Book picks similar to
The Reason: It's about More Than Just the Money by Quentin Brent
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The Firm
Robin Waterfield - 1991
Adaptation for younger readers.Mitch McDeere, a Harvard Law graduate, becomes suspicious of his Memphis tax firm when mysterious deaths, obsessive office security, and the Chicago mob figure into its operations.
One Small Sacrifice
Hilary Davidson - 2019
A mysterious disappearance. Did one man get away with murder—twice?NYPD detective Sheryn Sterling has had her eye on Alex Traynor ever since his friend Cori fell to her death under suspicious circumstances a year ago. Cori’s death was ruled a suicide, but Sheryn thinks Alex—a wartime photojournalist suffering from PTSD—got away with murder.When Alex’s fiancée, Emily, a talented and beloved local doctor, suddenly goes missing, Sheryn suspects that Alex is again at the center of a sticky case. Sheryn dislikes loose ends, and Cori’s death had way too many of them.But as Sheryn starts pulling at the threads in this web, her whole theory unravels. Everyone involved remembers the night Cori died differently—and the truth about her death could be the key to solving Emily’s disappearance.
Forgotten Bones
Vivian Barz - 2019
But when it comes to murder, Officer Susan Marlan never trusts a simple explanation, so she's just getting started.Meanwhile, college professor Eric Evans hallucinates a young boy in overalls: a symptom of his schizophrenia - or so he thinks. But when more bodies turn up, Eric has more visions, and they mirror details of the murder case. As the investigation continues, the police stick with their original conclusion, but Susan's instincts tell her something is off. The higher-ups keep stonewalling her, and the FBI's closing in.Desperate for answers, Susan goes rogue and turns to Eric for help. Together they take an unorthodox approach to the case as the evidence keeps getting stranger. With Eric's hallucinations intensifying and the body count rising, can the pair separate truth from illusion long enough to catch a monster?
Exit Rostov
Henry Virgin - 2019
Picking up the trail in Moscow, he ventures south to the post Soviet depths of Rostov-on-Don and further into the hinterlands of the fragmented Soviet Union, where he is led deeper into the tangled fate of his oldest friend. Uncovering hidden characteristics and unexpected motives, Frederick fears that his friend, presumed dead, has been caught up in a tragic sequence of events leading to his destruction. As a rite of passage, a journey of discovery, a travelogue and a psychological portrait of friendship, the novel draws the reader into the hidden world of being which beats beneath the semblance of reality.
The Secret History
Donna Tartt - 1992
But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Marisha Pessl - 2006
After a childhood moving from one academic outpost to another with her father (a man prone to aphorisms and meteoric affairs), Blue is clever, deadpan, and possessed of a vast lexicon of literary, political, philosophical, and scientific knowledge—and is quite the cineaste to boot. In her final year of high school at the elite (and unusual) St. Gallway School in Stockton, North Carolina, Blue falls in with a charismatic group of friends and their captivating teacher, Hannah Schneider. But when the drowning of one of Hannah's friends and the shocking death of Hannah herself lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide—or misguide—her.
Western Song
Leigh Podgorski - 2017
The day after the accident, while going through Cod’s papers, lawyer Wynona Vasquez discovers that he had been secretly engaged to a Thai immigrant who is arriving by train that evening. Elected by unanimous decision to be the welcoming committee, Weston arrives at the train station prepared for anything but the lovely forlorn creature he finds waiting in the rain. Though appearing waif-like, Song Phan-Rang is anything but fragile. Her mettle quickly rises to the surface in her determination to remain in Y-oh-ming. Forced together by their circumstances, Weston and Song are explosive. Used to solitude, Weston is driven crazy by the obliging Song. But as Song shows her prowess not only as a housekeeper and cook, but as a rider and rancher as well, Weston discovers that against his best efforts (and damned if he'll ever admit it) -- he's falling in love. The morning after the Christmas Cotillion, where cowboys by the dozen lined up for a dance with the exotic Song, and Weston wrangled the last one, she discovers her visa has expired. Pledging her Uncle Thieu's farm in Thailand as a dowry, Song asks Weston to marry her. Swearing that this is not a good idea at all -- he does. Song blossoms in America. Weston's sister Olive, a schoolteacher, helps Song with her English, and introduces her to the ideas of the Founding Fathers, most notably Tom Paine. Firebrand and activist Wynona employs Song in her office. Her first assignment is working with Shoshone shaman MAD BULL and Bull's young assistant, Jack Deerstalker as they fight a referendum that would allow gambling on their reservation. As winter melts into spring, Song and Weston continue to profess their marriage is simply one of convenience, though it is obvious to everybody that the two are in love. Obvious to everyone that is, but Jack Deerstalker who has fallen for her himself. One night as Weston returns earlier than expected from a rodeo, he finds Jack in his living room, alone with Song. Enraged, Weston explodes, throwing Jack out of the house. That night a fierce winter storm blows. The creek rises and floods, endangering