Bøger udgivet af Bantam Dell

With Mama on the case, murder meets its match.... A tryst with a deadly twist. All I'd wanted to do back home in Otis, South Carolina, was whip up a wonderful thirty-fifth anniversary party for my parents. But we'd hardly picked the baker before Mama found herself volunteering her services for the one thing she did nearly as well as cook. And that is sleuthing. You see, Ruby Spikes was found dead in a motor inn with a gun in her hand, a suicide note, and a certified check receipt to a man no one ever heard of--not even the trio of Otis gossips who are Mama's rock-solid source of information. Neither they nor Mama, despite Ruby's tormented diary, were convinced she went to her reward willingly. But this was a young woman with an outsize bundle of secrets and enemies. And when Mama starts sorting them out, and sudden death makes a return visit, it looks like she'll uncover the truth only by making herself--and me--a killer's next target....

Mama's name is Grace, but folks call her Candi because of a golden-brown complexion that puts you in mind of candied sweet potatoes. Mama makes her living as a case manager for Social Services, but her talent for cooking up the best food in Otis, South Carolina, is well known. When things weren't working out for me in Atlanta, Mama suggested I come home. I soon knew I'd made the right decision when I found Nat Mixon on Mama's doorstep threatening to tell the whole town that Mama stole his inheritance. It seems that Nat's mother and Mama's neighbor, spiteful recluse Hannah Mixon, had just died and left a will naming Mama as her beneficiary - yet Mama had never spoken to the woman! Everybody in Otis knew Nat was one can short of a six-pack, but he was built like a tank and threatening Mama's reputation, which to Mama is as bad as threatening her life. When it turned out the bequest was 250 acres of land, and Miss Hannah had died of poisoning, a big drama was under way in a small town where inherited property is more valuable than gold. Mama couldn't see her reputation ruined - she had to discover why Hannah had left her the property and why the old woman had been murdered. And maybe that was exactly what Hannah Mixon expected her to do - why else had she left Mama a message to look for a missing envelope? In Mama Stalks the Past, Nora DeLoach offers up a suspenseful tale of how family ties snap like thread when a large inheritance attracts a brutal killer....

Two things Mama knows: sweet-potato pie...and murder. Old bones and buried secrets... I would have thought a bunion operation might slow Mama down, but I should have known better. We found ourselves knee-deep in somebody else's trouble even before the surgery, when we saw crazy old Miss Birdie at the grocery store with a baby that didn't belong to her. It wasn't twenty-four hours later that the baby's mother, a young woman with a wild reputation, was murdered--and the baby had vanished. And when my Daddy's wandering dog began bringing home old bones of the most shocking kind, no way Mama wasn't going to start snooping--with me doing her legwork. It's a good thing I still had two good feet, because before long, I was running for my life...as babies' cries and women's tears mingled in a crime fueled by motives as ancient as human memory--greed, jealousy, and old-fashioned revenge.

Betina Krahn, the New York Times bestselling author of The Soft Touch and The Perfect Mistress, casts her beguiling spell once more with this warm and witty love story.... She was an independent woman-with only one weakness... an irresistible downtown man... An immovable uptown lady... rich suffragette Beatrice Von Furstenberg was tough enough to trade stocks on Wall Street and smart enough to resist the temptation of passion. Adamant about women being independent-and without a romantic bone in her lovely body-she had sternly refused to give her moonstruck sixteen-year-old ward permission to wed an eighteen-year-old suitor. Now the desperate teens have dreamed up a mock robbery and a daring rescue to change Beatrice's mind. Attorney Connor Barrow, a rogue of an Irishman with a silver tongue, remembers all too well the burning desires of youth. So he agrees to help in a crazy plan that will land him in a world of trouble. Suddenly he is responsible for the most influential lady in the city being locked up in a brothel, furious and threatening his ruin. Neither of them expects that first breathless kiss-a deal that would make the devil himself blush-and, most of all, the ways love can change a man's mind and open a woman's heart....

REVENGE CAN BE ECSTASY. Irina Ismaylova is a sexual assassin, luring men and women to her bed...and their death. From St. Petersburg to Paris, she kills not for money or for pleasure, but under orders from the Russian mafioso who holds her in thrall. Desperate to buy back what is left of her shattered life, Irina must carry outone last mission.... Cate Cuevas is a special agent in Houston's FBI office. Devastated by her husband's death--and his betrayal--she has plunged into the most dangerousassignment of her career. But to succeed, she must form a secret and profoundly intimate alliance with the enemy: Irina Ismaylova. Two women. One a cop. The other a killer. For these two there is no right, no wrong, no rules. Only the truth...and terror.

