The Quiet Game (Penn Cage Book 1)

Review Praise for The Quiet Game “The pace is frenetic, the fear and paranoia palpable, and the characters heartbreakingly honest. Iles strikes not one false note.”— Cleveland Plain Dealer “Would make James Lee Burke or even Pat Conroy proud. This is storytelling at its absolute best, a tale of near-epic status.”— Providence Sunday Journal “The plot turns and twists with surprise after surprise...inventive and satisfying. [Iles’s] mastery of the Southern setting rings with the truth of his own experience.”— New Orleans Times-Picayune “A definite page-turner...Extremely well-written...profound...wise and disconcerting.”— The Daily Mississippian “The plot twists and turns magnificently...A grand thriller with a wonderful Southern seasoning.”— Orange County Register “A don’t-touch-that-dial courtroom climax.”— Charlotte Observer “When the final page of The Quiet Game is turned you feel a pang as when good friends move away.”— Orlando Sentinel “A superb legal-conspiracy thriller that brings the deep South to life…an enthralling tale.”— Kirkus Reviews About the Author Greg Iles is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series. His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. Amazon.com Review Is there space in the overcrowded courtroom for one more writer of sharp, very suspenseful legal thrillers? Yes--if that writer is Greg Iles, who has proven in such varied efforts as Black Cross , Mortal Fear , and Spandau Phoenix that he knows how to squeeze the last drop of suspense out of all sorts of situations. Iles immediately makes us feel both sympathy and empathy for his glossy hero, Penn Cage--a former ace Texas prosecutor turned suspense novelist whose sales are up there in the John Grisham Himalayan range. Trying to cope with the recent death of his wife, Cage takes his 5-year-old daughter to Florida's Disney World, where the child sadly sees visions of her mother everywhere in the fantasy-filled environment. Wouldn't a trip to his parents' stately home in Natchez be more soothing for all concerned? Wrong, as it turns out--and before Cage can catch his breath, he's deeply involved in several dangerous matters. His father, a dedicated doctor, is being blackmailed for a past mistake in judgment, and a powerful judge (who just happens to be the father of Penn's high school sweetheart) has a nasty personal agenda of his own. Then there's the unsolved 1968 murder case of a black man, which Cage insists on reopening with the help of an attractive, ambitious newspaper publisher. Iles does for Natchez what John Berendt did for Savannah in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil , creating a gothic Southern landscape where elegance and depravity walk hand in hand. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile There is literally nothing "quiet" about either the plot or the reading of Iles's new thriller. It is a bold, explosive mystery about Penn Cage, a former assistant DA turned novelist, who returns to his Mississippi birthplace to uncover a thirty-year-old conspiracy to murder a black war veteran. Sometimes the plot is packed in suspense, and other times it is so hokey it is delicious. Hill is more than up to the job of portraying the predominantly Southern accents. His voices don't waver, whether his character is rescuing a victim from a burning house or addressing judge and jury. When Cage wins against all odds because of an unforeseen twist, the listener is tempted to stand up and cheer him and Hill. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 I am standing in line for Walt Disney’s It’s a Small World ride, holding my four-year-old daughter in my arms, trying to entertain her as the serpentine line of parents and children moves slowly toward the flat-bottomed boats emerging from the grotto to the music of an endless audio loop. Suddenly Annie jerks taut in my arms and points into the crowd. “Daddy! I saw Mama! Hurry!” I do not look. I don’t ask where. I don’t because Annie’s mother died seven months ago. I stand motionless in the line, looking just like everyone else except for the hot tears that have begun to sting my eyes. Annie keeps pointing into the crowd, becoming more and more agitated. Even in Disney World, where periodic meltdowns are common, her fit draws stares. Clutching her struggling body against mine, I work my way back through the line, which sends her into outright panic. The green metal chutes double back upon themselves to create the illusion of a short queue for prospective riders. I push past countless staring families, finally reaching the relative openness between the Carousel and Dumbo. Holding Annie tighter, I rock and turn in slow circles as I did to calm her when she was an infant. A streaming mass of teenagers breaks around us like a river around a rock and pays us about as much attention. A claustrophobic sense of futility envelops me, a feeling I never experienced prior to my wife’s illness but which now dogs me like a malignant shadow. If I could summon a helicopter to whisk us back to the Polynesian Resort, I would pay ten thousand dollars to do it. But there is no helicopter. Only us. Or the less-than-us that we’ve been since Sarah died. The vacation is over. And when the vacation is over, you go home. But where is home? Technically Houston, the suburb of Tanglewood. But Houston doesn’t feel like home anymore. The Houston house has a hole in it now. A hole that moves from room to room. The thought of Penn Cage helpless would shock most people who know me. At thirty-eight years old, I have sent sixteen men and women to death row. I watched seven of them die. I’ve killed in defense of my family. I’ve given up one successful career and made a greater success of another. I am admired by my friends, feared by my enemies, loved by those who matter. But in the face of my child’s grief, I am powerless. Taking a deep breath, I hitch Annie a little higher and begin the long trek back to the monorail. We came to Disney World because Sarah and I brought Annie here a year ago—before the diagnosis—and it turned out to be the best vacation of our lives. I hoped a return trip might give Annie some peace. But the opposite has happened. She rises in the middle of the night and pads into the bathroom in search of Sarah; she walks the theme parks with darting eyes, always alert for the vanished maternal profile. In the magical world of Disney, Annie believes Sarah might step around the next corner as easily as Cinderella. When I patiently explained that this could not happen, she reminded me that Snow White rose from the dead just like Jesus, which in her four-year-old brain is indisputable fact. All we have to do is find Mama, so that Daddy can kiss her and make her wake up. I collapse onto a seat in the monorail with a half dozen Japanese tourists, Annie sobbing softly into my shoulder. The silver train accelerates to cruising speed, rushing through Tomorrowland, a grand anachronism replete with Jetsons -style rocket ships and Art Deco restaurants. A 1950s incarnation of man’s glittering destiny, Tomorrowland was outstripped by reality more rapidly than old Walt could have imagined, transformed into a kitschy parody of the dreams of the Eisenhower era. It stands as mute but eloquent testimony to man’s inability to predict what lies ahead. I do not need to be reminded of this. As the monorail swallows a long curve, I spy the crossed roof beams of the Polynesian Resort. Soon we will be back inside our suite, alone with the emptiness that haunts us every day. And all at once that is not good enough anymore. With shocking clarity a voice speaks in my mind. It is Sarah’s voice. You can’t do this alone, she says. I look down at Annie’s face, angelic now in sleep. “We need help,” I say aloud, drawing odd glances from the Japanese tourists. Before the monorail hisses to a stop at the hotel, I know what I am going to do. I call Delta Airlines first and book an afternoon flight to Baton Rouge—not our final destination, but the closest major airport to it. Simply making the call sets something thrumming in my chest. Annie awakens as I arrange for a rental car, perhaps even in sleep sensing the utter resolution in her father’s voice. She sits quietly beside me on the bed, her left hand on my thigh, reassuring herself that I can go nowhere without her. “Are we going on the airplane again, Daddy?” “That’s right, punkin,” I answer, dialing a Houston number. “Back home?” “No, we’re going to see Gram and Papa.” Her eyes widen with joyous expectation. “Gram and Papa? Now?” “I hope so. Just a minute.” My assistant, Cilla Daniels, is speaking in my ear. She obviously saw the name of the hotel on the caller-ID unit and started talking the moment she picked up. I break in before she can get rolling. “Listen to me, Cil. I want you to call a storage company and lease enough space for everything in the house.” “The house?” she echoes. “Your house? You mean ‘everything’ as in furniture?” “Yes. I’m selling the house.” “Selling the house. Penn, what’s happened? What’s wrong?” “Nothing. I’ve come to my senses, that’s all. Annie’s never going to get better in that house. And Sarah’s parents are still grieving so deeply that they’re making things worse. I’m moving back home for a while.” “Home?” “To Natchez.” “Natchez.” “Mississippi. Where I lived before I married Sarah? Where I grew up?” “I know that, but—” “Don’t worry about your salary. I’ll need you now more than ever.” “I’m not worried about my salary. I’m worried about you. Have you talked to your parents? Your mother called yesterday and asked for your number down there. She sounded upset.” “I’m about to call them. After you get the storage space, call some movers and arrange transport. Let Sarah’s parents have anything they want out of the house. Then call Jim Noble and tell him to sell the place. And I don’t mean list it, I mean sell it.” “The housing market’s pretty soft right now. Especially in your bracket.” “I don’t care if I eat half the equity. Move it.” There’s an odd silence. Then Cilla says, “Could I make you an offer on it? I won’t if you never want to be reminded of the place.” “No . . . it’s fine. You need to get out of that condo. Can you come anywhere close to a realistic price?” “I’ve got quite a bit left from my divorce settlement. You know me.” “Don’t make me an offer. I’ll make you one. Get the house appraised, then knock off twenty percent. No realtor fees, no down payment, nothing. Work out a payment schedule over twenty years at, say . . . six percent interest. That way we have an excuse to stay in touch.” “Oh, God, Penn, I can’t take advantage like that.” “It’s a done deal.” I take a deep breath, feeling the invisible bands that have bound me loosening. “Well . . . that’s it.” “Hold on. The world doesn’t stop because you run off to Disney World.” “Do I want to hear this?” “I’ve got bad news and news that could go either way.” “Give me the bad.” “Arthur Lee Hanratty’s last request for a stay was just denied by the Supreme Court. It’s leading on CNN every half hour. The execution is scheduled for midnight on Saturday. Five days from now.” “That’s good news, as far as I’m concerned.” Cilla sighs in a way that tells me I’m wrong. “Mr. Givens called a few minutes ago.” Mr. Givens and his wife are the closest relatives of the black family slaughtered by Hanratty and his psychotic brothers. “And Mr. Givens doesn’t ever want to see Hanratty in person again. He and his wife want you to attend in their place. A witness they can trust. You know the drill.” “Too well.” Lethal injection at the Texas State Prison at Huntsville, better known as the Walls. Seventy miles north of Houston, the seventh circle of Hell. “I really don’t want to see this one, Cil.” “I know. I don’t know what to tell you.” “What’s this other news?” “I just got off the phone with Peter.” Peter Highsmith is my editor, a gentleman and scholar, but not the person I want to talk to just now. “He would never say anything, but I think the house is getting anxious about Nothing But the Truth . You’re nearly a year past your deadline. Peter is more worried about you than about the book. He just wants to know you’re okay.” “What did you tell him?” “That you’ve had a tough time, but you’re finally waking back up to life. You’re nearly finished with the book, and it’s by far the best you’ve ever written.” I laugh out loud. “How close are you? You were only half done the last time I got up the nerve to ask you about it.” I start to lie, but there’s no point. “I haven’t written a decent page since Sarah died.” Cilla is silent. “And I burned the first half of the manuscript the night before we left Houston.” She gasps. “You didn’t!” “Look in the fireplace.” “Penn . . . I think you need some help. I’m speaking as your friend. There are some good people here in town. Discreet.” “I don’t need a shrink. I need to take care of my daughter.” “Well . . . whatever you do, be careful, okay?” “A lot of good that does. Sarah was the most careful person I ever knew.” “I didn’t mean—” “I know. Look, I don’t want a single journalist finding out where I am. I want no part of that deathwatch circus. It’s Joe’s problem now.” Joe Cantor is the district attorney of Harris County, and my old boss. “As far as you know, I’m on vacation until the moment of the execution.” “Consider yourself incommunicado.” “I’ve got to run. We’ll talk soon.” “Make sure we do.” When I hang up, Annie rises to her knees beside me, her eyes bright. “Are we really going to Gram and Papa’s?” “We’ll know in a minute.” I dial the telephone number I memorized as a four-year-old and listen to it ring. The call is answered by a woman with a cigarette-parched Southern drawl no film producer would ever use, for fear that the audience would be unable to decode the words. She works for an answering service. “Dr. Cage’s residence.” “This is Penn Cage, his son. Can you ring through for me?” “We sure can, honey. You hang on.” After five rings, I hear a click. Then a deep male voice speaks two words that somehow convey more emotional subtext than most men could in two paragraphs: reassurance, gravitas, a knowledge of ultimate things. “Doctor Cage,” it says. My father’s voice instantly steadies my heart. This voice has comforted thousands of people over the years, and told many others that their days on earth numbered far less than they’d hoped. “Dad, what are you doing home this time of day?” “Penn? Is that you?” “Yes.” “What’s up, son?” “I’m bringing Annie home to see you.” “Great. Are you coming straight from Florida?” “You could say that. We’re coming today.” “Today? Is she sick?” “No. Not physically, anyway. Dad, I’m selling the house in Houston and moving back home for a while. What comes after that, I’ll figure out later. Have you got room for us?” “God almighty, son. Let me call your mother.” I hear my father shout, then the clicking of heels followed by my mother’s voice. “Penn? Are you really coming home?” “We’ll be there tonight.” “Thank God. We’ll pick you up at the airport.” “No, don’t. I’ll rent a car.” “Oh . . . all right. I just . . . I can’t tell you how glad I am.” Something in my mother’s voice triggers an alarm. I can’t say what it is, because it’s in the spaces, not the words, the way you hear things in families. Whatever it is, it’s serious. Peggy Cage does not worry about little things. “Mom? What’s the matter?” “Nothing. I’m just glad you’re coming home.” There is no more inept liar than someone who has spent a lifetime telling the truth. “Mom, don’t try to—” “We’ll talk when you get here. You just bring that little girl where she belongs.” I recall Cilla’s opinion that my mother was upset when she called yesterday. But there’s no point in forcing the issue on the phone. I’ll be face to face with her in a few hours. “We’ll be there tonight. Bye.” My hand shakes as I set the receiver in its cradle. For a prodigal son, a journey home after eighteen years is a sacred one. I’ve been home for a few Christmases and Thanksgivings, but this is different. Looking down at Annie, I get one of the thousand-volt shocks of recognition that has hit me so many times since the funeral. Sometimes Sarah’s face peers out from Annie’s as surely as if her spirit has temporarily possessed the child. But if this is a possession, it is a benign one. Annie’s hazel eyes transfix mine with a look that gave me much peace when it shone from Sarah’s face: This is the right thing, it says. “I love you, Daddy,” she says softly. “I love you more,” I reply, completing our ritual. Then I catch her under the arms and lift her high into the air. “Let’s pack! We’ve got a plane to catch!” --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Kirkus Reviews Preposterous, but eminently suspenseful, legal procedural about a Mississippi river town's buried secrets, by the author of Mortal Fear (1996), etc. Penn Cage, once a Texas prosecutor, now an infinitely wealthy bestselling lawyer-novelist, cant get over the recent cancer death of his wife, and is just a bit troubled about death threats from the brother of a demented white supremacist he put on death row. After a vacation in Disney World with his daughter Annie, Cage embarks on an extended visit with his parents in Natchez, Tennessee, where he finds that Ray Presley, a white-trash former cop is blackmailing Penn's saintly physician father. It seems that Presley filched a gun from the good doctor, then used it in an unsolved murder. Now, Penn buys back the gun from Presley with a mountain of cash, and later sits down for a famous author interview with the young, rich, beautiful, and brainy Caitlin Masters, the Pulitzer-crazed publisher of the local newspaper, during which he mentions, in passing, a 1968 racially motivated murder of Del Peyton, a young, black factory worker that both the police and the FBI failed to solve. Masters prints her interview, stirring up old animosities all over, including a rancorous legal dispute between Cage's father and Judge Leo Marston, a local powerbroker who was a district attorney at the time. Peyton's widow suddenly appears and asks the famous writer to find who killed her husband. Penn reluctantly agrees, then runs into his old girlfriend, Livy Marston, Leo's flawless, southern-belle daughter. Livy mysteriously ditched Cage 20 years ago, but now can't wait to stoke the old fire. Meanwhile, FBI Director John Portman, Cage's old nemesis, weighs in with nasty threats as Cage braves bullies, dodges bullets, rides down icy rapids, and prepares for a courtroom battle. Breezy, Grisham-style read that tweaks the conventions of southern gothic. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Library Journal A decision to give up a lucrative law practice in Houston and return to his home town in Natchez, MS, plunges author/ attorney Penn Cage headlong into a 30-year-old unsolved murder with all the trappings of a civil rights case. Penn's motives smack of personal vendetta, since the man he suspects of planning the murder is a powerful former state's attorney and judge who tried to ruin the medical practice of Penn's father through an unsuccessful malpractice suit several years earlier. As Penn probes into the murder, he begins to discover an FBI cover-up, thrusting his family into a life-threatening situation. Iles (Mortal Fear) has penned a Southern superthriller that rivals John Grisham's best. Fast-paced action, surprise tactics, and down-and-dirty legal maneuvering played out below the surface calm of the deep South will transfix the reader to the very last page. Recommended for all public libraries. -AThomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly Although it takes place in Natchez, Miss., and is flavored with the violence and seamy undertones of a Southern Gothic, this fourth thriller by Iles (Spandau Phoenix) owes just as much to a familiar parallel universe where wealthy male lawyers double as tragic heroes, women are invariably smart and attractive, and trials are by definition "high profile." After his wife's death, Penn Cage, a former Houston prosecutor and a bestselling suspense novelist, retreats to his parents' home in Natchez with his grieving young daughter. The healing process is interrupted when Cage learns that someone is blackmailing his father, a saintly family doctor who once made a lethal mistake. In tracing the source of his father's moral dilemma, Cage stumbles upon a trail of lies surrounding the unsolved murder of a black man in 1968. He determines to reopen the case, even though his antebellum hometown is smoldering with racial tension. With the assistance of Caitlin Masters, the attractive, smart and ambitious publisher of the local newspaper, Cage gradually uncovers an intricate conspiracy that reaches up to the highest levels of the FBI. Forced to confront powerful Judge Leo Marston, who nearly destroyed his father in pursuing an unrelated, unfounded malpractice accusation decades before, Cage must also face Marston's daughter, Livy, his old high school sweetheart, who tries to persuade Cage to let sleeping dogs lie. It is difficult at times to sympathize with Cage, who proselytizes about truth, justice and obligation, yet destroys evidence to protect his father and fails to properly shield his loved ones as he single-mindedly pursues the case. Still, this ably crafted, richly atmospheric legal thriller is engrossing, and readers will forgive Iles's protagonist a few shortcomings. Agent, Aaron Priest. Major ad/promo; 15-city author tour; British rights to Hodder Headline; audio rights to Recorded Books. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more

