Snowstorms in a Hot Climate

      Sarah Dunant
     Snowstorms in a Hot Climate

Marla’s best friend, Elly, left England two years ago on a soul-searching trip through South America. Except for receiving a few postcards, Marla has not heard from her since. Then, Marla receives a strange letter from Elly begging her to fly to New York. But the person Marla meets at the airport is a very different woman from the strong, carefree friend she remembers. Elly, now well-dressed and thin, has acquired a park-view apartment, a house in the Hamptons, and a charismatic, manipulative, cocaine-smuggling boyfriend named Lenny. As Marla tries to free her friend from the dual addictions of love and cocaine, she unravels a story of seduction and power in Columbia and of desire and betrayal in California. Caught in a web of deceptions, the threat of violence mounting around them, Marla decides to take on Lenny and his empire. But Lenny–like the drug he peddles–has no intention of letting Elly go.

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    Cops and ... Lovers?

      Linda Castillo
     Cops and ... Lovers?

After nine years as one of Chicago's finest, Erin McNeal had come to sleepy Logan Falls for a second chance, not to be watched over by a man as infuriatingly overprotective-and disarmingly attractive-as Nick Ryan. She was no damsel in distress, but someone wanted her dead, and Nick knew better than to entrust a guilt-driven daredevil with her own safety. It was his duty to protect her-whether she liked it or not. It seemed the only thing the chief of police and his newest deputy could agree on was the one thing they couldn't resist-each other. Could the cautious single father and the reckless beauty be cops…and lovers?

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    The Black Star: A Detective Story

      Johnston McCulley
     The Black Star: A Detective Story

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

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    Iceline

      Martyn Taylor
     Iceline

Smuggling, skulduggery and scuba diving in Scotland. Steel disappeared and turned up weeks later bruised, bloody and alive, dumped high in the mountains. Relief is mixed with anger, confusion and a determination to uncover what he had stumbled upon. He had crossed a line, not his own, this time the line was his, and he was ready for whatever stepped over it.Smuggling, skulduggery and scuba diving and he was in the right place at the wrong time. A late evening encounter outside the compressor shed and a moment of panic. A tourist joins the list of missing persons, literally whisked away one night and missing for weeks. Don Steel wasn't any tourist, his new enemies may have been unknown but their ignorance of who they had snatched would prove costly. Battered, bruised and bloody he turns up in a ditch high in the mountains above Glencoe; airlifted to hospital for treatment his recuperation is disrupted by an attempt to silence him. Steel would be neither silent nor compliantly lie down. Leaving his attacker in the care of and needing the attention of the ward sister he takes to the road and begins a cat and mouse chase across the highlands and islands of Scotland to a final showdown in Tobermory Bay backed up by allies colleagues and friends, and one friend discovers just how far he will go.

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    Butchery: A Mystery of Tudor London

      Kenneth Browning
     Butchery: A Mystery of Tudor London

Three unlikely detectives join forces to solve a series of brutal murders in Tudor London, and are drawn into the political intrigues of its wealthiest and most powerful families.It is 1550: a time of divisive political, economic, and religious innovation throughout England. Although the City of London is burdened with overpopulation, poverty, and crime, so far its watch and constables have managed to keep the peace. However, when the body of an unidentified man is discovered in the butcher's district, brutally murdered with a meat cleaver, tension between the City's butchers and its rising immigrant population threatens to escalate into violence. Under pressure from sheriff Sir John York to find the murderer and restore order, parish constable George Harwood enlists his friend, soldier-turned-innkeeper Thomas Whyte, into the investigation. Unwittingly, he also involves Katherine Whyte, Thomas's strong-minded and capable cousin. The three unlikely detectives follow a trail of suspicious deaths, from the affluent mansions of Walbrook to the slums of Fenchurch Street. But are they connected? What part do York's own shadowy dealings play in the drama? Is there a political dimension to the deaths, or are they just the result of the random casual violence that typifies City life? As the investigation proceeds, Whyte finds himself increasingly drawn into the unfolding series of events, making powerful enemies, and putting his own life and Katherine's in jeopardy.

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    Death Match

      Lincoln Child
     Death Match

When a perfect couple commits double suicide, alarms go off in the offices of the high-tech matchmaking company. Investigation into a second couple's double suicide reveals a stunning labyrinth of artificial intelligence, creative genius, and a melding of technology that does indeed deliver on the company's guarantee of a perfect, lifelong mate.

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    Dexter's Final Cut

      Jeff Lindsay
     Dexter's Final Cut

Lights. Camera. Murder. The Dexter series continues with a wild ride through Hollywood. Mega-star Robert Chase is famous for losing himself in his characters. When he and a group of fellow actors descend on the Miami Police Department for "research," Chase becomes fixated on Dexter Morgan, the blood-spatter analyst with a sweet tooth and seemingly average life. Chase shadows Dexter's every move, trying to learn what makes him tick. However, Dexter's favorite pastime of hunting down the worst killers who've escaped legal prosecution—and introducing them to his special brand of justice—presents, well, a bit of a problem. It's a secret best kept out of the spotlight if Dexter wants to stay out of the electric chair, but even Dexter isn't immune to the call of fame. . . .

