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Archive for the ‘Book and Author News’ Category
Free Issues of Suspense Magazine
On August - 5 - 2010
Free Kindle Download
On December - 18 - 2009
ABINGDON PRESS CELEBRATES THE PRAYERS OF AGNES SPARROW BEING NAMED BEST CHRISTIAN FICTION BOOK OF 2009 WITH FREE KINDLE OFFER!
NASHVILLE— Abingdon Press is excited to announce that The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow has been named by Library Journal as one of the “Best Christian Fiction Books of 2009.” In celebration of this award, The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow is being promoted for a FREE Kindle download throughout week of December 14th-18th on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Prayers-Agnes-Sparrow-ebook/dp/B002MH4A14/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260908267&sr=8-3)
“What can I say? This is something I’ve wanted since I was 9 years old. To be so well received by such a prestigious magazine is an honor as well as to be ranked among the company I was in” says author, Joyce Magnin.
After reading just a few pages of this quirky-zany debut novel, readers will find themselves laughing and crying their way through the small town of Bright’s Pond, while experiencing the miracle of God’s love and grace!
An exciting time for debut author, Joyce Magnin, her title continues to receive rave reviews from fans and fiction newcomers alike. With another title releasing in the fall of 2010 with Abingdon Press, Magnin is anxious to see how the story of Anges Sparrow will continue to inspire others.
“I’m thrilled the response to the Kindle offer has been so amazing. To me, it’s an additional way the message of Agnes can get into the hands of people it otherwise may not.”
The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow continues to climb the Amazon rankings at #5 in Kindle stores and #4 in Christian fiction books.
For more information visit www.abingdonpress.com or contact Maegan Roper at mroper@umpublishing.org
###
Abingdon Press fiction includes stories of faith, hope, and love which explore the gray areas of life—situations that seemingly have no clear-cut solutions. These stories strive to illuminate the human condition and express God’s enduring love and grace for all. Abingdon Press also publishes resources for church leaders, scholars, and students engaged in leading congregations and theological education, and inspirational books and study materials that reach a broad audience. Abingdon resources are available in Christian and general bookstores and from many online book sellers.
Wholesale customers can purchase direct from Abingdon Press or through most wholesale distributors.
Win a Copy of Her Fearful Symmetry
On October - 27 - 2009
Facebook Special Offer
for
Her Fearful Symmetry
by Audrey Niffenegger
We’re at it again! Regal Literary has 25 hardcover and 10 Advanced Reader’s Copies of Her Fearful Symmetry ready to go to the book’s Facebook fans. All you have to do is become a fan of Her Fearful Symmetry on Facebook, send an e-mail to hfs@regal-literary.com with the subject “Facebook Special Offer – I’m a fan!” by November 13, and we’ll enter you into the lottery.
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Haunt of Jackals Excerpt- Prologue
On August - 14 - 2009
Prologue
July 1944—Pisa, Italy
One corpse was all he wanted.
Here in Galileo’s birthplace, a stone’s throw from the renowned Leaning Tower, marble walkways covered hundreds of skeletons in their tombs. Gothic traceries graced the moon-splashed cloister, and vast frescoes peered through open arches at an inner lawn.
The Collector hovered over the courtyard as he had countless nights before. Even now, the remains he desired laid trapped deep beneath the soil of el camposanto.
Campo Santo: the Holy Field.
Seven centuries earlier, Knights Templar had carted shiploads of earth here from Jerusalem, inadvertently transporting bones from the first century AD as well. The mixture of lime and clay was said to disintegrate dead bodies quickly, and in fact the Templars had built a structure in Jerusalem for just that purpose. The ruins of their charnel house still clung to the slopes of the Akeldama, the Field of Blood. Site of Judas Iscariot’s death.
So it was, from one field to another, the fabled dirt had come. And Pisan dignitaries paid exorbitant sums to be buried in the Campo Santo, trusting the imported soil to hasten their steps through the pearly gates.
Only death could reveal the validity of those hopes.
A low drone now disrupted the courtyard’s stillness, and the Collector came to attention. Was this it, at last? For ages he’d waited, a mere vapor, cut off from the eighteen others in his cluster. Like Collectors everywhere, he had been stripped of his physical senses by the Separation, a punishment triggered by the defiance of the Master Collector.
Master, may you ever walk free of blame.
He knew, though, that a host—whether man or beast—could provide him access to eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and skin; and in the past, he’d found willing vessels for his carnal pursuits. It was through their senses he had familiarized himself with Pisa and this Tuscan countryside.
Of course, none of them could equal his current host of choice.
Natira, son of Lord Ariston. A warrior.
His bones, drenched in Judas’ profane blood, were the ones unwittingly barreled and shipped to these distant shores.
Again, the Collector detected vibrations in the atmosphere. This time he could not mistake the rumble of approaching Allied planes. He’d most recently inhabited Nazi Doktor Ubelhaar, and through the man’s eyes marveled at such airborne contraptions. This instant, however, his Separated state allowed him to see only shadows passing across the moon, then objects dropping, erupting across the city in earth-shaking concussions.
Even as flashes of light strafed his monochromatic vision, he filled in the blanks from memory: red-yellow bursts of flame, scorching heat, and bodies split apart like rotten tree stumps.
Yes, these flying machines had been turned into instruments of war. Surely Collectors of Souls had inspired such banality.
