SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — “SWEET SALT AIR” — MAY 21

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

My feature today is Sweet Salt Air, by Barbara Delinsky.

 

Intro:  (Prologue)

Charlotte Evans was used to feeling grungy.  As a freelancer, she traveled on a shoestring, getting stories other writers did not, precisely because she wasn’t fussy about how she lived.  In the last twelve months, she had survived dust while writing about elephant keepers in Kenya, ice while writing about the spirit bear of British Columbia, and flies while writing about a family of nomads in India.

She could certainly survive a mizzling, as the Irish called it, though the heavy mist seeped through everything—jeans, boots, even the thick fisherman’s sweater she wore.  The sweater was on loan from the woman under whose roof she was sleeping on this least populated of the three Aran Islands, and though Charlotte did have a fireplace in her bedroom, hot water was in short supply in the small stone cottage.  She could have used a steamy shower, a thorough washing of her clothes, and a solid day of sun.

***

Teaser:  The words echoed.  Nicole looked around, thinking that someone else had said them, because if she was the one, it would be a betrayal of the worst kind.  (p. 58)

***

Blurb:  Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole’s coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.

 

But what both women don’t know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

 

***

Doesn’t this sound delicious?  Now I’m off to see what the rest of you are sharing….

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — FLY AWAY — APRIL 30

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today’s feature is Fly Away, by Kristin Hannah.

Intro:  September 2, 2010 –  10:14 P.M.

She felt a little woozy.  It was nice, like being wrapped in a warm-from-the-dryer blanket.  But when she came to, and saw where she was, it wasn’t so nice.

She was sitting in a restroom stall, slumped over, with tears drying on her cheeks.  How long had she been here?  She got slowly to her feet and left the bathroom, pushing her way through the theater’s crowded lobby, ignoring the judgmental looks cast her way by the beautiful people drinking champagne beneath a glittering nineteenth century chandelier.  The movie must be over.

***

Teaser:  She was gone.  So were her gold flip-flops.  And her purse.  Those were the only things he knew for sure, but it was enough to tell him that she hadn’t been abducted.  p. 46

***

Amazon Blurb:

Once, a long time ago, I walked down a night-darkened road called Firefly Lane, all alone, on the worst night of my life, and I found a kindred spirit. That was our beginning. More than thirty years ago. TullyandKate. You and me against the world. Best friends forever. But stories end, don’t they? You lose the people you love and you have to find a way to go on. . . .

Tully Hart has always been larger than life, a woman fueled by big dreams and driven by memories of a painful past. She thinks she can overcome anything until her best friend, Kate Ryan, dies. Tully tries to fulfill her deathbed promise to Kate—to be there for Kate’s children—but Tully knows nothing about family or motherhood or taking care of people.

Sixteen-year-old Marah Ryan is devastated by her mother’s death. Her father, Johnny, strives to hold the family together, but even with his best efforts, Marah becomes unreachable in her grief. Nothing and no one seems to matter to her . . . until she falls in love with a young man who makes her smile again and leads her into his dangerous, shadowy world.

Dorothy Hart—the woman who once called herself Cloud—is at the center of Tully’s tragic past. She repeatedly abandoned her daughter, Tully, as a child, but now she comes back, drawn to her daughter’s side at a time when Tully is most alone. At long last, Dorothy must face her darkest fear: Only by revealing the ugly secrets of her past can she hope to become the mother her daughter needs.

A single, tragic choice and a middle-of-the-night phone call will bring these women together and set them on a poignant, powerful journey of redemption. Each has lost her way, and they will need each one another—and maybe a miracle—to transform their lives.

An emotionally complex, heart-wrenching novel about love, motherhood, loss, and new beginnings, Fly Away reminds us that where there is life, there is hope, and where there is love, there is forgiveness. Told with her trademark powerful storytelling and illuminating prose, Kristin Hannah reveals why she is one of the most beloved writers of our day.

***

What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — THE SUGAR HOUSE — APRIL 16

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m featuring a book from the Tess Monaghan series:  The Sugar House, by Laura Lippman.

 

Intro:  Henry looked at the tape recorder on the table in front of him.  Voice-activated, the cop said.  You talk, the wheels turn.  He coughed, clearing his throat, and sure enough, the wheels lurched, then stopped.