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Turning Angel: A Novel (Penn Cage Book 2)

Review "Turning Angel will have you wondering where Greg Iles has been all your life."   -- USA Today "Powerful....heartfelt....entirely gripping."   -- The Washington Post About the Author Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany, where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983, he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is a member of the lit-rock group The Rock Bottom Remainders. He is the author of sixteen New York Times bestselling novels and known for his Penn Cage series, the latest of which is Southern Man . He lives in Natchez, Mississippi. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Turning Angel Chapter 1Some stories must wait to be told.Any writer worth his salt knows this. Sometimes you wait for events to percolate in your subconscious until a deeper truth emerges; other times you’re simply waiting for the principals to die. Sometimes it’s both.This story is like that.A man walks the straight and narrow all his life; he follows the rules, stays within the lines; then one day he makes a misstep. He crosses a line and sets in motion a chain of events that will take from him everything he has and damn him forever in the eyes of those he loves.We all sense that invisible line of demarcation, like an unspoken challenge hanging in the air. And there is some wild thing in our natures that makes us want to cross it, that compels us with the silent insistence of evolutionary imperative to risk all for a glinting shadow. Most of us suppress that urge. Fear stops us more often than wisdom, as in most things. But some of us take that step. And in the taking, we start down a path from which it is difficult and sometimes impossible to return.Dr. Andrew Elliott is such a man.I have known Drew since he was three years old, long before he was a Rhodes scholar, before he went to medical school, before he returned to our hometown of twenty thousand souls to practice internal medicine. And our bond runs deeper than that of most childhood friends. When I was fourteen, eleven-year-old Drew Elliott saved my life and almost lost his own in the process. We remained close friends until he graduated from medical school, and then for a long time—fifteen years, I guess—I saw him hardly at all. Much of that time I spent convicting murderers as an assistant district attorney in Houston, Texas. The rest I spent writing novels based on extraordinary cases from my career, which gave me a second life and time to spend with my family.Drew and I renewed our friendship five years ago, after my wife died and I returned to Natchez with my young daughter to try to piece my life back together. The early weeks of my return were swallowed by a whirlwind of a murder case, but as the notoriety faded, Drew was the first old friend to seek me out and make an effort to bring me into the community. He put me on the school board of our alma mater, got me into the country club, talked me into sponsoring a hot air balloon and a Metropolitan opera singer during Natchez’s annual festivals. He worked hard at bringing this widower back to life, and with much help from Caitlin Masters, my lover for the past few years, he succeeded.All that seems a distant memory now.Yesterday Drew Elliott was a respected pillar of the community, revered by many, held up as a role model by all; today he is scorned by those who venerated him, and his life hangs in the balance. Drew was our golden boy, a paragon of everything small-town America holds to be noble, and by unwritten law the town will crucify him with a hatred equal to their betrayed love.How did Drew transform himself from hero into monster? He reached out for love, and in the reaching pulled a whole town down on top of him. Last night his legend was intact. He was sitting beside me at a table in the boardroom of St. Stephen’s Preparatory School, still handsome at forty, dark-haired, and athletic—he played football for Vanderbilt—a little gray at the temples but radiating the commanding presence of a doctor in his prime. I see this moment as clearly as any in my life, because it’s the instant before revelation, that frozen moment in which the old world sits balanced on the edge of destruction, like a china cup teetering on the edge of a table. In a moment it will shatter into irrecoverable fragments, but for an instant it remains intact, and salvation seems possible.The boardroom windows are dark, and the silver rain that’s fallen all day is blowing horizontally now, slapping the windows with an icy rattle. We’ve crowded eleven people around the Brazilian rosewood table—six men, five women—and the air is close in the room. Drew’s clear eyes are intent on Holden Smith, the overdressed president of the St. Stephen’s school board, as we discuss the purchase of new computers for the junior high school. Like Holden and several other board members, Drew and I graduated from St. Stephen’s roughly two decades ago, and our children attend it today. We’re part of a wave of alumni who stepped in during the city’s recent economic decline to try to rebuild the school that gave us our remarkable educations. Unlike most Mississippi private schools, which sprang up in response to forced integration in 1968, St. Stephen’s was founded as a parochial school in 1946. It did not admit its first African-American student until 1982, but the willingness was there years before that. High tuition and anxiety about being the only black child in an all-white school probably held off that landmark event for a few years. Now twenty-one black kids attend the secular St. Stephen’s, and there would be more but for the cost. Not many black families in Natchez can afford to pay five thousand dollars a year per child for education when the public school is free. Few white families can either, when you get down to it, and fewer as the years pass. Therein lies the board’s eternal challenge: funding.At this moment Holden Smith is evangelizing for Apple computers, though the rest of the school’s network runs comfortably on cheaper IBM clones. If he ever pauses for breath, I plan to tell Holden that while I use an Apple Powerbook myself, we have to be practical on matters of cost. But before I can, the school’s secretary opens the door and raises her hand in a limp sort of wave. Her face is so pale that I fear she might be having a heart attack.Holden gives her an annoyed look. “What do you need, Theresa? We’ve got another half hour, at least.”Like most employees of St. Stephen’s, Theresa Cook is also a school parent. “I just heard something terrible,” she says, her voice cracking. “Kate Townsend is in the emergency room at St. Catherine’s Hospital. They said…she’s dead. Drowned. Kate Townsend. Can that be right?”Holden Smith’s thin lips twist in a grimace of a smile as he tries to convince himself that this is some sort of sick prank. Kate Townsend is the star of the senior class: valedictorian, state champion in both tennis and swimming, full scholarship to Harvard next fall. She’s literally a poster child for St. Stephen’s. We even used her in a TV commercial for the school.“No,” Holden says finally. “No way. I saw Kate on the tennis court at two this afternoon.”I look at my watch. It’s nearly eight now.Holden opens his mouth again but no sound emerges. As I glance at the faces around the table, I realize that a strange yet familiar numbness has gripped us all, the numbness that comes when you hear that a neighbor’s child has been shot in a predawn hunting accident, or died in a car crash on homecoming night. It occurs to me that it’s early April, and though the first breath of spring has touched the air, it’s still too cold to swim, even in Mississippi. If a high school senior drowned today, a freak accident seems the only explanation. An indoor pool, maybe? Only I can’t think of anyone who owns one.“Exactly what did you hear and when, Theresa?” Holden asks. As if details might mitigate the horror of what is upon us.“Ann Geter called my house from the hospital.” Ann Geter is an ER nurse at St. Catherine’s Hospital, and another St. Stephen’s parent. Because the school has only five hundred students, everyone literally knows everyone else. “My husband told Ann I was still up here for the meeting. She called and told me that some fishermen found Kate wedged in the fork of a tree near where St. Catherine’s Creek washes into the Mississippi River. They thought she might be alive, so they put her in their boat and carried her to the hospital. She was naked from the waist down, Ann said.”Theresa says “nekkid,” but her word has the intended effect. Shock blanks the faces around the table as everyone begins to absorb the idea that this may not be a conventional accident. “Kate was bruised up pretty bad, Ann said. Like she’d been hit with something.”“Jesus Lord,” whispers Clara Jenkins, from my left. “This can’t be true. It must be somebody else.”Theresa’s bottom lip begins to quiver. The secretary has always been close to the older students, especially the girls. “Ann said Kate had a tattoo on her thigh. I didn’t know about that, but I guess her mama did. Jenny Townsend identified her body just a couple of minutes ago.”Down the table a woman sobs, and a shiver of empathy goes through me, like liquid nitrogen in my blood. Even though my daughter is only nine, I’ve nearly lost her twice, and I’ve had my share of nightmares about what Jenny Townsend just endured.“God in heaven.” Holden Smith gets to his feet, looking braced for physical combat. “I’d better get over to the hospital. Is Jenny still over there?”“I imagine so,” Theresa murmurs. “I just can’t believe it. Anybody in the world you could have said, and I’d have believed it before Kate.”“Goddamn it,” snaps Bill Sims, a local geologist. “It’s just not fair.”“I know,” Theresa agrees, as if fairness has anything to do with who is taken young and who survives to ninety-five. But then I realize she has a point. The Townsends lost a child to leukemia several years ago, before I moved back to town. I heard that was what broke up their marriage.Holden takes a cell phone from his coat pocket and dials a number. He’s probably calling his wife. The other board members sit quietly, their thoughts on their own children, no doubt. How many of them have silently thanked God for the good fortune of not being Jenny Townsend tonight?A cell phone chirps under the table. Drew Elliott lifts his and says, “Dr. Elliott.” He listens for a while, all eyes on him. Then he tenses like a man absorbing news of a family tragedy. “That’s right,” he says. “I’m the family doctor, but this is a coroner’s case now. I’ll come down and speak to the family. Their home? All right. Thanks.”Drew hangs up and looks at the ring of expectant faces, his own white with shock. “It’s not a mistake. Kate’s dead. She was dead before she reached the ER. Jenny Townsend is on her way home.” Drew glances at me. “Your father’s driving her, Penn. Tom was seeing a patient when they brought Kate in. Some family and friends are going over there. The father’s in England, of course, but he’s being notified.”Kate’s father, a British citizen, has lived in England for the past five years.A woman sobs at the end of the table.“I’m adjourning this meeting,” Holden says, gathering up the promotional literature from Apple Computer. “This can wait until next month’s meeting.”As he walks toward the door, Jan Chancellor, the school’s headmistress, calls after him, “Just a minute, Holden. This is a terrible tragedy, but one thing can’t wait until next month.”Holden doesn’t bother to hide his annoyance as he turns back. “What’s that, Jan?”“The Marko Bakic incident.”“Oh, hell,” says Bill Sims. “What’s that kid done now?”Marko Bakic is a Croatian exchange student who has been nothing but trouble since he arrived last September. How he made it into the exchange program is beyond any of us. Marko’s records show that he scored off the charts on an IQ test, but all his intelligence seems to be used only in support of his anarchic aspirations. The charitable view is that this unfortunate child of the Balkan wars has brought confusion and disruption to St. Stephen’s, sadly besmirching an exchange program that’s only won us glory in the past. The harsher view is that Marko Bakic uses the mask of prankster to hide more sinister activities like selling Ecstasy to the student body and anabolic steroids to the football team. The board has already sought my advice as a former prosecutor on how to deal with the drug issue; I told them that unless we catch Marko red-handed or someone volunteers firsthand information about illegal activities, there’s nothing we can do. Bill Sims suggested a random drug-testing program, but this idea was tabled when the board realized that positive tests would probably become public, sabotaging our public relations effort and delighting the board of Immaculate Heart, the Catholic school across town. The local law enforcement organs have set their sights on Marko, as well, but they, too, have come up empty-handed. If Marko Bakic is dealing drugs, no one is talking about it. Not on the record, anyway.“Marko got into a scuffle with Ben Ritchie in the hall yesterday,” Jan says carefully. “He called Ben’s girlfriend a slut.”“Not smart,” Bill Sims murmurs.Marko Bakic is six-foot-two and lean as a sapling; Ben Ritchie is five-foot-six and built like a cast-iron stove, just like his father, who played football with Drew and me more than twenty years ago.Jan says, “Ben shoved Marko into the wall and told him to apologize. Marko told Ben to kiss his ass.”“So what happened?” asks Sims, his eyes shining. This is a lot more interesting than routine school board business.Clearly put off by the juvenile relish in Bill’s face, Jan says, “Ben put Marko in a choke hold and mashed his head against the floor until he apologized. Ben embarrassed Marko in front of a lot of people.”“Sounds like our Croatian hippie got what he deserved.”“Be that as it may,” Jan says icily, “after Ben let Marko up, Marko told Ben he was going to kill him. Two other students heard it.”“Macho bullshit,” says Sims. “Bakic trying to save face.”“Was it?” asks Jan. “When Ben asked Marko how he was going to do that, Marko said he had a gun in his car.”Sims sighs heavily. “Did he? Have a gun, I mean.”“No one knows. I didn’t hear about this until after school. Frankly, I think the students were too afraid to tell me about it.”“Afraid of what you’d do?”“No. Afraid of Marko. Several students say he does carry a gun sometimes. But no one would admit to seeing it on school property.”“Did you talk to the Wilsons?” Holden Smith asks from the doorway.Bill Sims snorts in contempt. “What for?”The Wilsons are the family that agreed to feed and house Marko for two semesters. Jack Wilson is a retired academic, and Marko seems to have him completely snowed.Jan Chancellor watches Holden expectantly. She’s a good headmistress, although she dislikes direct confrontations, which can’t be avoided in a job like hers. Her face looks pale beneath her sleek, black bob, and her nerves seem stretched to the breaking point. They must be, to bring her to this point of insistence.“I move that we enter executive session,” she says, meaning that no minutes will be taken from this point forward.