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Crime Fiction Stars 1997: January - June

 

January

  • Trunk Music
    Author: Connelly, Michael
    Publisher: Little, Brown List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0316152447 Date: 1997
    starPW
    PW Best Book of '97
    Upping the ante after his breakthrough success with The Poet, Michael Connelly returns with his most compelling thriller yet. After the dead body of a Hollywood producer is found in the trunk of a Rolls-Royce, LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch follows the man's gambling debts to Vegas, where the case suddenly gets more complicated - and much more personal.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • The Collected Stories
    Author: Cross, Amanda
    Publisher: Ballantine List Price: $20 ISBN: 0345408179 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Collected for the first time here are all the short stories starring Kate Fansler, academic sleuth supreme - including one never before published. In Amanda Cross's delicately menacing short mysteries, dangerous impulses seize the most unlikely individuals and everyday existence is fast eclipsed by the bizarre.
  • Hallucinating Foucault
    Author: Dunker, Patricia
    Publisher: Ecco List Price: $21 ISBN: 080014997 Date: 1997
    starPW
    No work of fiction has explored the undercurrents of love between a writer and a reader as seductively as Hallucinating Foucault, a breathtaking literary debut. "One of the best novels of the year".--A.S. Byatt.
  • Twenty Blue Devils
    Author: Elkins, Aaron
    Publisher: Mysterious Press List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0892964677 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    Anthropologist/sleuth Gideon Oliver travels to Tahiti with FBI agent John Lau to exhume the body buried on a coffee plantation - only to be told when they arrive that their services are no longer needed. Sensing a secret too tantalizing to ignore, Gideon and John dig up the bones anyway.
    Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations
  • A Story of Scorpions
    Author: Everett, Gabriel
    Publisher: Crown List Price: $22 ISBN:0517706652 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    A minister's ability to forgive is put to the ultimate test in this taut and suspenseful psychological thriller - an unforgettably harrowing debut. His life in ruins after the brutal murder of his wife and son - to which he was a witness - the Rev. Alson Pierce's only reason to exist becomes his obsession with the man who butchered his family.
  • Bag Men
    Author: Flood, John
    Publisher: Norton List Price: $24 ISBN: 0393039986 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Boston 1965: The murdered body of a priest is found at Logan Field. Missing from his person are 4,000 hosts, blessed by the Pope, intended for use at the first English-language Mass in America. Convinced that the hosts are somehow connected with crime - and with a deadly new source of heroin hitting the streets - narcotics detective Manny Manning begins a desperate search for answers.
  • The Pirate's Daughter: A Novel of Adventure
    Author: Girardi, Robert
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $21.95 ISBN:038531485x Date: 1997
    starPW
    The critically acclaimed author of Madeline's Ghost returns with an epic adventure that fulfills his promise as one of today's most exciting young novelists. With extraordinary verve and imagination, Girardi has crafted a contemporary tale of love in an era of excess, and history in an age of absence.
    Suggested Reading: Pirates
  • A Letter of Mary
    Author: King, Laurie R.
    Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0312146701 Date: 1997
    starPW
    From Edgar Award-winning author Laurie R. King, this national bestseller has met unprecedented acclaim from critics as diverse as The New York Times Book Review: " a lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company". The case of an amateur archaeologist whose discoveries in the Holy Land may have resulted in her murder, this novel finds the inimitable duo of Russell and Holmes in superlative form.
    Suggested Reading: Sherlockian Stars
  • Gone Fishin'
    Author: Mosley, Walter
    Publisher: Black Classic List Price: $22 ISBN: 1574780255 Date: 1997
    starPWstarLJ
    This suspenseful coming-of-age novel explores the early years of Easy Rawlins and Mouse Alexander, central figures in Mosley's popular series. Houston 1939: Nineteen-year-old Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins agrees to drive his friend Raymond "Mouse" Alexander to Pariah, Texas to retrieve money from his stepfather. The journey soon engulfs the young men in a mysterious bayou world of sex, voodoo, revenge, and death that changes their lives and foretells their destinies.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
  • Silent Witness
    Author: Patterson, Richard North
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $26 ISBN:0679450408 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Patterson's most stunning novel to date offers a powerful portrayal of the complexities of male friendship, of the darkest recesses of love, and of the ways in which the past stakes claim upon the present. When attorney Tony Lord returns to his hometown to defend his former best friend who's been accused of murder, Tony is plunged into the unfinished business of his past.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • The Dancer Upstairs
    Author: Shakespeare, Nicholas
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0385485131 Date: 1997
    starPWstarBooklist
    In an unusually rich, daringly graphic novel of love and terror, one of England's finest young talents returns to the setting of his award-winning novel, The Vision of Elena Silves - a country not unlike Peru - to tell the story of Agustin Rejas and his manhunt for the terrorist rebel leader, Ezequeil.
  • The Weight of Water
    Author: Shreve, Anita
    Publisher: Little, Brown List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0316789976 Date: 1997
    starPWstarBooklist
    A riveting and deeply involving story of irresistible emotions and irrevocable actions, by the author of Eden Close. A century after two woman were murdered in a fit of passion on a small island of the coast of New Hampshire, another woman goes to the island to shoot a photo essay about the crime - and finds herself gripped by uncontrollable passions of her own.
  • The Unlikely Spy
    Author: Silva, Daniel
    Publisher: Villard List Price: $25 ISBN: 06794455620 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Silva's stunning debut novel--a BOMC Selection that spent five weeks on the "New York Times" bestseller list--tells an evocative, classic tale of espionage during World War II.
    Suggested Reading: Espionage