My name is Henry Dembrow, he began.  But they knew his name, it wasn’t the one they wanted.  They kept asking him about the girl, and he didn’t have a name for her, not a fragment, not even a fake one.  Why wouldn’t they believe him?  My name is Henry Dembrow.  He knew he was talking because he could see the tape recorder’s red light, but he couldn’t hear his voice, couldn’t tell if it was inside his head or out.  He could hear other things—the wheezey breath of the one cop, like an old dog sleeping, the other cop’s shiny loafer going tap, tap, tap.  Tap, tap, tap.  He had small feet, that cop.  But Henry couldn’t hear his own voice.  It was as if he had a bad cold, his voice seemed to be coming from so far away.  You talk, the wheels turn.  You talk, the wheels turn.

***

Teaser:  Like a dog with a bone, Tess worried the little bit she had, growling over it, turning it around in her mouth, trying to make it new.  (p. 82)

***

Amazon Description:

Since her debut in 1997, Laura Lippman has won every major mystery writing award for this remarkable series, in which reporter-turned-PI Tess Monaghan and her beloved-but-flawed Baltimore share top billing. Now, the acclaimed author achieves a new level of mastery with a murderous puzzle that centers on places Tess thinks she knows: her hometown and a moving target called…

Locals recognize the Sugar House as a stubborn and defiant legacy of the city’s past that competes with Charm City’s glitzy present. Tess thought she knew it, too/–/until she is forced to take on the most disturbing case of her accidental career.

First there’s her client, former barmaid Ruthie Dembrow, who seems to know Tess’s father well, a little too well as far as his daughter is concerned. Then there’s the nature of the crime she’s asked to investigate/–/and its cast of characters.

“Ever heard of a Jane Doe murder?” Ruthie asks Tess, and with that question there’s no turning back. Fourteen months ago, Ruthie’s low-life brother, Henry, killed a runaway over a bottle of glue. His confession put him away, but no one ever learned the girl’s name. A month into his prison term, Henry met the same grim fate as his victim. Now Ruthie wants Tess to find out why.

With just a few tantalizing and elusive clues, Tess sets off on a path that takes her from Baltimore’s exclusive Inner Harbor to the city’s seediest neighborhoods. But it’s the shocking discovery of the runaway’s true identity that turns Tess’s hunt deadly. Suddenly, her supposedly solved murder case keeps turning up newer, fresher corpses and newer, scarier versions of the Sugar House-places that look so sweet and safe, but only from the outside. And every time Tess thinks she’s done what she has to do to protect her family, this decidedly sour case ends up back on her doorstep, ready to claim another life.

***

I’m eager to resume this series.  Would you keep reading?  Come on by and share your own featured reads.

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — THE NIGHT SWIMMER — MARCH 26

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today’s selection is a book that’s been resting patiently on Sparky for some time.  The Night Swimmer, by Matt Bondurant, is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent.

Intro:  Prologue

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practiced swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore.  But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable.  The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it?

                                                          Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

It began with a dart, a pint, and a poem, three elements that seemed to demonstrate the imprecise nature of fate.  When Fred stepped up to the line, the dart held loosely in his hand, you could see in the way he carried his body the assurances of a man who was well prepared.  Fred was always lucky, but to say that now seems to remove something essential from him.  In fact it is Fred who should be telling you this story, as he was the one preparing for this all along.  Not me.

***

Teaser:  It was a common enough dream for young Americans of a certain set:  by moving into a mostly imagined past, represented by Europe, we could recapture something we so desperately wanted in the present.  Or simply a way out of the meat grinder of the suburbs. (3%)

***

Amazon Description:  An “evocative and often lyrical” (San Francisco Chronicle) novel about a young American couple who win a pub on the southernmost tip of Ireland and become embroiled in the local violence and intrigue.In a small town on the southern coast of Ireland, an isolated place frequented by fishermen and occasional bird-watchers, Fred and Elly Bulkington, newly arrived from Vermont, encounter a wild, strange land shaped by the pounding storms of the North Atlantic. As Fred revels in the life of a new pubowner, Elly takes the ferry out to a nearby island where anyone not born there is called a “blow-in.” To the disbelief of the locals, Elly devotes herself to open-water swimming, pushing herself to the limit and crossing unseen boundaries that drive her into the heart of the island’s troubles—the mysterious tragedy that shrouds its inhabitants and the dangerous feud between an enigmatic farmer and a powerful clan that has no use for outsiders.