“Second,” I agree.Jan gives me a quick look of gratitude. “As you all know, this is merely the latest in a long line of disruptive incidents. There’s a clear pattern here, and I’m worried that something irreparable is going to happen. If it does—and if it can be demonstrated that we were aware of this pattern—then St. Stephen’s and every member of the board will be exposed to massive lawsuits.”Holden sighs wearily from the door. “Jan, this was a serious incident, no doubt. And sorting it out is going to be a pain in the ass. But Kate Townsend’s death is going to be a major shock to every student and family at this school. I can call a special meeting later in the week to deal with Marko, but Kate is the priority right now.”“Will you call that meeting?” Jan presses. “Because this problem’s not going to go away.”“I will. Now I’m going to see Jenny Townsend. Theresa, will you lock up when everyone’s gone?”The secretary nods, glad for being given something to do. While the remainder of the board members continue to express disbelief, my cell phone rings. The caller ID shows my home as the origin of the call, which makes me unsure whether to answer. My daughter, Annie, is quite capable of pestering me to death with the phone when the mood strikes her. But with Kate’s death fresh in my mind, I step into the secretary’s office and answer.“Annie?”“No,” says an older female voice. “It’s Mia.”Mia Burke is my daughter’s babysitter, a classmate of Kate Townsend’s.“I’m sorry to interrupt the board meeting, but I’m kind of freaked out.”“It’s all right, Mia. What’s the matter?”“I’m not sure. But three people have called and told me something happened to Kate Townsend. They’re saying she drowned.”I hesitate before confirming the rumor, but if the truth hasn’t already spread across town, it will in a matter of minutes. Our secretary learning the truth from an ER nurse was part of the first wave of rumor, one of many that will sweep across town tonight, turning back upon themselves and swelling until the facts are lost in a tide of hyperbole. “You heard right, Mia. Kate was found dead in St. Catherine’s Creek.”“Oh God.”“I know it’s upsetting, and I’m sure you want to be with your friends right now, but I need you to stay with Annie until I get there. I’ll be home in ten minutes.”“Oh, I’d never leave Annie alone. I mean, I don’t even know what I should do. If Kate’s dead, I can’t really help her. And everyone is going to be acting so retarded about it. Take whatever time you need. I’d rather stay here with Annie than drive right now.”I silently thank Jan Chancellor for recommending one of the few levelheaded girls in the school to me as a babysitter. “Thanks, Mia. How’s Annie doing?”“She fell asleep watching a documentary about bird migration on the Discovery Channel.”“Good.”“Hey,” Mia says in an awkward voice. “Thanks for telling me the truth about Kate.”“Thanks for not flipping out and leaving the house. I’ll see you in a few minutes, okay?”“Okay. Bye.”I hang up and look through the door at the boardroom. Drew Elliott is talking on his cell phone at the table, but the rest of the board members are filing out the main door. As I watch them go, an image from our promotional TV commercial featuring Kate rises into my mind. She’s walking onto the tennis court in classic whites, and her cool blue eyes burn right through the camera. She’s tall, probably five-ten, with Nordic blond hair that hangs halfway to her waist. More striking than beautiful, Kate looked like a college student rather than a high school kid, and that’s why we chose her for the promo spot. She was the perfect recruiting symbol for a college-prep school.As I reach for the office doorknob, I freeze. Drew is staring at the table with tears pouring down his face. I hesitate, giving him time to collect himself. What does it take to make an M.D. cry? My father has watched his patients die for forty years, and now they’re dropping like cornstalks to a scythe. I know he grieves, but I can’t remember him crying. The one exception was my wife, but that’s another story. Maybe Drew thinks he’s alone here, that I slipped out with all the others. Since he shows no sign of stopping, I walk out and lay my hand on his thickly muscled shoulder.“You okay, man?”He doesn’t reply, but I feel him shudder.“Drew? Hey.”He dries his eyes with a swipe of his sleeve, then stands. “Guess we’d better let Theresa lock up.”“Yeah. I’ll walk out with you.”Side by side, we walk through the front atrium of St. Stephen’s, just as we did thousands of times when we attended this school in the sixties and seventies. A large trophy cabinet stands against the wall to my left. Inside it, behind a wooden Louisville Slugger with thirteen names signed on it in Magic Marker, hangs a large photograph of Drew Elliott during the defining moment of this institution. Just fourteen years old, he is standing at the plate under the lights of Smith-Wills Stadium in Jackson, hitting what would be the winning home run of the 1977 AAAA state baseball championship. No matter how remarkable our academic accomplishments—and they were many—it was this prize that put our tiny “single A” school on the map. In Mississippi, as in the rest of the South, sport overshadows everything else.“Long time ago,” he says. “Eternity.”I’m standing on second base in the photo, waiting to sprint for the tying run. “Not so long.”He gives me a lost look, and then we pass through the entrance and pause under the overhang, prepping for a quick dash through the rain to our cars.“Kate babysat for you guys, didn’t she?” I comment, trying to get him to focus on the mundane.“Yeah. The past two summers. Not anymore, though. She graduates—was supposed to graduate—in six weeks. She was too busy for babysitting.”“She seemed like a great kid.”Drew nods. “She was. Even these days, when so many students are overachievers, she stood out from the crowd.”I could point out that it’s often the best and brightest who are taken while the rest of us are left to carry on, but Drew knows that. He’s watched more people die than I ever will.His Volvo is parked about thirty yards away, behind my Saab. I pat him on the back as I did in high school, then assume a tight end’s stance. “Run for it?”Instead of playing along with me, he looks me full in the face and speaks in a voice I haven’t heard from him in years. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”The emotion in his eyes is palpable. “Of course.”“Let’s get in one of the cars.”“Sure.”He presses a button on his key chain, and his Volvo’s lights blink. As if triggered by a silent starter pistol, we race through the chilly rain and scramble onto the leather seats of the S80. He slams his door and cranks the engine, then shakes his head with a strange violence.“I can’t fucking believe it, Penn. It’s literally beyond belief. Did you know her? Did you know Kate at all?”“We spoke a few times. She asked about my books. But we never got beyond the surface. Mia talked about her a lot.”His eyes search out mine in the shadows. “You and I haven’t got beneath the surface much either these past five years. It’s more my fault than yours, I know. I keep a lot inside.”“We all do,” I say awkwardly, wondering where this is going.“Who really knows anybody, right? Twelve years of school together, best friends when we were kids. You know a lot about me, but on the other hand you know nothing. The front, like everybody else.”“I hope I see past that, Drew.”“I don’t mean to insult you. If anyone sees beneath the surface, it’s you. That’s why I’m talking to you now.”“Well, I’m here. Let’s talk.”He nods as if confirming a private judgment. “I want to hire you.”“Hire me?”“As a lawyer.”This is the last thing I expected to hear. “You know I don’t practice anymore.”“You took the Payton case, that old civil rights bombing.”“That was different. And that was five years ago.”Drew stares at me in the glow of the dashboard lights. “This is different, too.”It always is to the client. “I’m sure it is. The thing is, I’m not really a lawyer anymore. I’m a writer. If you need a lawyer, I can recommend several good ones. Is it malpractice?”Drew blinks in astonishment. “Malpractice? You think I’d waste your time with bullshit like that?”“Drew…I don’t know what this is about. Why don’t you tell me what the problem is?”“I want to, but—Penn, what if you were sick? You had HIV, say. And you came to me and said, ‘Drew, please help me. As a friend. I want you to treat me and not tell a soul.’ And what if I said, ‘Penn, I’d like to, but that’s not my specialty. You need to go to a specialist.’ ”“Drew, come on—”“Hear me out. If you said, ‘Drew, as a friend, please do me this favor. Please help me.’ You know what? I wouldn’t think twice. I’d do whatever you wanted. Treat you without records, whatever.”He would. I can’t deny it. But there’s more than this beneath his words. Drew has left much unsaid. The truth is that without Drew Elliott, I wouldn’t be alive today. When I was fourteen years old, Drew and I hiked away from the Buffalo River in Arkansas and got lost in the Ozark Mountains. Near dark, I fell into a gorge and broke my femur. Drew was only eleven, but he crawled down into that gorge, splinted my leg with a tree limb, then built a makeshift litter and started dragging me through the night. Before he was done, he dragged me four miles through the mountains, breaking his wrist in the process and twice almost breaking his neck. Just after dawn, he managed to get me to a cluster of tents where someone had a CB radio. But has he mentioned any of that? No. It’s my job to remember.“Why do you want to hire me, Drew?”“To consult. With the protection of confidentiality.”“Shit. You don’t have to hire me for that.”He pulls his wallet from his pants and takes out a twenty-dollar bill, which he pushes at me. “I know that. But if you were questioned on the stand later—as a friend—you’d have to lie to protect me. If you’re my lawyer, our discourse will be shielded by attorney-client privilege.” He’s still pushing the bill at me. “Take it, Penn.”“This is crazy—”“Please, man.”I wad up the note and shove it into my pocket. “Okay, damn it. What’s going on?”He sags back in his seat and rubs his temples like a man getting a migraine. “I knew Kate a lot better than anyone knows.”Kate Townsend again? The sense of dislocation I felt in the boardroom was nothing compared to what I feel now. Again I see Drew sitting at the table, weeping as though for a family member. Even as I ask the next question, I pray that I’m wrong.“Are you telling me you were intimate with the girl?”Drew doesn’t blink. “I was in love with her.” --This text refers to the mass_market edition. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Hill, one of the best interpreters of novels featuring thoughtful male protagonists under pressure, was an inspired choice for Iles's powerful tale of murder, sex, drugs, Deep South societal unrest and generational confusion. Respectful of the Natchez, Miss., atmosphere that permeates the novel, Hill uses a lyrical and literate drawl for the book's narrator, attorney Penn Cage. Iles's genuinely suspenseful and well-plotted thriller puts Cage through much emotional upheaval. Hill responds accordingly, with just the right mood—from the shock Cage feels when discovering that his best friend, respected and happily married Dr. Drew Elliott, had been sexually involved with a bright and beautiful 17-year-old and is now suspected of killing her to Cage's awe when he finds himself falling for his daughter's babysitter. Hill's Dr. Elliott has a slightly whiny voice, conveying a man on the edge of panic, but with more than a hint of a "Why me?" attitude born of entitlement. The rest of the large cast is treated to the same careful interpretation. Shad Johnson, the politically ambitious black DA, has the sound of a smooth talker who is also an intellectual bully. Penn's dad has a soft-spoken, no-nonsense dignity. Hill is particularly effective in delineating an assortment of teenagers, among them babysitter Mia Burke. Hill has selected an attitude for her that mixes blasé precocity with little girl neediness. This helps to underline the novel's theme: today's teens mature sooner than most adults realize and can pay a very high price for their early loss of innocence. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 31). (Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From the Back Cover Turning Angel marks the long-awaited return of Penn Cage, the lawyer hero of The Quiet Game, and introduces Drew Elliott, the highly respected doctor who saved Penn’s life in a hiking accident when they were boys. As two of the most prominent citizens of Natchez, Drew and Penn sit on the school board of their alma mater, St. Stephen’s Prep. When the nude body of a young female student is found near the Mississippi River, the entire community is shocked - but no one more than Penn, who discovers that his best friend was entangled in a passionate relationship with the girl and may be accused of her murder. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Bookmarks Magazine Much more than a thriller, Turning Angel is a portrait of a Southern town blighted by a poor economy, bad schools, drugs, racial tensions, and the contrast between this life and the one of privilege. Iles, who lives in Natchez, convincingly depicts how these tensions play out among high school students, who, as Gage repeatedly learns, are not the innocent babes of his youth. The lurid scenes of pornography, drugs, and sex will attract many readers, but so will Iles's portrayal of emotions and morality. A two-dimensional villain and somewhat hackneyed plot barely detract from the novel's powerful depiction of teenagers' lives today. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist The murder of a beautiful 17-year-old girl throws the town of Natchez, Mississippi, into turmoil. When Penn's close friend, Dr. Drew Elliott, confesses that he was about to leave his wife and run off with the victim, Penn agrees to act as his attorney. But he also knows that if the police bring charges against Drew, he'll have a hard time getting him off. As usual, Iles writes gracefully, letting us get to know his characters gradually, keeping certain things hidden until it's the right time to reveal them. The story is solidly plotted, too, but there's one major gaffe: the introduction of the villain is handled so clumsily that readers even remotely familiar with the genre will know instantly whodunit. Unfortunately, for those who spot the killer, much of the novel's suspense is ruined. Still, Iles has become an A-list thriller writer over the years, and anything with his name on it can be counted on to draw a crowd. Call this one a well-written misfire. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From AudioFile A female high school superstar is raped and murdered in Natchez, Mississippi. Suspicion falls on her lover, a married doctor who is the friend of narrator/writer/lawyer Penn Cage. Dick Hill wraps this first-person narrative in a soft Southern accent and makes the most of the opportunity the plot offers to bring to life a 9-year-old daughter, an African-American drug lord, the doctor's chemically dependent wife, local lawmen, a Yankee professor, and a Croatian exchange student grown beyond his years. At one point, Cage is held captive and injected with heroin, the effects of which he painfully describes. The plot twists might strain your imagination, but the characters ring true--thanks to a tour-de-force performance. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more