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    Midnight Sun

      Jo Nesbo
     Midnight Sun

Jon is on the run. He has betrayed Oslo’s biggest crime lord: The Fisherman. Fleeing to an isolated corner of Norway, to a mountain town so far north that the sun never sets, Jon hopes to find sanctuary amongst a local religious sect. Hiding out in a shepherd’s cabin in the wilderness, all that stands between him and his fate are Lea, a bereaved mother and her young son, Knut. But while Lea provides him with a rifle and Knut brings essential supplies, the midnight sun is slowly driving Jon to insanity. And then he discovers that The Fisherman’s men are getting closer…

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    The Crystal Stopper

      Maurice Leblanc
     The Crystal Stopper

In this fast-paced mystery from Maurice Leblanc, criminal genius Arsene Lupin sets out to prove the truth of the old saying about honor among thieves. During a burglary, two of his sometimes accomplices are apprehended and ultimately sentenced to death. But Lupin is convinced of the innocence of one of the men who has been arrested and sets out to verify that his hunch is correct.

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    Vandal Eyes

      Sean Sandulak
     Vandal Eyes

You've seen them everywhere. Those little plastic googly eyes that turn everyday objects into adorable faces. Maybe you've seen them stuck to a poster, turning a regular photograph into an amusing parody of itself, but all this time, I bet you never suspected the sinister history of this simple folk art stable. Now the true story can be told. It's a tale of friendship, crafting supplies…and murderWhen Anne Wheaton and Bonnie Burton stumble upon a murdered man in a back alley, the police suspect them of committing the crime. Now they must work together to clear their names. Follow the adventures of Anne and Bonnie as they get into trouble on the mean streets of San Francisco. For the uninitiated, VandalEyes refers to the act of adorning everyday objects with those little plastic googly eyes you find in craft stores. The practice first came to my attention in early 2012 when Bonnie, along with Kiala Kazebee, Veronica Belmont, and Felicia Day, began the Vaginal Fantasy Book Club. As a consequence of those Hangouts, I started following Bonnie's Twitter feed, and later found Anne's account and the #VandalEyes hashtag. The random nonsense there eventually spawned its own website, vandaleyes.net, to which I may have submitted a few pictures. When Anne Wheaton and Bonnie Burton posed for Cupcake Quarterly Magazine in May of 2013, they made the mistake of posting pictures of themselves in retro hairstyles on their Twitter accounts. I immediately photoshopped those pictures to look like a noir book cover and sent it in to the VandalEyes tumblr. Later, when I looked at that picture again, I thought that it ought to have a story to go with it. This is that story.

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    The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book

      Manuel Werner
     The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book

A modern medieval tale of craven ambition, grasping opportunism and the unconstrained pursuit of self-interest. Abelard's 650 year gap in his recall confers on him a huge advantage as he successfully claws his way up the corporate food chain. The memories he does have are awash in medieval warfare, murderous vengeance and brigandage on the highways of 14th century Europe.“The Perfect Human” is a tale of craven ambition, grasping opportunism, modern corporate greed and epic medieval violence. It is played out through the adventures of Abelard Bush, an ambitious, deeply ruthless executive with all the ethical standards and negotiating acumen necessary for the successful medieval nobleman. What might seem to be a handicap, a 650 year gap in his recall, provides Abelard with an overwhelming advantage as he claws his way up the corporate food chain. Abelard, is a man whose good fortune is to have no memories other than a life lived during the Middle Ages to guide him in his relentless pursuit of self interest. Urbane, civilized Felicity and Oliver had no reason to dwell on the brutality, mistrust and casual violence that polite society has for so long ago left behind. That is, until they find Abelard. He is an enigma created by the only recall he possesses: a childhood in medieval Gascony, followed by a captain’s career in the Black Prince’s armies during the Hundred Years War, a successful run as a brigand on the highways of Fourteenth Century Europe, and as a Condottiere to the Italian city states.All the more baffling is his ease with everyone he meets, from CEOs of large corporations, through dodgy characters who run timeless criminal organizations to the people who care most deeply for him. How could a man whose golden rule is to do unto others before they do unto him fit so snugly into Felicity’s orderly, civilized world? Abelard is a man apparently unhampered by empathy, who relies mainly on duplicity and violence. Is Abelard an amnesiac who has lost his moral way, a psychopath who has lost his memory or, astonishingly, is he just an ordinary human with an extraordinary story?The soon-to-be-dead, believing him to know the location of a fabulous, long lost fortune, as well as to possess the secret of very long life, pursue Abelard over two continents. The police are never far behind.

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    The Constant Gardener

      John le Carré
     The Constant Gardener

Now a major motion picture from Fernando Meirelles, the Academy Award-nominated director of *City of God* The Constant Gardener is a magnificent exploration of the new world order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time. The novel opens in northern Kenya with the gruesome murder of Tessa Quayle--young, beautiful, and dearly beloved to husband Justin. When Justin sets out on a personal odyssey to uncover the mystery of her death, what he finds could make him not only a suspect among his own colleagues, but a target for Tessa's killers as well. A master chronicler of the betrayals of ordinary people caught in political conflict, John le Carre portrays the dark side of unbridled capitalism as only he can. In The Constant Gardener he tells a compelling, complex story of a man elevated through tragedy as Justin Quayle--amateur gardener, aging widower, and ineffectual bureaucrat--discovers his own natural resources and the extraordinary courage of the woman he barely had time to love.

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    The Mystery of the Blue Ring: The Polk Street Mysteries

      Patricia Reilly Giff
     The Mystery of the Blue Ring: The Polk Street Mysteries

Second-grader Dawn Bosco puts her mystery-solving skills to the test when her former best friend, Emily Arrow, loses her birthday ring Dawn Bosco and Emily Arrow used to be best friends, until Dawn took Emily’s unicorn. Even though Dawn eventually gave it back, Emily still won’t talk to her. When Emily’s blue birthday ring goes missing after art class, the rest of the second grade accuses Dawn of stealing it. Dawn sets out to solve the mystery herself to prove she is innocent—and maybe get her best friend back. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Patricia Reilly Giff including rare photos from the author’s personal collection.

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