Languishing in a recovery unit on St.
Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Dave Robicheaux is fighting an enemy more
insidious than the one who put a bullet in his back a month earlier in a
shootout on Bayou Teche. The morphine meant to dull his pain is
steadily gnawing away at his resolve, playing tricks on his mind, and
luring him back into the addict mentality that once threatened to
destroy his life and family.
With the soporific Indian summer air wafting through the louvered shutters of his hospital room, and the demons fighting for space in his head, Dave can’t be sure whether his latest visitor is flesh and blood or a spectral reminder of his Louisiana youth. Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman with a troubled past, glides to his bedside and leaves him with an iPod that plays the old country blues song “My Creole Belle.”
What Dave doesn’t know is that Tee Jolie disappeared weeks ago, and no one believes she reappeared to comfort an old man with a bullet wound. Dave becomes obsessed with the song and the vivid memory of Tee Jolie, and when he learns that her sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf, he believes that putting the evils of the past to rest is more urgent than ever before.
Meanwhile, an oil spill in the Gulf brings back intense feelings for Dave of losing his father to a rig explosion years ago. As the oil companies continue to risk human lives in pursuit of wealth and power, Dave begins to see links to the Melton sisters, even when no one else shares his suspicions. Dave’s expartner Clete Purcel helps him search for Tee Jolie, though Clete fears for his friend’s mental health and safety. But Clete has his own troubles, too; he’s discovered an illegitimate daughter who may be working as a contract killer—and may have set her sights on someone he loves.
Creole Belle is a resurrection story for the ages, with James Lee Burke at the peak of his masterful career and Dave Robicheaux facing his most intense and personal battle yet, against the known and unknown forces that corrupt and destroy even the best of men.
"Edgar-finalist Hallinan’s heartrending, unforgettable fifth Poke Rafferty thriller" (Publishers Weekly starred review)
An accidental collision on a Bangkok sidewalk goes very wrong when the man who ran into Rafferty dies in his arms, but not before saying three words: Helen Eckersley. Cheyenne. Seconds later, the police arrive, denying that the man was shot. That night, Rafferty is interrogated by Thai secret agents who demand to know what the dead man said, but Rafferty can't remember. When he's finally released, Rafferty arrives home to find that his apartment has been ransacked. In the days that follow, he realizes he's under surveillance. The second time men in uniform show up at his door, he manages to escape the building and begins a new life as a fugitive. As he learns more about his situation, it becomes apparent that he's been caught on the margins of the war on terror, and that his opponent is a virtuoso artist whose medium is fear.
In Close Your Eyes, The New York Times bestselling duo Iris
Johansen and Roy Johansen are back with a suspenseful novel about a
once-blind woman with a talent for tracking serial killers The FBI
doesn’t usually consult with music therapists to solve their cases. But
Kendra Michael’s astonishing powers of observation and analysis have
made her a favorite of law enforcement agencies all across the country.
Blind for the first twenty years of her life, she cares little for
investigative work but can’t deny her unique skill, or the results she’s
been able to facilitate. Kendra learned at an early age to become
hyper-aware of her surroundings, perfecting the art of picking up the
most subtle audio, olfactory, and tactile cues in the world around her.
Like a secret weapon, she is in high demand. Former FBI agent Adam
Lynch, known as The Puppetmaster, has weapons of his own. He’s a
notorious master manipulator, skillfully handling criminals and
colleagues alike to get the results he wants. Now he needs Kendra’s
special brand of help, but she’s not interested until Lynch reveals that
Agent Robert Stedler—Kendra’s ex—is missing and may have run directly
into the path of a serial killer. What began as a heinous murder
investigation escalates into something even larger and more frightening:
a multi-million dollar conspiracy to hide a secret that’s worth killing
for, again and again and again.
After narrowly surviving his last operation, Gabriel Allon, the
wayward son of Israeli intelligence, has taken refuge behind the walls
of the Vatican, where he is restoring one of Caravaggio’s greatest
masterpieces. But while working early one morning in the conservation
lab, he is summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica by his friend and occasional
ally Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to his
Holiness Pope Paul VII. The body of a beautiful woman, a curator from
the antiquities department, lies smashed and broken beneath
Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. The Vatican police suspect suicide,
though Gabriel, with his restorer’s eye and flawless memory, believes
otherwise. So, it seems, does Donati. But the monsignor is fearful that a
public inquiry might inflict another scandal on the Church, and so he
calls upon Gabriel to use his matchless talents and experience to
quietly pursue the truth—with one important caveat.
