Missing book jacket 
Cloth spine is discolored/faded

Book of the Month Club, 1996, 981 pages

Three books in one 

The Black Tower:
Commander Dalgliesh is recuperating from a life-threatening illness when he receives a call for advice from an elderly friend who works as a chaplain in a home for the disabled on the Dorset coast. Dalgliesh arrives to discover that Father Baddeley has recently and mysteriously died, as has one of the patients at Toynton Grange. Evidently the home is not quite the caring community it purports to be. Dalgliesh is determined to discover the truth of his friend's death, but further fatalities follow and his own life is in danger as he unmasks the evil at the heart of Toynton Grange.

Death of an Expert Witness:
Dr. Lorrimer appeared to be the picture of a bloodless, coldly efficient scientist. Only when his brutally slain body is discovered and his secret past dissected does the image begin to change. Once again, Chief Inspector Adam Dalgliesh learns that there is more to human beings than meets the eye -- and more to solving a murder than the obvious clues.

The Skull Beneath the Skin:
Private detective Cordelia Gray is invited to the sunlit island of Courcy to protect the vainly beautiful actress Clarissa Lisle from veiled threats on her life. Within the rose red walls of a fairy-tale castle, she finds the stage is set for death.

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

California

Deadly Pleasures 

Discoloration on book jacket

Dodd, Mead & Company, 1973, book club edition, 275 pages

The last book written by Agatha Christie 

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, the engaging detective duo of N OR M? and of BY THE PRICKING OF MY THUMBS, return in their most chilling adventure. It begins with their discovery of an artfully hidden message: Mary Jordan did not die naturally. It was one of us. I think I know which one. The schoolboy who made this accusation had died long ago, but he and the mysterious Mary Jordan had once lived in the Beresfords' charming old house. And Mary had been killed. By whom and why? The solution to the ancient crime lay behind the Postern of Fate — a dread gate to violence and murder! 

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Postern of Fate

Tess Gerritsen

Slight watermark on top corner trough first 150 pages 

Harlequin Books, 2006, 555 pages

Call After Midnight: 

 A suspenseful romantic thriller from the author of the bestselling Rizzoli & Isles series.
A ringing phone in the middle of the night begins a horrific journey for newlywed Sarah Fontaine when she is given the news that her husband, Geoffrey, has been killed in a hotel fire in Berlin.
Convinced that Geoffrey is still alive, she challenges special agent Nick O'Hara of the U.S. State department to prove her wrong as they crisscross Europe in a desperate search, trying to stay one heartbeat ahead of a dangerous killer and risking everything for answers that may prove fatal.


Under the Knife:

For attorney David Ransom, it begins as an open-and-shut case: malpractice. Then Dr. Kate Chesne storms into his office, daring him to seek out the truth—that she's being framed. When another patient turns up dead, David starts to believe her. Somewhere in the Honolulu hospital, a killer walks freely. And now David finds himself asking the same questions Kate is desperate to have answered.

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

A ringing phone in the middle of the night shakes newlywed Sarah Fontaine awake. Expecting her husband's call from London she hears instead an unfamiliar voice. Nick O'Hara from the U.S. State Department is calling with devastating news: Geoffrey Fontaine, Sarah's husband of two months, died in a hotel fire ... in Berlin. Convinced her husband is still alive, Sarah forces a confrontation with Nick that finds them crisscrossing Europe on a desperate search for Geoffrey. Trying to stay one heartbeat ahead of a dangerous killer, they become quarry in the clandestine world of international espionage, risking everything for answers that may prove fatal.

Call after Midnight and under the Knife

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Nancy Pickard

Wear to cover front and edges 

Pocket Books, 2000, 264 pages 

Few killers of our time, whether real or imagined, are in the same league as Raymond Raintree. And as he stands in a Florida courtroom waiting to be convicted for the murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, Marie Lightfoot is taking it all in. Renowned for her true-crime bestsellers, Marie knows the case will make her best book yet -- because Raintree's crime, vile beyond imagining, is also impossible to turn away from. Creator of the award-winning Jenny Cain series, Pickard premieres a superb new heroine in a masterpiece of psychological suspense.