To feed, breed, persuade, and possess . . . These were the Collectors’ goals, wherever they roamed, and tonight there would be feedings across this land, sustenance gained by unnatural means.
Another machine droned overhead. More droppings.
Wrapped around an arch’s mullions, the lone Collector waited. He was powerless to manipulate the physical world, forced to rely on the whims of mankind to unearth the corpse deep beneath this Holy Field.
Please, let this be the night.
His wish was granted with the third wave of bombers.
The explosion tore across the Campo Santo and sent him reeling through the ether. A blaze galloped along the cloister roof and turned its surface into molten lead. Artwork bubbled and seethed on the arcade walls. Considered by many to be the world’s most beautiful cemetery, the place was becoming a funeral pyre.
As swirling winds lowered him back to ground level, he had little time to savor the irony that a gruesome fresco, The Triumph of Death, had been devastated in only minutes. No, his focus was on the courtyard.
On the dark chasm in the dirt.
On Israeli bones that seemed to glow in this Italian firelight.
The Collector slithered toward the raw wound in the Campo Santo’s lawn. He settled over Natira’s exposed remains, conjuring forces locked in the dormant bloodstains.
Was there anything here? Anyone?
Ah, yes.
A feather of malice tickled the femur, stirring a reaction. A hip bone tumbled over clods of dirt, joined moments later by a pelvis. The Collector seeped into the gathering frame. Sipped of its marrow. Began drawing from the recollections of his soon-to-be-undead habitation.
Not long and he would rise again, stitched together with skin and tissue, infused with the nature of his progenitor.
Master, may the same spirit that cursed the Nazarene dwell in me.
***
Activated by the Collector within, Natira stumbled past the Romanesque cathedral toward the Arno River. First he needed something to wet his parched throat, and then he would join the Nazis in fleeing this attack. All around, others were scurrying through the bombardment’s aftermath, and a wheeled vehicle, a U.S. Army Jeep, raced into the square through the Porta di Santa Maria.
These observations passed effortlessly between Collector and host. An excellent sign. Already they were working as one.
Natira continued forward. A fleeing BMW motorcycle squealed around a corner, its sidecar painted with the symbol of the German Wehrmacht. Perhaps he could catch a ride, perhaps find his way back to the pliable Nazi doctor.
This was a strange new world, and the rush of details disoriented him.
Where was his family? Had they already inhabited Jerusalemite hosts, or was he the first to have risen from that tainted dirt?
He stepped around a crater in the road and found his senses overwhelmed by strewn bodies and the odors of smoke and burnt flesh.
Mmm. Yes.
His tongue swelled with hunger.
A hand touched his naked shoulder and he pivoted toward a woman in a white outfit. Was that a red cross on her cap? Why wear such a symbol? For Natira it triggered images of Roman torture and crucifixion.
“Dear heart,” the woman said, “you need help.”
Aided by the Collector, he managed to grasp her meaning, yet his mouth was too dry to respond. He needed a drink. Just one.
“Can you hear me?” she said.
He stared at the throbbing vein in her neck.
“Oh, I bet you were near the blast, weren’t you? And look at you, without any clothes.” Her hand moved down his arm. “I think you’re in shock. Do you feel pain in your ribs, dear? Were you caught beneath the rubble?”
Natira studied his chest and noted a long diagonal scar as well as an odd sunken area, results of old battle wounds. What was this, though? His right hand was a giant pincer, bearing only a pinkie finger and thumb. Apparently, some of his bones had gone missing between the Akeldama and Campo Santo. No wonder his breathing felt irregular—if, indeed, breathing was what this was called. More like the fanning of air over stale bones.
“Please,” the nurse said. “Come along, and let me help you.”
Natira stiffened with desire.
“But we can’t dally. You’re not the only one who needs taken care of.”
Natira felt certain he could take care of himself. His lips curled back, making room for crooked incisors that jutted from tender gums. She was right. He should not delay this any longer.
Driven by thirst, he drew her into an embrace and drained her dry.
Vanished Excerpt- Chapter 2
On August - 7 - 2009
An excerpt from
VANISHED
By Joseph Finder
Chapter Two
Washington
Ithink I saw her eyelids move.”
A woman’s voice, distant and echoing, which worked itself into the fevered illogic of a dream.
Everything deep orange, the color of sunset. Murmured voices; a steady high- pitched beep.
Her eyelids wouldn’t open. It felt as if her eyelashes had been glued together. Against the blood orange sky, stars rushed at her. She was falling headlong through a sky crowded with stars. They dazzled and clotted into oddshaped white clouds, and then the light became harsh and far too strong and needles of pain jabbed the backs of her eyeballs.
Her eyelashes came unstuck and fluttered like a bird’s wings. More high- pitched electronic beeps. Not regular anymore, but jumbled, a cacophony.
A man’s voice: “Let’s check an ionized calcium.”
A clattering of something— dishes? Footsteps receding.
The man again: “Nurse, did that gas come back?”
The husky voice of the first woman: “Janet, can you page Yurovsky now, please?”
Lauren said, “You don’t have to shout.”
“She made a sound. Janet, would you please page Yurovsky now?”
She tried again to speak, but then gave up the effort, let her eyelids close, the lashes gumming back together. The needles receded. She became aware of another kind of pain, deep and throbbing, at the back of her head. It pulsed in time to her heartbeat, rhythmically sending jagged waves of pain to a little spot just behind her forehead and above her eyes.
