( C ) Books

Dashing Through the Snow

Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark

Amazon Price: $15.64 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 33 new & used starting at $12.39

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Clark, Carol Higgins

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From beloved mother-daughter duo Mary Higgins Clark, America's Queen of Suspense, and Carol Higgins Clark, author of the hugely popular Regan Reilly mystery series, comes Dashing Through the Snow, a holiday treat you won't want to miss.

In the picturesque village of Branscombe, New Hampshire, the townsfolk are all pitching in to prepare for the first (and many hope annual) Festival of Joy. The night before the festival begins, a group of employees at the local market learn that they have won $160 million in the lottery. One of their co-workers, Duncan, decided at the last minute, on the advice of a pair of crooks masquerading as financial advisers, not to play. Then he goes missing. A second winning lottery ticket was purchased in the next town, but the winner hasn't come forward. Could Duncan have secretly bought it?

The Clarks' endearing heroes -- Alvirah Meehan, the amateur sleuth, and private investigator Regan Reilly -- have arrived in Branscombe for the festival. They are just the people to find out what is amiss. As they dig beneath the surface, they find that life in Branscombe is not as tranquil as it appears. So much for an old-fashioned weekend in the country. This fast-paced holiday caper will keep you dashing through the pages!

State of Fear

Michael Crichton

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Avon Amazon Marketplace: 811 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Crichton, Michael -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1273 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

A Michael Crichton Timeline
Amazon.com reveals a few facts about the "father of the techno-thriller."

1942: John Michael Crichton is born in Chicago, Illinois on Oct. 23.

1960: Crichton graduates from Roslyn High School on Long Island, New York, with high marks and a reputation as a star basketball player. He decides to attend Harvard University to study English. During his studies, he rankles under his writing professors' criticism. As an act of rebellion, Crichton submits an essay by George Orwell as his own. The professor doesn’t catch the plagiarism and gives Orwell a B-. This experience convinces Crichton to change his field of study to anthropology.

1964: Crichton graduates summa cum laude from Harvard University in anthropology. After studying further as a visiting lecturer at Cambridge University and receiving the Henry Russell Shaw Travelling Fellowship, which allowed him to travel in Europe and North Africa, Crichton begins coursework at the Harvard School of Medicine. To help fund his medical endeavors, he writes spy thrillers under several pen names. One of these works, A Case of Need, wins the 1968 Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award.

1969: Crichton graduates from Harvard Medical school and is accepted as a post-doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Science in La Jolla, Calif. However, his career in medicine is waylaid by the publication of the first novel under his own name, The Andromeda Strain. The novel, about an apocalyptic plague, climbs high on bestseller lists and is later made into a popular film. Crichton said of his decision to pursue writing full time: "To quit medicine to become a writer struck most people like quitting the Supreme Court to become a bail bondsman."

1972: Crichton's second novel under his own name The Terminal Man, is published. Also, two of Crichton's previous works under his pen names, Dealing and A Case of Need are made into movies. After watching the filming, Crichton decides to try his hand at directing. He will eventually direct seven films including the 1973 science-fiction hit Westworld, which was the first film ever to use computer-generated effects.

1980: Crichton draws on his anthropology background and fascination with new technology to create Congo, a best-selling novel about a search for industrial diamonds and a new race of gorillas. The novel, patterned after the adventure writings of H. Ryder Haggard, updates the genre with the inclusion of high-tech gadgets that, although may seem quaint 20 years later, serve to set Crichton's work apart and he begins to cement his reputation as "the father of the techno-thriller."

1990: After the 1980s, which saw the publication of the underwater adventure Sphere (1987) and an invitation to become a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1988), Crichton begins the new decade with a bang via the publication of his most popular novel, Jurassic Park. The book is a powerful example of Crichton's use of science and technology as the bedrock for his work. Heady discussion of genetic engineering, chaos theory, and paleontology run throughout the tightly-wound thriller that strands a crew of scientists on an island populated by cloned dinosaurs run amok. The novel inspires the 1993 Steven Spielberg film, and together book and film will re-ignite the world’s fascination with dinosaurs.