February

  • Night Dogs
    Author: Anderson, Kent
    Publisher: Dennis McMillan List Price: $35 ISBN:0939767279 Date: 1997
    starPW
    From the acclaimed author of the Vietnam classic Sympathy for the Devil comes the modern masterpiece that redefined the cop novel. Hanson, a Portland cop and Vietnam vet haunted by the ghosts of his past, is plagued by the daily violence of a city without hope. But soon a badge, a gun, and a badly frayed code of honor are the only things keeping Hanson from crossing one final line.
    Suggested Reading: Hardboiled/Noir
  • Jane and the Man of the Cloth: Being the Second Jane Austen Mystery
    Author: Barron, Stephanie
    Publisher: Bantam, Doubleday, Dell List Price: $21.95 ISBN:0553102036 Date: 1997
    starPW
    When Jane and her family seek refuge at High Down Grange, her first questions are about the mysterious master Geoffrey Sidmouth and the lovely woman at his side. But gossip and nosiness are soon forgotten when a man is found hanged. Then a second mysterious death draws Jane into a perilous scheme to entrap and expose a murderer.
    Suggested Reading: Jane Austen
  • Even the Wicked: A Matthew Scudder Novel
    Author: Block, Lawrence
    Publisher: William Morrow List Price:$23 ISBN: 0688141811 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    A vigilante serial killer is prowling New York, ruthlessly executing evil-doers whom he feels deserve to die. So far, his victims have included a child molester, a Mafia don, a violent anti-abortionist, and a racial hate monger. But when the killer targets a noted lawyer, Matthew Scudder is called upon to stop a frighteningly efficient killer who can do the seemingly impossible.
    Suggested Reading: Serial Killers
  • God Save the Queen
    Author: Cannell, Dorothy
    Publisher: Bantam, Doubleday, Dell List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 0553101633 Date: 1997
    starPW
    The author of The Thin Woman and How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams takes her trademark lunacy to its absolute limit with an inspired whodunit that begins with an age-old grudge - and a new corpse.
    Suggested Reading: Humorous Mysteries
  • El Bronx
    Author: Charyn, Jerome
    Publisher: Mysterious Press List Price: $22 ISBN: 0892966041 Date: 1997
    starPW
    In his ninth outing, the celebrated author of Little Angel Street turns New York mayor Isaac Sidel loose in a richly imagined, colorful tapestry of blackmail, kidnapping, and baseball strikes.
  • Little Boy Blue
    Author: Dee, Ed
    Publisher: Warner Books List Price: $23 ISBN: 0446520381 Date: 1997
    starPW
    The author of Bronx Angel and 14 Peck Slip offers a grittily authentic third novel. When Johnny Boy Counihan is killed after he walks into the middle of a million dollar robbery wearing his late father's police coat, Detective Joe Gregory, his father's former partner, will stop at nothing to find out who killed the unlucky young man.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • White Sands
    Author: Gandolfi, Simon
    Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $23 ISBN: 0060187204 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Featuring his tough ex-British agent Trent, Gandolfi's thrillers have earned him a well-deserved place in the hearts of readers around the world. A young Bahamian boy witnesses the crash of a cocaine smuggler's plane and buries the drugs. Soon he is in over his head, caught between an international cartel and the law.
    Suggested Reading: Drug Traffic
  • A Song for the Asking
    Author: Gannon, Steve
    Publisher: Bantam List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0553101641 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    A Song for the Asking tells of one summer in the life of an impassioned and conflicted family when everything changes forever, and no member escapes unscathed. Touching, powerful, and gutwrenching, Gannon's new novel is destined to delight fans of Pat Conroy's intense family dramas.
  • The Dead of Winter
    Author: Hall, Patricia
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0312151489 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    It is a bitter winter in Yorkshire when Bradfield's Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray is called to investigate the death of young estate agent Linda Wright, found drowned in her own car in a nearby reservoir. Reporter Laura Ackroyd, whose relationship with Thackeray is too close to be called friendship and too precarious to be called an affair, has recently transferred from Bradfield to the nearby town of Arnedale to work on the local newspaper for just a few months, and she's received a less than warm welcome from the locals. She soon uncovers a link between a story she's working on about corruption in local land deals and the death of Linda Wright. Then another woman is killed, this time someone directly involved in protesting the land development. Thackeray and Ackroyd, crossing paths personally and in their respective professions, are determined to pursue the solution to this absorbing case through to its deadly finish. - Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: British Police