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

"Nancy Pickard pushes at the presumed limits of [crime fiction]" said the Los Angeles Times Book Review, praising the award-winning creator of the Jenny Cain mysteries. Now, Pickard blurs the line between fiction and reality in a novel of gripping intensity, and premieres a superb new heroine: true-crime author Marie Lightfoot. For her next surefire bestseller, Marie is covering the trial of a Florida killer -- a case that penetrates her own life, layer by disturbing layer. Whether real like Ted Bundy, or imagined like Hannibal Lecter, few killers of our time are in the same league as Raymond Raintree. And as he stands flanked by lawyers in a Florida courtroom, waiting to be convicted for the murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, Marie Lightfoot is taking it all in. A small, gutsy blonde renowned for her true-crime bestsellers, Marie knows the graphic and disturbing case will make her best book yet -- because Raintree's shocking crime, vile beyond imagining, is also impossible to turn away from. But there is something about the case -- and Raintree's involvement -- that bothers her. No one knows where Raintree, a man as slight and immature as a preteen boy, took Natalie after he abducted her. No one knows how Natalie -- bright, independent, and with no fear of the dark -- could be lured into a stranger's boat on a lonely waterway. And only one witness saw a man who may have been Raintree motoring along in a water taxi on the night Natalie disappeared. Even if the police can't provide answers, Marie intends to leave no loose ends. Starting with a prison meeting with Raintree, the steely-nerved writer follows a twisted path that leads to Natalie's parents, to a coincidence that doesn't quite gel, and to a place she has resisted all her life: the dark recesses of her own soul, where she hides the secrets of her own lost past. When Raymond escapes, Marie -- a curious contradiction of celebrity author and introspective loner -- becomes a sitting duck for a killer who just might be smart enough to outwit her. And evil enough to take her to hell before she dies. A masterpiece of psychological suspense, The Whole Truth is a compelling look at our fascination with the horrific crimes of our time. Nancy Pickard's characters are as close to flesh and blood as fiction can get -- and her writing is as close to perfection.

The Whole Truth

0a9dc5dc-882d-46fc-8129-fe5220eb041e-1

Small tears on top edge of book jacket 
Book jacket discoloration 

Scribner’s, 1981, 188 pages 

Inspector Thanet is called to investigate the death of a young housewife. His clues are a painting, a disc jockey, a mermaid, an estate agent, a recurring nightmare and an unsolved murder. Delving into the past he realizes he is hunting a murderer who has gone unpunished for twenty years.

The Night She Died 

Nelson DeMille

Laminate on book jacket is raised along lettering 

Warner Books, 1992, 454 pages

Captain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found naked and bound on the firing range. Paul Brenner is a member of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division's elite undercover investigative unit, and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the Army's "golden girl", and how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life.

The General's Daughter was made into a 1999 film of the same name, starring John Travolta and Madeleine Stowe. In the movie, Captain Ann Campbell's first name was changed to Elisabeth.


Here is an intriguing and sophisticated murder mystery of an upstanding military officer - the base commander's daughter - who's been leading an unsavory double life. When a professional military woman with a pristine reputation is found raped and murdered, a preliminary search turns up certain paraphernalia, and sex toys that point to a scandal of major proportions, The chief investigator is reluctant to take the case when he learns that his partner will be a woman with whom he had a tempestuous affair and an unpleasant parting. But duty calls and intrigue begins when they learn that several top-level people may have been involved with the "golden girl" - and many have wanted her dead. It's Nelson DeMille at his best - exciting, suspenseful and highly provocative.

The General's Daughter

da2b3903-fb0d-4ca9-82c9-5364e388d115-1

Dominick Dunne

Some shelf wear on book jacket

Crown, 2001, 337 pages 

Dominick Dunne's mesmerizing tales of justice denied and justice affirmed.

For more than two decades, Vanity Fair published Dominick Dunne’s brilliant, revelatory chronicles of the most famous crimes, trials, and punishments of our time. Whether writing of Claus von Bülow’s romp through two trials; the Los Angeles media frenzy surrounding O.J. Simpson; the death by fire of multibillionaire banker Edmond Safra; or the Greenwich, Connecticut, murder of Martha Moxley and the indictment—decades later—of Michael Skakel, Dominick Dunne tells it honestly and tells it from his unique perspective. His search for the truth is relentless.


