Book picks similar to
The Deed by Gerold Frank


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Finding Chandra: A True Washington Murder Mystery


Scott Higham - 2010
    And then the case went cold. By 2007, satellite trucks and reporters had long since abandoned the story of the congressman and the intern in search of other news, fresh scandals. Across the country, Chandra’s parents tried to resume their daily lives, desperately hoping that someday there might be a break in the investigation.And in Washington, the old game of who’s up and who’s down played on without interruption.But Chandra Levy haunted. Six years after the young intern’s disappearance, investigative editors of the Washington Post pitched two Pulitzer Prize– winning reporters their idea: Revisit the unsolved case and find out what happened to Chandra, a task that had eluded police and the FBI.Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz went to work. e result was a thirteen-part series in the Washington Post that focused on a prime suspect the police and the FBI had passed over years before. They had wrongly pursued Condit and chased numerous false leads, including a claim that Chandra had been kidnapped and taken to the Middle East.But the most likely culprit was far less glamorous: an immigrant from El Salvador, a young man in the clutches of alcohol, drugs, and violence who had been stalking the running paths of Rock Creek Park, assaulting female joggers at knifepoint. He had attacked again, even as the police and the press concentrated on a congressman romantically linked to the intern. Finding Chandra explores the bungled police efforts to locate the crime scene and catch a killer, the ambition and hubris of Washington’s power elite and press corps, the twisted culture of politics, the dark nature of political scandal, and the agony of parents struggling to comprehend the loss of a child. Above all, it is a quintessential portrait of a cast of outsiders who came to Washington with dreams of something better, only to be forever changed.

Slow Motion Riot


Peter Blauner - 1991
    A deranged young sociopath, one of the most bloodthirsty creations of a diseased society, Darryl has come to drag Baum along with him into an inescapable morass of terror and corruption. And as their ravaged city explodes, they will stand face-to-face - mortal enemies trapped together in the heart of a devastating inferno that threatens to consume them both.

Nightmare Seasons


Charles L. Grant - 1982
    Four Oxrun Station horror novellas each from a different 20th century decade starting with 1950, keyed to the seasons.

Merlin's Godson


H. Warner Munn - 1976
    Only a small band of loyal men were left, guided now by the magical wisdom of Merlin. United, they braved uncharted seas toward the mysterious Lands of the West. With them they carried the Thirteen Magic Treasures of Britain and the power of Merlin's Ring.Ahead of them lay unknown lands that offered lush wonders and ecstasies beyond their dreams and savage creatures that drove them into horrors beyond any nightmare.For Ventidius Varro, a Roman centurion who had given his service to Arthur, this was to be an odyssey of soul-stirring glory and heartbreaking discovery...an odyssey that would bring him the love of a beautiful woman and take away from him his son Gwalchmai.And before Gwalchmai, godson of Merlin, lay an even darker and more mysterious quest.Cover Illustration: Darrell Sweet

State of Siege


Janet Frame - 1989
    Her first night in the idyllic island retreat that is to be her new home is one of terror: a storm is raging, an intruder pounding on her door, and calls the police, the priest and the doctor over her still-unconnected telephone bring no result. This is the state of siege, painted in pigments of dark and light, the brush dipped in themes of selfhood and loneliness, of death and its counterpart, the need to survive, to live.

Mr. Wicker


Maria Alexander - 2014
    Located beyond life, The Library of Lost Childhood Memories holds the answer. The Librarian is Mr. Wicker—a seductive yet sinister creature with an unthinkable past and an agenda just as lethal. After committing suicide, Alicia finds herself before the Librarian, who informs her that her lost memory is not only the reason she took her life, but the cause of every bad thing that has happened to her. Alicia spurns Mr. Wicker and attempts to enter the hereafter without the Book that would make her spirit whole. But instead of the oblivion she craves, she finds herself in a psychiatric hold at Bayford Hospital, where the staff is more pernicious than its patients.Child psychiatrist Dr. James Farron is researching an unusual phenomenon: traumatized children whisper to a mysterious figure in their sleep. When they awaken, they forget both the traumatic event and the character that kept them company in their dreams—someone they call "Mr. Wicker."During an emergency room shift, Dr. Farron hears an unconscious Alicia talking to Mr. Wicker—the first time he's heard of an adult speaking to the presence. Drawn to the mystery, and then to each other, they team up to find the memory before it annihilates Alicia for good. To do so they must struggle not only against Mr. Wicker's passions, but also a powerful attraction that threatens to derail her search, ruin Dr. Farron’s career, and inflame the Librarian’s fury.After all, Mr. Wicker wants Alicia to himself, and will destroy anyone to get what he wants. Even Alicia herself.

