Ellen Sussman:French Lessons: A Novel
- signed or inscribed book 2011, ISBN: 9780345522771
Paperback, Hardcover
Pocket Star. Good. 4.19 x 0.9 x 6.75 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2001. 432 pages. <br>Booked to Die, the first book in John Dunning's be stselling, award-winning Cliff Janewa… More...
Pocket Star. Good. 4.19 x 0.9 x 6.75 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2001. 432 pages. <br>Booked to Die, the first book in John Dunning's be stselling, award-winning Cliff Janeway series, is a joy to read f or its wealth of inside knowledge about the antiquarian book busi ness and its eccentric traders (The New York Times Book Review). Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by t he book, but he's an avid collector of rare and first editions. B obby Westfall is a local bookscout, a gentle and quiet man who ha s sold enough valuable books to keep himself and his cats fed and housed. When Bobby is murdered, Janeway would like nothing bette r than to rearrange the suspect's spine. But the suspect, local l owlife Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding the law, and Janeway 's wrathful brand of off-duty justice costs him his badge. Turni ng to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a small bookshop-all th e while searching for evidence to put Newton away. When prized vo lumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now Janeway's life is about to change in profound an d shocking ways as he attempts to find out who's dealing death al ong with vintage Chandlers and Twains. One of the most enjoyable books I've read (The Denver Post), Booked to Die is the first in the Cliff Janeway series. It is a standout piece of crime fictio n.. compelling page-turning stuff (The Philadelphia Inquirer). E ditorial Reviews Review New York Times Book Review A joy to read ...[A] whodunit in the classic mode. The Denver Post A knockout. ...One of the most enjoyable books I've read in a long time. The Philadephia Inquirer A standout piece of crime fiction.. compell ing page-turning stuff. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) Irresistibl e....An outstanding novel. Boston Sunday Globe I am...an unabash ed admirer of John Dunning's Booked to Die. No one...can fail to be delighted by the sort of folkloric advice Janeway carries with him. San Francisco Chronicle Fascinating...Assured and muscular prose...Very cannily and creepily, Dunning shows how quiet men w ith civilized tastes can turn into killers...The payoff, in pleas ure, is for the reader. United Press International Very credible ...An involved tale that satisfies the mystery reader's wants. M ystery Scene Memorable.. compellng...Vivdly realistic...Fascinati ng and utterly convincing...A suspenseful, well-crafted mystery t hat should keep readers guessing right up to the closing paragrap h. This novel, friends, is a keeper. St. Petersburg Times (FL) A perfect mystery. It's intelligently written; the action is baffl ingly logical; the reader learns something, and it's got a sucker punch of a finale. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Crisp, di rect prose and nearly pitch-perfect dialogue enhance this meticul ously detailed page-turner. From the Back Cover Denver homicide detective Cliff Janeway may not always play by the book, but he's an avid collector of rare and first editions. After a local book scout is killed on his turf, Janeway would like nothing better th an to rearrange the suspect's spine. But the suspect, sleazeball Jackie Newton, is a master at eluding murder convictions. Unfortu nately for Janeway, his swift form of off-duty justice costs him his badge. Turning to his lifelong passion, Janeway opens a smal l bookshop -- all the while searching for evidence to put Newton away. But when prized volumes in a highly sought-after collection begin to appear, so do dead bodies. Now Janeway's life is about to change in profound and shocking ways as he attempts to find ou t who's dealing death along with vintage Chandlers and Twains. About the Author John Dunning has revealed some of book collectin g's most shocking secrets in his bestselling series of crime nove ls featuring Cliff Janeway: Booked to Die, which won the prestigi ous Nero Wolfe award; The Bookman's Wake, a New York Times Notabl e Book; and the New York Times bestsellers The Bookman's Promise, The Sign of the Book, and The Bookwoman's Last Fling. He is also the author of the Edgar Award-nominated Deadline, The Holland Su ggestions, and Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime. An expert on rare an d collectible books, he owned the Old Algonquin Bookstore in Denv er for many years. He lives in Denver, Colorado. Visit OldAlgonqu in com. About the Author John Dunning has revealed some of book collecting's most shocking secrets in his bestselling series of c rime novels featuring Cliff Janeway: Booked to Die, which won the prestigious Nero Wolfe award; The Bookman's Wake, a New York Tim es Notable Book; and the New York Times bestsellers The Bookman's Promise, The Sign of the Book, and The Bookwoman's Last Fling. H e is also the author of the Edgar Award-nominated Deadline, The H olland Suggestions, and Two O'Clock, Eastern Wartime. An expert o n rare and collectible books, he owned the Old Algonquin Bookstor e in Denver for many years. He lives in Denver, Colorado. Visit O ldAlgonquin com. Excerpt. ? Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter One The phone rang. It was 2:30 A.M. Normally I am a light sleeper, but that night I was down among the dead. I had just finished a thirteen-hour shift, my fourth day running of heavy overtime, and I hadn't been sleeping well until tonight. A guy named Jackie Newton was haunting my dreams. He was my enem y and I thought that someday I would probably have to kill him. W hen the bell went off, I was dreaming about Jackie Newton and our final showdown. For some reason -- logic is never the strong poi nt of a dream like that -- Jackie and I were in the hallway at Ea st High School. The bell brought the kids out for the change of c lasses; Jackie started shooting and the kids began to drop, and t hat bell kept ringing as if it couldn't stop. In the bed beside me, Carol stirred. Oh, Cliff, she groaned. Would somebody please get that goddamn telephone? I groped for the night table, felt the phone, and knocked the damn thing to the floor. From some dis tant galaxy I could hear the midget voice of Neal Hennessey, sayi ng, Cliff?...Cliff?...Hey, Clifford! I reached along the black fl oor and found the phone, but it was still many seconds later befo re Hennessey took on his bearlike image in my mind. Looks like w e got another one, Hennessey said without preamble. I struggled to sit up, trying to get used to the idea that Jackie Newton hadn 't shot me after all. Hey, Cliffie...you alive yet? Yeah, Neal, sure. First time I been sound asleep in a week. He didn't apolo gize; he just waited. Where you at? I said. Alley off Fifteenth , just up from the Denver Post. This one looks an awful lot like the others. Give me about half an hour. We'll be here. I sat f or another minute, then I got up and went into the bathroom. I tu rned on the light and looked in the mirror and got the first terr ifying look at myself in the cold hard light of the new day. You' re getting old, Janeway, I thought. Old Andrew Wyeth could make a masterpiece out of a face like that. Call it Clifford Liberty Ja neway at thirty-six, with no blemish eliminated and no character line unexplored. I splashed cold water on my face: it had a grea t deal less character after that. To finally answer Hennessey, ye s, I was almost alive again. The vision of Jackie Newton rose up before me and my hand went automatically to the white splash of s car tissue just under my right shoulder. A bank robber had shot m e there five years ago. I knew Jackie Newton would give a lot to put in another one, about three inches to the left and an inch or so down. Man with an old bullet wound, by Wyeth: an atypical wo rk, definitely not your garden-variety Helga picture. When I cam e out of the bathroom Carol was up. She had boiled water and had a cup of instant coffee steaming on my nightstand. What now? she said. As I struggled into my clothes, I told her it looked like another derelict murder. She sighed loudly and sat on the bed. She was lovely even in a semistupor. She had long auburn hair and could probably double for Helga in a pinch. No one but Wyeth wou ld know. Would you like me to come with you? I gave a little la ugh, blowing the steam from my coffee. Call it moral support, sh e said. Just for the ride down and back. Nobody needs to see me. I could stay in the car. Somebody would see you, all right, and then the tongues would start. It'd be all over the department by tomorrow. You know something? I don't even care. I care. What w e do in our own time is nobody's business. I went to the closet and opened it. Our clothes hung there side by side -- the blue un iform Carol had worn on yesterday's shift; my dark sport coat; ou r guns, which had become as much a part of the wardrobe as pants, shirts, ties, badges. I never went anywhere without mine, not ev en to the corner store. I had had a long career for a guy thirty- six: I'd made my share of enemies, and Jackie Newton was only the latest. I put the gun on under my coat. I didn't wear a tie, wa sn't about to at that time of night. I was off duty and I'd just been roused from a sound sleep; I wasn't running for city council , and I hated neckties. I know you've been saying that for a lon g time now, that stuff about privacy, Carol said dreamily. But I think the real reason is, if people know about me, I make you vul nerable. I didn't want to get into it. It was just too early for a philosophical discourse. There was something in what Carol sai d, but something in what I said too. I've never liked office goss ip, and I didn't want people talking about her and me. But Carol had been looking at it from another angle lately. We had been se eing each other, in the polite vernacular, for a year now, and sh e was starting to want something more permanent. Maybe bringing o ur arrangement into the public eye would show me how little there was to worry about. People did it all the time. For most of them the world didn't come to an end. Occasionally something good cam e out of it. So she thought. I'm going back to bed, she said. W ake me when you come in. Maybe I'll have a nice surprise for you. She lay back and closed her eyes. Her hair made a spectacular s unburst on the pillow. I sat for a while longer, sipping my coffe e. There wasn't any hurry: a crime lab can take three hours at th e scene. I'd leave in five minutes and still be well within the h alf hour I'd promised Hennessey. The trouble is, when I have dead time -- even five minutes unfilled in the middle of the night -- I begin to think. I think about Carol and me and all the days to come. I think about the job and all the burned-out gone-forever days behind us. I think about quitting and I wonder what I'd do. I think about being tied to someone and anchoring those ties with children. Carol would not be a bad one to do that with. She's p retty and bright, and maybe this is what love is. She's good comp any: her interests broaden almost every day. She reads three book s to my one, and I read a lot. We talk far into the night. She st ill doesn't understand the first edition game: Hemingway, she say s, reads just as well in a two-bit paperback as he does in a $500 first printing. I can still hear myself lecturing her the first time she said that. Only a fool would read a first edition. Simpl y having such a book makes life in general and Hemingway in parti cular go better when you do break out the reading copies. I liste ned to myself and thought, This woman must think I'm a government -inspected horse's ass. Then I showed her my Faulkners, one with a signature, and I saw her shiver with