“Ms. Heller,” said the man, “if you can hear me, say something, will you?”
“What do you want, I’m shouting!” Lauren said at the top of her voice.
“Now I see it,” one of the female voices said. “Like she’s trying to talk. I don’t know what she said.”
“I think she said ‘Ow.’ ”
“The doctor’s on rounds right now,” one of the women said.
“I don’t care what he’s doing.” The husky- voiced woman. “I don’t care if he’s in the medical supply closet screwing a nurse. If you don’t page him right this second, I will.”
Lauren smiled, or at least she thought she did. She felt a hard pinch on her neck.
“Hey!” she protested.
Her eyelids flew open. The light was unbearably bright, just as painful, but everything was gauzy and indistinct, like a white scrim over everything. She wondered whether she’d fallen back asleep for several hours.
A hulking silhouette loomed, came close, then pulled back.
A male voice: “Well, she’s responding to painful stimuli.”
Yeah, I’ll show you a painful stimulus, Lauren thought but couldn’t say.
Actually, two silhouettes, she realized. She couldn’t focus, though.
Everything was strangely hazy, like every time you saw Lucille Ball in that dreadful movie version of Mame. Lauren had played the snooty Gloria Upson in the Charlottesville High School production of Auntie Mame, and she’d seen the Rosalind Russell movie countless times, but couldn’t stand the Lucy one.
“Mrs. Heller, I’m Dr. Yurovsky. Can you hear me?”
Lauren considered replying, then decided not to bother. Too much effort.
The words weren’t coming out the way she wanted.
“Mrs. Heller, if you can hear me, I’d like you to wiggle your right thumb.”
That she definitely didn’t feel like doing. She blinked a few times, which cleared her vision a little.
Finally, she was able to see a man with a tall forehead and long chin, elongated like the man in the moon. Or like a horse. The face came slowly into focus, as if someone were turning a knob. A hooked nose, receding hair. His face was tipped in toward hers. He wore a look of intent concern.
She wiggled her right thumb.
“Mrs. Heller, do you know where you are?”
She tried to swallow, but her tongue was a big woolen sock. No saliva.
My breath must reek, she thought.
“I’m guessing it’s a hospital.” Her voice was croaky.
She looked up. A white dropped ceiling with a rust stain on one of the panels, which didn’t inspire confidence. Blue privacy curtains hung from a U-shaped rail. She wasn’t in a private room. Some kind of larger unit, with a lot of beds: an ICU, maybe. A bag of clear liquid sagged on a metal stand, connected by a tube to her arm.
An immense bouquet of white lilies in a glass florist’s vase on the narrow table next to her bed. She craned her neck just enough to see they were calla lilies, her favorites. A lightning bolt of pain shot through her eyes. She groaned as she smiled.
“From Roger?”
A long pause. Someone whispered something. “From your boss.”
Leland, she thought, smiling inwardly. That’s just like him. She wondered who had ordered the flowers for him.
And how he knew what had happened to her.
She adjusted the thin blanket. “My head hurts,” she said. She felt something lumpy under the blanket, on top of her belly. Pulled it out. A child’s Beanie Baby: a yellow giraffe with orange spots and ugly Day- Glo green feet. It was tattered and soiled. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Your son dropped that off this morning,” a woman said in a soft, sweet voice.
She turned. A nurse. She thought: This morning? That meant it wasn’t morning anymore. She was confused; she’d lost all track of time. Gabe’s beloved Jaffee— as a toddler, he couldn’t say “Giraffiti,” the name printed on the label. Actually, neither could she. Too cute by half.
“Where is he?”
“Your son is fine, Mrs. Heller.”
“Where is he?”
“I’m sure he’s at home in bed. It’s late.”
“What—time is it?”
“It’s two in the morning.”
She tried to look at the nurse, but turning her head escalated the pain to a level nearly unendurable. How long had she been out? She remembered glancing at her watch just before Roger got back to the car, seeing 10:28. Almost ten thirty at night on Friday. The attack came not long after that. She tried to do the math. Four hours? Less: three and a half?
Lauren drew breath. “Wait— when did Gabe come by? You said— you said, ‘this morning’— but what time is it—?”
“As I said, just after two in the morning.”
“On Saturday?”
“Sunday. Sunday morning, actually. Or Saturday night, depending on how you look at it.”
Her brain felt like sludge, but she knew the nurse had to be wrong.
“Saturday morning, you mean.”
The nurse shook her head, then looked at the horse- faced doctor, who said, “You’ve been unconscious for more than twenty- four hours. Maybe longer. It would help us if you knew approximately what time the attack took place.”
“Twenty- four . . . hours? Where’s— where’s Roger?”
“Looks like you got a nasty blow to the back of the head,” the doctor said. “From everything we’ve seen, you haven’t sustained any injuries beyond a small spiral fracture at the base of the skull. The CT scan doesn’t show any hematomas or blood clots. You were extremely lucky.”
I guess it depends on your definition of luck. She recalled Roger’s panicked face. The arms grabbing her from behind. His scream: “Why her?”
“Is Roger okay?”
Silence.
“Where’s Roger?”
No reply.
She felt the cold tendrils of fear in her stomach.
“Where is he? Is Roger okay or not?”
“A couple of policemen came by to talk to you,” he said. “But you don’t have to talk to anyone until you feel up to it.”
“The police?” Tears welled in her eyes. “Oh, dear God, what happened to him?”