1995: Crichton resurrects an idea from his medical school days to create the Emmy-Award Winning television series ER. In this year, ER won eight Emmys and Crichton received an award from the Producers Guild of America in the category of outstanding multi-episodic series. Set in an insanely busy an often dangerous Chicago emergency room, the fast-paced drama is defined by Crichton's now trademark use of technical expertise and insider jargon. The year also saw the publication of The Lost World returning readers to the dinosaur-infested island.

2000: In recognition for Crichton's contribution in popularizing paleontology, a dinosaur discovered in southern China is named after him. "Crichton's ankylosaur" is a small, armored plant-eating dinosaur that dates to the early Jurassic Period, about 180 million years ago. "For a person like me, this is much better than an Academy Award," Crichton said of the honor.

2004: Crichton’s newest thriller State of Fear is published.


Amazon.com's Significant Seven
Michael Crichton kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.

Q: What book has had the most significant impact on your life?
A: Prisoners of Childhood by Alice Miller

Q: You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?
A: Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Witter Bynner version)
Symphony #2 in D Major by Johannes Brahms (Georg Solti)
Ikiru by Akira Kurosawa

Q: What is the worst lie you've ever told?
A: Surely you're joking.

Q: Describe the perfect writing environment.
A: Small room. Shades down. No daylight. No disturbances. Macintosh with a big screen. Plenty of coffee. Quiet.

Q: If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?
A: I don't want an epitaph. If forced, I would say "Why Are You Here? Go Live Your Life."

Q: Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?
A: Benjamin Franklin

Q: If you could have one superpower what would it be?
A: Invisibility

Where Are You Now?: A Novel

Mary Higgins Clark

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 219 new & used starting at $2.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Clark, Mary Higgins -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From America's Queen of Suspense comes a gripping tale of a young woman trying to unravel the mystery of a family tragedy -- a quest with terrifying repercussions.

It has been ten years since twenty-one-year-old Charles MacKenzie Jr. ("Mack") went missing. A Columbia University senior, about to graduate and already accepted at Duke University Law School, he walked out of his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side without a word to his college roommates and has never been seen again. However, he does make one ritual phone call to his mother every year: on Mother's Day. Each time, he assures her he is fine, refuses to answer her frantic questions, then hangs up. Even the death of his father, a corporate lawyer, in the tragedy of 9/11 does not bring him home or break the pattern of his calls.

Mack's sister, Carolyn, is now twenty-six, a law school graduate, and has just finished her clerkship for a civil court judge in Manhattan. She has endured two family tragedies, yet she realizes that she will never be able to have closure and get on with her life until she finds her brother. She resolves to discover what happened to Mack and why he has found it necessary to hide from them. So this year when Mack makes his annual Mother's Day call, Carolyn interrupts to announce her intention to track him down, no matter what it takes. The next morning after Mass, her uncle, Monsignor Devon MacKenzie, receives a scrawled message left in the collection basket: "Uncle Devon, tell Carolyn she must not look for me."

Mack's cryptic warning does nothing to deter his sister from taking up the search, despite the angry reaction of her mother, Olivia, and the polite disapproval of Elliott Wallace, Carolyn's honorary uncle, who is clearly in love with Olivia.

Carolyn's pursuit of the truth about Mack's disappearance swiftly plunges her into a world of unexpected danger and unanswered questions. What is the secret that Gus and Lil Kramer, the superintendents of the building in which Mack was living, have to hide? What do Mack's old roommates, the charismatic club owner Nick DeMarco and the cold and wealthy real estate tycoon Bruce Galbraith, know about Mack's disappearance? Is Nick connected to the disappearance of Leesey Andrews, who had last been seen in his trendy club? Can the police possibly believe that Mack is not only alive, but a serial killer, a shadowy predator of young women? Was Mack also guilty of the brutal murder of his drama teacher and the theft of his taped sessions with her?

Carolyn's passionate search for the truth about her brother -- and for her brother himself -- leads her into a deadly confrontation with someone close to her whose secret he cannot allow her to reveal.