Daemon Hall


Andrew Nance - 2007
    During a suspenseful night of tale-telling, strange incidents mix the realms of the real and the supernatural. What is Tremblin really up to, and can he be trusted? What about Daemon Hall--is it alive? And, more to the point, will any of the contestants make it out of this hall of horrors to tell their story?In the tradition of Stephen King, this chilling novel will have teen readers on edge in anticipation of what's to come with the next extinguished candle.

The Cold Spot


Tom Piccirilli - 2008
    But when Jonah crosses the line and murders one of his own, Chase goes solo, stealing cars and pulling scores across the country….And then he meets Lila, a strong-willed deputy sheriff with a beguiling smile who shows him what love can be. Chase is on the straight and narrow for the first time in his life—until tragedy hits, and he must reenter the dark world of grifters and crooks. Now Chase is out for revenge—and he’ll have to turn to the one man he hates most in the world. Only Jonah can teach Chase how to become a stone-cold killer. But even as the two men work together, Chase knows that their unresolved past will eventually lead them to a showdown of their own.

Rough Cider


Peter Lovesey - 1986
    in World War II England.“When I was nine, I fell in love with a girl of twenty called Barbara, who killed herself.”Theo, a university lecturer, has his early life brought uncomfortably back when, in 1964 he is approached by an American girl called Alice. She wants to be told about her father, a GI hanged for murder in Somerset during World War II. As a boy, Theo had been a principal witness for the prosecution.Alice persuades him to revisit the farm where Theo was evacuated. She is too young to have known her father, but is staunchly determined to discover the true facts. The horrors of the past take on a frightening immediacy when another murder is committed.

Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case


Allen Weinstein - 1978
    Hiss's defense was the most gripping story of its day, and the question of his guilt has remained an American enigma. Now, historian Allen Weinstein finally solves, once and for all, one of the great American mysteries. Weinstein also, for the first time ever, draws upon previously inaccessible information from Soviet archives. The result is an extraordinary book that leaves anyone who reads it with one inescapable conclusion: Alger Hiss was guilty.

The Librarian


Larry Beinhart - 2004
    But Goldberg's appointment worries a cabal of ruthless right-wingers -- ostensibly allies of Stowe, whose money lubricates their zany scary conspiracies -- with very close ties to the White House. They fear that Goldberg will find something in Stowe's records that will compromise the dirty tricks involved in re-electing Augustus Winthrop Scott, the dim scion of a powerful Republican political family, for a second term. As the presidential election heads into its final stretch, the hunt is on to remove Goldberg from his position -- by any means necessary. The acclaimed, Edgar-winning mystery writer Larry Beinhart returns with this timely novel. In the tradition of Carl Hiassen, Elmore Leonard, and Joe Klein, The Librarian is a frenetic, scary and hilarious thriller that goes deep into the dark heart of election year politics.

Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John Gotti and His Gang


John Cummings - 1990
    . . and has never been convicted of racketeering, drug-trafficking or murder.Prize-winning journalists John Cummings and Ernest Volkman's shocking true account of the brutal and meteoric rise of John "Johhny Boy" Gotti from Brooklyn "bone-breaker" to lord of the Gambino Family -- a riveting exploration into the the bloody machinery of La Cosa Nostra operating on the dark side of the American dream.

The Best of L. Sprague de Camp


L. Sprague de Camp - 1978
    This contains: Hyperpilosity; Language for Time Travelers; The Command; The Merman; Employment; The Gnarly Man; Reward of Virtue; Nothing in the Rules; The Hardwood Pile; The Reluctant Shaman; The Inspector's Teeth; The Ameba; The Guided Man; Judgment Day; A Gun for Dinosaur; The Emperor's Fan; Two Yards of Dragon; and The Little Green Men.

The Avram Davidson Treasury: A Tribute Collection


Avram Davidson - 1998
    He was erudite, cranky, Jewish, wildly creative, and sold most of his wonderful stories to pulp magazines. They are wonderful.Now his estate and his friends have brought together a definitive collection of his finest work, each story introduced by an SF luminary: writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Poul Anderson, Gene Wolfe, Guy Davenport, Peter S. Beagle, Gregory Benford, Thomas M. Disch, and dozens of others. This is a volume every lover of fantasy will need to own.

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 69


Neil Clarke - 2012
    Catherine ToblerNON-FICTION"Energizing Futures: How SF Fuels Itself" by Stephen Gaskell"Neither the Billionaire nor the Tramp: Economics in Speculative Fiction" by Jeremy L. C. Jones"Another Word: Assimilation, Multiculturalism, and Me" by Daniel Abraham"Editor's Desk: Clarkesworld by the Numbers" by Neil Clarke