an almost sexual pleasure as she touched the paper where he'd signed it. Faulkner was her m ost recent god, and I had managed to put together a small but res pectable collection of his first editions. You've got to read thi s stuff, she said to me when she was a month deep in his work. Ho w can you collect the man without ever reading what he's written? In fact, I had read him, years ago: I never could get the viewpo ints straight in The Sound and the Fury, but I had sense enough a t sixteen to know that the problem wasn't with Faulkner but with me. I was trying to work up the courage to tackle him again: if I began to collect him, I reasoned, I'd have to read him sooner or later. Carol shook her head. Look at it this way, I said, the Fa ulkners have appreciated about twenty percent in the three years I've owned them. That she understood. My apartment looked like a n adjunct of the Denver Public Library. There were wall-to-wall b ooks in every room. Carol had never asked the Big Dumb Question t hat people always ask when they come into a place like this: Jeez , d'ya read all these? She browsed, fascinated. The books have a loose logic to their shelving: mysteries in the bedroom; novels o ut here; art books, notably by the Wyeths, on the far wall. There 's no discrimination -- they are all first editions -- and when p eople try to go highbrow on me, I love reminding them that my as- new copy of Raymond Chandler's Lady in the Lake is worth a cool $ 1,000 today, more than a bale of books by most of the critically acclaimed and already forgotten so-called masters of the art-and- beauty school. There's nothing wrong with writing detective stori es if you do it well enough. I've been collecting books for a lo ng time. Once I killed two men in the same day, and this room had an almost immediate healing effect. I've missed my calling, I t hought. But now was probably years too late to be thinking about it. Time to go. Cliff? Her eyes were still closed, but she was not quite asleep. I'm leaving now, I said. You going out to se e Jackie Newton? If this is what it looks like, you better belie ve it. Have Neal watch your flank. And both of you be careful. I went over and kissed her on the temple. Two minutes later I was in my car, gliding through the cool Denver night. Copyright ? 1 992 by John Dunning ., Pocket Star, 2001, 2.5, Nashville, Abingdon: 1980., 1980. Hardcover. Very Good/No. Cassell, Robert H.. Octavo, hardcover, as new. A picture of Jesus and a little boy with one leg on crutches on cover. 78 pp. A young boy's life touches that of Jesus several times in a few years, from the time he is healed by the Master until the Resurrection expels the gloom of the Crucifixion., Nashville, Abingdon: 1980., 1980, 3, Regal Books, 1985, 1985. Hardcover. Fine/Very Good. Octavo, hardcover, fine in near fine blue pictorial dj. Foreword by Pat Boone. Author explores the dramatic and true picture of ghetto life in the black communities of America. The crime, violence, fear and neglect of children is a day to day reality for those behind the lines of poverty. 168 pp., Regal Books, 1985, 1985, 4, New York: Pocket, 2008. Very Good+. The author of The Stranger Beside Me brings her brilliantly informed unders tanding of the sociopath to this riveting truecrime collection. Only Ann Ru le, who unknowingly worked alongside the smart and charming Ted Bundy -- Am erica's most notorious serial killer -- could lend her razor-sharp insight into these cases of the spouse, lover, family member, or helpful stranger w ho is totally trusted but whose lethally violent nature, though masterfully disguised, can and will kill. Featured here is the case of a Southern Cali fornia family man who appeared to be the picture of healthy living with his expertise in naturopathic healing. Luring a beautiful flight attendant int o a passionate affair, he swept her away to a secluded home on the Oregon c oast where his jealous rages escalated, ultimately leading to a brutal sex attack in which she believed she would die. How this brave victim survived, never knowing her tormentor's whereabouts, and how he resurfaced, forcing a tragic end for all involved, makes this one of Ann Rule's most compelling narratives. Other cases include that of the woman who masterminded her hus band's murder to gain his inheritance...the monstrous sadist whose prison r elease damaged a presidential candidate's campaign and ended in a bitter do uble tragedy in a quiet neighborhood three thousand miles away...the shocki ng DNA link between a cold-blooded crime and a cold case...and inside the h orrific case of the man who crossed an ocean and several countries to stalk the Eurasian beauty who had fled from him in desperation., Pocket, 2008, 3, Regal Books, Ventura, CA, 1985. First Edition. Hardcover. Good Condition (ex-library). Ex-library (church) copy with limited markings and attachments. Text is clean, pages are off-white. Binding is tight and solid. Copy is in great condition - slightly dulled, unclipped DJ is the only noted issue. Author explores the dramatic and true picture of ghetto life in the black communities of America. The crime, violence, fear and neglect of children is a day to day reality for those behind the lines of poverty. Foreword by Pat Boone. 168 pages. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Category: Religion & Theology; ISBN: 0830710787. ISBN/EAN: 9780830710782. Pictures of this item not already displayed here available upon request. Inventory No: 1561000109. . 9780830710782, Regal Books, 1985, 2.5, A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways.Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.As they meet with their tutorsJosie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantaleach succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris's grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one anotherand come to understand long-buried truths about themselves., Random House Publishing Group, 2011-07-05, 3<