The Death Factory: A Penn Cage Novella (Kindle Single) (Penn Cage Novels)

From the Back Cover Death is the end, and if a man doesn't speak before it silences him, then his deepest secrets go with him. From #1 New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles comes an e-original novella featuring former prosecutor Penn Cage, a story of family secrets and justice denied, plus an excerpt from his new novel, Natchez Burning . When a heart attack sends Penn's father, Tom Cage, to the ER, Tom begs that his son be brought to his side to hear a dying declaration. But when Penn arrives, Tom denies ever making the request—keeping his secrets for another day. The emergency hurls Penn back to a chilling case in Houston, where he worked in a DA's office known as the "death factory," which sent more killers to death row than any other in America. While Penn cares for his ailing wife, a tormented forensic technician brings him evidence of a crime lab in chaos, throwing past convictions into doubt and begging Penn to prevent an imminent travesty of justice. With the desperation of a man fighting death in his own home, Penn must find a way to bring the machinery of the death factory to a halt. Included here is an extended sneak preview of Natchez Burning , the first installment in an epic trilogy featuring Penn Cage. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author Greg Iles spent most of his youth in Natchez, Mississippi. His first novel, Spandau Phoenix , was the first of thirteen New York Times bestsellers, and his new trilogy continues the story of Penn Cage, protagonist of The Quiet Game , Turning Angel , and #1 New York Times bestseller The Devil’s Punchbowl . Iles’s novels have been made into films and published in more than thirty-five countries. He lives in Natchez with his wife and has two children. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

24 Hours: A Suspense Thriller (Mississippi Book 2)

Review “Brilliantly plotted...perfectly-timed terror...and a hair-raising finale.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Iles displays all the well-honed chops that have made him a bestselling author...He Achieves a near perfect balance of high-tech inventiveness and characterization as the plot rushes to its grand—and violent—finale....Inventive and fast-paced.”— Times-Picayune “A chilling tale...calculated to jangle the reader's every nerve...gut-wrenching.” — Library Journal “A taut tale, terrifying in its intensity, compelling in its pace...A good, old-fashioned thriller, the likes of which are rare...A winner.” — Chattanooga Times About the Author Greg Iles is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series. His novels have been made into films, translated into more than twenty languages, and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide. From AudioFile Were it not for Hill's exciting and sometimes flamboyant reading, this slow-moving story might have been entitled "24 Years." For five years in a row, a trio of child abductors has been successful at "the perfect kidnapping." They strike where the child lives, the parents don't tell the police, and the ransom is paid. Now, for the sixth time, they steal a doctor's child. This time, however, they encounter a family--parents and child--to be reckoned with. Though interesting at first, the plot bogs down as the 24 hours pass ever so slowly. But Hill's wonderful character development saves the day. He's solid as he alternates between the hysterical mother, the guilt-ridden father, and the ruthless mastermind. And he's superb as he switches from the 5-year-old victim to her captor. Another reader might not have been tolerated. A.L.H. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Amazon.com Review This explosive suspense thriller gets off to a blistering start: the kidnapping of a little boy--in eight breathless pages--that culminates with the child's safe return and the disappearance of the successful kidnappers. That sets the stage for the book's centerpiece, the abduction of little Abby Jennings, daughter of Will, a successful physician, and Karen, a slightly dissatisfied suburban woman who's wondering where the passion in her marriage went. The criminals' modus operandi is established early on. They target the progeny of Mississippi doctors, demand a reasonable (to an affluent M.D.) ransom, release the child after it's paid, and promise the victim parents that if they ever breathe a word of the incident to anyone, their kids will be taken again and killed. The kidnappings are carefully set up, targeted to take place when one parent is out of town at a medical meeting or convention, thus ensuring the cooperation of the other. And the victim is held by a sweet, slightly retarded but humongous and powerful man whose loyalty to his cousin, the mastermind, is unquestioned. 24 Hours is a version of the locked room school of kidnap mysteries and a very good one indeed, especially when Will turns the tables on the kidnapper and takes control of the situation. Abby's diabetic condition (she needs lifesaving injections on a regular basis) notches the suspense up one last turn. It's a well worked-out plot, the pacing is terrific, and the characters likable and attractive. Iles is a master storyteller, and this one has big screen written all over it--with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as the Jennings, if we're lucky. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Publishers Weekly HAs close to family fare as a kidnapper-rapist-extortionist thriller can get, Iles's (The Quiet Game) latest brilliantly plotted tale walks the razor's edge between cinematic excess and bone-chilling suspense. Joe Hickey is a Southern redneck with an Ivy League talent for evil. He has trained his grossly huge, mentally challenged cousin, Huey, and his gorgeous, exotic-dancer, live-in lover, Cheryl, to work with him as part of a tightly controlled kidnap/extortion squad targeting Mississippi physicians' families while the doctors are off at conferences. But he hits a snag when Dr. Will Jennings, his wife, Karen, and their five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Abby, prove as resourceful solo as they are formidable in tandem. Joe grabs Abby, turning her over to Huey, who drives her off to a remote forest cabin near Jackson; meanwhile, Joe stays behind to terrorize Karen in the Jennings home. Cheryl gets her hooks into the third family member by vamping her way into Will's hotel room in Biloxi, where Will receives a phone call and ransom demand from Joe, who stipulates delivery in 24 hours. It's a long, horrific night for all as Iles pits each of the captives against their captors in riveting battles of will. The well-rounded characters are trademark Iles, the plot runs speed-skating smooth and occasional near-gooey bits of dialogue are offset by nasty surprises and perfectly timed terror. The one-on-one conflicts punch up the pace, and a perfect Mississippi setting, a spot-on sendup of FBI assistance and a hair-raising finale complete the package. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and BOMC alternates. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Review “Brilliantly plotted...perfectly-timed terror...and a hair-raising finale.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Iles displays all the well-honed chops that have made him a bestselling author...He Achieves a near perfect balance of high-tech inventiveness and characterization as the plot rushes to its grand—and violent—finale....Inventive and fast-paced.”— Times-Picayune “A chilling tale...calculated to jangle the reader's every nerve...gut-wrenching.” — Library Journal “A taut tale, terrifying in its intensity, compelling in its pace...A good, old-fashioned thriller, the likes of which are rare...A winner.” — Chattanooga Times --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Kirkus Reviews A tepid thriller from bestselling Iles ( The Quiet Game , 1999, etc.) in which an upscale family falls victim to a not-so-typical kidnapping masterminded by a psychopath with more than money on his mind. Dr. Will Jennings is on his way from Mississippi to a medical meeting in New Orleans, leaving behind his loving, if somewhat resentful, wife Karen, who quit medical school when she became pregnant, and their precious, precocious five-year-old daughter, Abby. Life is a mixed bag for the doctor. He's flying his own plane to the convention where he's presenting a breakthrough anesthesia drug that could make him a very wealthy man. But he suffers from debilitating arthritis, and Abby is a juvenile diabetic who requires insulin injections. The whole house of cards comes tumbling down when the child is snatched by kidnapper extraordinaire Joe Hickey, assisted by his abused spouse, a former drug- addicted lap dancer, and his devoted, mentally challenged, 300-pound cousin Huey. The devious trio's carefully orchestrated plan, which they've refined over five previous capers, divides the story into three scenarios, each redneck villain paired with a member of the genteel Jennings family. Hickey's motto, "The kid always makes it," is endangered by Abby's insulin needs, the Type-A personalities of the Jennings clan, and the search for revenge. Should Will call in the authorities? Should he and Karen submit to the kidnappers' bizarre personal demands? How far will they go to save their daughter and still keep their self-respect? And by the way, have they missed the truly important things in life?The clever plot generates some heat, but veteran Iles's clunky prose ("Hickey's words cut to the bone, but something more terrible struck Will like a hammer"), hackneyed psychological "insights," and tedious medical details send this thriller into a tailspin.Literary Guild/Doubleday Book Club alternate selection -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Booklist Will Jennings takes off in his private plane for Biloxi to speak at a doctor's convention and to announce a new drug treatment he's helped develop. He leaves behind a neglected wife, Karen, and a five-year-old, Abby, who has juvenile diabetes. Joe Hickey, a psychopath with particular animosity toward doctors, and Huey Cotton, a giant with diminished mental capacity, take advantage of Will's trip to kidnap Abby and terrorize Karen. Will is held in check by Cheryl Lynne, Joe's beautiful but emotionally stunted wife, until the ransom can be delivered. Joe has committed this "perfect" crime five times before. Each time he's taken a doctor's child, stuck to a relentless 24-hour schedule that separates the husband, wife, and child, and returned the child to the parents unharmed. Joe and his partners haven't been caught because they leave their victims paralyzed with fear of reprisal. But this time, Joe's resentment toward doctors takes a particularly vengeful turn. This time, too, Joe has targeted a family of particular resilience, determination, and ingenuity. Faced with the prospect that Abby could die of complications of diabetes before the 24-hour schedule is up, Will and Karen are forced to desperately push against the deadline. Unknown to them, a previous victim has mustered the courage to call in the FBI when they suspect another family is being victimized. But FBI involvement could be more hindrance than support to this resourceful couple. Iles, author of The Quiet Game , has written a fast-paced, gripping novel of suspense and action set in the Mississippi delta. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. From Library Journal While Will Jennings is speaking at a medical conference in Biloxi, MS, his five-year-old daughter, Abby, is kidnapped and his wife, Karen, held hostage by psychopath Joe Hickey. With his wife, Cheryl, and cousin Huey, Joe has gotten away with five similar ransoms of doctors' children, but this one is different because he blames Will for the death of his mother. For those willing to overlook the unpleasantness of Abby's fear and Joe's sexual threat to Karen, this suspenseful tale is exciting, especially in the final chapters when Will must cope with the clumsy interference of the FBI. Just as Iles made computers central to the plot of Mortal Fear, he cleverly uses cellular phones and private planes here. By exaggerating some of the Southern accents, the normally excellent Dick Hill makes the events seem more melodramatic than the author intended. Recommended for thriller collections.DMichael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Read more

A Family for Christmas (Contemporary Romance Novella)

The Devil's Punchbowl: A Novel (Penn Cage Book 3)