Breaking the code to her heart... Independent and stubbornly unmarried, Abbie Vayle has always been a little too smart for her own good. But she may have gone too far when she starts her own rare-book business--and accidentally acquires an antique book in Paris with a mysterious code scribbled in the margins.... Someone wants the book back--and is willing to kill to get it. The only trouble is, Abbie no longer has the book. It's locked away in the customs house in Dover. Now it's a race against time as Abbie stays one step ahead of her pursuers. The last person she wants to confide in is her best friend, Hugh Templar, whom she knows only as a formidable scholar who shares her passion for Roman antiquities. But as Hugh keeps turning up where she least expects him, a few things begin to dawn on her....Not only is Hugh surprisingly--in fact incredibly--handsome without his glasses on, but he's strangely "professional" in how he handles her mysterious enemies. Hugh is clearly not what he seems. And soon Abbie realizes that neither is she...as she discovers what it means to love with all her heart and soul.

She's a hard-boiled Sacramento P.I. with a soft spot for the unlucky, the unloved, and one special cop named Hank. Her name is Kat Colorado, and in her business curiosity can be more than an occupational hazard--it can be murder. Kat Colorado knows the dangers of letting a case get too big a piece of your soul. But some cases don't give you a choice, like the death of twenty-two-year-old Courtney Dillard. Kat found her battered body on a dark Sacramento freeway, an apparent hit-and-run victim. Courtney's mother is convinced her death was no accident, and hires Kat to find the truth. As sweet and good-hearted as she was, Courtney had no shortage of enemies, Kat learns. And they make no secret of their belief in blood vengeance. Kat's also looking for the truth about her relationship with Hank, who's wrestling with his own soul-eating case. A serial killer is stalking the Vegas Strip, and Hank's investigation is taking him over the line. His obsession could cost him both Kat and his career--while Kat's could cost her her life.

Romeo. It was the courtship every woman dreamed of. It was the seduction no woman survived. Romeo. His victims were the city's most invulnerable women--professional, beautiful, smart. They eagerly embraced Romeo's darkest fantasies. ...They just didn't expect to die. Romeo. A novel you will NEVER forget.

With Britain on the eve of a neck-and-neck election, a nice juicy scandal is all it would take to tip the balance. But scandal isn't exactly on the agenda of the new Jemima Shore Investigates TV program, which centers on aspects of aging...until Jemima interviews batty, tipsy, vindictive Lady Imogen Swain. Determined to Tell All on the telly about her illicit romance thirty years ago with today's distinguished Foreign Secretary Burgo Smyth, the erstwhile society beauty comes armed with diaries and love letters. Amid dire hints that these are the kinds of secrets that could get a woman killed, she also vows to divulge everything she knows about the infamous Faber Affair - and the journalist whose baffling disappearance while on trial for selling government secrets had threatened ruin for her lover. Already Lady Imogen's on the phone to everyone - including the Sunday Opinion - to advertise her pending revelations. That is, until she makes a headfirst exit one stormy night from the balcony of her ramshackle town house. When her private papers are nowhere to be found, Jemima is left with one diary and a multitude of questions.

In an expensive boutique on New York's Upper West Side, a young salesgirl is persuaded to open the door to her death. In the chaos of a police station, ambition and sexual politics raise the stakes of solving a vicious crime. In his office, a famed psychoanalyst hears a sister's tale of emotional terrorism and madness. For April Woo and Jason Frank, suspense fiction's most engrossing detective team, the clock is ticking on another brutal killing.

"A multilayered thriller that races to an explosive conclusion."--People Captain Marcus Graver, working out of the Houston P.D.'s Criminal Intelligence Division, has made a career of collecting other people's secrets. But it takes a bullet to the brain of one of his own investigators to reveal the darkest secrets of all. Officially the death of Arthur Tisler is a suicide. But Graver's seen the files of Tisler's last case and he refuses to bury his questions with the corpse. His instincts tell him that Tisler was onto something big--big enough to cost the investigator his life. And the more Graver digs, the more he's convinced that the trail of corruption leads back to his own command. Now he must do the most dangerous thing any cop can do: go outside the department. He must enter a shadowy labyrinth of lies and deception where he can trust no one, not even his closest friends and colleagues. And waiting at the center of the maze is a mysterious, sadistic genius, a pair of beautiful assassins, and a thread of clues that will lead to a dark rendezvous with the truth--and death. "Relentlessly paced and adroitly imagined . . . sure to win [David] Lindsey numerous new fans--and thoroughly satisfy his current ones."--Publishers Weekly

