both doctor and patient are sticken with shame. And the ultimate horror takes place when, soon after, Lauren's brutalized corpse is found dumped in an alley. Alex disregards the advice of his trusted friend, LAPD detective Milo Sturgis, and jeopardizes his relationship with longtime lover, Robin Castagna, in order to pursue Lauren's murderer. As he investigates his young patient's troubled past, Alex enters the shadowy worlds of fringe psychological experimentation and the sex industry, and then into mortal danger when lust and big money collide in Southern California. Jonathan Kellerman's L.A. is evil, seductive, erotic, and unforgiving, and "Flesh and Blood" is mind-opening in its drama of a driven man's personal quest, breathtaking in its ingenious plot, filled with unforgettable characters, and topped off by a terrifying climax. This is suspense fiction at its finest.
Random House Large Print 2001 581 pages

A Kiss Before Dying

Ira Levin
A Kiss Before Dying not only debuted the talent of best-selling novelist Ira Levin to rave reviews and an Edgar Award, it also set a new standard in the art of psychological suspense. It tells the shocking tale of a young man who will stop at nothing--not even murder--to get where he wants to go. For he has dreams; plans. He also has charm, good looks, intelligence. And he has a problem. Her name is Dorothy; she loves him, and she's pregnant. The solution may demand desperate measures. But, then, he looks like the kind of guy who could get away with murder.
Pegasus Books 2011-05-15 288 pages

Final judgment: a Samantha Brinkman legal thriller

Clark, Marcia
"A murder investigation draws firebrand attorney Samantha Brinkman into her boyfriend's past in this novel of high-risk suspense by bestselling author Marcia Clark. When it comes to relationships and self-preservation, defense attorney Samantha Brinkman has always been cut and run. But it's different with her new lover, Niko, an ambitious and globally famous entrepreneur. Sam is putting her faith in him. She has to. He's also her new client-a suspect in the murder of an investor whose shady dealings turned Niko's good life upside down. He had the motive: revenge. As did many others who banked a fortune on the wrong man. That's a point in Niko's favor. So is his alibi for the day of the slaying. Until that alibi mysteriously disappears. As Sam's feverish search for another viable killer begins, the investigation only leads deeper into Niko's past and its secrets. From the darkest suspicions to final judgment, fighting for Niko is Sam's job. To do it, she must risk everything on a man who could make all her worst fears come true." --
Thomas & Mercer 2020 404 pages

Walkaway A Novel

Cory Doctorow
Kirkus' Best Fiction of 2017 From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, an epic tale of revolution, love, post-scarcity, and the end of death. " Walkaway is now the best contemporary example I know of, its utopia glimpsed after fascinatingly-extrapolated revolutionary struggle." —William Gibson Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza—known to his friends as Hubert, Etc—was too old to be at that Communist party. But after watching the breakdown of modern society, he really has no where left to be—except amongst the dregs of disaffected youth who party all night and heap scorn on the sheep they see on the morning commute. After falling in with Natalie, an ultra-rich heiress trying to escape the clutches of her repressive father, the two decide to give up fully on formal society—and walk away. After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter—from a computer, there seems to be little reason to toil within the system. It’s still a dangerous world out there, the empty lands wrecked by climate change, dead cities hollowed out by industrial flight, shadows hiding predators animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, more people join them. Then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. Now it’s war – a war that will turn the world upside down. Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation science fiction thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years...and the very human people who will live their consequences.
Tor Publishing Group 2018-05-22 496 pages

Sliver

Ira Levin
Kay Norris, a successful and lovely book editor, moves into the posh Carnegie Hill district of Manhattan, into an apartment in a slender high-rise. A man watches her. He watches her unpack, watches her make her bed. He owns the building: a shocking secret is concealed within its brick and concrete.Sliver is a sinuous erotic thriller, a hypnotic story of obsession, suspense, and stunning surprises. It is a novel about the ultimate power, and the temptations the use of that power brings.
Pegasus Books 2011 190 pages

The Baltimore Boys

Dicker, Joël
The stunning new novel from the author of the global bestseller, The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair "Sweeping, clever, heartbreaking and memorable. The perfect summer read" Grazia "A moving story of brotherhood and family rivalry" The Times NOVEMBER 24, 2004. The day of the tragedy. The end of a brotherhood. Fresh from the staggering success of The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair , Marcus Goldman is struggling to write his third novel. A chance encounter in Florida throws him some inspiration from a surprising source: Alexandra Neville, the beautiful, phenomenally successful singer and Marcus's first love. All at once, memories of his childhood come flooding back. Memories of a family torn apart by tragedy, and a once glorious legacy reduced to shame and ruin. The Baltimore Boys. The Goldman Gang. That was what they called Marcus Goldman and his cousins Woody and Hillel. Three brilliant young men with dazzling futures ahead of them, before their kingdom crumbled beneath the weight of lies, jealousy and betrayal. For years, Marcus has struggled with the burdens of his past, but now he must attempt to banish his demons and tell the true and astonishing story of the Baltimore Boys. READER REVIEWS "An incredible story. Gripping from beginning to end" "I couldn't put it down. It's been several years since I've picked up a book. This one has well and truly lit the fire." Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
MacLehose Press 2018-09-06 460 pages