The poignant unraveling of a marriage, the fierce beauty of the natural world, the mysterious power of Irish lore, and the gripping story of strangers in a strange land rife with intrigue and violence—The Night Swimmer is a novel of myriad enchantments by a writer of extraordinary talent.

***

What do you think?  Are you intrigued?  Would you keep reading?

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS-MESSENGER OF TRUTH — MARCH 19

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m sharing from Messenger of Truth, by Jacqueline Winspear, my first foray into the Maisie Dobbs series.

Intro:  Romney Marsh, Kent, Tuesday, December 30th, 1930

The taxi-cab slowed down alongside the gates of Camden Abbey, a red brick former mansion that seemed even more like  a refuge as a bitter sleet swept across the gray, forbidding landscape.

“Is this the place, madam?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The driver parked in front of the main entrance and, almost as an afterthought, the woman respectfully covered her head with a silk scarf before leaving the motor car.

“I shan’t be long.”

“Right you are, madam.”

He watched the woman enter by the main door, which slammed shut behind her.

“Rather you than me, love,” he said to himself as he picked up a newspaper to while away the minutes until the woman returned again.

Ooh….what do you think?  I’m feeling a chill here…..

***

Teaser:  Stratton allowed a few seconds to elapse, seconds in which Maisie was sure he was composing a response that would have been acceptable to his superiors, had he been called to account for his actions.

***

Amazon Description:  London, 1931. On the night before the opening of his new and much-anticipated exhibition at a famed Mayfair gallery, Nicholas Bassington-Hope falls to his death. The police declare it an accident, but the dead man’s twin sister, Georgina, isn’t convinced. When the authorities refuse to conduct further investigations, Georgina takes matters into her own hands, seeking out a fellow graduate from Girton College: Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator.

The case soon takes Maisie to the desolate beaches of Dungeness in Kent, as well as the sinister underbelly of the city’s art world. She again uncovers the dark legacy of the Great War in a society struggling to recollect itself in difficult times. But to solve the mystery of the artist’s death, she will have to remain steady as the forces behind his death come out of the shadows to silence her.

***

Now I’m eager to make the rounds and see what the rest of you are sharing…come on by and chat!

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS – WHILE WE WERE WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY — MARCH 12

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m sharing from my current read, an ARC:  While We Were Watching Downton Abbey, by Wendy Wax.

 

Intro:  Chapter One

As a child Samantha Jackson Davis loved fairy tales as much as the next girl.  She just hadn’t expected to end up in one.

Every morning when her eyes fluttered open and every night before she closed them to go to sleep, Samantha marveled at her good fortune.  In a Disney version of the airline passenger held up in security just long enough to miss the plane that goes down, or the driver who runs back for a forgotten cell phone and barely avoids a deadly ten-car-pileup, Samantha averted disaster in the once-upon-a-time way:  she married the prince.

Over the past twenty-five years Samantha had sometimes wished she’d spent a little more time and energy considering alternatives.  But when your world comes crashing down around you at the age of twenty-one, deep thinking and soul-searching are rarely your first response.

Intrigued yet?  I certainly am!

***

Teaser:  It was late afternoon and Samantha stood in her gourmet kitchen staring into the pan of what was meant to be saltimbocca alla Romana, but which looked like a rolled-up lump of shoe leather—and not the expensive Manolo Blahnik kind. (p. 26)

***

Amazon Description:  When the concierge of The Alexander, a historic Atlanta apartment building, invites his fellow residents to join him for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, four very different people find themselves connecting with the addictive drama, and—even more unexpectedly—with each other…

Samantha Davis married young and for the wrong reason: the security of old Atlanta money—for herself and for her orphaned brother and sister. She never expected her marriage to be complicated by love and compromised by a shattering family betrayal.

Claire Walker is now an empty nester and struggling author who left her home in the suburbs for the old world charm of The Alexander, and for a new and productive life. But she soon wonders if clinging to old dreams can be more destructive than having no dreams at all.

And then there’s Brooke MacKenzie, a woman in constant battle with her faithless ex-husband. She’s just starting to realize that it’s time to take a deep breath and come to terms with the fact that her life is not the fairy tale she thought it would be.

For Samantha, Claire, Brooke—and Edward, who arranges the weekly gatherings—it will be a season of surprises as they forge a bond that will sustain them through some of life’s hardest moments—all of it reflected in the unfolding drama, comedy, and convergent lives of Downton Abbey.

