For years, travelers in the French Vosges Mountains heard the wailing of a woman echo in the hollows. Her cries went unbidden. No one was brave enough to seek out the source. Over time, the screams lessened and then stopped. Eventually, even the memories slipped away, forgotten. Six centuries later, two over-eager research assistants find and release the young half vampire, Chloe—unaware of the events they unwittingly unleash with her. Far away, other forces are aware of her awakening. Zaccarius, greatest of all the Slayers, is sent by the Council of Nine to seek out Chloe, determine her worth and render justice. Enticed by her purity and innocence, he soon becomes her protector. However, Jochad, the Dark Master, and his army of evil vampires are also eager to claim Chloe. In the battle that ensues, Zaccarius falls beneath Jochad's army, and to save her lover, Chloe must make a choice. Ancient and dying, Jochad needs Chloe's blood to reanimate. His ultimatum—her...

Buddy Bollen is a C-list movie mogul who made his fortune producing films of questionable artistic merit. When Buddy hires Sunny Randall to protect his rising star and girlfriend, Erin Flint, Sunny knows from the start that the prickly, spoiled beauty won't make her job easy. And when Erin's sister, Misty, is found dead in the lavish home they share with sugar daddy Bollen, there doesn't seem to be a single lead worth pursuing.

But then Sunny meets Jesse Stone, chief of police in Paradise, Massachusetts, under whose jurisdiction the case falls. It immediately becomes clear that Jesse and Sunny have much in common. While searching for the killer, they learn an awful lot about each other-and themselves.

Tracking Misty's murderer reveals a host of seedy complications behind Erin's glamorous lifestyle as well as Buddy Bollen's entertainment empire, made up of shady film deals and mobsters out for revenge. But in a world where there's little difference between the good guys and...

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps it was a disservice to collect all of Parker's stories in one place. Despite insistence to the contrary in a reasoned but ultimately unconvincing introduction by Regina Barreca, Parker wrote decently about the same things over and over and over. This volume includes 13 stories and nine sketches which were previously uncollected, but they blend right in with the other material on drinking and divorce among those of a certain class. Parker's stories tend to float in the shallow end of the literary pool. It's not that any individual piece is of poor quality, it's just that, collectively, the the sameness becomes unbearable. Her humor, in particular, strikes the same note every time. A quick run-through of several plots exhibits this perfectly: two women insincerely discuss an impending divorce; a couple gets drunk in preparation for becoming teetotalers the next day. The nine sketches included here are more of the same, minus any actual plot. Descriptions such as "Lloyd wears washable neckties," are amusing, but go no further. It is ironic that feminist critics are attempting to resurrect Parker, since her writing makes her disdain for her own sex perfectly clear: she feels free to disparage these women for whom marriage and dinner parties are everything, but she always goes for the easy laugh at their expense rather than explore the larger context that forced them into such rigid roles.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Now remembered almost soley as the lone female member of the New York writers' group known as the Algonquin Round Table, Parker was one of the most popular and published writers of the interwar years whose stories and light verse were eagerly sought by the best magazines. Although widely represented in short story anthologies, Parker's entire corpus of stories has never been collected in a single volume: editor Breese includes 13 stories and nine "sketches" not previously anthologized. Read as a collection, however, the famous sardonic wit becomes too intrusive, and similarities of plot and character are annoyingly apparent. Reliance on heavy social drinking as a staple of her plots is less humorous to Nineties readers, and some of Parker's ideas on the relationship between the sexes are equally dated. Still, many of the stories, such as the often reprinted "Big Blonde," are moving, and the whole volume is an unsettling portrait of the era. For all fiction and research collections.?Shelley Cox, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the New York Times-bestselling author of the Spenser mysteries.

There is something evil in the air. Fourteen-year-old Bobby senses it. Who is that man he saw arguing with his pretty, new English teacher? And what was the real reason she missed school for days afterward? Bobby knows he should mind his own business, but times are confusing. World War II has just ended and the world is changing. Bobby's world, especially. There's his relationship with Joanie, for one-why does being her friend feel awkward all of a sudden? And then there are his buddies, the junior varsity Edenville Owls-a group of basketball players in need of a leader. Can they help each other off the court as well as they can on it? They will need to. Something evil is in the air