Crimes, Trials, and Punishments

For more than two decades,Vanity Fairhas published Dominick Dunne's brilliant, revelatory chronicles of the most famous crimes, trials, and punishments of our time. The pursuit of justice has become his passion — a passion that began during the trial of the man who murdered Dunne's daughter and who was sentenced to six and a half years and released in less than three. Dunne's account of that trial and its shocking result became the first of his many classic essays on justice. Dominick Dunne's essays do much more than simply describe; his investigations have shed new light on those crimes and their perpetrators — and demonstrated how it is possible for some to skirt, even flout, the law. His persistence and personal involvement in the matter of Martha Moxley's murder was an important catalyst in bringing a dormant case back to life. Here in one volume are Dominick Dunne's mesmerizing tales of justice denied and justice affirmed. Whether writing of Vicki Morgan's hideous death; Claus von Bülow's romp through two trials; the media frenzy of Los Angeles in the age of O.J. Simpson; the death by fire of multibillionaire banker Edmund Safra in Monaco; or the ominous silence surrounding the death of Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the indictment — decades later — of Michael Skakel, Dominick Dunne tells it honestly and tells it from his unique perspective. His search for the truth is relentless. His courage and his storytelling skills shine from every page.

Justice

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Book jacket discolored 

Random House, 1978 book club edition, 250 pages

When Isabel Moore's father dies, she finds herself at the age of thirty suddenly freed from eleven years of unbroken devotion to a helpless, bedridden man. Standing at his open grave, she realizes that she has no idea what she wants now, that she must indeed "invent" a new existence. For her first tentative steps into a world now strange to her, she turns to two childhood friends - gentle, supportive Eleanor, who has an apartment in the city, and tough, strong-minded Liz, married, with two children and a farm. At the same time, almost inadvertently, she becomes involved with two men. And just when she is about to grasp her future, the past reaches out to hold her back. An exploration of the nature of friendship and of desire, of filial love and guilt, of the hold of the past, Final Payments heralds the arrival of an important new novelist with a remarkable gift for creating real and affecting characters and situations that, however unexpected, ring with authenticity.



Final Payments

Discolored book jacket with some chipping on the edges 

William Morrow and Co, 1977, 239 pages

Anna Kowalczek arrived on Capitol Hill the very day America entered World War II. She infiltrated the exclusively male domains of politics and journalism by hiding her intelligence and drive behind a façade of cheerful, irreverent innocence—playing the role men expected of bright, pretty girls in 1941. Thirty-five years later, Anna Hastings, widow of Texas Senator Gordon Hastings, is an influential columnist, powerful television personality, major political figure, publisher of one of the most respected newspapers in the country, and master of a media empire she ruled with a whim of iron.
Anna Hastings is the story of her public and personal struggles as she climbs her way from obscurity to legend, set against the backdrop of Washington during the tumultuous years of World War, Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the emergence of feminism as a distinct political force. Drawing on his years reporting on the Senate, Allen Drury again presents an "insider's view" of both the Senate and the Washington Press Corps during these decades of rapid social and political change




The story of a Washington newspaper person AH

Anna Hastings

Jean Shepherd

Pages yellowing 

Doubleday, 1980, 350 pages

With hilarious precision, Jean Shepherd remembers teenage survival in the Midwest: the almighty sacrifice of the Easter ham, taffy apple binges at the state fair, the gut-wrenching playground notist s Delbe Bunges the oemation prosing don surrounding the unapproachable Daphne Bigelow, and the sweaty glow of Wanda Hickey at the Junior Prom. These are some of the archetypal legends of childhood that Shepherd evokes from his nostalgic Indiana muse. A universal orchestration of Midwestern life and puberty rites, Wancia Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters is the sweet, cacophonous roar of youth tempered with the wit and enduring honesty of a grown boy. 

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

And Other Disasters

A bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana and the basis of the movie A Christmas Story.