***

Now I’m off to see the wonderful books the rest of you are spotlighting.

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — KNIT TWO — FEB. 26

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m sharing from a book about a knitting club.  Knit Two, by Kate Jacobs, is the sequel to The Friday Night Knitting Club.

 

Intro:  It was after hours at Walker and Daughters:  Knitters, and Dakota stood in the center of the Manhattan yarn shop and wrestled with the cellophane tape.  She had spent more than twenty minutes trying to surround a canvas Peg Perego double stroller in shimmery yellow wrapping paper, the cardboard roll repeatedly flopping out of the paper onto the floor of the shop and the seeming miles of gift wrap crinkling and tearing with each move.  What a disaster!  The simpler move would be to just tie a balloon on the thing, she thought, but Peri had been quite insistent that all the items be wrapped and ribboned.

***

Teaser:  “You’re not going.”  There was no one else in the shop—no customers, no Anita—and Peri was not bothering to play nice.  The air in the shop was stuffy, due to the humidity, and tense, due to the subject.

***

Amazon Description:   The sequel to the number-one New York Times bestseller The Friday Night Knitting Club, KNIT TWO returns to Walker and Daughter, the Manhattan knitting store founded by Georgia Walker and her young daughter, Dakota. Dakota is now an eighteen-year-old freshman at NYU, running the little yarn shop part-time with help from the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club.

Drawn together by the sense of family the club has created, the knitters rely on one another as they struggle with new challenges: for Catherine, finding love after divorce; for Darwin, the hope for a family; for Lucie, being both a single mom and a caregiver for her elderly mother; and for seventysomething Anita, a proposal of marriage from her sweetheart, Marty, that provokes the objections of her grown children.

As the club’s projects—an afghan, baby booties, a wedding coat—are pieced together, so is their understanding of the patterns underlying the stresses and joys of being mother, wife, daughter, and friend. Because it isn’t the difficulty of the garment that makes you a great knitter: it’s the care and attention you bring to the craft—as well as how you adapt to surprises.

---

What do you think?  Would you keep reading?  I bought this sequel in 2010, shortly after I finished reading the first book.  I think it’s about time I read this one!  lol

 

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — RESTLESS SOULS — JAN. 29

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’ve decided to go back to the past to read about events that happened in August 1969.  It was a time I remember well.  I lived in a nice suburban house with my husband and two small children.  We were sitting on our lovely patio the night after we heard…horrified by the events of that time.

Restless Souls:  The Sharon Tate Family’s Account…, by Alisa Statman with Brie Tate, is the family’s story.

 

Intro/Beginning:  Patti – August 9, 1969

“My God, Sharon’s been murdered.”  Barely able to get the words out, my mother collapsed against the scarred door frame and then to her knees.  I looked up from my favorite cartoon in time to see the first tear spill from her eyes.

Paralyzed by her emotion but not understanding it, I could only stare at her while the seconds passed, waiting for an explanation.  Her lips fluttered, but there was no sound.  Leaning forward, I strained to hear.  Then, in a scarcely audible whisper, she said, “My baby’s dead.”

As if floating to me in delayed time and space, her words eventually reached my ears, forever altering the stability of my life.

***

Would you keep reading?  Even knowing most of what happened from the news and TV movies, I am eager to read the family’s perspective.

***

Teaser:  Patti:

The media swarmed the downtown courthouse like journalistic sharks drawn into the feeding frenzy by the Manson family.  Months before the trial started, reporters played a high-stakes, cutthroat game for exclusive interviews with the suspects.  (p. 119)

***

Amazon Description:  The gruesome murders of the beautiful and talented actress Sharon Tate, her unborn child and four others that same night at the hands of the notorious “Manson family” rocked the nation. As one of the most horrific crimes in modern history, these atrocities, the trial and the subsequent conviction of Charles Manson and his followers caused a media sensation, spawning movies, documentaries and bestselling books, including the classic Helter Skelter. A defining moment in an era otherwise associated with radical peace, love and understanding, this incident is one that still resonates with millions today.

Yet while this crime left an indelible mark on society’s consciousness, it was, first and foremost, a shattering personal tragedy for those closest to Sharon—the loving family left to cope with the emotional devastation of her loss. Now, after nearly forty years, their story is finally revealed.

