Speak of the Devil by Richard Hawke

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"From first line to last, Speak of the Devil moves with a rare combination of intrigue and intensity. Its engine runs on high octane adrenalin. Richard Hawke delivers a winner."
--Michael Connelly
It's a beautiful Thanksgiving morning in New York City. Perfect day for a parade, and Fritz Malone just happens to have drifted up Central Park West to take a look at the floats. Across the crowd-filled street he sees a gunman on a low wall, taking aim with a shiny black Beretta. Seconds later, the air is filled with bullets and blood.
Fritz isn't one to stand around and watch. A child of Hell's Kitchen and the bastard son of a beloved former police commissioner, Fritz is all too familiar with the city's rougher side. As the gunman flees into the park, Fritz runs after him. What he doesn't know is that he is also running into one of the most shocking and treacherous episodes of his life.
Though Fritz assumed that chasing down bad guys is perfectly legal, the cops hustle him from the scene and deliver him to the office of the current commissioner, who informs Fritz that someone dubbed "Nightmare" has been taunting the city's leaders for weeks, warning of an imminent attack on the citizenry. What's worse, Nightmare has already let the officials know that the parade gunman was a mere foot soldier and that there's more carnage to come unless the city meets his impossible demands. The pols don't dare share this information with anyone-not even the NYPD. What they need for this job is an outside man. And in Fritz they think they've got one.
Racing against the tightest of clocks, Fritz finds himself confounded by Nightmare's multiple masks and messengers. The killer issimultaneously everywhere and nowhere. But as Fritz's frantic investigation takes him from a convent in the Bronx to a hookers' haven in central Brooklyn, the story behind the story-complete with wicked secrets on both sides of the law-begins to emerge. As Fritz zeroes in on the terrible, gruesome truth, the killer retaliates by making things personal, forcing Fritz to grapple with his deepest fear: sometimes nightmares really do come true.
In his brilliantly paced and stunningly original debut, Richard Hawke delivers a tale of flawed and unforgettable people operating at the ends of their ropes. It's literary suspense that doesn't let go until the last page.

Foreign Expressions

Translation to English of many common expressions in other languages.:

Translation to English of many common expressions in other languages.

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From Uncommon-Knowledge-Dept.

Saying the right thing, at the right time... PRICELESS!

Jack wakes up with a huge hangover the night after a business function.

He forces himself to open his eyes and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose!

Jack sits up in bed and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed.

Jack looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror and notices a note on the table:
"Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to go shopping - Love you!!"

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating. Jack asks, "Son...what happened last night?"

"Well, you came home after 3 am, drunk and out of your mind. You broke the coffee table, puked in the hallway and got that black eye when you ran into the door."


So, why is everything in such perfect order, so clean, I have a rose and breakfast is on the table waiting for me?"

His son replies, "Oh, THAT!...Mom dragged you to the bedroom and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed, "Leave me alone, bitch, I'm married!!!".

Broken table - $200
Hot breakfast - $5
Red Rose bud - $3
Two aspirins - $0.25
Saying the right thing, at the right time... PRICELESS!


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Night Bus by Rigosi, Giampiero

The Ethical Assassin by David Liss

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Edgar award-winning author of the popular historical novels A Conspiracy of Paper and A Spectacle of Corruption, David Liss showcases his amazing versatility with this brilliant new tale of contemporary suspense: a literary thriller set in Florida, where killing is a matter of conscience.

No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he's actually good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple whom Lem has spent hours pitching is shot dead before his eyes, and the unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of conspiracy and murder. Not just murder: assassination- or so claims the killer, the mysterious and strangely charismatic Melford Kean, who has struck without remorse and with remarkable good cheer. But the self-styled ethical assassin hadn't planned on a witness, and so he makes Lem a deal: Stay quiet and there will be no problems. Go to the police and take the fall.

Before Lem can decide, he is drawn against his will into the realm of the assassin, a post-Marxist intellectual with whom he forms an unlikely (and perhaps unwise) friendship. The ethical assassin could be a charming sociopath, eco-activist, or vigilante for social justice. To unravel the mystery and save himself, Lem must descend deep into a bizarre world he never knew existed, where a group of desperate-and genuinely deranged-schemers have hatched a plan that will very likely keep Lem from leaving town alive.

Cold in the Heads by Gerald Hammond

Dusty Death by J. M. Gregson

FROM THE PUBLISHER
Chief Inspector Peach finds the memories of squatters hard to budge Everyone in Brunton is happy to see the decaying, uninhabitable terraced houses of the old cotton town finally demolished to make way for a new industrial development. Happy, that is, until the clearance reveals a grisly secret. As the bulldozers level the site and the old walls are toppled, a decaying arm appears among the debris, raised aloft to the heavens, as if beseeching justice. The corpse gradually acquires an identity, and it seems that this woman lived out the last months of her life as a squatter in one of the derelict houses. DCI Peach discovers a nun, a concert pianist and other, less savoury, characters who were among the victim's companions at that time. But he finds their memories are not easily stirred about things they would rather forget.

Death Without Trace by Gerard Murphy

FROM THE PUBLISHER
It is a dark December evening and Michael A. Madigan, brewery foreman and part-time private investigator, is raging at the world. Recently separated he desperately needs to brighten up the mid-winter days. So when the sexy wife of a professor of neurobiology asks him to tail her husband, Madigan agrees. Before long he is out of his depth in the dirty underworld of serious crime. Murder is a matter of course and Madigan is on a hit list. But how far will Madigan go to expose the truth?

Bloody Mary by J.A. Konrath

FROM THE PUBLISHER
In Bloody Mary, J. A. Konrath's second mystery, Lieutenant Jacqueline (Jack) Daniels deals with a serial killer who is dismembering women in Chicago, her mother who has shown up to live with her, and her ex-husband who has reappeared.

The Moon Tunnel by Jim Kelly

FROM THE PUBLISHER
"In the past. A man crawls desperately through a claustrophobic escape tunnel beneath a POW camp in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Above, a shadow passes across the moon, while ahead only death awaits him." "In the present. Philip Dryden is reporting on an archaeological dig at the old POW camp when a body is uncovered. But there is something odd: the man appears to have been shot in the head and the position indicates that he was trying to get into the camp, not escape it." It's a puzzle which excites Dryden far more than the archaeologists or the police. That is, until a second, more recent body is discovered.

Blogthings - What Donut Are You?

You Are a Boston Creme Donut

You have a tough exterior. No one wants to mess with you. But on the inside, you're a total pushover and completely soft. You're a traditionalist, and you don't change easily. You're likely to eat the same doughnut every morning, and pout if it's sold out.

What Donut Are You?

Blogthings - What Donut Are You?
--
From Silly-Tests-dept.