Dead Land

Sara Paretsky
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST "A proper hero for these times . . . To us, V.I. is perfect." -- THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW "Sara Paretsky's gloriously kick-ass private eye, V.I. "Vic" Warshawski, is back . . . in a political-rot thriller that's the definition of perfection in the genre." -- THE WASHINGTON POST Chicago's legendary detective, V.I. Warshawski, knows her city's rotten underbelly better than most, but she's unable to avoid it when her goddaughter drags her into a fight over lakefront land use, in this propulsive novel from New York Times bestseller Sara Paretsky. Chicago may be the city of broad shoulders, but its political law is "Pay to Play." Money changes hands in the middle of the night, and by morning, buildings and parks are replaced by billion-dollar projects. Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals through her impetuous goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard. Bernie tries to rescue Lydia Zamir, a famed singer-songwriter now living on the streets; Zamir's life fell apart when her lover was murdered next to her in a mass shooting at an outdoor concert. Not only does Bernie plunge her and V.I. headlong into the path of some ruthless developers, they lead to the murder of the young man Bernie is dating. He's a computer geek working for a community group called SLICK. V.I. is desperate to find a mysterious man named Coop, who roams the lakefront in the middle of the night with his dog. She's sure he holds the key to the mounting body count within SLICK. Coop may even know why an international law firm is representing the mass murderer responsible for Lydia's lover's death. Instead, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago's parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in America's meddling in South American politics. Before she finds answers, this electrifying novel pushes V.I. close to the breaking point: People who pay to play take no prisoners.
HarperCollins Publishers 2020-04-21 656 pages

Crooked

Austin Grossman
Acclaimed novelist Austin Grossman reimagines the ultimate American antihero. Richard Milhous Nixon lived one of the most improbable lives of the twentieth century. Our thirty-seventh president's political career spanned the button-down fifties, the Mad Men sixties, and the turbulent seventies. He faced down the Russians, the Chinese, and ultimately his own government. The man went from political mastermind to a national joke, sobbing in the Oval Office, leaving us with one burning question: how could he have lost it all? Here for the first time is the tale told in his own words: the terrifying supernatural secret he stumbled upon as a young man, and the truth behind the Cold War. What if the man we call our worst president was, in truth, our greatest? Combining Lovecraftian suspense and international intrigue, Crooked is a masterwork of alternative history, equal parts mesmerizing character study and nail-biting Faustian thriller.
Little, Brown 2016-08-02 368 pages

Night Watch

Linda A. Fairstein
This is a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller that takes Alexandra Cooper into the dark underside of New York City's most storied restaurants and a murder case spanning continents. Forty-eight hours after Alexandra Cooper arrives in France to visit her boyfriend and famed restaurateur, Luc Rouget, her vacation in paradise is cut short when a young woman from the village is found murdered. The only evidence discovered on the body is one of Luc's matchboxes promoting his new restaurant in New York. But before the investigation begins, Alex is summoned back to New York to handle a high profile case. Mohammed Gil-Darsin, the distinguished and wealthy head of the World Economic Bureau, has been arrested and accused of attacking a maid in his hotel. As the world watches in fascination to see how the scandal will unfold, Alex finds her attention torn between preparing the alleged victim to testify and a murder case with ties too close to home. A second body is found with Luc's matchbox, this time in Brooklyn, and Alex begins to fear that the two cases may not be as unrelated as she thought, and that uncovering the sordid secrets of the city's most wealthy and powerful could cost her and her loved ones everything they hold dear.
Penguin 2013 486 pages

The Inner Circle

Brad Meltzer
There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I love those stories. And since I work in the National Archives, I find those stories for a living. Beecher White, a young archivist, spends his days working with the most important documents of the U.S. government. He has always been the keeper of other people's stories, never a part of the story himself... Until now. When Clementine Kaye, Beecher's first childhood crush, shows up at the National Archives asking for his help tracking down her long-lost father, Beecher tries to impress her by showing her the secret vault where the President of the United States privately reviews classified documents. After they accidentally happen upon a priceless artifact - a 200 hundred-year-old dictionary that once belonged to George Washington, hidden underneath a desk chair, Beecher and Clementine find themselves suddenly entangled in a web of deception, conspiracy, and murder. Soon a man is dead, and Beecher is on the run as he races to learn the truth behind this mysterious national treasure. His search will lead him to discover a coded and ingenious puzzle that conceals a disturbing secret from the founding of our nation. It is a secret, Beecher soon discovers, that some believe is worth killing for. Gripping, fast-paced, and filled with the fascinating historical detail for which he is famous, THE INNER CIRCLE is a thrilling novel that showcases a brilliant author writing at the height of his craft.
Grand Central Publishing 2015-04-28 640 pages