A tale of exquisite pleasure that begins in the wilds of Montana--and ends in the untamed places of two lovers' hearts Lady Flora Bonham couldn't help but be tantalized by Adam Serre's potent sensuality. It made no difference that she'd only just met him or that he was the scandal of polite society. Flora had never lived according to anybody's rules, and the instant she felt the heat of Adam's passion, the only thing that mattered was that she wanted him. Adam Serre couldn't help but be wary. Lady Flora was quite spectacular, with her daring beauty and delicious conversation, but the noble daughter of a famed archaeologist did not fall into the category of amorous interludes. And after just extricating himself from a vicious marriage, his interest in women was purely transitory. Until the incomparable Flora set out to seduce him with a temptation that was pure sin.

It was the publishing event of the season . . . until someone added murder to the menu. When Quentin Hale, the ruthless new takeover boss of one of Australia's oldest publishing houses, launched a glittering round of parties, interviews, and book signings to promote his top four authors, he unwittingly whipped up a recipe for disaster. His jolly author of popular gardening books was actually a notorious lush. His successful authoress of muckraking biographies was a malicious troublemaker. And his queen of children's books had once shared a disastrous love affair with his number-one novelist, a man teetering on the brink of yet another nervous breakdown. The disgruntled staff could have warned Hale that the promotion was a deadly mistake, if he'd asked. But even they couldn't have known just how deadly . . . until one famed author downed a fatal drink and a second soon went missing. Now it looks as if someone in this literary crew has been plotting murder all along. Can editor Kate Delaney and her friend Birdie catch the killer before he writes off his next victim?

The psychopath: Released from prison after losing his sight and incarcerated in a once-deserted home at the edge of the woods, he is under constant electronic surveillance, his every move monitored by closed-circuit cameras. There is no way he could possibly escape.... The parole officer: One of the few people in town who knows what is locked inside the isolated house. Quinn Gallagher thought she was hardened to human evil until she looked into the sightless eyes of a child killer and felt a law officer's outrage--and a parent's nameless dread.... The mother: Moved to Dove's Landing after the breakup of her first marriage hoping to start a new life with her daughter and her new husband--a hope that is devastated when eleven-year-old Abby disappears one ordinary afternoon. The nightmare: Now a killer may be on the lose on the streets of the small Vermont town...preying on the young and the innocent...and the horror is beginning all over again. And the only clues to his identity lie in the dark confessions of a madman...and in The House On The Hill.

America's new manners. - What do you wear to a 4.PM wedding? - How do you introduce a couple who are living together but not married? - Should you invite an "extra" woman to dinner without an extra man? - How do you write a letter the President of the U.S.? - When a man arrives to see a woman executive, should she stand up? - It is ever correct to have your elbows on the table? - Should a man be invited to a bridal shower? - How do you eat an artichoke? Find out in Amy Vanderbilt's Everyday Etiquette

Hilarious fun, this early comedy is filled with the merry violence of slapstick and farce. When two sets of twins, separated and apparently lost to each other, all end up in the rowdy, rollicking city of Ephesus, the stage is set for mix-ups, mayhem, and mistaken identity plus the timeless puns, jokes, gags, and suspense that makes this play a wonderful theatrical frolic and a brilliant tour de force of language and laughter."

Lt. Elliot Elliot, aka E Squared. A botched drug raid yanks him off the street and into a cubicle at the Pearson Institute of Health Sciences, where he's reduced to hunting down stolen laptops. Then the ultimate insult: track down an escaped lab animal, a seventy-five-pound black Labrador retriever. But the dog turns out to be an extraordinary creature at the heart of an international collision between science, money, lust, and life itself. And as Elliot struggles to understand what's going on, the dog must wage its own desperate battle for survival . Elliot encounters a trophy wife from his own past, a professional killer with a medieval bent, a comatose surgeon with a checkered history, and a billionaire locked in a frantic struggle to stay alive--all connected to a dog that guards a secret far deadlier than anyone can imagine.