A long pause.
“Oh, God, no,” Lauren said. “Tell me he’s okay.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Heller,” the doctor said.
“What? Please, God, tell me he’s alive!”
“I wish I could, Ms. Heller. But we don’t know where your husband is.”
VANISHED. Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Finder. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010.
Vanished Excerpt- Chapter 1
On August - 4 - 2009
An excerpt from
VANISHED
By Joseph Finder
CHAPTER ONE
Los angeles
It was a dark and stormy night.
Actually, it wasn’t stormy. But it was dark and rainy and miserable and, for L.A., pretty damned cold. I stood in the drizzle at eleven o’clock at night, under the sickly yellow light from the high- pressure sodium lamps, wearing a fleece and jeans that were soaking wet and good leather shoes that were in the pro cess of getting destroyed.
I’d had the shoes handmade in London for some ridiculous amount of money, and I made a mental note to bill my employer, Stoddard Associates, for the damage, just on general principle.
I hadn’t expected rain. Though, as a putatively high- powered international investigator with a reputation for being able to see around corners, I supposed I could have checked Weather .com.
“That’s the one,” the man standing next to me grunted, pointing at a jet parked a few hundred feet away. He was wearing a long yellow rain slicker with a hood— he hadn’t offered me one back in the office— and his face was concealed by shadows. All I could see was his bristly white mustache.
Elwood Sawyer was the corporate security director of Argon Express Cargo, a competitor of DHL and FedEx, though a lot smaller. He wasn’t happy to see me, but I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to be here myself. My boss, Jay Stoddard, had sent me here at the last minute to handle an emergency for a new client I’d never heard of.
An entire planeload of cargo had vanished sometime in the last twenty- four hours. Someone had cleaned out one of their planes at this small regional airport south of L.A. Twenty thousand pounds of boxes and envelopes and packages that had arrived the previous day from Brussels. Gone.
You couldn’t even begin to calculate the loss. Thousands of missing packages meant thousands of enraged customers and lawsuits up the wazoo. A part of the shipment belonged to one customer, Traverse Development Group, which had hired my firm to locate their cargo. They were urgent about it, and they weren’t going to rely on some second- string cargo company to find it for them.
But the last thing Elwood Sawyer wanted was some high- priced corporate investigator from Washington, D.C., standing there in a pair of fancy shoes telling him how he’d screwed up.
The cargo jet he was pointing at stood solitary and dark and rainslicked, gleaming in the airfield lights. It was glossy white, like all Argon cargo jets, with the company’s name painted across the fuselage in bold orange Helvetica. It was a Boeing 727, im mense and magnificent.
An airplane up close is a thing of beauty. Much more awe- inspiring than the view from inside when you’re trapped with the seat of the guy in front of you tilted all the way back, crushing your knees. The jet was one of maybe twenty planes parked in a row on the apron nearby. Some of them, I guessed, were there for the weekend, some for the night, since the control tower closed at ten o’clock. There were chocks under their wheels and traffic cones around each one denoting the circle of safety.
“Let’s take a look inside, Elwood,” I said.
Sawyer turned to look at me. He had bloodshot basset- hound eyes with big saggy pouches beneath them.
“Woody,” he said. He was correcting me, not trying to be friends.
“Okay. Woody.”
“There’s nothing to see. They cleaned it out.” In his right hand he clutched one of those aluminum clipboards in a hinged box, the kind that truck drivers and cops always carry around.
“Mind if I take a look anyway? I’ve never seen the inside of a cargo plane.”
“Mr. Keller—”
“Heller.”
“Mr. Keller, we didn’t hire you, and I don’t have time to play tour guide, so why don’t you go back to interviewing the ground crew while I try to figure out how someone managed to smuggle three truckloads of freight out of this airport without anyone noticing?”
He turned to walk back to the terminal, and I said, “Woody, look. I’m not here to make you look bad. We both want the same thing— to find the missing cargo. I might be able to help. Two heads are better than one, and all that.”
He kept walking. “Uh- huh. Well, that’s real thoughtful, but I’m kinda busy right now.”
“Okay. So . . . Mind if I use your name?” I said.
He stopped, didn’t turn around. “For what?”
“My client’s going to ask for a name. The guy at Traverse Development can be a vindictive son of a bitch.” Actually, I didn’t even know who at Traverse had hired my firm.
Woody didn’t move.
“You know how these guys work,” I said. “When I tell my client how Argon Express wasn’t interested in any outside assistance, he’s going to ask me for a name. Maybe he’ll admire your in de pen dent spirit— that go- italone thing. Then again, maybe he’ll just get pissed off so bad that they’ll just stop doing business with you guys. No big deal to them. Then word gets around. Like maybe you guys were covering something up, right? Maybe there’s the threat of a huge lawsuit. Pretty soon, Argon Express goes belly- up. And all because of you.”
Woody still wasn’t moving, but I could see his shoulders start to slump. The back of his yellow slicker was streaked with oil and grime. “But between you and me, Woody, I gotta admire you for having the guts to tell Traverse Development where to get off. Not too many people have the balls to do that.”