"Mr. Shepherd has the true satirist's grip on his pen: he is humorous, sympathetic,and ironic all at once."--Boston Globe

Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant--and utterly hilarious--works of comic art. Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories is a universal (and achingly funny) orchestration of Midwestern puberty rites. From the gut-wrenching playground antics of one Delbert Bumpus and the almighty sacrifice of the Easter ham, to taffy-apple binges at the state fair and the supernatural glow surrounding unapproachable high school beauty Daphne Bigelow, to the memorable disaster that was Shepherd's (and everyone else's) junior prom--these are some of the archetypal legends of childhood that Shepherd evokes from his nostalgic Indiana muse.

A timeless and enduring classic, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories captures the sweet cacophonous roar of youth tempered with the wit and honesty of a grown boy

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories

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Donna Tartt

Book jacket back top rolled edge 

Little Brown, 2013, 771 pages 

The novel is a coming-of-age tale told in the first person. The protagonist, 13-year-old Theodore Decker, survives a terrorist bombing at an art museum where his mother is killed. While staggering through the debris, he takes with him a small Dutch Golden Age painting called Het Puttertje (Dutch for The Goldfinch). Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who do not know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: the small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
The painting is one of the few surviving works by Rembrandt's most promising pupil, Carel Fabritius (almost all of Fabritius's works were destroyed in the Delft explosion of 1654, in which the artist himself was killed).

A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

The Goldfinch

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Book jacket discolored and some small tears

Henry Regency Company, 1958, 176 pages

Protected from the grimness of World War I in Germany, a little girl and her mother find safety amid the beauty and peace of the ancient convent of Sankt Georgen. Here, among fields and rich woodlands, sheltered by old stone cloisters, nurtured by the warmly human religion of her gentle great-uncle and practical aunt, the child is cherished and loved. The grown-ups, with their concerns, their talk, and their rules, however, exist only vaguely for the little girl. Reality is the gypsy boy who lures her into the forest to show her a secret pool, the Corpus Christi lily that comes alive in the moonlight, the unseen menace that lies hidden in the grass of a sunny meadow in the stillness of noon. 
When the child's father returns from the war and the family settles down to normal living, the young girl is torn from her magic world and placed in a boarding school. How, under the rigid discipline of the school and the demands of her teachers and fellow students, she reconstitutes her earlier life of uncontrolled imagination into a more adult refuge of mind and spirit is the theme of Rings of Glass. 




Rings of Glass 

Some discoloration in book jacket 
Light staining on book cloth cover at spine 

Viking, 1978 book of the month club, 376 pages


Philippa Talbot is a successful London career woman turned forty when she feels the call of the religious life. "T thought I was very well as I was," she told the Brede Sacristan later, "a human, balanced person with a reasonable rec-ord; with the luck of having money, friends, love. Only suddenly it wasn't enough." She is one of the most attractive and sympathetic characters in Rumer Godden's long and well-loved fictional roster. This, then, is a story of the life in an enclosed house of nuns and of the relevance of this contemplative existence to our changing world—a challenging theme. The novel unfolds chiefly through Philippa, from the day of her entrance, through one crisis of mind and heart to another, until she faces an ultimate and almost unbearable sacrifice. Woven with her personal story is a much larger one-the story of the House, its history, and the present inmates who have vowed to live and die within its walls. The nuns are English Benedictines whose House is centuries old in tradi-tion, a stronghold of faith and prayer, yet they are up-to-date, alive, aware of the world-and matter of fact. In Rumer Godden's hands, they are fully realized individuals whom we come to know and care about, adding rich dimensions to the novel as they live out their vocations. 





In This House of Brede

Book jacket discolored 

Dell Book, 1983 book club edition, 408 pages

The saga of an American family divided by revolution continues in this stunning sequel to The Fires of July. 
As Drew Manning and his passionate young wife, Gwynne Templeton, enjoy a happy new life together, political matters in the Colonies threaten to explode in revolution and tear their families apart. The cry for liberty rings throughout South Carolina, and Drew openly supports the Patriots, while his aristocratic parents, and even his brother, remain staunchly loyal to the Crown. But soon the very foundations of his life will be shaken by more than revolution-Joanna Templeton Townshend, Gwynne's sister and Drew's spurned fiancée, stands ready to betray her own blood for the sake of ven-geance. Together with her British soldier hus-band, she masterminds a slave uprising on the Manning estate, killing many faithful slaves and several family members, and ultimately gaining a victory for the British king. But Drew and Gwynne will live through this bloody insurgency to continue America's fight for freedom, and Drew, torn between ties of blood and the rousing challenge of war, will come face to face with his own father and brother across a battlefield….