He reads Proust. Surfs the net. Is the soul of diplomacy.And when it comes to solving crime, Randolph is the dog for the job. Murder has come to Manhattan's East Village. And when detectives call twenty-something artist Harry to the scene, his Labrador, Randolph, instantly smells a rat. Why? Because Harry's missing almost-fiancée--and Randolph's beloved mistress--has been implicated in the murder, which has ties to the U.N. While Harry looks to the spirit world for answers, careening between terror and wild hope that Imogen is alive, Randolph goes into detective mode, using his superior Lab brain--2.3 pounds of smoothly functioning gray matter--to surf the Net, track down clues, and even land a job as a "therapy" dog to a depressed diplomat. Suddenly the brainy, book-loving Lab has done the impossible: he's penetrated the shadowy corridors of the U.N. (which boasts the most vicious, backbiting dog run in the city) in search of a killer. Now it will take all of Randolph's cunning to protect Harry, clear Imogen's name, solve the crime--and stay alive long enough to enjoy his upcoming birthday.

Wiseguy Sid "Sleep" Bifulco doesn't need no stinkin' witness protection program. The mobster-turned-snitch, who always put his victims gently to sleep before whacking them, did his prison time and now has a new rural hideaway and a new avocation: trout fishing in a scenic river valley. Except that a bunch of local yokels won't leave him alone. From a sexy trout dealer in crimson hiking boots to a cop married to a pregnant porn star, everybody in this little town has an angle, a grudge or a crush on somebody. And Sid needs to figure out these yahoos fast--because with a vicious Mafia killer on his trail, a warden on his doorstep, and a highly incriminating videotape making the rounds, it turns out that the simple life isn't so simple after all....

It's the night the President has resigned. In a Manhattan town house, the head of Lenox Pharmaceuticals, the world's most powerful drug company, lies dead. Through the morning darkness, security chief Mike Acela drives his BMW to the scene. Mike's job has been to defend the Chairman against all enemies. But this street-smart, battle-hardened former FBI agent is about to find out how little he knows about his mentor, his job, or the dangers swirling all around him. Somewhere within Lenox's global web of government contracts and cutting-edge medications, the Chairman kept a terrible secret. A secret that has already started changing the world. To find out how the Chairman really died, Mike must uncover the truth behind Project HR-109. But what the Lenox scientists discovered is worth killing for. And the killing has just begun.

In Bath, England, good health is an ancient tradition and a booming business. One local font of wellness is the Sulis Clinic, where the rich come for rest, repair, and repasts of strictly organic-and not terribly pleasant-cuisine. World-famous cellist Sara Selkirk has come to Sulis to admit her former music teacher. The poor dear has fallen into decrepitude, and has lately been the unlikely suspect in the shocking murder in a local pub. Distracted from her upcoming Dvorak performance in Salzburg, Sara begins to wonder if there isn't an odd link between Sulis and the murder. But another death soon rocks Sara to her core, leading her to a choice she will regret-and a killer she can no longer avoid....

In California the hills are on fire. Not a good sign for Andrew Kindler, who just came from back east to get away from his past-as an arsonist. In fact, almost from the moment he sets foot in his cousin's Santa Monica beach house, the heat starts swirling around him. First there's the cop who thinks Andrew might know something about a murder suspect. Then there's the suspect's beautiful sister, who is willing to pay Andrew $5,000 for the same information. But Andrew really uninformed. And with a sensational murder case burning a hole in the gut of the LAPD-as well as the star-studded L.A. fitness industry-ignorance is dangerous. Now Andrew must solve a murder he knows nothing about, find a killer he's never met, and unravel a family's explosive secret. His reward for success? To live another day: one step ahead of his burning past... "An exceptionally well-crafted and well-told tale of arson, police work, misplaced zeal, bad relationships, good relationships, family bonds and, oh yes, exercise videos. Quirky, compelling, intelligent, and funny ... If you like Elmore Leonard, do yourself a favor and pick up BURN."-Lincoln Journal Star "A cult writer for the masses-hip, smart and so mordantly funny that the casual reader might be laughing too hard to realize just how thoughtful Doolittle's work is. Get on the bandwagon now."-Laura Lippman, author of By a Spider's Thread "Sean Doolittle combines wit, good humor, and a generosity of spirit rare in mystery fiction to create novels that are both engrossing and strangely uplifting. He deserves to take his place among the best in the genre."-John Connolly, author of The White Road"An estimable addition not only to the publisher's list but also to crime fiction ... Doolittle delivers a briskly plotted, hard-boiled mystery that has its roots in the Elmore Leonard school of dark comedy."-South Florida Sun-Sentinel-Gold medal winner for mystery in ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Award -A Best Crime Fiction of 2003 pick from January Magazine