Woody turned around slowly. I don’t think I’d ever seen anyone blink so slowly and with such obvious hostility. He headed toward the plane, and I followed close behind.
there was a hydraulic hum, and the big cargo door came open like the lift gate on a suburban minivan. Woody was standing in the belly of the plane. He gestured me inside with a weary flip of his hand. He must have switched on an auxiliary power unit because the lights inside the plane were on, a series of naked bulbs in wire cages mounted
on the ceiling. The interior was cavernous. You could see the rails where the rows of seats used to be. Just a black floor marked with red lines where the huge cargo containers were supposed to go, only there were no containers here. White windowless walls lined with some kind of papery white material.
I whistled. Totally bare. “The plane was full when it flew in?”
“Mmm- hmm. Twelve igloos.”
“ ‘Igloos’ are the containers, right?”
He walked over to the open cargo door. The rain was thrumming against the plane’s aluminum skin. “Look for yourself.”
A crew was loading another Argon cargo jet right next to us. They worked in that unhurried, efficient manner of a team that had done this a thousand times before. A couple of guys were pushing an immense container, eight or ten feet high and shaped like a child’s drawing of a house, from the back of a truck onto the steel elevator platform of a K-loader. I counted seven guys. Two to push the igloo off the truck, two more to roll
it onto the plane, another one to operate the K-loader. Two more guys whose main job seemed to be holding aluminum clipboards and shouting orders. The next jet down, another white Boeing but not one of theirs, was being refueled.
“No way you could get twelve containers off this plane without a crew of at least five,” I said. “Tell me something. This plane got in yesterday, right? What took you so long to unload it?”
He sighed exasperatedly. “International cargo has to be inspected by U.S. Customs before we do anything. It’s the law.”
“That takes an hour or two at most.”
“Yeah, normally. Weekends, Customs doesn’t have the manpower. So they just cleared the crew to get off and go home. Sealed it up. Let it sit there until they had time to do an inspection.”
“So while the plane was sitting here, anyone could have gotten inside. Looks like all the planes just sit here unattended all night. Anyone could climb into one.”
“That’s the way it works in airports around the world, buddy. If you’re cleared to get onto the airfield, they figure you’re supposed to be here. It’s called the ‘honest- man’ system of security.”
I chuckled. “That’s a good one. I gotta use it sometime.”
Woody gave me a look.
I paced along the plane’s interior. There was a surprising amount of rust in the places where there was no liner or white paint. “How old is this thing?” I called out. My voice echoed. It seemed even colder in here than it was outside. The rain was pattering hypnotically on the plane’s exterior.
“Thirty years easy. They stopped making the Boeing seven- twos in 1984, but most of them were made in the sixties and seventies. They’re work horses, I’m telling you. Long as you do the upkeep, they last forever.”
“You guys buy ’em used or new?”
“Used. Everyone does. FedEx, DHL, UPS— we all buy used planes. It’s a lot cheaper to buy an old passenger plane and have it converted into a cargo freighter.”
“What does one of these cost?”
“Why? You thinking of going into the business?”
“Everyone has a dream.”
He looked at me. It took him a few seconds to get that I was being sarcastic. “You can get one of these babies for three hundred thousand bucks. There’s hundreds of them sitting in airplane boneyards in the desert. Like used- car lots.”
I walked to the front of the plane. Mounted to the doorframe was the data plate, a small stainless- steel square the size of a cigarette pack. Every plane has one. They’re riveted on by the manufacturer, and they’re sort of like birth certificates. This one said the boeing company— commercial airplane division— renton, washington, and it listed
the year of manufacture (1974) and a bunch of other numbers: the model and the serial number and so on.
I pulled out a little Maglite and looked closer and saw just what I expected to see.
I stepped back out onto the air stairs, the cold rain spritzing my face, and I reached out and felt the slick painted fuselage. I ran my hand over the Argon Express logo, felt something. A ridge. The paint seemed unusually thick.
Woody was watching me from a few feet away. My fingers located the lower left corner of the two- foot- tall letter A. “You don’t paint your logo on?” I asked.
“Of course it’s painted on. What the hell—?”
It peeled right up. I tugged some more, and the entire logo— some kind of adhesive vinyl
sticker— began to lift off.
“Check out the data plate,” I said. “It doesn’t match the tail number.”
“That’s—that’s impossible!”
“They didn’t just steal the cargo, Woody. They stole the whole plane.”
VANISHED. Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Finder. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010.
Vanished Excerpt- Prologue
On July - 29 - 2009
An excerpt from VANISHED
By Joseph Finder
PART ONE
Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
—honoré de balzac
PROLOGUE
Washington, D.C.
Lauren Heller’s husband disappeared at a few minutes after ten thirty on a rainy evening.
They were walking to their car after dinner at his favorite Japanese restaurant, on Thirty- third Street in Georgetown. Roger, a serious sushi connoisseur, considered Oji- San the best, most authentic place in all of D.C. Lauren didn’t care one way or another. Raw fish was raw fish, she thought: pretty, but inedible. But Roger— the Mussolini of maki, the Stalin of sashimi— never settled for less than the best. “Hey, I married you, right?” he pointed out on the way over, and how was she supposed to argue with that?
She was just grateful they were finally having a date night. They hadn’t had one in almost three months. Not that it had been much of a date, actually. He’d seemed awfully preoccupied. Worried about something. Then again, he got that way sometimes, for days at a time. That was just the way he dealt with stress at the office. A very male thing, she’d always thought. Men tended to internalize their problems. Women usually let it out, got emotional, screamed or cried or just got mad, and ended up coping a lot better in the long run. If that wasn’t emotional intelligence, then what was?