Hold Tight

Harlan Coben

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dutton Adult Amazon Marketplace: 190 new & used starting at $2.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Coben, Harlan

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 137 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller. How much do parents really want to know about their kids?

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben asks that provocative and terrifying question with his fifteenth thriller.

#1 bestselling author Harlan Coben has become an unstoppable force in suspense fiction. His most recent novel, The Woods, spent more time on the New York Times bestseller list than his previous books and sales reached his highest levels to date. His latest page-turner, which is about just how far parents will go to protect their kids, is destined for the top of every bestseller list.

Tia and Mike Baye never imagined they’d become the type of overprotective parents who spy on their kids. But their sixteen-year-old son Adam has been unusually distant lately, and after the suicide of his classmate Spencer Hill—the latest in a string of issues at school—they can’t help but worry. They install a sophisticated spy program on Adam’s computer, and within days are jolted by a message from an unknown correspondent addressed to their son: “Just stay quiet and all safe.”

Meanwhile, browsing through an online memorial for Spencer put together by his classmates, Betsy Hill is struck by a photo that appears to have been taken on the night of her son’s death . . . and he wasn’t alone. She thinks it is Adam Baye standing just outside the camera’s range; but when Adam goes missing, it soon becomes clear that something deep and sinister has infected their community. For Tia and Mike Baye, the question they must answer is this: When it comes to your kids, is it possible to know too much?

Just Take My Heart: A Novel

Mary Higgins Clark

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Not yet published By: Simon & Schuster

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Clark, Mary Higgins -> General
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Clark, Mary Higgins -> Hardcover
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Clark, Mary Higgins -> General AAS

Chasing Darkness: An Elvis Cole Novel (Elvis Cole)

Robert Crais

Amazon Price: $17.13 List Price: $25.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 119 new & used starting at $3.33

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Action & Adventure
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 73 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Elvis Cole is Back--In a Desperate Fight to Clear his Name...

It's fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. When police and fire department personnel rush door to door in a frenzied evacuation effort, they discover the week-old corpse of an apparent suicide. But the gunshot victim is less gruesome than what they find in his lap: a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women -- one per year, for seven years. And when the suicide victim is identified as a former suspect in one of the murders, the news turns Elvis Cole's world upside down.

Three years earlier Lionel Byrd was brought to trial for the murder of a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. A taped confession coerced by the police inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrd's case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. It was Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape that allowed Lionel Byrd to walk free. Elvis was hailed as a hero.

But the discovery of the death album in Byrd's lap now brands Elvis as an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could only have been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims -- two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked free. So Elvis can't help but wonder -- did he, Elvis Cole, cost two more young women their lives?

Shut out of the investigation by a special LAPD task force determined to close the case, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike desperately fight to uncover the truth about Lionel Byrd and his nightmare album of death -- a truth hidden by lies, politics, and corruption in a world where nothing is what it seems to be.

Chasing Darkness is a blistering thriller from the bestselling author who sets the standard for intense, powerful crime writing.

The Final Detail (Myron Bolitar)

Harlan Coben

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Island Books Amazon Marketplace: 73 new & used starting at $1.85

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Coben, Harlan
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Mystery -> General
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Mystery -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 60 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Myron Bolitar is a fascinating character--a guy in his 30s who just moved into his own New York apartment, and who still looks forward to dinner with his parents in New Jersey. A former pro-basketball star and Harvard Law School grad, he now runs his own sports agency, and also dabbles in the private investigation business. He is helped (and sometimes hindered) by his rich, blond, preppy friend Windsor Horne Lockwood III. Win has some awesome lethal powers hidden under his Brooks Brothers suits!

In The Final Detail Win and Myron are looking into the murder of a client--a troubled New York Yankees baseball player called Clu Haid. Clu was apparently shot to death by Esperanza Diaz, who just happens to be Myron's best friend and partner in the sport's agency. Esperanza is hiding something, but Myron isn't sure if it has to do with her job, or with her private life. His search for the truth takes him back to a shabby incident from his own past, and to times he would rather forget. Author Harlan Coben casually drops in dozens of poignant moments of humanity that keep us--and Myron--firmly grounded in reality.