  • Violent Crimes
    Author: Holton, Hugh
    Publisher: Tor/Forge List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0312862814 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Here is the fourth book in the Commander Larry Cole crime series, from the author of the Chicago Tribune bestseller Windy City. A 26-year veteran of the Chicago police force, Lt Hugh Holton's powerful prose and insider's view are winning over a legion of fans.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars | Cops
  • The Clinic
    Author: Kellerman, Jonathan
    Publisher: Bantam, Doubleday, Dell List Price: $24.95 ISBN:0553089226 Date: 1997
    starPW
    On the heels of Jonathan Kellerman's eleventh consecutive New York Times Bestseller, The Web, comes an Alex Delaware novel to rival his best. When the LAPD is stumped by the murder of the author of a scathing bestseller that bashes men, Detective Milo Sturgis brings psychologist Alex Delaware to look behind the victim's public facade.
  • Payback
    Author: Kelly, Thomas
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $23 ISBN:0679450513 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    New York City in the 1980's: On the streets of Hell's Kitchen, the construction rackets are in the hands of the Irish mob. When both the Mafia and the Feds enter the picture, the mob war that ignites traps the Adare brothers - Paddy, a mob henchman who's never left the streets, and Billy, a college graduate, about to enter law school - in a crossfire of greed, treachery, and violence.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Sole Survivor
    Author: Koontz, Dean
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 25.95 ISBN: 0679425268 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    The most compelling novel to date from the #1 bestselling author of Intensity. Among the 200 victims of a catastrophic plane crash are crime reporter Joe Carpenter's wife and two children. Joe is told there were no survivors. But, a year later, Joe learns of a secret survivor. Still suffering from unbearable grief - and now rage - Joe sets out to learn the truth, and becomes the target of shadowy and powerful adversaries.
  • The List
    Author: Martini, Steve
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $24.95 ISBN: 0399142614 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Six million dollars in book and film rights loom just off the table for Gable Cooper, an unknown author who has just penned the novel to die for, But there's a problem: Gable Cooper doesn't exist. He's the brainchild of attorney-turned-novelist Abby Chandlis. And when Abby hires a charasmatic male to pose as the phantom author, she soon finds herself both seduced and trapped by her own "creation".
    Suggested Reading: Publishing
  • Giovanni's Gift
    Author:Morrow, Bradford
    Publisher: Viking List Price: $ 22.95 ISBN: 067087292x Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    After the brutal murder of his friend, Giovanni, Grant is presented with the old man's legacy: a cigar box filled with letters, photos, and seemingly meaningless knickknacks. But soon Grant finds himself in possession of a puzzle that holds the answers to Giovanni's death...and more.
  • All She Was Worth
    Author: Miyabe, Miyuki
    Publisher: Kodansha List Price: $22 ISBN: 477001922x Date: 1997
    starPW
    When a beautiful Japanese woman vanishes, is she a victim, a killer, or both? In a country that tracks its citizens at every turn, how can two women claim the same identity and then disappear without a trace?
  • The Dollmaker's Daughter
    Author: Padgett, Abigail
    Publisher: Mysterious Press List Price: $22 ISBN: 0892966149 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Child abuse investigator Bo Bradley takes on her most mystifying case yet. Determined to find out the truth behind a young girl's fear, Bo takes a journey that brings her to the mansion of a famous dollmaker - and into a dark world of secrets where no one, including BO and her loved ones, is safe.
  • Beyond Recognition
    Author: Pearson, Ridley
    Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0786862408 Date: 1997
    starBookliststarKirkus
    In this new, white-hot thriller by the author of nine bestselling novels, brilliant forensic investigator Police Sgt Lou Boldt returns to battle a mysterious arsonist. Its's a deadly, taunting game of cat-and-mouse, where the stakes are raised to a burning point that might spell disaster for Boldt - and the city of Seattle.
    Suggested Reading: On Fire
  • The Phoenix of Prague
    Author: Skeggs, Douglas
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312151896 Date: 1997
    starPW
    The Phoenix of Prague is a novel set in the darkly beautiful and storied city of Prague, a year after the Velvet Revolution. At issue in this novel of intrigue is a collection of fine art once held by the Czech dictator Ceaucescu. When paintings from his collection - presumed lost - begin showing up at auction, British intelligence sends Jan Capek back to his native Prague to trace their source. Penetrating the heart of an anti-communist conspiracy that is mining such stolen treasures for cash, Jan comes face-to-face with their cunning, charismatic, and deadly leader. The course of his investigation sends him hunting through the labyrinth of centuries-old tunnels that underlie the city, bluffing his way into the criminals' confidence...and trying to get out again, alive. - Publisher Marketing

  • Capo
    Author: Watson, Peter
    Publisher: Richard Cohen Books List Price: $17.95 (pbk) ISBN: 1860660118 Date: 1997
    starPW
    When Silvio Randazzo completes his dangerous rite of passage, he goes from peasant boy to Mafia soldier. He also begins an extraordinary turn-of-the-century odyssey, one that leads him from his first vendetta killing in the hills of the old country to his rise as the most powerful gangster in America's most decadent city.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up

March

  • One Death to Die
    Author: Arjouni, Jakob
    Publisher: Fromm International List Price:$21.95 ISBN: 0880641703 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Sri Dao, a Thai girl smuggled into Frankfurt for its flourishing sex trade, has vanished without a trace, and her fiance is desperate to find her. Kayankaya, the orphaned son of a Turkish locksmith turned German garbage collector, is as hardboiled as Philip Marlowe, as smart-mouthed as Easy Rawlins. As Kayankaya unravels the mystery of Sri Dao's disappearance, he leads the reader on a breathless chase through the seedy underbelly of a modern metropolis - its world of illegal aliens, corrupt cops, hustlers, and pimps no different from that of the urban jungle in any major US city, its hapless "undocumented" victims subject to the same heartless pattern of greed and hate. And who else but Kayankaya, himself the butt of the racist taunts of his compatriots, would know how to respond to the challenges of trying to survive in the margins of society? - Publisher Marketing.