Hell Gate

Linda A. Fairstein
Contraband cargo-young and female-from a wrecked Ukraine freighter washes up on Rockaway Beach. But one victim died before she even hit the dark waters of the Atlantic. Only one other story has the power to grab New York ADA Alexandra Cooper's attention-that of a New York congressman's dive into disgrace following a sordid sex scandal. When Alexandra discovers that the freighter victim and the congressman's lover are connected in a way that simply can't be coincidence, it strikes her that these cases aren't as unrelated as they seem. She unearths a secret that will not only shatter the entire political landscape of New York, but expose Alexandra to the darkest, most dangerous, and most profoundly disturbing revelation of her career. Watch a Video
Signet Select 2011 464 pages

Thrill

Jackie Collins
Jackie Collins' most outrageous, erotically charged New York Times bestseller is a sexy, shaterring roller-coaster thrill ride! From chic New York and the exclusive Hamptons to the hungry heart of L.A., this high-suspense tale pulses with deadly obsessions and relentless desires in the seemingly perfect world of a gorgeous film actress. She could have any man -- but the one she can't resist is a mysterious lover with a shadowed past. As their jolting affair skyrockets with electric passion, shocking secrets break through their hidden traps -- in a brilliantly twisting story that sparks with the explosive Jackie Collins touch.
Simon and Schuster 1998-12 544 pages

Lethal Seduction

Jackie Collins
#1 New York Times bestselling author Jackie Collins brings back her savvy heroine from the L.A. Connections series in this erotically charged, suspense-laced New York Times bestseller about secret obsession and deadly passion. Caught between two lovers, Madison Castelli's sex life is in overdrive. But when she discovers someone close to her is keeping deadly secrets, the real excitement begins.... Plunged into the high-powered circles of New York and the manic thrills of Las Vegas, Madison steps among explosive passions, mob machinations, and dangerous deceptions, only to find that nothing is ever as it seems.
Pocket Books 2001-06-01 592 pages

The Power Trip

Jackie Collins
A luxurious yacht in the Sea of Cortez, a birthday cruise for one of the world's most beautiful women and an invitation no one can refuse. "The Power Trip--"take if it you dare. From Hollywood icon and mega-seller Jackie Collins comes a thrilling new novel, "The Power Trip," set on a state of the art luxury yacht off the coast of Cabo San Lucas. A tropical getaway with a cast of global power-hungry elites turns sour when they find out maybe they don't control as much of the world as they thought . . . In "The Power Trip" you will meet Aleksandr Kasianenko, a billionaire Russian oligarch, as he sets sail on "The Bianca." You'll meet his sexy supermodel girlfriend, whom "The Bianca" is named after, and five dynamic, powerful, and famous couples invited on the yacht's maiden voyage: Hammond Patterson, a driven Senator, and his lovely but unhappy wife, Sierra; Cliff Baxter, a charming, never-married movie star, and his ex-waitress girlfriend, Lori; Taye Sherwin, a famous black UK footballer and his interior designer wife, Ashley; Luca Perez, a male Latin singing sensation with his older decadent English boyfriend, Jeromy; and Flynn, a maverick journalist with his Asian renegade female friend, Xuan. You will also meet Russian mobster, Sergei Zukov, a man with a grudge against Aleksandr. And Sergei's Mexican beauty queen girlfriend, Ina, whose brother, Cruz, is a master pirate with orders to hold "The Bianca" and its illustrious rota of guests for ransom. "The Power Trip" explorers the decadent playgrounds of the super-rich . . . and leaves you hungry for more.
Thorndike Press, A part of Gale, Cengage Learning 2013 673 pages

After the Madness

Sol Wachtler
Driving down the Long Island Expressway in November of 1992, Sol Wachtler was New York's Chief Judge and heir apparent to the New York Governorship. Suddenly, three van loads of FBI agents swerved in front of him--bringing his car and his legal career to a halt. Wachtler's subsequent arrest, conviction and incarceration for harassing his longtime lover precipitated a media feeding frenzy, revealing to the world his struggles with romantic obsession, manic-depression and drug abuse. In this, his prison diary, Wachtler reveals the stark reality behind his vertiginous fall from the heights of the legal establishment to the underbelly of the criminal justice system. Sentenced to a medium security prison in Butner, North Carolina, Wachtler is stabbed by an unseen assailant, berated by prison guards, and repeatedly placed in solitary confinement with no explanation. Moreover, as a prisoner he confronts first hand the inequities of a system that his judicial rulings helped to construct and befriends the type of people he once sentenced to prison. With unflinching honesty, Wachtler draws upon his unique experience of living life on both sides of the bench to paint a chilling portrait of prison life interwoven with a no-holds-barred analysis of the shortcomings of the American legal justice system.
Open Road Integrated Media, Incorporated 2003-07 320 pages

The Blade Between A Novel

Sam J. Miller
A Library Journal Horror Best Seller From Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it. Ronan Szepessy promised himself he'd never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City's distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge. Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom's wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become--overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable. Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real-state developers aren't the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan's hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.
HarperCollins Publishers 2022-02 384 pages