One Smoke tinges the world white. It swallows the spired treetops and narrows the canyon ahead. It erases altogether the majestic gray faces of the Obsidians, shrouds the valley, slips up the ravines. Emlyn stands midstream, the river lulling at her thighs, pressing her waders tight. A shadow overhead, a flash of dark. In a…
Prologue Labor Day Weekend 2021 Alex Murdaugh’s world was falling apart. The highly respected attorney, heir to a powerful legal dynasty that had ruled South Carolina’s Lowcountry for more than a century, had run out of places to hide. The day before, his family’s illustrious law firm, founded in 1910 by his great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh…
Chapter One We don’t have a lot of murder in Lincoln County. The long stretches of open road provide us with more than our share of high-speed vehicular deaths, the images of which can haunt your dreams, but there just isn’t a lot of people killing other people on purpose. When we do encounter it,…
Chapter One “If I don’t get some coffee ASAP, I’m gonna murder someone,” Mayor Bob declared. Bob Bobbert, aka Mayor Bob, was currently serving his sixth-straight two-year term as mayor of my hometown of Cedar River, Texas. He’d run the last four times unopposed. Everyone voted for him, mostly because he did his absolute best…
Prologue Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Friday, 8 October 1621 Today I am sentenced to swing. Before the sun rises, I will be taken from here to a place of execution and there, hanged by the neck until I am dead. My pretty white neck. Friends, I am innocent of the charge set against me.…
Chapter 1 Oddballs and Toffs Summer 1894 Day One: Evening I doubled over the ship’s railing and clung for dear life, my head even with my spattered trousers, tossing up the last of a fine meal. The wind whipped around, snatching at my clothes. Around me was wet darkness, the splash and hiss of foam.…
AUTHORS’ FOREWORD The legend of Salon Kitty is well known to historians, filmmakers, cinema goers, and indeed to anyone taking more than a passing interest in Nazi Germany. But until now, verifiable facts have been few, and myths, rumours and legends have accumulated. The bare bones of the story go something like this: Salon Kitty…
CHAPTER 1 “Son, come and taste this,” I called, holding up a fork and summoning Sonya Perlman-Dokter, my best friend, sous chef, and the namesake “Son” of my pizza restaurant, Delilah & Son. She stood at the counter near me, prepping for the dinner service. Sonya pivoted toward me with her eight-inch gyuto chef’s knife…
PROLOGUE Two Years Ago Desmond Aloysius Limerick has been ordered to fly into Baku, Azerbaijan, under a false name, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and a paperback Michel Bussi mystery in the original French. He’s met by a woman he knows to be a British agent, MI6. She’s Pakistani and English, lovely, five-five,…
One “Guards! Guard and American Guard! Guard and American Guard!” My partner, Garda Jason Savage, and I are just finishing up our community patrol when we see two boys beckoning to us along the South Circular Road. Jason rolls his eyes at me. We’ve tried to get to know this little gang of kids who…