But Roger, whom she loved and admired and who was probably the smartest guy she’d ever met, handled stress like a typical man. Plus, he didn’t like to talk about things. That was just his way. That was how he’d been brought up. She remembered once saying to him, “We need to talk,” and he replied, “Those are the scariest four words in the English language.”
Anyway, they had a firm rule: no shop talk. Since they both worked at Gifford Industries— he as a senior finance guy, she as admin to the CEO— that was the only way to keep work from invading their home life.
So at dinner, Roger barely said a word, checked his BlackBerry every few minutes, and scarfed down his nigiri. She’d ordered something recommended by their waiter, which sounded good but turned out to be layers of miso- soaked black cod. The house specialty. Yuck. She left it untouched, picked at her seaweed salad, drank too much sake, got a little tipsy.
They’d cut through Cady’s Alley, a narrow cobblestone walkway lined with old red- brick ware houses converted to high- end German kitchen stores and Italian lighting boutiques. Their footsteps echoed hollowly.
She stopped at the top of the concrete steps that led down to Water Street, and said, “Feel like getting some ice cream? Thomas Sweet, maybe?”
The oblique beam of a streetlight caught his white teeth, his strong nose, the pouches that had recently appeared under his eyes. “I thought you’re on South Beach.”
“They have some sugar- free stuff that’s not bad.”
“It’s all the way over on P, isn’t it?”
“There’s a Ben & Jerry’s on M.”
“We probably shouldn’t press our luck with Gabe.”
“He’ll be fine,” she said. Their son was fourteen: old enough to stay home by himself. In truth, staying home alone made him a little ner vous though he’d never admit it. The kid was as stubborn as his parents.
Water Street was dark, deserted, kind of creepy at that time of night. A row of cars were parked along a chain- link fence, the scrubby banks of the Potomac just beyond. Roger’s black S-Class Mercedes was wedged between a white panel van and a battered Toyota.
He stood for a moment, rummaged through his pockets, then turned abruptly. “Damn. Left the keys back in the restaurant.”
She grunted, annoyed but not wanting to make a big deal out of it.
“You didn’t bring yours, did you?”
Lauren shook her head. She rarely drove his Mercedes anyway. He was too fussy about his car. “Check your pockets?”
He patted the pockets of his trench coat and his pants and suit jacket as if to prove it.
“Yeah. Must’ve left them on the table in the restaurant when I took out my BlackBerry. Sorry about that. Come on.”
“We don’t both have to go back. I’ll wait here.”
A motorcycle blatted by from somewhere below. The white- noise roar of trucks on the Whitehurst Freeway overhead.
“I don’t want you standing out here alone.”
“I’ll be fine. Just hurry, okay?”
He hesitated, took a step toward her, then suddenly kissed her on the lips. “I love you,” he said.
She stared at his back as he hustled across the street. It pleased her to hear that I love you, but she wasn’t used to it, really. Roger Heller was a good husband and father, but not the most demonstrative of men.
A distant shout, then raucous laughter: frat kids, probably Georgetown or GW.
A scuffing sound from the pavement behind her.
She turned to look, felt a sudden gust of air, and a hand was clamped over her mouth.
She tried to scream, but it was stifled beneath the large hand, and she struggled frantically. Roger so close. Maybe a few hundred feet away by then. Close enough to see what was happening to her, if only he’d turn around.
Powerful arms had grabbed her from behind.
She needed to get Roger’s attention, but he obviously couldn’t hear anything at that distance, the scuffling masked by the traffic sounds. Turn around, damn it! she thought. Good God, please turn around!
“Roger!” she screamed, but it came out a pathetic mewl. She smelled some kind of cheap cologne, mixed with stale cigarette smoke.
She tried to twist her body around, to wrench free, but her arms were trapped, pinioned against the sides of her body, and she felt something cold and hard at her temple, and she heard a click, and then something struck the side of her head, a jagged lightning bolt of pain piercing her eyes.
The foot. Stomp on his foot— some half- remembered martial- arts selfdefense class from long ago. Stomp his instep.
She jammed her left foot down hard, striking nothing, then kicked backwards, hit the Mercedes with a hollow metallic crunch. She tried to pivot, and—
Roger swiveled suddenly, alerted by the sound. He shouted, “Lauren!”
Raced back across the street.
“What the hell are you doing to her?” he screamed. “Why her?”
Something slammed against the back of her head. She tasted blood.
She tried to make sense of what was going on, but she was falling backwards, hurtling through space, and that was the last thing she remembered.
VANISHED. Copyright © 2009 by Joseph Finder. All rights reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010.
Vanished Quest Game
On July - 27 - 2009
Check out this great new contest to celebrate the release of Vanished.
Find and collect all the clues located around the Web. You’ll get an exclusive, early introduction to exciting new series character Nick Heller. Solve the mystery and you could win an iPhone 3GS and $100 iTunes gift card! Play The VANISHED Quest Game!
(From www.JosephFinder.com)
2009 Thriller Award Winners
On July - 13 - 2009
ITW Announces the 2009 Thriller Awards Winners!
