A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky.


For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.

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They had comboays and aliens; now thy have vamps and aliens. And on top of it, Aloysius van der Merwe just doesn't like type O negative. He would so much rather have carrot juice. Put that together with the ugly aliens that have arrived in town, plus his new girl, and you have a story...<

Liturgical Mystery # 1: The Alto Wore Tweed

Hayden Konig is the police chief in the small Appalachian town of St. Germaine, North Carolina. His part-time job, however, is serving as the choir director and organist at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, but he’s also determined to write the next great hard-boiled mystery novel a la Raymond Chandler — a liturgical mystery novel with no real plot, but enough bad prose to make the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest look like the Oxford University Press spring catalog.

Chief Konig is also lucky enough to be independently wealthy, which is why he decides that his lack of talent in the writing department can easily be remedied, or at least greatly enhanced, by the purchase of Raymond Chandler’s 1939 Underwood typewriter. He is sadly mistaken, but the results are uproarious! Even as Hayden works on his opus, he must deal with other, more pressing, problems — a new priest at St. Barnabas, a Christmas feud between the Rotarians and the Kiwanians and, more importantly, a dead body in the choir loft. It’s a good thing that Hayden keeps a loaded Glock under the organ bench!

As Christmas approaches, the tension (and hilarity) rises to a fever pitch. St. Barnabas is introduced to “The Penguin of Bethlehem” and the town’s Nativity feud turns ugly when the Kiwanian’s bagpiper spooks the Rotarian’s camel. A 12 year old wine snob, hedgehogs, Benny (the world-champion thurifer), church antics, and an episode that is just too good to give away, fill out this mystery that will leave you laughing with every page turn.
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From Publishers Weekly

In Sakey's so-so thriller, four friends—travel agent Jenn Lacie, trader Ian Trevarian, hotel doorman Mitch McDonnell and bartender Alex Kern—meet every Thursday night at the Chicago restaurant where Alex bartends and commiserate over their unsatisfying lives. When Alex's boss, Johnny Love Loverin, asks him to act as muscle for a shady back-office deal, the group decides, almost on a whim, to steal Johnny's money. The heist goes smoothly until an altercation in the alley behind the bar leads to murder, and the four friends find themselves with $250,000 and a dead body. Making matters worse, Mitch and Jenn discover that the deal they interrupted wasn't about drugs or guns but something far more deadly. Sakey (Good People) does what he can with the weak premise, but his characters will elicit little sympathy from readers who won't care why the foursome carried out their poorly planned and executed scheme. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Marcus Sakey is the acclaimed author of Good People, The Blade Itself, and At the City's Edge, all three of which are in development as feature films.

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Representing her Aunt Cissy's fiancé, museum curator Prosper White, in a case of fraud, attorney and celestial advocate Brianna Winston- Beaufort hopes to settle the matter out of court. But when Prosper is murdered and Cissy's arrested for the crime, Bree will have to solve the mystery of the Cross of Justinian-an artifact of interest in both Prosper's lawsuit and Bree's celestial case-to clear her aunt's name...

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Jill Kismet is back from the grave in this explosive conclusion to Lilith Saintcrow's urban fantasy series. She wakes up in her own grave. She doesn't know who put her there, she doesn't know where she is, and she has no friends or family. She only knows two things: She has a job to do: cleansing the night of evil. And she knows her name. Jill Kismet.<

Review

The latest Beaufort & Company mystery is sure to please series fans and newcomers alike. Larger-than-life characters--human and temporal--infuse the story with humor and empathy. (4 stars)
--Romantic Times

Product Description

Celestial advocate Brianna Winston-Beaufort is eager to set aside handling appeals for condemned souls and get back to practicing law in the land of the living. Three months after taking over the family practice Bree jumps at the opportunity to work for an earthly client. But when elderly actress Justine Coville walks into Beaufort & Company's office to make changes to her will, she drags Bree right back into a whole other-world of troubles.

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Michael Holly, mechanical engineer, is in Moscow to clinch a deal for his firm, and to run a small errand for the British Intelligence Service. But he is arrested. The Soviet secret police will exchange him for a key Soviet agent being held in London. Unf<

No Description Available<

From Booklist

Madrid novelist Somoza's latest thriller to appear in the U.S. (it was originally published in Spain in 2001) concerns a young girl who is found murdered and two police detectives who must find the killer before he strikes again. But it's the world of the novel that captures our interest, not the whodunit aspect. The action takes place in the bizarre subculture of hyperdramatic art, in which the works of art are actual, living people, painted and posed like living mannequins. It is a world in which 14-year-old girls (like the murder victim) can be sold to collectors, not as people but as artworks. And sold for a lot of money, too. It's a fascinating and certainly disquieting underworld, and readers are drawn deep into it by Somoza's stylish prose (nicely translated by Caistor). Fans of mysteries in which the setting takes precedence over the story should be steered toward this one. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Fans of mysteries in which the setting takes precedence over the story should be steered toward this one.” -- Booklist

“It’s a fascinating and certainly disquieting underworld, and readers are drawn deep into it by Somoza’s stylish prose.” -- Booklist

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