She was young, she was rich, and also, since last night, she was missing. But the big story was her father. Darius Brunner II was dead, his handsome, graying head considerably battered by the violent application of a fireplace poker and the study of his fashionable lakeshore apartment thereby tra...
Johnson to the air strip was an aging Volvo. There was no commercial airport. The strip was improvised in a wide meadow that had serviced military transports in past campaigns. Two planes were on the ground when they arrived: the larger transport from Athens and a smaller cabin job from Corfu. In...
And she was right—he was in a state of nerves. He was perched on the edge of one of the lounge chairs when Lisa and Johnny came through the French windows. He came to his feet at the sight of them and stood with his back to the cold fireplace. The hat in his hands was well on its way to acquiring...
announce his return. Hannah’s light was visible from the driveway, and the chimes were one of the touches Simon had added to the mansion to brighten the dull declining years of a gallant lady. He found her upstairs at the card table with a ream of yellow sheets spread out before her and a collect...
These streets possessed no historic architecture or scenic glory, but let a crime catch the fancy of the public and strange things happen. They were happening when Mitch parked his car as close as he could get to Virginia Wales’s house and made his way up the cracked and wavy sidewalk. Culture ha...
Inside the doorway, he paused to glance at his wristwatch. He was a few minutes early and was about to look for a telephone to call Hannah at the beach when a porter in a mandarin-type jacket approached. “Please, you are Simon Drake?” Simon looked surprised and the porter’s face expanded in a wid...
There was nothing alive about her but her eyes. They were greedy for understanding. “Jaime,” she said, “put that poker down.” It was a sensible thing to say. Jaime didn’t expect it. He lowered his arm and let the poker slip from his fingers to the floor. “You’ve made such a mess,” she added. “Loo...
It plunges through a black abyss; it writhes; it twists in the descent and then, gradually, small bits of reason perforate the chaos like tiny lights in the darkness. Kyle’s foot eased off the accelerator; he pulled to the curb and stopped. He began to gather thoughts and assemble them one after ...
Lieutenant Job Rickey, still wearing tweeds, sat behind his desk in the La Verde courthouse and explained the slashing of the upholstery in Monterey’s rented Ford in one flat, unimaginative word. The word would look fine on an insurance claim, but Simon wasn’t an insurance agent in La Verde; he w...