“Rule number one at the Vatican,” Donati said. “Don’t ask too many questions.”
Gabriel soon learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret—a secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise that is looting timeless treasures of antiquity and selling them to the highest bidder. But there is more to this network than just greed. A mysterious operative, an old enemy out for vengeance, is plotting an unthinkable act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. Once again, Gabriel must return to the ranks of his old intelligence service—and place himself, and those he holds dear, on the razor’s edge of danger.
An intoxicating blend of art, intrigue, and history, The Fallen Angel moves swiftly from the cloistered chambers of the Vatican, to the glamorous ski slopes of St. Moritz, to the graceful avenues of Berlin and Vienna—and, finally, to a shocking climax beneath the world’s most sacred and contested parcel of land. Each setting in this extraordinary novel is rendered with the care of an Old Master, as are the spies, lovers, priests, and thieves who inhabit its pages. It is a story of faith and of the destructive power of secrets. And it is an all-too-timely reminder that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
With the soporific Indian summer air wafting through the louvered shutters of his hospital room, and the demons fighting for space in his head, Dave can’t be sure whether his latest visitor is flesh and blood or a spectral reminder of his Louisiana youth. Tee Jolie Melton, a young woman with a troubled past, glides to his bedside and leaves him with an iPod that plays the old country blues song “My Creole Belle.”
What Dave doesn’t know is that Tee Jolie disappeared weeks ago, and no one believes she reappeared to comfort an old man with a bullet wound. Dave becomes obsessed with the song and the vivid memory of Tee Jolie, and when he learns that her sister has turned up dead inside a block of ice floating in the Gulf, he believes that putting the evils of the past to rest is more urgent than ever before.
Meanwhile, an oil spill in the Gulf brings back intense feelings for Dave of losing his father to a rig explosion years ago. As the oil companies continue to risk human lives in pursuit of wealth and power, Dave begins to see links to the Melton sisters, even when no one else shares his suspicions. Dave’s expartner Clete Purcel helps him search for Tee Jolie, though Clete fears for his friend’s mental health and safety. But Clete has his own troubles, too; he’s discovered an illegitimate daughter who may be working as a contract killer—and may have set her sights on someone he loves.
Creole Belle is a resurrection story for the ages, with James Lee Burke at the peak of his masterful career and Dave Robicheaux facing his most intense and personal battle yet, against the known and unknown forces that corrupt and destroy even the best of men.
An accidental collision on a Bangkok sidewalk goes very wrong when the man who ran into Rafferty dies in his arms, but not before saying three words: Helen Eckersley. Cheyenne. Seconds later, the police arrive, denying that the man was shot. That night, Rafferty is interrogated by Thai secret agents who demand to know what the dead man said, but Rafferty can't remember. When he's finally released, Rafferty arrives home to find that his apartment has been ransacked. In the days that follow, he realizes he's under surveillance. The second time men in uniform show up at his door, he manages to escape the building and begins a new life as a fugitive. As he learns more about his situation, it becomes apparent that he's been caught on the margins of the war on terror, and that his opponent is a virtuoso artist whose medium is fear.
“Rule number one at the Vatican,” Donati said. “Don’t ask too many questions.”
Gabriel soon learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret—a secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise that is looting timeless treasures of antiquity and selling them to the highest bidder. But there is more to this network than just greed. A mysterious operative, an old enemy out for vengeance, is plotting an unthinkable act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. Once again, Gabriel must return to the ranks of his old intelligence service—and place himself, and those he holds dear, on the razor’s edge of danger.
An intoxicating blend of art, intrigue, and history, The Fallen Angel moves swiftly from the cloistered chambers of the Vatican, to the glamorous ski slopes of St. Moritz, to the graceful avenues of Berlin and Vienna—and, finally, to a shocking climax beneath the world’s most sacred and contested parcel of land. Each setting in this extraordinary novel is rendered with the care of an Old Master, as are the spies, lovers, priests, and thieves who inhabit its pages. It is a story of faith and of the destructive power of secrets. And it is an all-too-timely reminder that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
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