Leaping fishes. Prowling bobcats. Frosty penguins and mute moose heads...These are the things that fill Garth Carson's life as he buys, sells, and rents exotic taxidermy from his funky New York City storefront. But now Garth and his gal, Angie, have acquired the most sinister stuffed critter in the world: a certain white crow in a bell jar that Angie swoons over-and that other people are dying to get their hands on. When the crow is stolen, along with $50,000 worth of their best taxidermy, Garth and Angie are plunged into the spooky heart of old New England and a realm of crazed carnies, bumbling feds, and a couple of freshly snuffed collectors. To save their bird-and their lives-these two reluctant sleuths must penetrate a zany, highly illegal international treasure hunt...and confront a freak who has a thing for murder. "The funniest tough-guy writer there is."-Lee Child "Audacious and always original. Wiprud twangs funny bones I never knew I had." -T. Jefferson Parker

A PERFECT PLAN... Scott Thomas doesn't know it, but he has been chosen. Not because he's handsome, smart, or on the verge of a brilliant career as a clinical psychologist trained at Harvard. No, Scott has been chosen because he has the perfect life-for someone who needs a life to destroy.... A PERFECT LIE... It starts with a bizarre carjacking, followed by an apparent burglary in his Cambridge apartment. Then a woman is murdered at the hospital where he works, and evidence of Scott's guilt is all around him-on his computer, in his apartment, in the dead woman's room. With police hunting for him and a bizarre stranger watching his every move, Scott must take a chance on trusting a beautiful woman and searching through a shadow world of computer hackers and unclosed chapters of his own past. Because with the perfect frame closing around him and a killer growing more violent, Scott has only one choice now: to take back his life-or die trying....

Small WondersComing home to Bethlehem in hand-cuffs isn't the way Cole Jackson's life was supposed to turn out. Now, trapped in the last place on earth he wants to be, he's facing serious jail time...and the woman and kids who are both better off without him. Once Cole thought sexy single mother Leanne Wilson could make a new man of him...until he walked away from the tantalizing promise of a future together. But seeing her again rekindles the kind of passion that could set one lifelong sinner on the rocky road to redemption. Liar. Schemer. Heartbreaker. Sure, Leanne knows Cole Jackson. Everyone knows how he cheated the good folk of Bethlehem, then skipped town, leaving Leanne to pick up the pieces. She swore she'd never forgive him, but something's happened since Bethlehem's bad boy returned. Maybe it's those five thousand hours of community service that are slowly turning the town Cole's way. Or maybe it's how he's seducing her all over again with a passion that makes her yearn for forever with the man who could be her last, best mistake...

Take one gorgeous, down-on-his-luck man, add an irresistible, up-for-anything woman. Put them together in a smoldering little town--and watch the temperature rise. Nolie Harper is starting over. And the bustling burg of Bethlehem is as far as the single mother can get from the gossipy one-horse town of Whiskey Creek, Arkansas. All set to claim the twin cabins she just inherited, Nolie discovers she already has a tenant: a scruffy, powerfully built stranger who makes it clear he wants to be left alone. Chase Wilson may be living like a recluse, but he's making her yearn for togetherness--and stirring up the kind of desires that can change a woman's whole outlook on life. Newly sprung from prison for a crime he didn't commit, Chase is liking life alone in his rented cabin just fine. Until the redhead with the lush curves and her young daughter arrive and throw what's left of his life into maddening chaos. With her tantalizing neighborly ways, Nolie is slowly scorching her way into his guarded heart. And her passionate kind of healing is rapidly transforming his private hideaway into a lovers' retreat hot enough to ignite an entire town.

For twenty years, England and France have been at war. Now the war has come home... On a sunny July day in 1815, Plymouth Sound is crowded with boats vying for a view of England's great battleship HMS Bellerophon. For aboard the vessel is the stout little Frenchman who threw the world into chaos. In London, some people clamor for Napoleon's execution, others for his exile, and still others for a civil trial on English soil. For one humble London detective, the debate has turned deadly. Bow Street Runner Henry Morton has a murder to solve--and Napoleon himself is at the heart of the matter. The victim is a Frenchwoman, the mistress of a count. Soon Morton is racing through a demimonde of French expatriates, Bonapartists, fanatical Royalists, and one very dangerous, drunken petty crook. From an exotic London brothel to a scene of carnage on a Dartmoor farm, the detective enters a covert war over Napoleon's fate. And amid the betrayal, deception, and murder, Morton will face a waterloo of his own.

