The day had gone badly for Raymond Ambler, a bitterly cold, gray, January day not long after New Year’s, the wind like a knife, slicing into the cavern cut by 42nd Street between the skyscrapers on either side. The wind Read More …
Lyle Deming braked his Mustang hard and aimed for the sandy shoulder of the desert road. Luckily, his daughter Sam had been looking down and didn’t see the body. He passed a thicket of creosote and manzanita and pulled onto Read More …
A thick mist had crept in from the river. It skirled around the man’s legs as he picked his way through the foul-smelling mud, drifting up to cloud the twisting turns of the narrow alleyways. He paused for a moment Read More …
The deputies were excited but quiet about it, out of respect for Peach. Unexplained death was uncommon, even with the aging residents that made up much of the population of the town. Violent death was even rarer in the scattered Read More …
The filmy, gray quality of the smoke column rising to the southwest told Captain Michael Stoddard that they were too late. The residence was gutted. He and his patrol of six redcoats from the Eighty-Second Regiment could render no aid. Read More …
After five years waiting for this moment, watching you for the first time still catches me off guard. I recognize you from your book jacket, but the reality of you — a three-dimensional object moving through space, flesh and blood and golden hair— Read More …
Charlie stopped barking as soon as he saw me. I knew now why he had been quiet for the past few minutes. He’d been digging away in the dirt, which he resumed upon my arrival. I looked for his leash Read More …
Teenagers don’t run away in January. Not in upstate New York. In summer, they’ll go out drinking with friends, pass out in a field somewhere, wake up hungover and covered in mosquito bites. In the spring and fall, they’ll hop Read More …
Layla faced the mirror and took a deep breath. When she went out there, she had to be effortlessly confident. She certainly looked the part, in a rose-colored Givenchy dress that complemented her olive skin and tasteful diamond earrings. She’d Read More …
On the ground between the far side of the bed and the windows, Maurice lay, face down on the tan carpet as though he’d collapsed forward, unable to brace for his fall. His killer must have struck him as he Read More …