  • Girls
    Author: Busch, Frederick
    Publisher: Harmony Books List Price: $23 ISBN: 0517704552 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    PW Best Book of '97
    In the unrelentingly cold winter of upstate New York, Jack and Fanny are trying to come to terms with the death of their young daughter. When a 14-year-old disappears from her family's home, Jack finds a new purpose in life. Finding this child could be his salvation.
  • Devil's Food
    Author: Bruno, Anthony
    Publisher: Tor/Forge List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0312859902 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    In the tradition of Get Shorty and Strip Tease, a gritty suspense novel from the bestselling author of the novelization of Seven. "Mr. Bruno keeps us entertained with a razzle-dazzle style..." - The New York Times
  • Killing Floor
    Author: Child, Lee
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0399142533 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is in Margrave, Georgia, for less than a half-hour when the cops come, shotguns in hand, to arrest him for murder. All Jack knows is he didn't kill anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time.
  • Family Values
    Author: Constantine, K.C.
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $22 ISBN: 0892965452 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    The award-winning author of Cranks and Shadows brings back his popular character, retired police chief Mario Balzic, to solve a 17-year-old murder case that leads to a monstrously corrupt small town police chief.
    Suggested Reading: Cops
  • The Bone Collector
    Author: Deaver, Jeffrey
    Publisher: Viking List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 067086871x Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Paralyzed as a result of an accident on the job, ex-criminalist Lincoln Rhyme is hiding from a life he no longer cares to live. But after seeing a certain intriguing crime report, Lincoln abandons retirement to decipher the ingenious evidence left by a killer who is picking off new victims by the hour.
    Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations
  • All Fall Down
    Author: Fox, Zachary Allen
    Publisher: Kensington List Price: $22 ISBN:157566139x Date: 1997
    starPW
    Powerfully riveting suspense fiction in the bestselling tradition of Richard North Patterson and Jonathan Kellerman. After hijacking a school bus in the desert, a kidnapper promises to kill all the children on board, if his demands are not met. Soon his true motive is revealed - and his twisted connection to a woman police detective makes her the only person who can stop him.
  • Bomb Grade
    Author: Freemantle, Brian
    Publisher: St Martin's List Price: $25.95 ISBN: 0312145659 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Intelligent, nonstop action makes this the best spy novel yet from the author of No Time for Heroes. Famous British agent Charlie Muffin goes undercover in the Russian Mafia to unravel a major smuggling operation involving nuclear weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up | Espionage Stars
  • The Price of Blood
    Author: Logan, Chuck
    Publisher: HarperCollins List Price: $23 ISBN: 0060174927 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Although he's put his Vietnam years behind him, undercover cop Phil Broker finds his heels being dogged by the daughter of his old commander. Nina Pryce is trying to exonerate her dishonorably discharged dead father--and more importantly--find the 10 tons of gold he helped liberate during a U.S. commando mission. But Broker doesn't like the smell of it, for he and Nina both know men who would kill them for the slimmest chance at the gold.
  • Cul-de-Sac
    Author: Martin, David
    Publisher: Villard List Price: $23 ISBN: 0679410562 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    A suspenseful, frightening, and gripping thriller about a family secret and a wrongly accused murderer from the author of Lie to Me. Here, David Martin brings back his most engaging hero: retired Detective Teddy Camel--a.k.a. "The Human Lie Detector"--on his last case.
  • A Face at the Window
    Author: McFarland, Dennis
    Publisher: Broadway Books List Price: $25 ISBN: 0553066943 Date: 1997
    starPW
    NYTBR Notable
    The author of two highly acclaimed novels - School for the Blind and The Music Room - now delivers a fascinating story of a haunted man's spritual awakening - a novel by turns comic, terrifying, and tragic.
  • Ashworth Hall
    Author: Perry, Anne
    Publisher: Fawcett List Price: $24 ISBN: 0449908445 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Thomas and Charlotte Pitt return in the latest brilliantly rendered novel of manners, mores and murder in Victorian England. A group of Irish political figures, Protestants and Catholics, gathers at Ashworth Hall in hopes of finally resolving the volatile issue of home rule for Ireland. When a mysterious murder shatters the decorum of the weekend, Scotland Yard's Superintent Thomas Pitt and his clever wife, Charlotte, arrive to root out the truth.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Crime Fiction
  • Abuse of Power
    Author: Rosenberg, Nancy Taylor
    Publisher: Dutton List Price:
    Compelled by her strong values and integrity, a California police officer goes against the blue code of silence by reporting an incident of corruption on the force. But she soon pays the price for her morality, as she becomes the enemy of powerful individuals who will stop at nothing to suppress her. Now she must fight for her very life and the safety of her loved ones, while around her, no one can be trusted.
  • Virgin Heat
    Author: Shames, Laurence
    Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $21.95 ISBN:2786862033 Date: 1997
    starBookliststarKirkus
    Shames's newest thriller is his wildest to date, rich in excitement, tension, laughs, and loopy characters. Fed up with the life set up for him by the Federal Witness Protection Program, Sal Martucci is tending bar in Key West when he is spotted in a home video by his ex-sweetheart, Angie Amaro - the daughter of the man who wantes Sal dead.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up | Florida Fiction | If You Like Carl Hiaasen
  • The Echo
    Author: Walters, Minette
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0399142517 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    A new novel of psychological suspense and terror by the Edgar Award-winning author of The Dark Room. When a homeless man is discovered dead in the garage of a wealthy woman in one of the richest neighborhoods in the world, journalist Michael Deacon's curiousity about the case leads him on a chilling journey into the past.
    Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars

April

  • Cold Case
    Author: Barnes, Linda
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0385306148 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Bestselling author Linda Barnes is back with a big new book that's sure to enthrall her old fansand capture new ones. Cold Case is both and engrossing mystery and an atmospheric, contemporary novel about old money, family secrets, and the ultimate price of fame.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • Endangered Species
    Author: Barr, Nevada
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0399142460 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Park ranger Anna Pigeon investigates the crash of the drug-interdiction plan on an isolated Georgia island in Nevada Barr's spectacular new mystery. Was it an accident or sabatoge that downed the plane, killing both the pilot and his passenger. Pressed into service, its up to Anna and her crew to solve the problem.
    Suggested Reading: Wildlife
  • The Genesis Code
    Author: Case, John F.
    Publisher: Fawcett/Columbine List Price: $24 ISBN: 0449911012 Date: 1997
    starLJstarPW
    From the galley blurb:
    The Genesis Code takes cutting-edge medical technology one step further, envisioning a world where sacred belief and modern science collide with cataclysmic and shocking repercusions. In this breakthrough debut, John F. Case gives us an electrifying thriller with all the hallmarks of satisfying fiction: lightening-fast pacing, white-knuckle suspense, and a secret that you will be so eager to discover that you will not put down The Genesis Code until the last satisfying page is turned.
    Suggested Reading: Medical Thrillers
  • The Project
    Author: Chafets, Zev
    Publisher: Warner List Price: $24 ISBN: 0446518867 Date: 1997
    starPW
    In a riveting novel of international intrigue and suspense, written by the widely acclaimed author of Hang Time, The Bookmakers, and Inherit the Mob, America's first Jewish president and the Israeli prime minister fight for political domination.
  • Pretend You Don't See Her
    Author: Clark, Mary Higgins
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $ 25 ISBN: 0684810395 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    After Manhattan real estate agent Lacey Farrell is witness to the dying words of a murder victim. The dying woman is convinced that the killer was after her daughter's journals. Lacey gives the journal to the police after making a copy for herself--an impulse that later proves nearly fatal. Placed under the witness protection program, Lacey's life changes and she meets a man. Unable to live with the facade, she breaks it off just as the killer traces her down. Lacey heads back to Manhattan, determined to uncover who's behind the murder--before she's the next victim.
  • Never Street
    Author: Estleman, Loren D.
    Publisher: Mysterious Press List Price: $23 ISBN: 0892966335 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    NYTBR Notable
    The acclaimed author of the Detroit series brings back celebrated private eye Amos Walker after an abscence of seven years. Following the shadowy trail of a man obsessed with noir gangster flicks from the 40's, Amos is brought to the lavishly restored Fox motion picture palace, where a violent, nightmarish conclusion is played out against the silvery light of the big screen.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • Past Tense
    Author: Greenleaf, Stephen
    Publisher: Scribner List Price: $22 ISBN: 0684832496 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    The 11th installment of Greenleaf's popular series takes San Francisco investigator John Marshall Tanner deep into the heated controversy over claims of recovered memories of sexual abuse, into some dark corridors of police corruption - and into the contours of his best friend's mind.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • The Partner
    Author: Grisham, John
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $26.95 ISBN: 0385472951 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    Patrick Lanigan had a bright future as a young partner in a prominent Southern law firm. Then one cold winter night, he was trapped in a burning car and died a horrible death; the casket they buried held nothing but his ashes. A short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial, then fled. A fortune was stolen from his ex-firm's offshore account. Patrick ran, covering his tracks the whole way--but not far enough or fast enough. It began when he disappeared. But it really didn't start until they found him.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • The Maggody Militia
    Author: Hess, Joan
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 052594236x Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    The tenth installment in the successful series features Police Chief Arly Hanks, the spunkiest , most off-beat female sleuth around. Suspicious of a militia group set up near Maggody, Arly investigates and soon finds herself emeshed in the band's web of secrets, including a supposed imminent invasion by U.N. troops.
    Suggested Reading: Humorous Mysteries
  • Gospel
    Author: James, Bill
    Publisher: Norton/Foul Play List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0881503835 Date: 1997
    starPW
    At 19 years old, Colin Harpur's girlfriend Denise knows little about criminals, and even less about the law. When Denise drifts into the social circle of Harpur's number-one informant and one of the criminals is shot to death during a robbery, Denise's life is suddenly in danger, and Harpur must solve a new crime--before it happens.
    Suggested Reading: British Police

  • Count Me Out
    Author: James, Russell
    Publisher: Norton/Foul Play List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0881503843 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Relentless with suspense, dark with menace, this is the gripping story of two brothers on the edge of disaster. When Scott takes part in an armored van robbery and disappears, he is pursued by the very nasty criminals who set it up -- and who hope to get at him through his brother, Jet, a boxer in a traveling carnival, and his eight-year-old daughter, Stella.
    Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled/Noir
  • The Big Picture
    Kennedy, Douglas
    Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 078686298x Date: 1997
    starPW
    Intricately plotted and suprisingly moving, The Big Picture offers a riveting tale of obsession, identity and murder. Heartbroken by the realization that his wife is having an affair, a lawyer from a prestigious New York fim finds himself spiraling toward desperation after his confrontation with the lover turns ugly.
  • Faceless Killers
    Author: Mankell, Henning
    Publisher: New Press List Price: $23 ISBN: 156584341x Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    At once a gripping mystery in the classic detection tradition and an incisive commentary on contemporary society, Faceless Killers introduces Swedish Inspector Kurt Wallender, a cop whose personal life is in shambles. Tenacious and levelheaded in his sleuthing, Wallender has to deal with an eruption of antiforeign sentiment as he searched for brutal killers.
    Suggested Reading: European Mysteries
  • Small Vices
    Author: Parker, Robert B.
    Publisher: Putnam List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0399142444 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    Washington Post Book World Best Book
    NYTBR Notable
    Spenser dies - and lives to tell the tale - in Parker's stunning new mystery novel. In an attempt to smoke out a killer, Spenser plays dead after he barely survives a master assasin's bullet. For it is only then that he can see justice done - and let the shooter know it's payback time.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • Smalltime
    Author: Raine, Jerry
    Publisher: Do-Not Press List Price: $12.95 ISBN: 08993474136 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Jerry Raine again takes us into the world of ordinary people who use extraordinary means to break free from the shackles of their mundane lives. Chris Small has been lying low for seven years, keeping his nose clean after a previous entanglement with the police. Then one day he meets Edie, a waitress with a talent for playing blackjack. Thinking he might be on to a good thing, Chris agrees to become her playing partner, and together they hatch a plan to outwit London's casinos. But Chris doesn't know that a shadow from his past is looking for him.
    Suggested Reading: Hard-Boiled/Noir
  • Killing Ground
    Author: Seymour, Gerald
    Publisher: HarperCollins List Price: $19.95 ISBN: 0061011959 Date: 1997
    starBookliststarKirkus
    In this tense, gripping thriller from the bestselling author of Heart of Danger and the Fighting Man, an innocent young woman is recruited to go undercover in pursuit of a vicious mafia leader in hiding.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up
  • Remote Control
    Author: White, Stephen
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0525942696 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    After her father, the Surgeon General of the United States, is assassinated, Emma Spire moves to Colorado to look for a quieter life. But the publicity surrounding the assassination has made Emma the target of someone whose obsession with her goes far beyond tabloid headlines.
    Suggested Reading: Crime Scene Investigations