ThrillerMaster Award: David Morrell
In recognition of his vast body of work and influence in the field of literature
Silver Bullet Award: Brad Meltzer
For contributions to the advancement of literacy
Silver Bullet Corporate Award: Dollar General Literacy Foundation
For longstanding support of literacy and education
Best Thriller of the Year:
THE BODIES LEFT BEHIND by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster)
Best First Novel:
CHILD 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central Publishing)
Best Short Story:
THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN by Alexandra Sokoloff (in Darker Mask)
(From http://www.thrillerwriters.org/)
Dan Brown Cover Revealed
On July - 9 - 2009
Doubleday unveils jacket for Dan Brown’s imminent bestseller, The Lost Symbol, reveals clues to location and themes in novel.
New York NY (July 7, 2009) 8:10 a.m. EST–Following much speculation about the content of the eagerly awaited new novel from phenomenal bestselling author Dan Brown, Doubleday today released the North American jacket of The Lost Symbol, which will be published on September 15. For the first time, fans worldwide will discover the setting for the action and key themes from the forthcoming thriller. “Dan’s new novel is largely set in Washington, D.C., though it’s a Washington few will recognize,” said Jason Kaufman, Brown’s longtime editor. “As we would expect, he pulls back the veil– revealing an unseen world of mysticism, secret societies, and hidden locations, with a stunning twist that long predates America.” Since the announcement of the publication in April 2009, anticipation for the release of the new novel featuring Brown’s unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon, has had fans clamoring for more information about the book. To satisfy Dan Brown fans, Doubleday has launched a summer-long campaign of code-breaking and problem-solving hosted on Twitter and Facebook. Featuring an enigmatic array of codes, cryptic trivia, puzzles, secret history, maps, aphorisms, ciphers and arcane knowledge, daily posts will challenge, intrigue, educate and entertain. Links to the official Dan Brown Facebook page and to LOSTSYMBOLBOOK – the official Twitter page for the novel – can be found at www.TheLostSymbol.com. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time with 81 million copies in print worldwide, has an announced first print run of 5 million copies, the largest first print in Random House, Inc. history.
The audio version of The Lost Symbol will be published in North America in September by Random House Audio.
The Da Vinci Code, published by Doubleday on March 18, 2003, spent 144 weeks on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list, 54 of them at #1—the position at which it debuted. The novel has been translated into 51 languages. Following the publication of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s earlier novels, Digital Fortress, Deception Point and Angels and Demons have all gone on to become multi-million copy
international bestsellers.
Doubleday is an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG. For more information about Doubleday please visit our website at http://www.doubleday.com. Contact: Suzanne Herz, Senior Vice President, Publishing 212-782-9786 or sherz@randomhouse.com.
Tosca Lee Signs With Pure Enjoyment
On July - 6 - 2009
Pure Enjoyment signs award-winning author Tosca Lee
Nashville, Tenn., July 6, 2009 – Award-winning author Tosca Lee will release her highly-anticipated third novel in 2011 under the B&H Fiction Pure Enjoyment line. Written from the point of view of the most reviled man in Christendom–Judas–Tosca will again give readers a powerful and enlightening glimpse into the spiritual realm.
“We are thrilled to have Tosca writing for us,” said Karen Ball, executive editor for fiction at B&H Publishing Group. “She’s a true craftsman. Combine that with her remarkable ability to see inside those we most despise–a demon, Eve, and now Judas–and you get powerful stories of truth and grace that intrigue and challenge readers.”
Her two previous books, Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve, created quite a stir in Christian fiction. Demon: A Memoir was a 2008 Christy Award Finalist, 2008 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Silver Award Winner and 2008 ACFW Book of the Year, Speculative, Second Place. It earned rave reviews across the faith spectrum, including the distinction of, “The most creative, mind-twisting novel of this summer,” from Infuzemag.com.
Havah, her sophomore novel, let readers inside the heart and mind of the world’s first woman from her creation to Adam’s death.. Havah is a 2009 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Bronze Award Winner and ChristianFictionReviews.com Top Pick for 2008. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it, “Passionate and riveting… Lee’s superior storytelling will have readers weeping for all that Havah forfeited by a single damning choice.” Historical Novels Review called it, “…a fascinating novel about human relationships at the dawn of time.”
Lee– Mrs. Nebraska-America 1996, Mrs. Nebraska-United States 1998 and first runner-up to Mrs. United States–has a deep passion for story. “I was a serious pianist from a young age, and used to practice an hour and a half every day. But when I was in the midst of a great book, I’d sneak it into the piano room and read a page between playing each piece-or as much as I could until my mom said, ‘I’m not hearing any music!’”
Lee started writing after obtaining her degree in English and Literature from Smith College in Massachusetts.
For more information regarding Tosca Lee, please visit www.toscalee.com. For more on upcoming titles in the B&H Fiction Pure Enjoyment line, log-on to www.pureenjoyment.com. Tosca’s current titles are available at booksellers everywhere and on-line.
Liparulo Signs 30,000 Books!
On July - 4 - 2009
Bestselling author Robert Liparulo just finished signing 30,000 copies of his Dreamhouse Kings novels for Scholastic. Read all about the experience in his latest blog entry:
http://www.robertliparulo.com/2009/06/signing-30000-books.html
ITW Interviews Eric Wilson
On July - 2 - 2009
Check out this great interview with Eric Wilson, author of the Jersualem’s Undead trilogy:
http://www.thrillerwriters.org/2009/06/haunt-of-jackals-by-eric-wilson.html
If you aren’t reading Eric Wilson then you are NOT reading great fiction. Stay tuned for Fiction Addict’s exclusive review of Haunt of Jackals, which hits shelves in mid-july.