The Drums of December

Bookjacket chipping on edges and discolored 

Doubleday, 1968 book club edition, 287 pages 

Father Gregory Lind was thirty-two years old when he met Pamela Gibson. He was a dedicated and conservative priest, if judged by the standards of Vatican II. He was not in favor of celebrating the Mass in English. nor did he like the idea of folk Masses... and he believed strongly and seriously in the priestly vows of chastity. As assistant editor of The Catholic Star and as supervisor of a training center for the underprivileged Spanish-Americans of his town, he took a genuine, compassionate interest in people and their problems. Father Lind had seen Pamela a few times at the training center. She was the daughter of a wealthy banker, had been briefly married and divorced, and now she was devoting three evenings a week to teaching at the center. Father Lind found her pleasant and stimulating to talk to, a welcome moment of relaxation after a long day. Father Lind had hardly considered his meetings with Pamela a romance... until the day he suddenly realized how much he looked forward to seeing her... how utterly empty he felt when she was not around. And it wasn't long before Gregory Lind was forced to confront the most awesome dilemma of his life...



The Wine and the Music

Page color darkened with age 
Book cover discolored 
Creases in spine, but glue is tight and all pages intact

Avon Books, 1979, 664 pages

 A woman burdened by war...A doctor torn between passion and duty...A sweeping tale of love in the face of dishonor from the incomparable storyteller--Kathleen Woodiwiss.

Alaina MacGaren is forced to flee the devastation of her homeland in the guise of a young boy, only to find sanctuary in the arms of an enemy. Cole Latimer is a dashing Yankee surgeon who has served the Union faithfully, and his tender heart compels him to help a ragged, innocent "lad" in need--never suspecting the rags conceal a bewitching belle suspected of being a rebel spy.

But Alaina's masquerade does not fool Cole for long. And the strength, courage, and breathtaking sensuality of this woman whom it would be treasonous to love sets duty and desire at war within him. Yet Destiny has joined them for good or ill--and they both must follow where their hearts would lead them, if they are to build a glorious new life together out of the ashes of the old.



Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Ashes In the Wind

Kathryn Stockett

Some shelf wear on cover 

Putnam, 2009, 451 pages

Made into Movie in 2011
In 1960s Mississippi, Southern society girl Skeeter (Emma Stone) returns from college with dreams of being a writer. She turns her small town on its ear by choosing to interview the Black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent white families. Only Aibileen (Viola Davis), the housekeeper of Skeeter's best friend, will talk at first. But as the pair continue the collaboration, more women decide to come forward, and as it turns out, they have quite a lot to say.

The #1 New York Times bestselling novel and basis for the Academy Award-winning film—a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who’s always taken orders quietly, but lately she’s unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She’s full of ambition, but without a husband, she’s considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...

The Help

62974ce7-2729-4520-8110-0eb02fefbd7c-1

David Guterson

Knopf, 2003, 323 pages 

Ann Holmes seems an unlikely candidate for revelation. A sixteen-year-old runaway, she is an itinerant mushroom picker who lives in a tent. But on a November afternoon, in the foggy woods of North Fork, Washington, the Virgin comes to her, clear as day. Father Collins—a young priest new to North Fork-finds Ann disturbingly alluring. But it is up to him to evaluate-impartially-the veracity of Ann's sightings: Are they delusions, or a true calling to God? As word spreads and thousands, including the press, converge upon the town, Carolyn Greer, a smart-talking fellow mushroomer, becomes Ann's disciple of sorts, as well as her impromptu publicity manager. And Tom Cross, an embittered logger who's been out of work since his son was paralyzed in a terrible accident, finds in Ann's visions a last chance for redemption for both himself and his son. As Father Collins searches his own soul and Ann's, as Carolyn struggles with her less than admirable intentions, as Tom alternates between despair and hope, Our Lady of the Forest tells a suspenseful, often wryly humorous, and deeply involving story of faith at a contemporary crossroads.