May

  • Free Reign
    Author: Aubert, Rosemary
    Publisher: Bridge Works List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 1882593189 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Ellis Portal, once an esteemed judge, now lives as a homeless vagrant in Toronto. He finds a severed hand wearing a ring he recognizes, and his search to identify the victim and killer takes him back into the world that has cast him out. As he comes face to face with his own past, Ellis solves the mystery and regains his dignity - and more.
  • The Untouchable
    Banville, John
    Knopf List Price: $24 ISBN: 0679451080 Date: 1997
    starLJstarPWstarKirkus
    PW Best Book of '97
    Twenty years after his "retirement", ex-spy Victor Maskell attempts to come to terms with what has happened to his life by embarking on his memoirs. This is the plot which fuels Banville's stunning new novel - a story that goes beyond the mere facts of espionage to penetrate the intricate heart of the spy.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Espionage
  • Hocus
    Author: Burke, Jan
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $22 ISBN: 0684803445 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    In this thunderously paced heart-stopper by the author of Remember Me, Irene, intrepid sleuth/reporter Irene Kelly's skills are put to the ultimate test when her detective husband Frank is taken hostage.
    Suggested Reading: Magic & Magicians
  • King Con
    Author: Cannell, Stephen J.
    Publisher: Morrow List Price: $24 ISBN: 0688147763 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Accomplished grifter Beano Bates's lucky streak vanishes after a card game in which he scams 80 grand from a Mafia don who retaliates by having him nearly beaten to death. The savage beating leads to murder. Now Beano wants more than a big score, he wants revenge. Aided by a cunning female prosecutor and an army of crafty cousins, the king of the cons puts together the ultimate swindle--a game of strategy, skill and deception, and the target is America's most feared mob kingpin and his psychopathic brother.
    Suggested Reading: Mobbed Up | Grift Sense
  • Plum Island
    Author: DeMille, Nelson
    Publisher: Warner List Price: $25 ISBN: 044651056x Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    Convalescing from a bullet wound on Long Island, NYPD homicide detective John Corey helps the local sheriff investigate a shooting. The victims are a married couple, both biologists on Plum Island, a top secret animal disease research site. When the media suggests that they stole a deadly virus, suddenly a local murder becomes a crime with worldwide implications in this masterwork of entrancing characters, a killer plot, and brilliant comic touches.
    Suggested Reading: Biological/Science Thrillers
  • Cosi Fan Tutti
    Author: Dibdin, Michael
    Publisher: Pantheon List Price: $23 ISBN: 0679442723 Date: 1997
    starPWstarBooklist
    Aurelio Zen's newest adventure is a delirious combination of the deadly serious and the seriously comic. Here is Mozart's opera turned on its head to test the faithfulness of men and the stamina of Michael Dibdin's unusually serious-minded police officer, as he becomes the unwitting stage manager for this masterful interpretation of murder, mayhem and the mysteries of love.
    Suggested Reading: European Mysteries
  • Cop Out
    Author: Dunlap, Susan
    Publisher: Delacorte List Price: $20.95 ISBN: 0385316003 Date: 1997
    starPW
    From the acclaimed author of Sudden Exposure comes an engaging new mystery set in Northern California's most notorious city, as on-the-outs police detective Jill Smith copes with tension on Telegraph Avenue and a friend's puzzling disappearance. Cop Out is Susan Dunlop's tenth Jill Smith mystery and her 16th novel.
    Suggested Reading: Cops
  • If I Should Die
    Author: Edwards, Grace
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0385485239 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    A mystery with all the right elements - a fabulous sleuth, smooth writing, a great plot, and just the right amount of humor - If I Should Die takes readers into the heart of Harlem: its stylish townhouses on Strivers Row, its clubs where jazz immortals jam the night away, as well as its vicious crack houses.
    Suggested Reading: African American Stars
  • Gypsy Hearts
    Author: Eversz, Robert M.
    Publisher: Grove List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0802116094 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    A darkly comic thriller, Gypsy Hearts tells the story of Richard Milhouse "Nix" Miller, 25-year-old American scam artist posing as a Hollywood screenwriter in Prague - a decrepit Old World city hungry for American glamour. But he meets his match in sexually rapacious Monika, a gorgeous half-Gypsy femme fatale, whose stone-cold amorality makes even Nix look tame.
  • The Art of Breaking Glass
    Author: Hall, Matthew
    Publisher: Little, Brown List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0316339245 Date: 1997
    starPWstarBookliststarKirkus
    A breakthrough thriller starring a charismatic urban vigilante and the woman who inspires his greatest, most shattering revenge scheme ever, The Art of Breaking Glass plunges readers into a cunning game of cat and mouse that keeps them guessing right up to the last page. "A totally unique, action-packed, extremely well-written humdinger of a thriller" - James Patterson.
    Suggested Reading: Psycho Killers | Serial Killers | All Stars