Other books in this excellent series include Backspin, Deal Breaker, Drop Shot, and One False Move. --Dick Adler

Jurassic Park

Michael Crichton

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 2027 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Movie Tie-Ins
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 650 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Jurassic Park 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books! It has a lot of action and a lot of descriptions. The story is very similar to the ever famous Jurassic Park movie by Stephen Spielberg { sp? sorry } The terror and action the Crichton creates with the dinosaur chases is very thrilling. There are some parts where you think, what just happend? And then you have to reread it again. But all in all it's a very great book and I would recommend that you would read Lost World Jurassic Park and that you watch all three of the Jurassics because their all great!

Editorial Review:

Unless your species evolved sometime after 1993 when Jurassic Park hit theaters, you're no doubt familiar with this dinosaur-bites-man disaster tale set on an island theme park gone terribly wrong. But if Speilberg's amped-up CGI creation left you longing for more scientific background and ... well, character development, check out the original Michael Crichton novel. Although not his best book (get ahold of sci-fi classic The Andromeda Strain for that), Jurassic Park fills out the film version's kinetic story line with additional scenes, dialogue, and explanations while still maintaining Crichton's trademark thrills-'n'-chills pacing. As ever, the book really is better than the movie. --Paul Hughes

Angels Flight (Harry Bosch)

Michael Connelly

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Grand Central Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 156 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Contemporary
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General AAS
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Connelly, Michael -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 162 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Michael Connelly, whose novel The Poet won the 1997 Anthony Award for Best Mystery, is already recognized as one of the smartest and most vivid scribes of the hard-boiled police procedural. Now, with his much-anticipated sixth Harry Bosch novel, Angels Flight, Connelly offers one of the finest pieces of mystery writing to appear in 1998. Bosch is awakened in the middle of the night and, out of rotation, he is assigned to the murder investigation of the high-profile African American attorney Howard Elias. When Bosch arrives at the scene, it seems that almost the entire LAPD is present, including the IAD (the Internal Affairs Division). Elias, who made a career out of suing the police, was sadistically gunned down on the Angels Flight tram just as he was beginning a case that would have struck the core of the department; not surprisingly, L.A.'s men and women in blue become the center of the investigation. Haunted by the ghost of the L.A. riots, plagued by incessant media attention, and facing turmoil at home, Bosch suddenly finds himself questioning friends and associates while working side by side with some longtime enemies.

Angels Flight is a detective's nightmare scenario and is disturbingly relevant to the racially tense last decade of the 20th century. Amidst the twists and turns of his complex narrative, Connelly affirms his rightful place among the masters of contemporary mystery fiction. --Patrick O'Kelley

Tell No One

Harlan Coben

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Dell Amazon Marketplace: 313 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Authors, A-Z -> ( C ) -> Coben, Harlan
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Mystery -> General
Subjects -> Mystery & Thrillers -> Mystery -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 419 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

David Beck has rebuilt his life since his wife's murder eight years ago, finishing medical school and establishing himself as a pediatrician, but he's never forgotten the woman he fell in love with in second grade. And when a mysterious e-mail arrives on the anniversary of their first kiss, with a message and an image that leads him to wonder whether Elizabeth might still be alive, Beck will stop at nothing to find the truth that's eluded him for so many years. A powerful billionaire is equally determined to make sure his role in her disappearance never comes to light, even if it means destroying an innocent man.

In David Beck, Harlan Coben, the author of the popular series starring sports agent Myron Bolitar (Darkest Fear et al.) has created a protagonist who shares many of Bolitar's best qualities--he's a decent, generous, gentle guy whose loyalty to those he loves is unquestionable. So when he discovers that people he was close to may be responsible not only for Elizabeth's murder but also the "accidental" death of his father, Beck's sense of betrayal is as understandable to the reader as his uncharacteristically violent reaction. Coben is a skillful storyteller with a gift for creating likable characters caught up in circumstances that illuminate their complex emotional lives and deep humanity. This should be the thriller that breaks this talented writer out of the mystery genre and earns him the recognition he deserves. --Jane Adams