Sixteen-year-old runaway and unlikely spiritual candidate Ann Holmes, surviving by living in a tent and working as an itinerant mushroom picker, experiences a vision of the Virgin Mary in the foggy woods of a Washington November morning. By the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. 350,000 first printing.

Our Lady of the Forest

60e91ea4-b46d-4406-931f-8f9ac2805124-1

Jeannette Walls

Scribner, 2009, 273 pages 

After her husband's death, Lily takes on the daunting task of managing a remote ranch in Arizona. She faces numerous obstacles, from droughts to unruly livestock, but she never gives up. Her unconventional methods and unyielding spirit earn her the respect of her peers and the admiration of her children. 

Author is Lily’s granddaughter 

A True-Life Novel

The author offers a novel based on the life of her grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who learned to break horses in childhood, journeyed 500 miles on a pony as a teen to become a teacher, and ran a vast ranch in Arizona with her husband while raising two children, including Rosemary Smith Walls, portrayed in the author's acclaimed The Glass Castle.

Half Broke Horses

b7f54e26-11df-457e-aaf2-84f3fb6755a0-1

Carolyn Parkhurst

Little Brown, 2003, 264 pages

Paul Iverson's life changes in an instant. He returns home one day to find that his wife, Lexy, has died under strange circumstances. The only witness was their dog, Lorelei, whose anguished barking brought help to the scene - but too late. In the days and weeks that follow, Paul begins to notice strange "clues" in their home: books rearranged on their shelves, a mysterious phone call, and other suggestions that nothing about Lexy's last afternoon was quite what it seemed. Reeling from grief, Paul is determined to decipher this evidence and unlock the mystery of her death. But he can't do it alone; he needs Lorelei's help. A linguist by training, Paul embarks on an impossible endeavor: a series of experiments designed to teach Lorelei to communicate what she knows. Perhaps behind her wise and earnest eyes lies the key to what really happened to the woman he loved. As Paul's investigation leads him in unexpected and even perilous directions, he revisits the pivotal moments of his life with Lexy, the brilliant, enigmatic woman whose sparkling passion for life and dark, troubled past he embraced equally.

Discovering clues that indicate that his beloved wife may not have died accidentally, Paul Iverson begins a perilous search for the truth while attempting to teach his dog, who witnessed the crime, to communicate. 50,000 first printing.

The Dogs of Babel

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Book jacket discolored and edges are chipping 

Knopf, 1976 book club edition, 340 pages 

In a stunning departure from the moods, settings, and concerns of his three best-selling novels, Thomas Tryon gives us Crowned Heads. Here are four supreme film stars-four fabulous interlocking lives that will stand as dramatic revelations of the incredible world whose unreal realities Tryon himself witnessed at first hand in his own years as a Hollywood star.


First, FEDORA. "The Perfect Work of Art" Her enigma unriddled - the greatest, the most beautiful, the longest-reigning royalty of them all: her career spanning the twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties; her glorious face untouched by time ... 
LORNA. "The All-American Cookie" -sexy, ap-pealing, climbing from cheapie gangster flicks to major roles; and slipping; most recently TV's Perkies Girl (Perkies Pop-Up Blueberry Tarts). Many jobs behind her, many men, much trouble. Now she has come to a secluded resort to find-to heal-herself...
BOBBIT. For ten years "America's Fantasy Child," the adorable kiddie star of Bobbitt's Flying Carpet, Bobbitt's Lucky Day, etc., etc., etc.- Top Box Office nationwide. Now he is in his thirties, still adorable. But today the Bobbitt movies don't even turn up on TV tot matinees. And Bobbitt himself-does he exist at all?
WILLIE. For decades a worldwide symbol of elegance and wit.  Now he is alone in his showplace Hollywood villa-his precious "Bee" dead. Her ashes in a golden urn on the mantel-
mourning the past. Until suddenly, fatally, with a knock on the door, the future breaks in. ...