  • The Man Who Loved Women to Death: A Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag Mystery
    Author: Handler, David
    Publisher: Doubleday List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0385480520 Date: 1997
    starBookliststarKirkus
    Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag's eighth adventure presents the one-time It Boy of modern American fiction with the most bizarre, challenging, and frightening assignment of his ghostwriting career. He doesn't know what he's going to do about it - except try to stay alive!
  • A Firing Offense
    Author: Ignatius, David
    Publisher: Random List Price: $23 ISBN: 0679448608 Date: 1997
    starPW blackstar.jpg  947 Bytes Booklist
    What's the worst mistake a journalist could make? Acclaimed novelist and award-winning journalist David Ignatious has written an authentic new thriller about a reporter who dances too closely with his sources in the CIA.
    Suggested Reading: Political Thrillers
  • Esau
    Author: Kerr, Philip
    Publisher: Holt List Price: $22.50 ISBN:0805051759 Date: 1997
    starLJstarBookliststarPW
    In his most dazzling thriller to date, "England's answer to Michael Crichton" (The Financial Times) spins a tale of high adventure in which science, politics, and human frailty combine to take readers on a stunning foray into the nature of man. In a lab on a Berkeley campus, a paleoanthropologist learns that what she took to be a fossil of the first order in fact the scientific discovery of a lifetime.
    ACT note: Yeti another good read from Kerr.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | If You Like Michael Crichton
  • The Gun Seller
    Author: Laurie, Hugh
    Publisher: Soho List Price: $24 ISBN: 1569470871 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    The irresistible tale of a former Scots Guard-turned-hired gun, a freelance soldier of fortune who also happens to be one heck of a nice guy. - Publisher Marketing.
  • Mexican Hat
    Author: McGarrity, Michael
    Publisher: Norton List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0393040631 Date: 1997
    starPW
    The hero of Tularosa returns in a compelling mystery of family secrets played out against the breathtaking Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico. The poaching of wildlife, the murder of a Mexican tourist, and the discovery of a disoriented old man in the wilderness thrusts former Santa Fe chief of detectives Kevin Kerney into a dangerous investigation.
    Suggested Reading: Cops
  • Blues for the Buffalo
    Author: Ramos, Manuel
    Publisher: St. Martin's List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0312154801 Date: 1997
    starPW
    A beautiful, mysterious young woman and a missing manuscript lead Denver attorney Luis Montez into a dangerous world of literary and historic intrigue. As one of the last people known to have seen a beautiful young heiress alive, Luis finds himself ducking bullets and firebombs as her rich and influential family tries everything they can to find her.
  • The Butter Did It: A Gastronomic Tale of Love and Murder
    Author: Richman, Phyllis
    Publisher: HarperCollins List Price: $23 ISBN: 0060183705 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    A delicious entree into the increasingly popular culinary mystery genre, this novel is a fun, fast-paced whodunit by a true insider of the restaurant and newspaper business - the food writer/restaurant critic for the Washington Post. With numerous menus sprinkled throughout the book, this culinary extravaganza us just the thing for readers hungry for some intrigue with their dinner.
    Suggested Reading: Cooked Books
  • Eater of Souls: A Lord Meren Mystery
    Author: Robinson, Lynda S.
    Publisher: Walker List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0802732941Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    King Tut's Egypt is alive and deadly in this new Lord Meren mystery. The first in a triology that will center on Meren's investigation into the death of Queen Nefertiti, Eater of Souls is a dramatic murder mystery that opens a window onto ancient Egypt in a way that only a skilled novelist and consummate storyteller can accomplish.
    ACT note: This is the 4th starred review in a row from PW for Robinson's Lord Meren books.
    Suggested Reading: Egyptian Stars
  • Spares
    Author: Smith, Michael Marshall
    Publisher: Bantam List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 055310604x Date: 1997
    starPWstarBookliststarKirkus
    For the last five years, Jack Randall has been hiding out on a Spares Farm, working at the only job still available to him: guarding people who have never seen the outside world - people who can't even spell the word "escape". Now Jack is on the run with seven of the Farm's inmates - and the people who own them will do anything to get them back - anything.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Cross Genres
  • The Life and Death of Bobby Z
    Author: Winlsow, Don
    Publisher: Knopf List Price: $ 22 ISBN: 0679454292 Date: 1997
    starPW
    When longtime loser Tim Kearney kills a Hell's Angel, it's his third strike. Life without parole follows, but with the Angels in prison, it looks to be a pretty short life. That's when the DEA makes him an offer: impersonate the late, legendary dope smuggler Bobby Z so the agency can trade him to Don Huertero - northern Mexico's drug kingpin - for a captured DEA agent. This raucous, hilarious vehicle is sure to catapult Winslow into an entirely new orbit.
    Suggested Reading: Drug Traffic Stars

