Showing results by author "Thomas Cook" in All Categories

Delve into the mystical worlds of Celtic enchantment, the heroic sagas of Bulfinch's lore, the enigmatic tales of Slavic spirits, the celestial dances of Japanese deities, the profound fables of Turkish origins, the creation epics of Sumerian and Mesopotamian civilizations, the rich tapestry of Native American heritage, and the captivating chronicles from the Filipino archipelago.

It was not a clever killing. On May 5, 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison and disappeared. Joined by a 15-year-old brother, they surfaced in Georgia, where they were spotted joyriding in a stolen car. Within a week, the four young men were arrested on suspicion of committing one of the most horrific murders in American history. Jerry Alday and his family were eating Sunday dinner when death burst through the door of their cozy little trailer. Their six bodies are only the beginning of Thomas H. Cook's retelling of this gruesome story.

In Red Leaves, Edgar Award-winning author Thomas H. Cook pens a compelling tale of suspicion and its corrosive effects on a family. When a little girl is missing on the morning after his teenaged son baby-sits for her, Eric Moore watches his world crumble as suspicion falls on his son. Although Eric hires a lawyer to prepare his son’s defense, a haunting thought slithers into his mind. What if he has been nurturing a monstrous fiend?

On a rainy night in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen, a woman throws a doll from the fifth-floor window of a gutted tenement, then leaps herself. From his own apartment a few blocks away, freelance photographer David Corman listens to the radio reports as they come over his headset. Corman is a man at the edge, threatened with eviction, besieged by his wife’s attempt to regain custody of their daughter, yet reluctant to give up the life that permits him to roam the night. In the woman’s dying fall, he sees the chance to sell a story....

Thirteen bibliomysteries by best-selling and award-winning authors are contained in this first of volume of a must-listen collection.

Samuel Madison always wondered what Sandrine saw in him, he a meek, stuffy doctorate student and she a brilliant, beautiful bohemian with limitless talent and imagination. Yet on the surface their marriage seemed perfectly tranquil: jobs at a small liberal arts college, a precocious young daughter, a home filled with art and literature, and trips to some of the world’s most beautiful places. Then one night Sandrine is found dead in their bed from a deadly overdose of pain medication and alcohol, and Samuel is accused of poisoning her.

One day in 1952, the strangled body of 10-year-old Cathy Lake is discovered in a public park. A homeless suspect, Albert Jay Smalls, is arrested and held for interrogation. Now, Officers Norman Cohen and Jack Pierce have only 24 hours to make the sullen young man talk before he's released. How far are they willing to push him to get a confession?

Evil has a way of finding itself. How else could you explain the bond between Alvin and Judith Ann Neelley, who consecrated their marriage in blood? Before the killings started, they restricted themselves to simple mischief: prank calls, vandalism, firing guns at strangers' houses. Gradually their ambition grew, until one day at the Riverbend Mall in Rome, Georgia, they spotted Lisa Ann Millican.

The sleek high-rises of Park Avenue make Frank Clemons uneasy. The former Atlanta homicide detective came to New York after a sickening murder case soured him on the South, but despite the glitz and excitement of his new surroundings and the beauty of the woman he shares them with, the city makes his skin crawl. Now a private eye, he is only at ease in the city's darker corners, among the whores, gamblers, and pimps who call Eighth Avenue home. That affinity for the socially isolated is what draws him to the case of Hannah Karlsberg, an elderly seamstress who deserved a better death than she got.

This quartet of crime stories about deadly books, penned by award-winning contemporary mystery writers, includes The Little Men, What's in a Name?, The Book of the Lion, and From the Queen.

The first case is simple. A wealthy man’s wife has grown distant, and he asks Frank Clemons, a private eye hardened by his past work on Atlanta’s homicide beat, to find out why. There are a number of simple reasons why a young woman might withdraw from her older husband, but the spurned spouse rejects them all. Her jewelry is disappearing, but he insists that she doesn’t have trouble with blackmail, drugs, or gambling. The answer must be more complex, and he begs Frank to find out what it is.