Ted Dekker’s Green Coming 9/1/09
On July - 1 - 2009
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR TED DEKKER ENDS POPULAR CIRCLE SERIES WITH THE BEGINNING: NEW NOVEL GREEN RELEASING SEPTEMBER 1
April 20, 2009…Nashville, TN… The beginning is also the end in New York Times Best-Selling Author Ted Dekker’s highly-anticipated new novel, GREEN, otherwise known as “book zero,” in the multi-layered epic CIRCLE series. The suspenseful adventure will be available in bookstores across the country on September 1.
The CIRCLE series—BLACK, RED, and WHITE—has already sold more than 700,000 units. Dekker says his new novel GREEN is the preferred starting point for new readers and the perfect climax for the countless fans who have experienced BLACK, RED, and WHITE.
“Christian youth are discovering their own roots, often for the first time. Redemptive History is a heart-wrenching tale full of twists and fantastic romance. If put in the people’s language, the story is irresistible” said Dekker.
Also starting on September 1, Thomas Nelson will release a limited edition 5th Anniversary box set containing the hardcover publications of BLACK, RED, White (which have not been available from retailers for some time) and Green. Also, Thomas Nelson will release repackaged editions of the tradepaper editions of BLACK, RED, and WHITE, which will include each respective title’s graphic novel in black and white.
For more information on the popular fiction writer and to find out more about The Gathering, log on to www.teddekker.com.
Ted Dekker
The son of missionaries John and Helen Dekker, Ted Dekker was raised in the jungles of Indonesia. He is known for novels that combine adrenaline-laced stories packed with unexpected plot twists, unforgettable characters, and incredible confrontations between good and evil. Having more than 3 million novels in print, all of his 17 novels have been in the Top 5 on CBA Fiction Bestseller list and Sinner and Skin debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List. Dekker currently lives in Austin, TX with his wife, LeeAnn and together they have four children. To see a complete list of Dekker’s work and for more information on the author visit www.TedDekker.com.
The Lost Symbol
On June - 30 - 2009
Press Release: Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol
DAN BROWN’S THE LOST SYMBOL TO BE PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY THIS SEPTEMBER
New novel by the author of “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” will have a first print run of 5 million copies, the largest first print in Random House, Inc. history
New York, NY (April 20, 2009)— Dan Brown’s new novel, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time with 81 million copies in print worldwide, will be published in the U.S. and Canada by Doubleday on September 15, 2009.
The Lost Symbol will have a first printing of 5 million copies, and it will once again feature Dan Brown’s unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon. The announcement was made today by Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor in Chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
“This is a great day for readers and booksellers,” said Mehta. “The Lost Symbol is a brilliant and compelling thriller. Dan Brown’s prodigious talent for storytelling, infused with history, codes and intrigue, is on full display in this new book. This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history, and it was well worth the wait.”
Brown’s longtime editor, Jason Kaufman, Vice President and Executive Editor at Doubleday said, “Nothing ever is as it first appears in a Dan Brown novel. This book’s narrative takes place in a twelve-hour period, and from the first page, Dan’s readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape. The Lost Symbol is full of surprises.”
“This novel has been a strange and wonderful journey,” said Brown. “Weaving five years of research into the story’s twelve-hour timeframe was an exhilarating challenge. Robert Langdon’s life clearly moves a lot faster than mine.”
The audio version of The Lost Symbol will be published in North America in September by Random House Audio.
The Da Vinci Code, published by Doubleday on March 18, 2003, spent 144 weeks on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list, 54 of them at #1—the position at which it debuted. The novel has been translated into 51 languages.
The film of The Da Vinci Code was a #1 box office smash when it was released by Columbia Pictures in May 2006 with Ron Howard directing and Tom Hanks starring as Robert Langdon. Box office receipts were $758 million. The same team will release Angels and Demons theatrically worldwide on May 15, 2009.
Following the publication of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown’s earlier novels, Digital Fortress, Deception Point and Angels and Demons have all gone on to become multi-million copy international bestsellers.
The Lost Symbol will be published in the U.K. on September 15th by Transworld Publishers, a division of The Random House Group who has published all of Brown’s novels.
Dan Brown is represented by Heide Lange at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, Inc.
Doubleday is an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. whose parent company is Bertelsmann AG. For more information about Doubleday please visit our website at http://www.doubleday.com. For more information about Dan Brown please visit www.danbrown.com.
Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein #3 Coming Soon!
On June - 28 - 2009
GOOD NEWS FOR DEAN KOONTZ FANS:
FRANKENSTEIN #3 IS COMING
FROM BANTAM DELL IN JULY
Half of all the fan mail received by bestselling author Dean Koontz asks the same question: When is the third book in the Frankenstein series coming? The answer is now at hand: Bantam Dell will publish DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN #3: DEAD AND ALIVE, in a premium mass market edition, on July 28.
The previous two volumes in the series—Book One: PRODIGAL SON and Book Two: CITY OF NIGHT —were published in 2005. Koontz’s re-imagining of the iconic tale of Frankenstein galvanized readers around the world and both were instant New York Times bestsellers. Now, at last, “one of the master story tellers of this or any age” (Tampa Tribune) delivers the final volume of his genre-bending, life-affirming trilogy.
Simultaneous with the publication of FRANKENSTEIN #3, Bantam Books is offering new editions of the first two volumes, available for the first time as premium paperbacks.
Visit Dean’s new Frankenstein website.
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