Review "A knockout thriller that's just the right degree of chilly to combat the dog days of summer... Iles' knack for perfectly integrating character and plot could serve as a master's class for other authors." -- The Dallas Morning News About the Author Greg Iles was born in 1960 in Germany, where his father ran the US Embassy medical clinic during the height of the Cold War. After graduating from the University of Mississippi in 1983, he performed for several years with the rock band Frankly Scarlet and is a member of the lit-rock group The Rock Bottom Remainders. He is the author of sixteen New York Times bestselling novels and known for his Penn Cage series, the latest of which is Southern Man . He lives in Natchez, Mississippi. From The Washington Post From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Patrick Anderson There is a lot going on in Greg Iles's third novel featuring Penn Cage, the mayor of Natchez, Miss., but finally it's a story about evil. Cage, a lawyer and successful novelist, has run for mayor of his home town to save it from troubles that he believes are largely caused by de facto school segregation. His challenge grows even greater when he confronts two Irishmen who run one of the floating gambling casinos that have done much to rejuvenate the Mississippi economy. Their boat, the Magnolia Queen, makes available illegal drugs, teenage prostitutes and dogfights to attract high rollers from out of state. When Cage tries to stop them, he finds that these two psychopaths will gladly murder, rape, torture, bribe and kidnap to maintain their power. Some readers may toss the novel aside because of its scenes of horrific violence. Others will tolerate the violence because Iles is a talented writer who puts the horror in a believable context. Penn Cage is a solid portrait of a good man trying to do a hard job for a city he loves: "For sheer beauty Natchez is unmatched along the length of the river; with its commanding site above the river Mississippi it surpasses even New Orleans, and one would have to travel to Charleston or Savannah to find comparable architecture." Iles gives us a good sense of the city and the woes of being its mayor. Cage is also a widower trying to raise a beloved 11-year-old daughter. But everything he has accomplished, personally and politically, is imperiled by the two corrupt gamblers. At the outset, a friend who works at the gambling casino tells Cage of illegality aboard the ship -- and in the wooded hideaways where dogfights are staged -- and soon that friend has been mauled to death by dogs. When Cage sets out to investigate the charges, the two gangsters visit his home. They come armed with guns, knives and a well-trained bully kutta, a Pakistani breed celebrated for its size, strength and fearlessness. The gangsters tell Cage that unless he does exactly as they say, they will not only murder him, they'll kill his daughter, parents and friends. Cage pretends to go along, but of course he intends to bring down the two, aided by some lethal friends in the world of private security. The rest of the novel details a gripping, often frightening clash between good and evil. Evil seems to have the upper hand. We see an all-too-graphic dogfight and learn that the villains grab household pets off the streets to provide snacks for their pit bulls. We see women suffer in agonizing detail, among them a good-hearted but penniless stripper who goes to work on the casino ship only to be subjected to rape, torture and the threat of an attack by hungry dogs. These killer dogs are prominent in the novel, if only as tools used by despicable men. Even more awful creatures, alligators, also play a role -- they are the reptilian equivalent of the two villains. Cage tells us that "there's no sight quite like the dozens of red eyes hovering just above water level among the twisted cypress trunks" of the Mississippi. Early in the novel, Cage's journalist girlfriend argues that the villains must be brought to trial, not assassinated. Later, after she has suffered a great deal, Iles contrives to put her in a boat at night with one of her tormentors -- sadist, rapist, murderer -- and to give her the option of having him thrown to the waiting alligators. It's a gripping scene but not a pretty one. Unless you're an alligator. Iles's writing held my interest even as I began to think he was moving past a serious look at depravity in favor of an exercise in cheap thrills. It's an old problem. Evil is a legitimate subject for fiction, but at what point, in relating horrors, particularly horrors against women, is the writer simply pandering? "The Devil's Punchbowl" is not without merit, but it's hard to think many women could read it with pleasure; and, even for us insensitive males, a strong stomach is useful. Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Bestseller Iles's stellar third suspense novel to feature Penn Cage (after Turning Angel ) finds the former prosecutor and bestselling novelist serving as the mayor of Natchez, Miss., his hometown. Frustrated by his limited ability to change the system, Cage is plunged into a deadly duel of wits with some bad guys after a childhood friend, Tim Jessup, now a card dealer, alerts him to illegal dog fighting and sexual abuse connected with a floating casino. Before Jessup can deliver proof of his allegations, he's tortured and killed. Convinced Jessup managed to pass on the evidence to the mayor, Jessup's boss confronts and threatens Cage. Daniel Kelly, an old friend working for a private security organization, lends support, sneaking Cage's 11-year-old daughter out of town to safety. Iles brilliantly creates opportunities for his characters to demonstrate principle and courage, both on a large and small scale, making this much more than just an exciting read. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From the Author Greg Iles is the author of thirteen New York Times bestselling novels, including Third Degree , True Evil , Turning Angel , Blood Memory , and The Footprints of God. He lives in Natchez, Mississippi. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Devil’s Punchbowl CHAPTER 1 Midnight in the garden of the dead. A silver-white moon hangs high over the mirror-black river and the tired levee, shedding cold light on the Louisiana delta stretching off toward Texas. I stand among the luminous stones on the Mississippi side, shivering like the only living man for miles. At my feet lies a stark slab of granite, and under that stone lies the body of my wife. The monument at its head reads:SARAH ELIZABETH CAGE 1963–1998 Daughter. Wife. Mother. Teacher. She is loved.I haven’t sneaked into the cemetery at midnight to visit my wife’s grave. I’ve come at the urgent request of a friend. But I didn’t come here for the sake of friendship. I came out of guilt. And fear. The man I’m waiting for is forty-five years old, yet in my mind he will always be nine. That’s when our friendship peaked, during the Apollo 11 moon landing. But you don’t often make friends like those you make as a boy, so the debt is a long one. My guilt is the kind you feel when someone slips away and you don’t do enough to maintain the tie, all the more painful because over the years Tim Jes sup managed to get himself into quite a bit of trouble, and after the first eight or nine times, I wasn’t there to get him out of it. My fear has nothing to do with Tim; he’s merely a messenger, one who may bear tidings I have no wish to hear. News that confirms the rumors being murmured over golf greens at the country club, bellowed between plays beside high school gridirons, and whispered through the hunting camps like a rising breeze before a storm. When Jessup asked to meet me, I resisted. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time to discover a conscience, for me or for the city. Yet in the end I agreed to hear him out. For if the rumors are true—if a uniquely disturbing evil has entered into my town—it was I who opened the door for it. I ran for mayor in a Jeffersonian fit of duty to save my hometown and, in my righteousness, was arrogant enough to believe I could deal with the devil and somehow keep our collective virtue intact. But that, I’m afraid, was wishful thinking. For months now, a sense of failure has been accreting in my chest like fibrous tissue. I’ve rarely failed at anything, and I have never quit. Most Americans are raised never to give up, and in the South that credo is practically a religion. But two years ago I stood before my wife’s grave with a full heart and the belief that I could by force of will resurrect the idyllic town that had borne me, by closing the racial wounds that had prevented it from becoming the shining beacon I knew it could be, and bringing back the prosperity it deserved. Halfway through my four-year term, I’ve learned that most people don’t want change, even when it’s in their best interest. We pay lip service to ideals, but we live by expediency and by tribal prejudice. Accepting this hypocrisy has nearly broken me. Sadly, the people closest to me saw this coming long ago. My father and my lover at the time tried to save me from myself, but I would not be swayed. The heaviest burden I bear is knowing that my daughter has paid the highest price for my illusions. Two years ago, I imagined I heard my dead wife’s voice urging me onward. Now all I hear is the empty rush of the wind, whispering the lesson so many have learned before me: You can’t go home again. My watch reads 12:30 a.m. Thirty minutes past the appointed hour, and there’s still no sign of Tim Jessup among the shoulder-high stones between me and Cemetery Road. With a silent farewell to my wife, I turn and slip between the monuments, working my way back up toward Jewish Hill, our rendezvous point. My feet make no sound in the dewy, manicured grass. The names chiseled on these stones I’ve known all my life. They are the town’s history, and mine: Friedler and Jacobs and Dreyfus up on Jewish Hill, whose stones read Bohemia, Bavaria, Alsace; the Knoxes and Henrys and Thornhills in the Protestant sections; and finally the Donnellys and Binellis and O’Banyons back on Catholic Hill. Most of the corpses in this place had white skin when they were alive, but as in life, the truth here is found at the margins. In the areas marked “Colored Ground” on the cemetery map lie the trusted servants and favored slaves who lived at the margins of the white world and earned a patch of hallowed earth in death. Most of these were interred without a marker. You have to go farther down the road, to the national cemetery, to find the graves of truly free black people, many of them soldiers who lie among the twenty-eight hundred unknown Union dead. Yet this cemetery breathes an older history. Some people buried here were born in the mid-1700s, and if they were resurrected tomorrow, parts of the town would not look much different to them. Infants who died of yellow fever lie beside Spanish dons and forgotten generals, all moldering beneath crying angels and marble saints, while the gnarled oak branches spread ever wider above them, draped with cinematic beards of Spanish moss. Natchez is the oldest city on the Mississippi River, older even than New Orleans, and when you see the dark, tilted gravestones disappearing into the edges of the forest, you know it. I last came here to view a million dollars in damage wreaked by drunk vandals on the irreplaceable wrought iron and statuary that make this cemetery unique. Now all four gates are chained shut at dusk. Tim Jessup knows that; it’s one reason he chose this trysting place. When Jessup first called, I thought he was proposing the cemetery for his convenience; he works on one of the riverboat casinos at the foot of the bluff—the Magnolia Queen, moored almost directly below Jewish Hill—and midnight marks the end of his shift. But Tim insisted that the cemetery’s isolation was a necessity, for me as much as for him. Swore, in fact, that I could trust neither my own police department nor any official of the city government. He also made me promise not to call his cell phone or his home for any reason. Part of me considers his claims ridiculous, but a warier clump of brain cells knows from experience that corruption can run deep. I was a lawyer in another life—a prosecutor. I started out wanting to be Atticus Finch and ended up sending sixteen people to death row. Looking back, I’m not sure how that happened. One day, I simply woke up and realized that I had not been divinely ordained to punish the guilty. So I resigned my position with the Houston district attorney’s office and went home to my joyous wife and daughter. Uncertain what to do with my newfound surplus of time (and facing an acute shortage of funds), I began writing about my courtroom experiences and, like a few other lawyers slipstreaming in the wake of John Grisham, found myself selling enough books to place my name on the bestseller lists. We bought a bigger house and moved Annie to an elite prep school. An unfamiliar sense of self-satisfaction began to creep into my life, a feeling that I was one of the chosen, destined for success in whatever field I chose. I had an enviable career, a wonderful family, a few good friends, lots of faithful readers. I was young enough and arrogant enough to believe that I deserved all this, and foolish enough to think it would last. Then my wife died. Four months after my father diagnosed Sarah with cancer, we buried her. The shock of losing her almost broke me, and it shattered my four-year-old daughter. In desperation I fled Houston, taking Annie back to the small Mississippi town where I’d been raised, back to the loving arms of my parents. There—here—before I could begin working my way back to earth, I found myself drawn into a thirty-year-old murder case, one that ultimately saved my life and ended four others. That was seven years ago. Annie’s eleven now, and almost the reincarnation of her mother. She’s sleeping at home while a babysitter waits in my living room, and remembering this I decide that Tim Jessup gets exactly five more minutes of my time. If he can’t make his own midnight meeting, he can damn well come to City Hall during business hours, like everybody else. My heart labors from climbing the nearly vertical face of Jewish Hill, but each breath brings the magical scent of sweet olive, still blooming in mid-October. Under the sweet olive simmers a roux of thicker smells: kudzu and damp humus and something dead in the trees—maybe a gut-shot deer that evaded its shortsighted poacher. When I reach the edge of the table of earth that is Jewish Hill, the land and sky fall away before me with breathtaking suddenness. The drop to the river is two hundred feet here, down a kudzu-strangled bluff of windblown loess—rich soil made from rock ground fine by glaciers—the foundation of our city. From this height you can look west over endless flatland with almost intoxicating pride, and I think that feeling is what made so many nations try to claim this land. France, Spain, England, the Confederacy: all tried to hold this earth, and all failed as surely as the Natchez Indians before them. A sagging wire bench still stands beneath an American flag at the western rim of the hill, awaiting mourners, lovers, and all the rest who come here; it looks like the best place to spend Tim’s last four minutes. As I sit, a pair of headlights moves up Cemetery Road like a ship beating against the wind, tacking back and forth across the lane that winds along the edge of the bluff. I stand, but the headlights do not slow, and soon a nondescript pickup truck rattles past the shotgun shacks across the road and vanishes around the next bend, headed toward the Devil’s Punchbowl, a deep defile out in the county where Natchez Trace outlaws once dumped the corpses of their victims. “That’s it, Timmy,” I say aloud. “Time’s up.” The wind off the river has finally found its way into my jacket. I’m cold, tired, and ready to go to bed. The next three days will be the busiest of my year as mayor, beginning with a news conference and a helicopter flight in the morning. But after those three days are up…I’m going to make some profound changes in my life. Rising from the bench, I walk to my right, toward a gentler slope of the hill, where my old Saab waits beyond the cemetery wall. As I bend to slide down the hill, an urgent whisper breaks the silence of the night: “Hey. Dude? Are you up here?” A shadow is advancing along the rim of Jewish Hill from the interior of the graveyard. From my vantage point, I can see all four entrances to the cemetery, but I’ve seen no headlights and heard no engine. Yet here is Tim Jessup, materializing like one of the ghosts so many people believe haunt this ancient hill. I know it’s Tim because he used to be a junkie, and he still moves like one, with a herky-jerky progress during which his head perpetually jiggers around as though he’s watching for police while his thin legs carry him forward in the hope of finding his next fix. Jessup claims to be clean now, thanks largely to his new wife, Julia, who was three years behind us in high school. Julia Stanton married the high school quarterback at nineteen and took five years of punishment before forfeiting that particular game. When I heard she was marrying Jessup, I figured she wanted a perfect record of losses. But the word around town is that she’s worked wonders with Tim. She got him a job and has kept him at it for over a year, dealing blackjack on the casino boats, most recently the Magnolia Queen. “Penn!” Jessup finally calls out loud. “It’s me, man. Come out!” The gauntness of his face is unmistakable in the moonlight. Though he and I are the same age—born exactly one month apart—he looks ten years older. His skin has the leathery texture of a man who’s worked too many years under the Mississippi sun. Passing him on the street under that sun, I’ve seen more disturbing signs. His graying mustache is streaked yellow from cigarette smoke, and his skin and eyes have the jaundiced cast of those of a man whose liver hasn’t many years left in it. What bound Jessup and me tightly as boys was that we were both doctors’ sons. We each understood the weight of that special burden, the way preachers’ sons know that emotional topography. Having a physician as a father brings benefits and burdens, but for eldest sons it brings a universal expectation that someday you’ll follow in your father’s footsteps. In the end both Tim and I failed to fulfill this, but in very different ways. Seeing him closer now, turning haplessly in the dark, it’s hard to imagine that we started our lives in almost the same place. That’s probably the root of my guilt: For though Tim Jessup made a lifetime of bad decisions—in full knowledge of the risks—the one that set them all in train could have been, and in fact was, made by many of us. Only luck carried the rest of us through. With a sigh of resignation, I step from behind the gravestone and call toward the river, “Tim? Hey, Tim. It’s Penn.” Jessup whips his head around, and his right hand darts toward his pocket. For a panicked second I fear he’s going to pull a pistol, but then he recognizes me, and his eyes widen with relief. “Man!” he says with a grin. “At first I thought you’d chickened out. I mean, shit.” As he shakes my hand, I marvel that at forty-five Jessup still sounds like a strung-out hippie. “You’re the one who’s late, aren’t you?” He nods more times than necessary, a man who’ll do anything to keep from being still. How does this guy deal blackjack all night? “I couldn’t rush off the boat,” he explains. “I think they’re watching me. I mean, they’re always watching us. Everybody. But I think maybe they suspect something.” I want to ask whom he’s talking about, but I assume he’ll get to that. “I didn’t see your car. Where’d you come from?” A cagey smile splits the weathered face. “I got ways, man. You got to be careful dealing with this class of people. Predators, I kid you not. They sense a threat, they react—bam!” Tim claps his hands together. “Pure instinct. Like sharks in the water.” He glances back toward town. “In fact, we ought to get behind some cover now.” He gestures toward the three-foot-high masonry walls that enclose a nearby family plot. “Just like high school, man. Remember smoking grass behind these walls? Sitting down so the cops couldn’t see the glow of the roach?” I never got high with Tim during high school, but I see no reason to break whatever flow keeps him calm and talking. The sooner he tells me what he came to say, the sooner I can get out of here. He vaults the wall with surprising agility, and I step over it after him, recalling with a chill the one memory of this place that I associate with Tim. Late one Halloween night a half dozen boys tossed our banana bikes over the wall and rode wildly through the narrow lanes, laughing hysterically until a pack of wild dogs chased us up into the oak trees near the third gate. Does Tim remember that? With a last anxious look up Cemetery Road, he sits on the damp ground and leans against the mossy bricks in a corner where two walls meet. I sit against the adjacent wall, facing him at a right angle, my running shoes almost touching his weathered Sperrys. Only now do I realize that he must have changed clothes after work. The dealer’s uniform he usually wears on duty has been replaced by black jeans and a gray T-shirt. “Couldn’t come out here dressed for work,” he says, as though reading my mind. What he actually read, I realize, was my appraising glance. Clearly, all the drugs he’s ingested over the years haven’t yet ruined what always was a sharp mind. I decide to dispense with small talk. “You said some pretty scary things on the phone. Scary enough to bring me out here at this hour.” He nods, digging in his pocket for something that turns out to be a bent cigarette. “Can’t risk lighting it,” he says, putting it between his lips, “but it’s good to know I got it for the ride home.” He grins once more before putting on a serious face. “So, what had you heard before I called?” I don’t want to repeat anything Tim hasn’t already heard or seen himself. “Vague rumors. Celebrities flying in to gamble, in and out fast. Pro athletes, rappers, like that. People who wouldn’t normally come here.” “You hear about the dogfighting?” My hope that the rumors are false is sinking fast. “I’ve heard there’s some of that going on. But it was hard to credit. I mean, I can see some rednecks down in the bottoms doing it, or out in the parishes across the river, but not high rollers and celebrities.” Tim sucks in his bottom lip. “What else?” This time I don’t answer. I’ve heard other rumors—that prostitution and hard drugs are flourishing around the gambling trade, for example—but these plagues have been with us always. “Look, I don’t want to speculate about things I don’t know to be true.” “You sound like a fucking politician, man.” I suppose that’s what I’ve become, but I feel more like an attorney sifting the truth from an unreliable client’s story. “Why don’t you just tell me what you know? Then I’ll tell you how that fits with what I’ve heard.” Looking more anxious by the second, Jessup gives in to his nicotine urge at last. He produces a Bic lighter, which he flicks into flame and touches to the end of the cigarette, drawing air through the paper tube like someone sucking on a three-foot bong. He holds in the smoke for an alarming amount of time, then speaks as he exhales. “You hear I got a kid now? A son.” “Yeah, I saw him with Julia at the Piggly Wiggly a couple of weeks ago. He’s a great-looking boy.” Tim’s smile lights up his face. “Just like his mom, man. She’s still a beauty, isn’t she?” “She is,” I concur, speaking the truth. “So…what are we doing here, Timmy?” He still doesn’t reply. He takes another long drag, cupping the cigarette like a joint. As I watch him, I realize that his hands are shak ing, and not from the cold. His whole body has begun to shiver, and for the first time I worry that he’s started using again. “Tim?” “It’s not what you think, bro. I’ve just been carrying this stuff around in my head for a while, and sometimes I get the shakes.” He’s crying, I realize with amazement. He’s wiping tears from his eyes. I squeeze his knee to comfort him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “We’re a long way from Mill Pond Road, aren’t we?” Mill Pond Road is the street I grew up on. “We sure are. Are you okay?” He stubs out his cigarette on a gravestone and leans forward, his eyes burning with passion I thought long gone from him. “If I tell you more, there’s no going back. You understand? I tell you what I know, you won’t be able to sleep. I know you. You’ll be like a pit bull yourself. You won’t let it go.” “Isn’t that why you asked me here?” Jessup shrugs, his head and hands jittery again. “I’m just telling you, Penn. You want to walk away, do it now. Climb over that wall and slide back down to your car. That’s what a smart man would do.” I settle against the cold bricks and consider what I’ve heard. This is one of the ways fate comes for you. It can swoop darkly from a cloudless sky like my wife’s cancer; or it can lie waiting in your path, obvious to any eyes willing to see it. But sometimes it’s simply a fork in the road, and rare is the day that a friend stands beside it, offering you the safer path. It’s the oldest human choice: comfortable ignorance or knowledge bought with pain? I can almost hear Tim at his blackjack table on the Magnolia Queen: “Hit or stay, sir?” If only I had a real choice. But because I helped bring the Queen to Natchez, I don’t. “Let’s hear it, Timmy. I don’t have all night.” Jessup closes his eyes and crosses himself. “Praise God,” he breathes. “I don’t know what I would have done if you’d walked away. I’m way out on a limb here, man. And I’m totally alone.” I give him a forced smile. “Let’s hope my added weight doesn’t break it off.” He takes a long look at me, then shifts his weight to raise one hip and slides something from his back pocket. It looks like a couple of playing cards. He holds them out, palm down, the cards mostly concealed beneath his fingers. “Pick a card?” I ask. “They’re not cards. They’re pictures. They’re kind of blurry. Shot with a cell phone.” With a sigh of resignation I reach out and take them from his hand. I’ve viewed thousands of crime-scene photos in microscopic detail, so I don’t expect to be shocked by whatever Tim Jessup has brought in his back pocket. But when he flicks his lighter into flame and holds it over the first photo, a wasplike buzzing begins in my head, and my stomach does a slow roll. “I know,” he says quietly. “Keep going. It gets worse.” --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Read more