Compiled by close family friend Alisa Statman and Sharon’s niece Brie Tate, Restless Souls draws on a wealth of material including interviews with the Tates, personal letters, tape recordings, home movies, public interviews, private journals, and official documents to provide a powerful, poignant, and affecting four-decade, three-generation memoir of crime and punishment, anguish and hope, rage and love, that is both a chronicle of death and a celebration of life.

Extending beyond all previous accounts, Restless Souls is the most revealing, riveting, and emotionally raw account not just of these heinous murders, the hunt and capture of the killers and the behind-the-scenes drama of their trials, but of the torment victims families’ endure for years in the wake of such senseless violence….

***

Now I’m off to see what the rest of you are sharing….

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS — THE ACCURSED — DEC. 4

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m excerpting from an ARC from the Amazon Vine program:  The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates.

Intro:  (Prologue):

It is an afternoon in autumn, near dusk.  The western sky is a spider’s web of translucent gold.  I am being brought by carriage—two horses—muted thunder of their hooves—along narrow country roads between hilly fields touched with the sun’s slanted rays, to the village of Princeton, New Jersey.  The urgent pace of the horses has a dreamlike air, like the rocking motion of the carriage; and whoever is driving the horses his face I cannot see, only his back—stiff, straight, in a tight-fitting dark coat.

I’m not sure about this opener…but I will keep reading.

***

Teaser:  He didn’t like the tremulous way in which Wilson was staring at him, or the twitching motions of Wilson’s lips, that appeared caked at the corner with a powdery white substance.  p. 213

***

Amazon Description:  This eerie tale of psychological horror sees the real inhabitants of turn-of-the-century Princeton fall under the influence of a supernatural power. New Jersey, 1905: soon-to-be commander-in-chief Woodrow Wilson is president of Princeton University. On a nearby farm, Socialist author Upton Sinclair, enjoying the success of his novel ‘The Jungle’, has taken up residence with his family. This is a quiet, bookish community – elite, intellectual and indisputably privileged. But when a savage lynching in a nearby town is hushed up, a horrifying chain of events is initiated – until it becomes apparent that the families of Princeton have been beset by a powerful curse. The Devil has come to this little town and not a soul will be spared. ‘The Accursed’ marks new territory for the masterful Joyce Carol Oates – narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling fantastical elements to stunning effect.

***

Now I’m eager to see what the rest of you are offering.

SERENDIPITOUS TUESDAYS: INTROS/TEASERS – “THE TURNAROUND” — NOV. 27

 

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

I’m posting my featured book late!  For some reason, I decided to read awhile before getting on the computer…and almost convinced myself to stay unplugged for the day.  It is cozy curled up on my sofa.  But then the inevitable pull drew me here to showcase The Turnaround, by George Pelecanos, a story of family, of violence, and of changing times.

 

Intro:  He called the place Pappas and Sons Coffee Shop.  His boys were only eight and six when he opened in 1964, but he was thinking that one of them would take over when he got old.  Like any father who wasn’t a malaka, he wanted his sons to do better than he had done.  He wanted them to go to college.  But what the hell, you never knew how things would go.  One of them might be cut out for college, the other one might not.  Or maybe they’d both go to college and decide to take over the business together.  Anyway, he hedged his bet and added them to the sign.  It let the customers know what kind of man he was.  It said, This is a guy who is devoted to his family.  John Pappas is thinking about the future of his boys.

What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

Teaser:  He ran his hand under the T-shirts and felt nothing.  He closed the drawer and pulled on the one below it, which housed jeans and shorts.  Beneath the shorts, Raymond found steel.  A short barrel, a crenellated cylinder, and a checkered grip.  p. 37

***

Amazon Description:  On a hot summer afternoon in 1972, three teenagers drove into an unfamiliar neighborhood and six lives were altered forever.
Thirty five years later, one survivor of that day reaches out to another, opening a door that could lead to salvation. But another survivor is now out of prison, looking for reparation in any form he can find it.
THE TURNAROUND takes us on a journey from the rock-and-soul streets of the ’70s to the changing neighborhoods of D.C. today, from the diners and auto garages of the city to the inside of Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital, where wounded men and women have returned to the world in a time of war. A novel of fathers and sons, wives and husbands, loss, victory and violent redemption, THE TURNAROUND is another compelling, highly charged novel from George Pelecanos, “the best crime novelist in America.” -Oregonian

***

Now I’m off to see your tempting excerpts!  Come on by and chat.  And leave your links so I can return the visit.