June

  • Bad Eye Blues
    Author: Barrett, Neal
    Publisher: Kensington List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 157566173x Date: 1997
    starPW
    In his second turn at sleuthing, insect illustrator Wiley Moss is taken to Idaho by mobster Vinnie "Spuds" DeMarco to do portraits of his 18 resident cuties, the Spudettes. But somebody's knocking off the hoods at DeMarco's lodge and somebody wants everybody dead. Now, for Wiley, getting out of Idaho alive is top priority.
  • Nazareth Hill
    Author: Campbell, Ramsey
    Publisher: Forge List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0312863446 Date: 1997
    starPWstarLJ
    From one of the world's most celebrated authors of psychological horror comes a novel that chronicles the deteriorating relationship between a teenage girl and her father. Moving into a former mental institution that has been converted into an apartment house, a worried father soon realizes he's made a bad decision, especially when his daughter begins to "hear things" in the halls.
  • Indigo Slam: An Elvis Cole Novel
    Author: Crais, Robert
    Publisher: Hyperion List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0786862610 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    When a 15-year-old girl shows up to plead with Los Angeles P.I. Elvis Cole for help finding her errant father, his first impulse is to call Social Services. But Elvis is intrigued, and as he investigates, learns that the disappearing dad seems to be a mover in the criminal underworld who is on the verge of some grand scheme.
    Suggested Reading: Private Investigators
  • Innocent Blood
    Author: Dickey, Christopher
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster List Price: $23 ISBN: 0684842009 Date: 1997
    starPW
    A fast-paced thriller by the author of With the Contras and Expats. Traveling to Bosnia to search for his family's roots, U.S. Army ranger Kurt Kurtovic discovers instead what he thinks is his place, his cause, his faith. The real enemy, Kurt comes to believe, is the United States, and the weapon he is given to fight it is as terrible as anything ever imagined by the wrath of God.
    Suggested Reading: Terrorists & Terrorism
  • The Church of the Dead Girls
    Author: Dobyns, Stephen
    Publisher: Holt List Price: $22 ISBN: 0671001639 Date: 1997
    starPW
    One by one, three young girls vanish in upstate New York. With the first disappearance, the townspeople begin to mistrust outsiders. When the second girl goes missing, neighbors eye each other warily. And when a third child vanishes, the sleepy little town awakens to a full-blown nightmare, as panic mounts and citizens take the law into their own hands.
    Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
  • Talking to the Dead
    Author: Dunmore, Helen
    Publisher: List Price: $21.95 ISBN: 0316197416 Date: 1997
    starPWstarKirkus
    When Isabel and Nina were little girls, their baby brother died in his crib - a death that has haunted the sisters always. Now 25 years later, Isabel has given birth to a son and Nina has come back to town to help out. As the weeks pass, searing memories long locked away come rushing back, pushing Nina towards an intimate betrayal - and driving Isabel to a shocking, transforming act.
    Suggested Reading: Psychological Suspense Stars
  • Warning Shot
    Author: Egleton, Clive
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $22.95 ISBN: 0312156859 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    An ominous bombing in Berlin calls Special Agent Peter Ashton back into the international spotlight in this spellbinding espionage thriller from an "expert stylist" (The New York Time Book Review) "Egleton's masterful storytelling and trademark style, combined with authentic detail, an inventive plot, and superb pacing, add up to yet another outstanding thriller" - Booklist.
    Suggested Reading: Espionage Stars
  • Split Image
    Author: Faust, Ron
    Publisher: Tor/Forge List Price: $20.95 ISBN: 0312860110 Date: 1997
    starBooklist
    Failing playwright Andrew Neville is entangled in an incident in which a petty argument with and arrogant stranger escalates into murder in this new thriller from the critically acclaimed author of Lord of the Dark Lake. After meeting the grieving widow, Claudia, Neville gradually insinuates himself into her confidence and conceives a plan to take over the dead man's life - his wife, his son, his work, his wealth, even his persona.
  • Los Alamos
    Author: Kanon, Joseph
    Publisher: Broadway List Price: $25 ISBN: 0553062247 Date: 1997
    starPWstarBookliststarKirkus
    PW Best Book of '97
    Kanon recreates the most compelling real-life drama of this century - an audacious flight of the imagination which interweaves real and fictional figures to create a "what- if" novel of historical intrigue. Spring 1945: As work on the first atom bomb nears completion in New Mexico, Manhattan Project security officer Karl Bruner is found murdered. Is Bruner's killing a result of a violent sexual encounter, or part of a plot that threatens to jeopardize the project itself?
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | World War Stars | Atomic Age Stars
  • Guilt
    Lescroart, John
    Delacorte List Price: $24.95 ISBN: 0385316550 Date: 1997
    starPW
    A gripping novel of legal suspense by the author of The 13th Juror. Successful San Francisco attorney Mark Dooher, a married man, decides he wants a beautiful young attorney working in his office. As legal counsel for San Francisco's Archdiocese, divorce is not exactly on his agenda. When his wife is murdered, Dooher becomes a suspect in the case. But with the Catholic Church in his pocket, Dooher feels that nothing can stop him.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • The Deception
    Author: Reed, Barry
    Publisher: Crown List Price: $23 ISBN: 0517701561 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Verdict and The Choice comes a suspenseful new courtroom drama featuring attorney Dan Sheridan. Called in to sue a hospital after a highly ranked tennis player commits suicide there, Sheridan uncovers sexual misconduct and an ethical dilemma that will nearly cost him his life.
    Suggested Reading: Legal Stars
  • Nimitz Class
    Author: Robinson, Patrick
    Publisher: Harpercollins List Price: $25 ISBN: 0060187557 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    When the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Thomas Jefferson is vaporized along with its crew of 6,000 sailors and Navy fliers, Lt. Commander Bill Baldridge is soon on the trail of a sinsister, rogue submarine.
    Suggested Reading: Techno Thrillers
  • The Purification Ceremony: A Novel of Suspense
    Author: Sullivan, Mark T.
    Publisher: Avon List Price: $24 ISBN:0380974282 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    A stunning and terrifying story of brutal violence amid a secluded, snowy wilderness by the author of Hard News and The Fall Line. The hunters become the hunted in this tale of suspense set on a remote estate in British Columbia, where an insane and violent force of nature, hiding in the blinding whiteness of the Canadian winter, stalks a party in search of whitetail deer.
    Suggested Reading: Survival Stars
  • Heart of War
    Author: Truscott, Lucian K.
    Publisher: Dutton List Price: $23.95 ISBN: 0525941177 Date: 1997
    starPW
    The author of the nationally bestselling Dress Gray unfurls a compelling tale of power, corruption, and murder in this riveting thriller that goes to the heart of military life. After she is assigned to investigate the murder of another woman officer, Major Kara Guidry finds herself immersed in a tangled web of secrets that tests her loyalties and integrity.
  • The Ax
    Author: Westlake, Donald
    Publisher: Mysterious List Price: $23 ISBN: 0892965878 Date: 1997
    starPW
    Washington Post Book World Informed Opinion Best Book
    NYTBR Notable
    The multi-award-winning, widely acclaimed mystery master and screenplay writer Donald E. Westlake delivers another masterpiece with this brilliant, laser-sharp tale of the deadly consequences of corporate downsizing.
    Suggested Reading: The Office