Trois ans que Madeleine a été assassinée sans que la police ne découvre le moindre indice. Nicholas Newman, le seul homme qu'elle ait jamais aimé, était leur seul suspect. Et voilà que les Ikar, un couple de Hongrois, ramène Nicholas trois ans en arrière avec une simple photo. Dessus, une tour Eiffel en améthyste. Celle-là même que le tueur avait dérobé à Madeleine. Un objet unique auquel elle tenait par-dessus tout. Une piste vers le passé d'une femme dont il ne savait, en fait, rien. Une plongée dans l'horreur d'une des périodes les plus sombres de l'Histoire...
Les fonds vaseux du port de Bristol révèlent parfois de lugubres trésors. La prise du sergent « Flea » Marley, chef-plongeuse de la police locale, aurait de quoi étonner le pêcheur le plus averti. Cette main, tranchée net, n’est assurément pas le vestige d’un noyé...Récemment muté de Londres, le commissaire Jack Caffery ne sait quoi en penser. Il n’y pense d’ailleurs qu’à regret, trop occupé qu’il est à traquer ses vieux démons. Confusément, il partage avec Flea, obsédée elle aussi par un deuil impossible, une entêtante fascination pour la mort. Tous deux contemplent le fond, avec l’envie d’y sombrer. À jamais. Il n’y a guère que cette main pour les en empêcher. Cette main et ce souffle de magie noire, imprégné de superstitions africaines, qui semblent saisir d’effroi la paisible ville de Bristol...
L'un des 58 000 soldats américains tombés au champ d'honneur pendant la guerre du Vietnam aurait-il été victime d'un meurtre ? C'est en tout cas ce qu'affirme une mystérieuse lettre. Retourner sur place et retrouver l'auteur de la troublante missive vingt-neuf ans après les faits, sans même savoir s'il est vivant : pour Paul Brenner, ancien enquêteur de l'armée américaine, c'est exclu. Il a pris sa retraite et ne veut plus entendre parler ni d'homicides ni du Vietnam, où il a connu l'enfer en 1968. Mais pourquoi ses ex-supérieurs s'intéressent-ils tant à cette histoire ancienne ? Piqué par la curiosité, Paul s'envole pour Hô Chi Minh-Ville, ex-Saigon. Il est loin d'imaginer quelles embûches l'attendent dans ce pays en plein bouleversement, dans lequel il a perdu l'innocence de sa jeunesse...
Robert Crais is the real thing: a writer who keeps topping himself. Last year, after eight popular books featuring private eye Elvis Cole (including L.A. Requiem and Voodoo River), he produced Demolition Angel, his first standalone suspense novel. Its complex, multidimensional hero was a damaged cop haunted by her past failures. It worked in that book, and it works even better in this one.Jeff Talley, the police chief in a small Southern California town, still has nightmares about the young hostage who died when he made the wrong call in his previous job as a negotiator for an LAPD SWAT team. Now, three smalltime punks go on the run after a grocery store robbery and killing in Talley's town. Soon his deputies have surrounded the house where the inept robbers have taken Walter Smith and his two children hostage, and Talley's back in his worst dream again: until the county sheriff's full-fledged SWAT team arrives and takes over, he has to negotiate for their lives.Crais keeps the point of view moving from Talley to the punks to the hostages as the situation unfolds in the house and on the ground. Then he ratchets up the dramatic tension: there's something in Walter Smith's house that a ruthless Mob boss wants, and he'll sacrifice anyone to get it--which puts Talley's own family in danger.
Robert Crais ( Free Fall , Monkey's Raincoat ) returns with his eighth Elvis Cole mystery, L.A. Requiem , a breakneck caper that leaves the wise-cracking detective second-guessing himself. Cole's partner, the tight-lipped, charm-free Joe Pike, gets a call from his friend Frank "Tortilla" Garcia. Not only is Garcia a wealthy businessman, he's a political heavyweight and father of Karen, Joe's ex. Frank sends the gumshoe duo out to find his girl, but the boys are beaten to the punch by the men in blue: Karen is found in a park with a bullet in her brain. The two stay on the case, but when another murder points to Pike as a suspect, things take a turn for the worse. The boys on the force are all too willing to put Pike away -- he has a checkered past. When Cole attempts to save Pike, he finds a lot more than he bargained for.
One of history's most controversial figures comes to life in a tale of a girl who defied her origins to ascend the Roman throne as Pope John Anglicus. Set in 814 in Ingelheim, a Frankland village, Joan is born during an unforgiving winter to an English father and Saxon mother. Her father, a cruel canon, embodies piety but extends little compassion to his family, especially the women. Joan's mother, Gudrun, teaches her about the Saxon gods, suffering severe punishment for it. Growing up, Joan inherits a blend of warlike mythology and Church teachings. When her brother John is sent away to school, Joan, who was meant to go, runs away to join him in Dorstadt, where she falls in love with Gerold. Viewed by others as a "lusus naturae," Joan struggles with her identity in a society that devalues women. After John's death in a Viking raid, she seizes the chance to escape her fate by cutting her hair and disguising herself as a boy. Following the attack, she finds refuge in a Benedictine monastery, eventually making her way to Rome. The author presents this story as fiction due to the lack of documentation surrounding Joan's papacy, highlighting the Church's efforts to deny this historical embarrassment. Regardless of belief in Joan's role as Pope, the narrative explores the brutal realities of the Dark Ages, Vatican intrigue, and the status of women.