Blood seeps into the gutters at the Children's Zoo in Central Park. Two deer have been slaughtered, one stabbed fifty-seven times and the other slashed across the neck. Normally it would be a case for the Parks Department, but these are no ordinary deer. The pride of the small menagerie, they were given to the zoo by a prominent socialite who cannot afford bloody headlines. The NYPD hands the case to Detective Reardon, star of the homicide squad. A recent widower at fifty-six, Reardon has seen too many human victims to care much about the two butchered animals.

As lawyer Henry Griswald draws up an aging client’s will, he reflects on a series of events in 1926-1927 that shattered the peace of his boyhood community. Griswald, then a student at the school where his father was headmaster, witnessed a passion that would change him forever. At the heart of Griswald’s reverie lies a mystery only he can solve. What really happened at Black Pond—a tragedy that eventually destroyed five lives?

Août 1926. Chatham, Nouvelle-Angleterre : son église, son port de pêche et son école de garçons fondée par Arthur Griswald qui la dirige avec probité. L'arrivée à Chatham School de la belle Mlle Channing, prof d'arts plastiques, paraît anodine en soi, mais un an plus tard, dans cette petite ville paisible, il y aura eu plusieurs morts. Henry, le fils adolescent de Griswald, est vite fasciné par celle qui l'encourage à "vivre ses passions jusqu'au bout". L'idéal de vie droite et conventionnelle que prône son père lui semble désormais un carcan.

Thomas Danforth has lived a fortunate life. The son of a wealthy importer, he traveled the world in his youth, and now, in his twenties, he lives in New York City and runs the family business. It is 1939, and the world is on the brink of war, but Danforth's life is untroubled, his future assured. Then, on a snowy evening walk along Gramercy Park, a friend poses a fateful question. As it turns out, this friend has a dangerous idea that can change the world.

Crazy stories from Tom and Steve with guests that make people realize maybe thier life's aren't as crazy as they once thought.

Angelica, dix-huit ans, était la plus jolie fille d'Atlanta. Maintenant, elle gît dans un terrain vague et Frank Clemons, inspecteur alcoolique et divorcé, pense en voyant son corps à celui de sa propre fille, suicidée trois ans plus tôt. Cette enquête sera sa rédemption. Mais très vite, les questions surgissent : de quoi Angelica est-elle morte ? De qui était-elle enceinte ? Que cherchait-elle dans les galeries d'art un peu louches de la ville ? Et pour Frank, le mystère Angelica devient une obsession...

Lorsque Lola Faye surgit devant Luke pour lui faire signer un de ses livres, il panique. Que lui veut cette femme, responsable à ses yeux du drame de sa jeunesse ? Luke allait partir pour l'université quand le mari jaloux de Lola a abattu son père. Ce meurtre a précipité la mort de sa mère dépressive et ruiné ses propres ambitions. Sa conversation avec Lola va éclairer le passé d'un jour nouveau.

Over his acclaimed career, Cook’s novels have haunted, riveted, and spellbound audiences across the world, and his short stories are equally acclaimed. They range from the intensely focused world of "Fatherhood", the Herodotus prize-winning title story, to the Edgar nominated "Rain", a dark, kaleidoscopic tale of Manhattan on a single, rain-swept night. "The Fix", the story of a famous boxing fix that was, well, not a fix at all, was selected for inclusion in Best Mystery Stories of the Year. "What She Offered", the gripping tale of a one-night stand, was included in The Best Noir Stories of the Century.

When the body of famed true-crime writer Julian Wells is found in a boat drifting on a Montauk pond, the question isn't how he died, but why. The death looks like an obvious suicide, but why would Wells take his own life? And was this his only crime? Wells' best friend, Philip Anders, wants to know more. His first clue is an Argentinean crime, which may have been Wells' last book idea. As Anders gathers the missing parts of Wells' life, the man he knew - or thought he knew - becomes increasingly obscured.