thirty head of cattle caught on the other side. Song springs into action, riding side by side with Weston. When a baby calf slips into the icy creek, Song plunges in after it. Together, Weston and Song pull the animal free. Weston is knocked speechless by her bravery. Later, as he warms her by a roaring fire, Song and Weston make love for the first time. A few days later, Wynona and Song are introduced to the case of illegal immigrant Thai workers, forced to toil as slaves in the garment industry in El Segundo, California. Song becomes deeply involved with the workers and their plight – the search for a desperate promise of freedom. With her work, she discovers the power true freedom holds. But her work and growing sense of the true power of freedom begins to tear at the budding love between Weston and Song. Meanwhile, the referendum Jack, Wynona, and Song fought so hard against has been defeated. There will be no gambling on the reservation. Jack organizes a rodeo to raise money for an investment deal for the reservation. Weston agrees to ride – on one condition. Jack gets the bull, Baby Face that killed Cody.The night before the rodeo, Weston finds a letter Song has written to the garment workers she is helping. “We are, every one of us, entitled to a life with dignity. To life with honor. There are those who would attempt to steal our dignity, to seize our honor. But it is only when we allow this deepest core of our being to be ripped from us that we become enslaved. Remember, you, too, have been touched by God.”The next morning, Weston leaves for the rodeo without her. At the rodeo, in an eerie replay of Cody’s accident, the bull throws Weston. Song nurses Weston back to health, but still torn between freedom's power and her growing love, Song knows she must ultimately choose. Several weeks later, with Weston well on his way to mending, Song and Olive host a dinner party at Snowy Moon to celebrate Weston’s recovery. Along with Zeb, Jack Deerstalker and Mad Bull are there to join in the festivities. But in the middle of the revelry, the phone rings: it’s Jenny Chang and it’s about the case of the immigrant workers.Song knows she must go.The next day, Weston drives her to the train station.Returning to the ranch, Weston, still suffering from his injuries, limps painfully to the corral, and saddles up his horse. He rides across the rolling plains to the waterfall where he and Song had spent so much time in happier times now long gone by. Watching the water tumble by like his lost hope, suddenly, Weston picks up a stone, and fires it into the tumultuous fall. He whistles for his horse, and throws himself into the saddle.Across the plains, the train continues to roll. Inside, an uproar arises among the passengers. Song forces her way to the window. Outside, riding like hell, is Weston.Song’s heart begins to pound.And suddenly, she knows….Finally, she knows.Song grabs her suitcase, and elbows her way through the crowd.Before the train fully stops, she is bounding from the platform…and rushing into Weston’s arms.
Ice Hunt
James Rollins - 2003
The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible.But an American undersea research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close – and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law. And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives, and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel’s lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries – because the terrible truths locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel could end human life on Earth.
Invisible Monsters
Chuck Palahniuk - 1999
But when a sudden motor 'accident' leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful centre of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists.Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from being a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better, and that salvation hides in the last place you'll ever want to look.The narrator must exact revenge upon Evie, her best friend and fellow model; kidnap Manus, her two-timing ex-boyfriend; and hit the road with Brandy in search of a brand-new past, present and future.
Iola O
G.M. Monks - 2019
Iola meets Jim Lewis, who never served in the war but contributed in his own way to the war effort. They marry in post-war Philadelphia and raise a family against the backdrop of the paranoid era of McCarthyism. Their differences and a need for fulfillment propels them away from each other. Illicit liaisons and grief bring them life-changing insights.
White Oleander
Janet Fitch - 1999
Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes--each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned--becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.
Sometimes I Lie
Alice Feeney - 2017
There are three things you should know about me:1. I’m in a coma.2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.3. Sometimes I lie.
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?
The Last Juror
John Grisham - 2004
To the surprise and dismay of many, ownership was assumed by a 23-year-old college dropout, named Willie Traynor. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. Willie Traynor reported all the gruesome details, and his newspaper began to prosper.The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse in Clanton, Mississippi. The trial came to a startling and dramatic end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, life didn't necessarily mean life, and nine years later Danny Padgitt managed to get himself paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.