Son of Slappy (Goosebumps Most Wanted #2) (2)

Review Praise for GOOSEBUMPS WANTED: THE HAUNTED MASK"...this book offers a great opportunity to rediscover what makes Stine so special: his swift characterizations, icky ideas, and prose that offers the exact right amount of cover-your-eyes detail." -Booklist"Pure, Goosebumps–style terror-by-formula, polished through use to such a high gloss that it slides along frictionlessly–a worthy celebration of the series' 20th anniversary." -Kirkus Reviews About the Author R.L. Stine is the creator of the bestselling Goosebumps series, which has more than 400 million copies in print worldwide and celebrated 25 years in 2017. Goosebumps is one of the bestselling children's series of all-time and inspired a popular television show, as well as a feature film starring Jack Black that opened at #1 at the box office. His other popular children's books include the series Fear Street, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room, and Rotten School, and his picture books, with Marc Brown, The Little Shop of Monsters and Mary McScary . R.L. Stine lives in New York City. You can connect with him on Twitter at @RL_Stine or Facebook: facebook.com/rlstine. For more information, visit rlstine.com and scholastic.com/goosebumps. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From GOOSEBUMPS MOST WANTED #2: SON OF SLAPPYWas that a boy sitting on the edge of the front porch? He sat stiffly. His skinny legs were crossed. He was dressed in red and wore red shoes. His black hair gleamed in the sunlight. He didn't move as we walked toward him. He just stared at us with a big grin on his face."Who is that?" Rachel asked.We took a few steps closer. I laughed. It wasn't a boy. It was some kind of big doll.We stepped up to the front porch. "It's a ventriloquist dummy," I said. "Weird," Rachel murmured, staring down at its grinning face. "Why is it sitting here on the porch?""Beats me." I made a fist and tapped the top of its wooden head. "Hey, dummy.""Owww!" it cried. "Don't do that!" Read more

Well Said Intro (Well Said, New Edition) - Standalone book

About the Author Linda has pursued her interest in first and second language pronunciation for over forty years. She has taught ESL students at Georgia Tech, international teaching assistants at Emory University, and graduate students in applied linguistics at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her special interests are applying pronunciation research to practice and integrating pronunciation into the oral communication curriculum. She is the author of two pronunciation texts, Well Said and Well Said Intro (National Geographic Cengage) and the editor of the teacher resource volume Pronunciation Myths (University of Michigan Press).Eve Einselen Yu has been in the field of English Language Teaching and Linguistics for twenty years. She fell in love with the field as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Slovak Republic. Since then, she has taught students of all levels and ages in Hiroshima, Japan; Semarang, Indonesia; and New York City. She has also taught future teachers of English at Hunter College and in Central Java. Eve has developed or written both print and digital ELT content for over eight years.