Clinton McKinzie writes powerhouse thrillers that are like nothing you've ever read-- novels that crackle with raw emotion and brilliantly explore the nature of risk: the risk that lovers take, adventurers seek, and men and women live with on both sides of the law. In an unforgettable new novel, set against the breathtaking Rocky Mountain landscape he has made his own, the acclaimed author of Trial by Ice and Fire brings back Special Agent Antonio Burns and his renegade brother, Roberto--two men who have chosen very different lives, now coming together to make a treacherous descent into a world of loss, betrayal, and terror. Antonio Burns is a cop, not a saint. Having earned the scornful nickname "QuickDraw" for a shooting that went very wrong, the Wyoming narcotics agent is fighting for redemption and holding on to his family with all the strength he possesses. His brother, Roberto, is another story. His quicksilver heart, hair-trigger temper, and unquenchable hunger for adrenaline rushes have landed him prison--and make him the right person for an FBI agent with a plan. Agent Mary Chang--cool, collected, and always under control--wants to go after Hidalgo, a murderous drug lord who has moved his operation from Mexico to a Wyoming canyon. In Roberto, Chang has found someone who can penetrate Hildago's heavily guarded crime ranch. And she has found a man who can quickly take her to her own wild side. Now, while Mary and his brother watch over him, Roberto goes to work for Hidalgo for the promise of a free pass from prison. But Roberto can't stay withany script for long, and soon starts making up the game as he goes along. With Antonio sure that his brother is taking the ultimate death trip, and Chang guarding a secret of her own, the perfect plan starts to veer wildly off course. And no one is prepared for the dark forces that are about to engulf them--or the final betrayal that will send them to the dizzying heights and abysmal depths of love and loss. A novel that plunges like a knife, Crossing the Line is vintage McKinzie: brilliant, breathless, and utterly impossible to put down.

The Alan Craik novels have earned GORDON KENT electrifying praise for their breakneck pace and raw emotion, as well as for some of the most remarkable heroes--and villains--in fiction today. Now U.S. Navy Officer Craik is back in action, all because one man, fueled by anger, ambition, and pain, has ignited an explosive chain of events that threatens not only two good careers, but world peace itself.... TOP HOOK It's springtime in Newport and Alan Craik and his wife, Rose Siciliano, are on top of the world. She's headed for astronaut training; he's going into an espionage school. Parents, pilots, lovers, and loyal navy officers through and through, the husband-and-wife team are eager to take the next step. Then it all comes crashing down. In a Virginia suburb of D.C., a senior CIA man has committed a series of clandestine acts that have led him into the most dangerous place he has ever been. Now George Shreed's dark secret is in danger--and a woman is demanding a million dollars in exchange for her silence. Shreed's next desperate move is to find someone to take the blame for the information he himself leaked. The fall guy will be a woman: Rose Siciliano. Suddenly, an investigation targets Rose, and, by association, her husband, Alan. And as a circle of treachery tightens around them, events race out of anyone's control. In command of an airborne unit on the USS Thomas Jefferson in Trieste, Alan is contacted by the same woman who is blackmailing Shreed. Soon he is being pulled into a vortex of spies and counterspies while a series of stunning escalations take his high-tech airborne attachment--and the world--to the brink of war. In the most dangerous region on earth, Alan Craik is crashing through forbidden airspace to find a spy, code-named "Top Hook," whose act of betrayal is more complex--and chilling--than anyone can guess. From the deafening roar of jet fighters launching off an aircraft carrier to nerve-shattering clandestine meetings in Turkey, North Africa, and Pakistan, Top Hook is a relentless turbocharged ride--and the best work yet from the most original writer in military adventure today.

When a small-town beauty queen becomes a target, a rugged federal agent sets out to investigate--only to find that there's more to her than meets the eye. Pageant winner Lacie Jo Baxter was born and bred to dazzle; with the perfect smile, the perfect figure, the perfect facade of heartland innocence. But deep inside are pent-up desires and a daring that's never been tested--until an abductor nearly snatches her up. Improvising a weapon out of her twirling baton, Lacie fends off the attacker, then comes face-to-face with the kind of man they don't make in Kansas anymore. Chicago-born FBI agent Ben Camaglia has a taste for the good life, an eye for women, and a knack for combining the two. Exiled from the Windy City, Ben expects to crack this little kidnapping caper and return to the big leagues. Instead, he quickly discovers that beneath Lacie's incredible looks is a cocktail of lies and secrets. Sparks fly when they're together, but danger swirls around a woman who is so irresistible that someone will not let her go.