Crowned Heads

Book jacket has some tears at top of spine 
Discoloration 
Cover shows shelf wear 
Small stain on book ledge 

Little Brown, 1971, 343 pages 


Every summer, many of the richest and most prestigious members of high society gather in Newport to submerge themselves in balls, regattas, dinner parties —and gossip. Gossip that never reaches the ears of outsiders, however. Until Peter Dorios comes along. Restless, separated from his wife, nearly broke, Dorios comes to Newport to find some much-needed stability and to work on his book, Newport: A City in Meta-morphosis. Stability, however, is the last thing he finds. Almost upon arrival, Peter runs into Steven Stellwaithe, an old college friend who also happens to be the scion of one of the oldest families on Ocean Drive. In no time at all, Stellwaithe introduces his friend not only to the whirl of Newport social activity, but, inadvertent-ly, to the disturbances beneath its surface. Peter begins to notice cracks in the fabled Newport social poise: What, he wonders, lies behind the famous alcoholism of dowager Lydia Beyard? What strange attraction exists between Steve Stellwaithe and his sister, Wilma? Why is Wilma's husband, Rex, so openly amorous with other women? And what, above all, is the real involvement of Wilma, Steve and Rex in the mysterious death of the Stellwaithe’s former secretary two years ago? 

Newport

Mary Higgins Clark

Simon Schuster, 1998, 170 pages

Mary Higgins Clark, the Queen of Suspense, celebrates the season with this Christmas classic featuring two of her most beloved characters.

All of Alvirah's deductive powers and Willy's world-class common sense are called upon as the two stumble into a Christmas mystery. A woman abandons her newborn at a Manhattan church. Simultaneously, a thief is absconding with a treasured artifact, a chalice adorned with a star-shaped diamond. To elude police, he grabs the stroller and disappears. Seven years later, the mother returns to the scene and finds Alvirah and Willy helping neighborhood kids prepare for a Christmas pageant at an after-school shelter. Soon the savvy sleuths set out to solve the puzzle of the missing child and chalice -- and to unmask scam artists threatening to shut down the shelter.

The best-selling author of You Belong to Me and Silent Night presents an inspiring new holiday mystery that features Alvirah and Willy, two popular characters from The Lottery Winner. (Mystery).

All Through the Night

60d10745-c0ba-400e-8bf2-db719fd5fd91-1

Robert Ludlum

James H. Cobb

Pages slightly yellowing

Grand Central Publishing, 2007, 390 pages

On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, researchers discover the wreckage of a mysterious World War Il-era aircraft, a discovery that forces the Russian Federation into a shocking admission. The unmarked plane is a Soviet strategic bomber that disappeared with its crew more than fifty years ago while carrying two metric tons of weaponized anthrax. 
Desperate to prevent a political and diplomatic firestorm, the U.S.; president dispatches a Covert-One team led by Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith to the crash site. But others have reached the frigid,, windswept island first, including an international arms dealer and his crew of vicious mercenaries. As for the Russians, they are lying: a! second, even deadlier secret rests within the hulk of the lost bomber, a secret the Russians are willing to kill to protect. Trapped in a polar wilderness, Smith and his team find themselves fighting a savage war on two fronts-against an enemy they can see and another hiding within their own ranks.

Covert One Series 

On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, researchers discover the wreckage of a mysterious World War II-era aircraft, a discovery that forces the Russian Federation into a shocking admission. The unmarked plane is a Soviet strategic bomber that disappeared with its crew more than fifty years ago while carrying two metric tons of weaponized anthrax. Desperate to prevent a political and diplomatic firestorm, the U.S. president dispatches a Covert-One team led by Lieutenant Colonel Jon Smith to the crash site. But others have reached the frigid, windswept island first, including an international arms dealer and his crew of vicious mercenaries. As for the Russians, they are lying: a second, even deadlier secret rests within the hulk of the lost bomber, a secret the Russians are willing to kill to protect. Trapped in a polar wilderness, Smith and his team find themselves fighting a savage war on two front--against an enemy they can see and another hiding within their own ranks.

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PD James