Still Alice

From Publishers Weekly Neuroscientist and debut novelist Genova mines years of experience in her field to craft a realistic portrait of early onset Alzheimer's disease. Alice Howland has a career not unlike Genova's—she's an esteemed psychology professor at Harvard, living a comfortable life in Cambridge with her husband, John, arguing about the usual (making quality time together, their daughter's move to L.A.) when the first symptoms of Alzheimer's begin to emerge. First, Alice can't find her Blackberry, then she becomes hopelessly disoriented in her own town. Alice is shocked to be diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's (she had suspected a brain tumor or menopause), after which her life begins steadily to unravel. She loses track of rooms in her home, resigns from Harvard and eventually cannot recognize her own children. The brutal facts of Alzheimer's are heartbreaking, and it's impossible not to feel for Alice and her loved ones, but Genova's prose style is clumsy and her dialogue heavy-handed. This novel will appeal to those dealing with the disease and may prove helpful, but beyond the heartbreaking record of illness there's little here to remember. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review "Heartbreakingly real.... So real, in fact, that it kept me from sleeping for several nights. I couldn't put it down.... Still Alice is a story that must be told." -- Brunonia Barry, New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader "After I read Still Alice , I wanted to stand up and tell a train full of strangers, 'You have to get this book.'" -- Beverly Beckham, The Boston Globe "This book is as important as it is impressive, and will grace the lives of those affected by this dread disease for generations to come." -- Phil Bolsta, author of Sixty Seconds "With a master storyteller's easy eloquence, Lisa Genova shines a searing spotlight on this Alice's surreal wonderland. You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to read this book. It will inform you. It will scare you. It will change you." -- Julia Fox Garrison, author of Don't Leave Me This Way "A work of pure genius." -- Charley Schneider, author of Don't Bury Me, It Ain't Over Yet "A masterpiece that will touch lives in ways none of us can even imagine. This book is the best portrayal of the Alzheimer's journey that I have read." -- Mark Warner, Alzheimer's Daily News "With grace and compassion, Lisa Genova writes about the enormous white emptiness created by Alzheimer's." -- The Improper Bostonian "Heartbreaking." -- The Cape Cod Chronicle “Because the full, internal experience of Alzheimer’s is an account that fiction alone can deliver, it’s no surprise that the go-to book for caretakers and early-stage sufferers is a novel. “Still Alice,” written by the neuroscientist Lisa Genova, offers a crisp, straightforward, and wrenching depiction of the fifty-year-old Harvard professor Alice Howland’s descent into the swift, early-onset form of the disease.” ― The New Yorker, "A Place Beyond Words: The Literature of Alzheimer" From the Back Cover Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman's sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer's disease, written by Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University. Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer's disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what's it's like to literally lose your mind... Reminiscent of A Beautiful Mind, Ordinary People and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Still Alice packs a powerful emotional punch and marks the arrival of a strong new voice in fiction.0914875566\\In the early 20th century, herbs were commonly used in the home for treating conditions that did not require a doctor’s care. Joseph Meyer devoted his life to providing herbs and information to people all across the country, earning him the title of the Old Herb Doctor.Many readers of Meyer’s Herbalist Almanac were inspired to send letters praising his herbs and treatments, claiming miraculous cures, and sharing their own remedies. Those letters were collected to create The Old Herb Doctor.Herbal remedies have once again risen in popularity and widespread use. The Old Herb Doctor details the way Americans used medicinal herbs in the 1920s and ’30s and is a must for those interested in herbal medicine and natural cures. About the Author Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa Genova is the New York Times bestselling author of Still Alice , Left Neglected , Love Anthony , Inside the O’Briens , and Remember . Still Alice was adapted into an Oscar-winning film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, and Kristen Stewart. Lisa graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard University. She travels worldwide speaking about the neurological diseases she writes about and has appeared on The Dr. Oz Show , Today , PBS NewsHour , CNN, and NPR. Her TED talk, What You Can Do To Prevent Alzheimer's, has been viewed over 2 million times. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Still Alice By Lisa Genova Pocket Copyright © 2009 Lisa GenovaAll right reserved. ISBN: 9781439102817 SEPTEMBER 2003 Alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of John racing through each of the rooms on the first floor. She needed to finish her peer review of a paper submitted to the Journal of Cognitive Psychology before her flight, and she'd just read the same sentence three times without comprehending it. It was 7:30 according to their alarm clock, which she guessed was about ten minutes fast. She knew from the approximate time and the escalating volume of his racing that he was trying to leave, but he'd forgotten something and couldn't find it. She tapped her red pen on her bottom lip as she watched the digital numbers on the clock and listened for what she knew was coming. "Ali?" She tossed her pen onto the desk and sighed. Downstairs, she found him in the living room on his knees, feeling under the couch cushions. "Keys?" she asked. "Glasses. Please don't lecture me, I'm late." She followed his frantic glance to the fireplace mantle where the antique Waltham clock, valued for its precision, declared 8:00. He should have known better than to trust it. The clocks in their home rarely knew the real time of day. Alice had been duped too often in the past by their seemingly honest faces and had learned long ago to rely on her watch. Sure enough, she lapsed back in time as she entered the kitchen, where the microwave insisted that it was only 6:52. She looked across the smooth, uncluttered surface of the granite countertop, and there they were, next to the mushroom bowl heaping with unopened mail. Not under something, not behind something, not obstructed in any way from plain view. How could he, someone so smart, a scientist, not see what was right in front of him? Of course, many of her own things had taken to hiding in mischievous, little places as well. But she didn't admit this to him, and she didn't involve him in the hunt. Just the other day, John blissfully unaware, she'd spent a crazed morning looking first all over the house and then in her office for her Blackberry charger. Stumped, she'd surrendered, gone to the store, and bought a new one, only to discover it later that night plugged in the socket next to her side of the bed, where she should have known to look. She could probably chalk it all up for both of them to excessive multitasking and being way too busy. And to getting older. He stood in the doorway, looking at the glasses in her hand, but not at her. "Next time, try pretending you're a woman while you look," said Alice, smiling. "I'll wear one of your skirts. Ali, please, I'm really late." "The microwave says you have tons of time," she said, handing them to him. "Thanks." He grabbed them like a relay runner taking a baton in a race and headed for the front door. "Will you be home when I get back on Saturday?" she asked his back as she followed him down the hallway. "I don't know, I've got a huge day in lab on Saturday." He collected his briefcase, phone, and keys from the hall table. "Have a good trip, give Lydia a hug and kiss for me. And try not to battle with her," said John. She caught their reflection in the hallway mirror -- -a distinguished-looking, tall man with white-flecked brown hair and glasses, a petite, curly-haired woman, her arms crossed over her chest, each readying to leap into that same, bottomless argument. She gritted her teeth and swallowed, choosing not to jump. "We haven't seen each other in a while, please try to be home?" she asked. "I know, I'll try." He kissed her, and although desperate to leave, he lingered in that kiss for an almost imperceptible moment. If she didn't know him better, she might've romanticized his kiss. She might've stood there, hopeful, thinking it said, I love you, I'll miss you . But as she watched him hustle down the street alone, she felt pretty certain he'd just told her, I love you, but please don't be pissed when I'm not home on Saturday . They used to walk together over to Harvard Yard every morning. Of the many things she loved about working within a mile from home and at the same school, their shared commute was the thing she loved most. They always stopped at Jerri's--a black coffee for him, a tea with lemon for her, iced or hot, depending on the season--and continued on to Harvard Square, chatting about their research and classes, issues in their respective departments, their children, or plans for that evening. When they were first married, they even held hands. She savored the relaxed intimacy of these morning walks with him, before the daily demands of their jobs and ambitions rendered them each stressed and exhausted. But for some time now, they'd been walking over to Harvard separately. Alice had been living out of her suitcase all summer, attending psychology conferences in Rome, New Orleans, and Miami, and serving on an exam committee for a thesis defense at Princeton. Back in the spring, John's cell cultures had needed some sort of rinsing attention at an obscene hour each morning, but he didn't trust any of his students to consistently show up. So he did. She couldn't remember the reasons that predated spring, but she knew that each time they'd seemed reasonable and only temporary. She returned to the paper at her desk, still distracted, now by a craving for that fight she didn't have with John about their youngest daughter, Lydia. Would it kill him to stand behind her for once? She gave the rest of the paper a cursory effort, not her typical standard of excellence, but it would have to do, given her fragmented state of mind and lack of time. Her comments and suggestions for revision finished, she packaged and sealed the envelope, guiltily aware that she might've missed an error in the study's design or interpretation, cursing John for compromising the integrity of her work. She repacked her suitcase, not even emptied yet from her last trip. She looked forward to traveling less in the coming months. There were only a handful of invited lectures penciled in her fall semester calendar, and she scheduled most of those on Fridays, a day she didn't teach. Like tomorrow. Tomorrow she would be the guest speaker to kick off Stanford's cognitive psychology fall colloquium series. And afterward, she'd see Lydia. She'd try not to battle with her, but she wasn't making any promises. Alice found her way easily to Stanford's Cordura Hall on the corner of Campus Drive West and Panama Drive. Its concrete, white stucco exterior, terra cotta roof, and lush landscaping looked to her East Coast eyes more like a Caribbean beach resort than an academic building. She arrived quite early but ventured inside anyway, figuring she could use the extra time to sit in the quiet auditorium and look over her talk. Much to her surprise, she walked into an already packed room. A zealous crowd surrounded and circled a buffet table, aggressively diving in for food like seagulls at a city beach. Before she could sneak in unnoticed, she noticed Josh, a former Harvard classmate and respected egomaniac, standing in her path, his legs planted firmly and a little too wide, like he was ready to dive at her. "All this, for me?" asked Alice, smiling playfully. "What, we eat like this every day. It's for one of our developmental psychologists, he was tenured yesterday. So how's Harvard treating you?" "Good." "I can't believe you're still there after all these years. You ever get too bored over there, you should consider coming here." "I'll let you know. How are things with you?" "Fantastic. You should come by my office after the talk, see our latest modeling data. It'll really knock your socks off." "Sorry, I can't, I have to catch a flight to LA right after this," she said, grateful to have a ready excuse. "Oh, too bad. Last time I saw you I think was last year at the Psychonomic Conference. I unfortunately missed your presentation." "Well, you'll get to hear a good portion of it today." "Recycling your talks these days, huh?" Before she could answer, Gordon Miller, head of the department and her new superhero, swooped in and saved her by asking Josh to help pass out the champagne. Like at Harvard, a champagne toast was a tradition in the psychology department at Stanford for all faculty who reached the coveted career milestone of tenure. There weren't many trumpets that heralded the advancement from point to point in the career of a professor, but tenure was a big one, loud and clear. When everyone was holding a cup, Gordon stood at the podium and tapped the microphone. "Can I have everyone's attention for a moment?" Josh's excessively loud, punctated laugh reverberated alone throughout the auditorium just before Gordon continued. "Today, we congratulate Mark on receiving tenure. I'm sure he's thrilled to have this particular accomplishment behind him. Here's to the many exciting accomplishments still ahead. To Mark!" "To Mark!" Alice tapped her cup with her neighbors, and everyone quickly resumed the business of drinking, eating, and discussing. When all of the food had been claimed from the serving trays and the last drops of champagne emptied from the last bottle, Gordon took the floor once again. "If everyone would take a seat, we can begin today's talk." He waited a few moments for the crowd of about seventy-five to settle and quiet down. "Today, I have the honor of introducing you to our first colloquium speaker of the year. Dr. Alice Howland is the eminent William James Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Over the last twenty-five years, her distinguished career has produced many of the flagship touchstones in psycholinguistics. She pioneered and continues to lead an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to the study of the mechanisms of language. We are privileged to have her here today to talk to us about the Conceptual and Neural Organization of Language." Alice switched places with Gordon and looked out at her audience looking at her. As she waited for the applause to subside, she thought of the statistic that said that people feared public speaking more than they feared death. She loved it. She enjoyed all of the concatenated moments of presenting in front of a listening audience---teaching, performing, telling a story, teeing up a heated debate. She also loved the adrenaline rush. The bigger the stakes, the more sophisticated or hostile the audience, the more the whole experience thrilled her. John was an excellent speaker, but it often pained and terrified him, and he marveled at Alice's verve for it. He probably didn't prefer death, but spiders and snakes, sure. "Thank you, Gordon. Today, I'm going to talk about some of the mental processes that underlie the acquisition, organization, and use of language." Alice had given the guts of this particular talk innumerable times, but she wouldn't call it recycling. The crux of the talk did focus on the main tenets of linguistics, many of which she'd discovered, and she'd been using a number of the same slides for years. But she felt proud, and not ashamed or lazy, that this part of her talk, these discoveries of hers, continued to hold true, withstanding the test of time. Her contributions mattered and propelled future discovery. Plus, she certainly included those future discoveries. She talked without needing to look down at her notes, relaxed and animated, the words effortless. Then, about forty minutes into the fifty-minute presentation, she became suddenly stuck. "The data reveal that irregular verbs require access to the mental..." She simply couldn't find the word. She had a loose sense for what she wanted to say, but the word itself eluded her. Gone. She didn't know the first letter or what the word sounded like or how many syllables it had. It wasn't on the tip of her tongue. Maybe it was the champagne. She normally didn't drink any alcohol before speaking. Even if she knew the talk cold, even in the most casual setting, she always wanted to be as mentally sharp as possible, especially for the question and answer session at the end, which could be confrontational and full of rich, unscripted debate. But she didn't wanted to offend anyone, and she drank a little more than she probably should have when she became trapped again in passive aggressive conversation with Josh. Maybe it was jet lag. As her mind scoured its corners for the word and a rational reason as to why she lost it, her heart pounded and her face grew hot. She'd never lost a word in front of an audience before. But she'd also never panicked in front of an audience either, and she'd stood before many far larger and more intimidating than this. She told herself to breath, forget about it, and move on. She replaced the still blocked word with a vague and inappropriate 'thing,' abandoned whatever point she'd been in the middle of making, and continued on to the next slide. The pause had seemed like an obvious and awkward eternity to her, but as she checked the faces in the audience to see if anyone had noticed her mental hiccup, no one appeared alarmed, embarrassed, or ruffled in any way. Then, she saw Josh whispering to the woman next to him, his eyebrows furrowed and a slight smile on his face. She was on the plane, descending into LAX, when it finally came to her. Lexicon . Lydia had been living in Los Angeles for three years now. If she'd gone to college right after high school, she would've graduated this past spring. Alice would've been so proud. Lydia was probably smarter than both of her older siblings, and they had gone to college. And law school. And medical school. Instead of college, Lydia first went to Europe. Alice had hoped she'd come home with a clearer sense of what she wanted to study and what kind of school she wanted to go to. Instead, upon her return, she told her parents that she'd done a little acting while in Dublin and had fallen in love. She was moving to Los Angeles immediately. Alice nearly lost her mind. Much to her own maddening frustration, she recognized her own contribution to this problem. Because Lydia was the youngest of three, the daughter of parents who worked a lot and traveled regularly, and had always been a good student, Alice and John ignored her to a large extent. They granted her a lot of room to run in her world, free to think for herself and from the kind of micromanagement placed on a lot of children her age. Her parents' professional lives served as shining examples of what could be gained from setting lofty and individually unique goals and pursuing them with passion and hard work. Lydia understood her mother's advice about the importance of getting a college education, but she had the confidence and audacity to reject it. Plus, she didn't stand entirely alone. The most explosive fight Alice ever had with John followed his two cents on the subject-- I think it's wonderful, she can always go to college later, if she decides she even wants to . Alice checked her Blackberry for the address, rang the doorbell to apartment number seven, and waited. She was just about to press it again when Lydia opened the door. "Mom, you're early," said Lydia. Alice checked her watch. "I'm right on time." "You said your flight was coming in at eight." "I said five." "I have eight o'clock written down in my book." "Lydia, it's 5:45, I'm here." Lydia looked indecisive and panicky, like a squirrel caught facing an oncoming car in the road. "Sorry, come in." They each hesitated before they hugged, as if they were about to practice a newly learned dance and weren't quite confident of the first step or who should lead. Or it was an old dance, but they hadn't performed it together in so long that they each felt unsure of the choreography. Alice could feel the contours of Lydia's spine and ribs through her shirt. She looked too skinny, a good ten pounds lighter than Alice remembered. She hoped it was more a result of being busy than of conscious dieting. Blonde and five feet six, three inches taller than Alice, Lydia stood out among the predominance of short Italian and Asian women in Cambridge, but in Los Angeles, the waiting rooms at every audition were apparently full of women who looked just like her. "I made reservations for nine. Wait here, I'll be right back." Craning her neck, Alice inspected the kitchen and living room from the hallway. The furnishings, most likely yard sale finds and parent hand-me-downs, looked rather hip together---an orange sectional couch, retro-inspired coffee table, Brady Bunch style kitchen table and chairs. The white walls were bare except for a poster of Marlon Brando taped above the couch. The air smelled strongly of Windex, as if Lydia had probably taken last second measures to clean the place before Alice's arrival. In fact, it was a little too clean. No DVD's or CD's laying around, no books or magazines thrown on the coffee table, no pictures on the refrigerator, no hint of Lydia's interests or aesthetic anywhere. Anyone could be living here. Then, she noticed the pile of men's shoes on the floor to the left of the door behind her. "Tell me about your roommates," said Alice, as Lydia returned from her room, cell phone in hand. "They're at work." "What kind of work?" "One's bartending and the other delivers food." "I thought they were both actors." "They are." "I see. What are their names again?" "Doug and Malcolm." It flashed only for a moment, but Alice saw it and Lydia saw her see it. Lydia's face flushed when she said Malcolm's name, and her eyes darted nervously away from her mother's. "Why don't we get going? They said they can take us early," said Lydia. "Okay, I just need to use the bathroom first." As Alice washed her hands, she looked over the products sitting on the table next to the sink--Neutrogena facial cleanser and moisturizer, Tom's of Maine mint toothpaste, men's deodorant, a box of Playtex tampons. She thought for a moment. She hadn't had her period all summer. Did she have it in May? She'd be turning fifty next month, so she wasn't alarmed. She hadn't yet experienced any hot flashes or night sweats, but not all menopausal women did. That would be just fine with her. As she dried her hands, she noticed the box of Trojan condoms behind Lydia's hair styling products. She was going to have to find out more about these roommates. Malcolm, in particular. They sat at a table outside on the patio at Ivy, a trendy restaurant in downtown Los Angeles, and ordered two drinks, an espresso martini for Lydia and a merlot for Alice. "So how's Dad's Science paper coming?" asked Lydia. She must've talked recently with her father. Alice hadn't heard from her since a phone call on Mother's Day. "It's done. He's very proud of it." "How's Anna and Tom?" "Good, busy, working hard. So how did you meet Doug and Malcolm?" "They came into Starbucks one night while I was working." The waiter appeared, and they each ordered dinner and another drink. Alice hoped the alcohol would dilute the tension between them, which felt heavy and thick and just beneath the tracing-paper-thin conversation. "So how did you meet Doug and Malcolm?" asked Alice. "I just told you. Why don't you ever listen to anything I say? They came into Starbucks one night talking about looking for a roommate while I was working." "I thought you were waitressing at a restaurant." "I am. I work at Starbucks during the week and waitress on Saturday nights." "Doesn't sound like that leaves a lot of time for acting." "I'm not cast in anything right now, but I'm taking workshop classes, and I'm auditioning a lot." "What kind of classes?" "Meisner technique." "And what've you been auditioning for?" "Television and print." Alice swirled her wine, drank the last, big gulp, and licked her lips. "Lydia, what exactly is your plan here?" "I'm not planning on stopping, if that's what you're asking." The drinks were taking effect, but not in the direction Alice had hoped for. Instead, they served as the fuel that burned that little piece of tracing paper, leaving the tension between them fully exposed and at the helm of a dangerously familiar conversation. "You can't live like this forever. Are you still going to work at Starbucks when you're thirty?" "That's eight years away! Do you know what you'll be doing in eight years?" "Yes, I do. At some point, you need to be responsible, you need to able to afford things like health insurance, a mortgage, savings for retirement--" "I have health insurance. And I might make it as an actor. There are people who do, you know. And they make a hell of a lot more money than you and Dad combined." "This isn't just about money." "Then what? That I didn't become you?" "Lower your voice." "Don't tell me what to do." "I don't want you to become me, Lydia. I just don't want you to limit your choices." "You want to make my choices." "No." "This is who I am, this is what I want to do." "What, serving up venti lattes? You should be in college. You should be spending this time in your life learning something." "I am learning something! I'm just not sitting in a Harvard classroom killing myself trying to get an A in political science. I'm in a serious acting class for fifteen hours a week. How many hours of class a week do your students take, twelve?" "It's not the same thing." "Well, Dad thinks it is. He's paying for it." Alice clenched the sides of her skirt and pressed her lips together. What she wanted to say next wasn't meant for Lydia. "You've never even seen me act." John had. He flew out alone last winter to see her perform in a play. Swamped with too many urgent things at the time, Alice couldn't free up to go. As she looked at Lydia's pained eyes, she couldn't remember now what those urgent things had been. She didn't have anything against an acting career itself, but she believed Lydia's singular pursuit of it, without an education, bordered reckless. If she didn't go to college now, acquire a knowledge base or formal training in some field, if she didn't get a degree, what would she do if acting didn't pan out? She thought about those condoms in the bathroom. What if Lydia got pregnant? Alice worried that Lydia might find herself someday trapped in a life that was unfulfilled, full of regret. She looked at her daughter and saw so much wasted potential, so much wasted time. "You're not getting any younger, Lydia. Life goes by too fast." "I agree." The food came, but neither of them picked up a fork. Lydia dabbed her eyes with her hand-embroidered linen napkin. They always fell into the same battle, and it felt to Alice like trying to knock down a concrete wall with their heads. It was never going to be productive and only resulted in hurting them, causing lasting damage. She wished Lydia could see the love and wisdom in what she wanted for her. She wished she could just reach across the table and hug her, but there were too many dishes, glasses, and years of distance between them. A sudden flurry of activity a few tables away pulled their attention away from themselves. Several camera flashes popped and a small crowd of patrons and wait staff gathered, all focused on a woman who looked a bit like Lydia. "Who's that?" asked Alice. "Mom," said Lydia in a tone both embarrassed and superior, perfected at the age of thirteen. "That's Jennifer Aniston." They ate their dinner and talked only of safe things, like the food and the weather. Alice wanted to discover more about Lydia's relationship with Malcolm, but the embers of Lydia's emotions still glowed hot, and Alice feared igniting another fight. She paid the bill, and they left the restaurant, full but dissatisfied. "Excuse me, ma'am!" Their waiter caught up to them on the sidewalk. "You left this." Alice paused, trying to comprehend how their waiter might come to possess her Blackberry. She hadn't checked her email or calendar there. She felt inside her bag. No Blackberry. She must've removed it when she fished her wallet out to pay. "Thank you." Lydia looked at her quizzically, as if she wanted to say something about something other than food or weather, but then didn't. They walked back to her apartment in silence. "John?" Alice waited, suspended in the front hallway, holding the handle of her suitcase. Harvard Magazine lay on the top of a pile of unclaimed mail strewn on the floor in front of her. The clock in the living room ticked and the refrigerator hummed. A warm, sunny late afternoon at her back, the air inside felt chilly, dim, and stale. Uninhabited. She picked up the mail and walked into the kitchen, her suitcase on wheels accompanying her like a loyal pet. Her flight had been delayed, and she was late getting in, even according to the microwave. He'd had a whole day, a whole Saturday, to work. The red voicemail light on their answering machine stared her down, unblinking. She checked the refrigerator. No note on the door. Nothing. Still clutching the handle of her suitcase, she stood in the dark kitchen and watched several minutes advance on the microwave. The disappointed but forgiving voice in her head faded to a whisper as the volume of a more primal one began to build and spread out. She thought about calling him, but the expanding voice rejected the suggestion outright and refused all excuses. She thought about deciding not to care, but the voice, now seeping down into her body, echoing in her belly, vibrating in each of her fingertips, was too powerful and pervasive to ignore. Why did it bother her so much? He was in the middle of an experiment and couldn't leave it to come home. She'd certainly been in his shoes innumerable times. This was what they did. This was who they were. The voice called her a stupid fool. She spotted her running shoes on the floor next to the back door. A run would make her feel better. That was what she needed. Ideally, she ran every day. For many years now, she treated running like eating or sleeping, as a vital daily necessity, and she'd been known to squeeze in a jog at midnight or in the middle of a blinding snowstorm. But she'd neglected this basic need over the last several months. She'd been so busy. As she laced her shoes, she told herself she hadn't bothered bringing them with her to California because she'd known she wouldn't have the time. In truth, she'd simply forgotten to pack them. When starting from her house on Poplar Street, she invariably followed the same route--down Massachusetts Avenue, through Harvard Square to Memorial Drive, along the Charles River to the Harvard Bridge over by MIT, and back--a little over five miles, a forty-five minute round trip. She had long been attracted to the idea of running in the Boston Marathon but each year decided that she realistically didn't have the time to train for that kind of distance. Maybe some day she would. In excellent physical condition for a woman her age, she imagined running strong well into her sixties. Clustered pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks and intermittent negotiations with car traffic in street intersections littered the first part of her run down Massachusetts Avenue and through Harvard Square. It was crowded and ripe with anticipation at that time of day on a Saturday, with crowds forming and milling around on street corners waiting for walk signals, outside restaurants waiting for tables, in movie theater lines waiting for tickets, and in double-parked cars, waiting for an unlikely opening in a metered space. The first ten minutes of her run required a good deal of conscious external concentration to navigate through it all, but once she crossed Memorial Drive to the Charles River, she was free to run in full stride and completely in the zone. A comfortable and cloudless evening invited a lot of activity along the Charles, yet it felt less congested than the streets of Cambridge. Despite a steady stream of joggers, dogs and their owners, walkers, rollerbladers, cyclists, and women pushing babies in jogger strollers, like an experienced driver on a regularly traveled stretch of road, Alice only retained a vague sense for what went on around her now. As she ran along the river, she became mindful of nothing but the sounds of her Nikes hitting the pavement in syncopated rhythm with the pace of her breath. She didn't replay her argument with Lydia. She didn't acknowledge her growling stomach. She didn't think about John. She just ran. As was her routine, she stopped running once she made it back to the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Park, a pocket of manicured lawns abutting Memorial Drive. Her head cleared, her body relaxed and rejuvenated, she began walking home. The JFK Park funneled into Harvard Square through a pleasant, bench-lined corridor between the Charles Hotel and the Kennedy School of Government. Through the corridor, she stood at the intersection of Eliot Street and Brattle, ready to cross, when a woman grabbed her forearm with startling force and said, "Have you thought about heaven today?" The woman fixed Alice with a penetrating, unwavering stare. She had long hair the color and texture of a teased Brillo pad and wore a hand-made placard hung over her chest that read AMERICA REPENT, TURN TO JESUS FROM SIN. There was always someone selling God in Harvard Square, but Alice had never been singled out so directly and intimately before. "Sorry," said Alice, and, noticing a break in the flow of traffic, she escaped to the other side of the street. She wanted to continue walking but stood frozen instead. She didn't know where she was. She looked back across the street. The Brillo-haired woman pursued another sinner down the corridor. The corridor, the hotel, the stores, the illogically meandering streets. She knew she was in Harvard Square, but she didn't know which way was home. She tried again, more specifically. The Harvard Hotel, Eastern Mountain Sports, Dickson Brothers Hardware, Mount Auburn Street. She knew all of these places--this square had been her stomping ground for over twenty-five years--but they somehow didn't fit into a mental map that told her where she lived relative to them. A black and white circular "T" sign directly in front of her marked an entrance to the Red Line trains and buses underground, but there were four such entrances in Harvard Square, and she couldn't piece together which one of the four this one was. Her heart began to race. She started sweating. She told herself that an accelerated heart rate and perspiration were part of an orchestrated and appropriate response to running. But standing still on the sidewalk, it felt like panic. She willed herself to walk another block and then another, her rubbery legs feeling like they might give way with each bewildered step. The Coop, Cardullo's, the magazines on the corner, the Cambridge Visitor Center across the street, and Harvard Yard beyond that. She told herself she could still read and recognize. None of it helped. It all lacked a context. People, cars, buses, and all kinds of unbearable noise rushed and wove around and past her. She closed her eyes. She listened to her own blood whoosh and pulse behind her ears. "Please stop this," she whispered. She opened her eyes. Just as suddenly as it had left her, the landscape snapped snugly back into place. The Coop, Cardullo's, Nini's Corner, Harvard Yard. She automatically understood that she should turn left at the corner and head west on Mass Ave. She began to breathe easier, no longer bizarrely lost within a mile of home. But she'd just been bizarrely lost within a mile of home. She walked as fast as she could without running. She turned onto her street, a quiet, tree-lined, residential road a couple of blocks removed from Mass Ave. With both feet on her road and her house in sight, she felt much safer, but not yet safe. She kept her eyes on her front door and her legs moving and promised herself that the sea of anxiety swelling furiously inside her would drain when she walked in the front hallway and saw John. If he was home. "John?" He appeared in the threshold of the kitchen, unshaven, his glasses sitting on top of his mad scientist hair, sucking on a red popsicle and sporting his lucky gray T-shirt. He'd been up all night. As she'd promised herself, her anxiety began to drain. But her energy and bravery seemed to leak out with it, leaving her fragile and wanting to collapse into his arms. "Hey, I was wondering where you were, just about to leave you a note on the fridge. How'd it go?" he asked. "What?" "Stanford." "Oh, good." "And how's Lydia?" The betrayal and hurt over Lydia, over him not being home when she got there, exorcised by the run and displaced by her terror over being inexplicably lost, reclaimed its priority in the pecking order. "You tell me," she said. "You guys fought." "You're paying for her acting classes?" she accused. "Oh," he said, sucking the last of the popsicle into his red stained mouth. "Look, can we talk about this later? I don't have time to get into it right now." "Make the time, John. You're keeping her afloat out there without telling me, and you're not here when I get home, and---" "And you weren't here when I got home. How was your run?" She heard the simple reasoning in his veiled question. If she had waited for him, if she had called, if she hadn't done exactly what she'd wanted and gone for a run, she could've spent the last hour with him. She had to agree. "Fine." "I'm sorry, I waited as long as I could, but I've really got to get back to the lab. I had an incredible day so far, gorgeous results, but we're not done, and I've got to analyze the numbers before we get started again in the morning. I only came home to see you." "I need to talk about this with you now." "This really isn't new information, Ali. We disagree about Lydia. Can't it wait until I get back?" "No." "You want to walk over with me, talk about it on the way?" "I'm not going to the office, I need to be home." "You need to talk now, you need to be home, you're awfully needy all of the sudden. Is something else going on?" The word 'needy' smacked a vulnerable nerve. Needy equaled weak, dependent, pathological. Her father. She'd made a life-long point of never being like that, like him. "I'm just exhausted." "You look it, you need to slow down." "That's not what I need." He waited for her to elaborate, but she took too long. "Look, the sooner I go, the sooner I'll be back. Get some rest, I'll be home later tonight." He kissed her sweat-drenched head and walked out the door. Standing in the hallway where he left her, with no one to confess to or confide in, the full emotional impact of what she'd just experienced in Harvard Square flooded over her. She sat down on the floor and leaned against the cool wall, watching her hands shake in her lap as if they couldn't be hers. She tried to focus on steadying her breath as she did when she ran. After minutes of breathing in and breathing out, she was finally calm enough to try to assemble some sense out of what had just happened. She thought about the missing word during her talk at Stanford and her missing period. She got up, turned on her laptop, and Googled MENOPAUSE SYMPTOMS. An appalling list filled the screen--hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, crashing fatigue, anxiety, dizziness, irregular heart beat, depression, irritability, mood swings, disorientation, mental confusion, memory lapses. Disorientation, mental confusion, memory lapses. Check, check, and check. She leaned back in her chair and raked her fingers back and forth through her curly, black hair. She looked over at the pictures displayed on the shelves of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase--her Harvard graduation day, she and John dancing on their wedding day, family portraits from when the kids were little, a family portrait from Anna's wedding. She returned to the list on her computer screen. This was just the natural, next phase in her life as a woman. Millions of women coped with it every day. Nothing life-threatening. Nothing abnormal. She wrote herself a note to make an appointment with her doctor for a checkup. Maybe she should go on estrogen replacement therapy. She read through the list of symptoms one last time. Irritability. Mood swings. Her recent shrinking fuse with John. It all added up. Satisfied, she shut down her computer. She sat in the darkening study a while longer, listening to her quiet house and the sounds of neighborhood barbeques. She inhaled the smell of hamburger grilling. For some reason, she wasn't hungry anymore. She took a multivitamin with water, unpacked, read several articles from The Journal of Cognition , and went to bed. Some time after midnight, John finally came home. His weight in their bed woke her, but only slightly. She remained still and pretended to stay asleep. He had to be exhausted from being up all night and working all day. They could talk about Lydia in the morning. And she'd apologize for being so sensitive and moody lately. His warm hand on her hip brought her into the curve of his body. With his breath on her neck, she fell into a deep sleep, convinced that she was safe. Copyright © 2007, 2009 by Lisa Genova Continues... Excerpted from Still Alice by Lisa Genova Copyright © 2009 by Lisa Genova. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. Read more