A cold and lonely place

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Hugh Pentecost

A group of thugs storms the Beaumont Hotel, and only Pierre Chambrun can stop the chaos. There has been trouble in Central Park. Free concerts given on the great lawn have been ending in upheaval as gangs of toughs maraud through the crowd with bats, chains, and knives -- taking what they want and crushing those who stand in their way. During a performance by red-hot diva Donna Ward, the park is peaceful. But afterward, the horde descends on the Beaumont Hotel, smashing the bar and storming the elevators in search of beautiful things to steal or destroy. In the chaos, someone takes three shots at Victoria Haven, the onetime beauty queen who has, for decades, occupied the penthouse. After the throng is expelled from the premises, manager Pierre Chambrun tries to discover who would want to kill this harmless old glamour girl. But his investigation is about to be upended -- for the riot is only the beginning of his trouble.

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Colin Harrison

Jin Li, the beautiful young manager of a Manhattan office-cleaning firm, is on the run. She has been 'disposing' of valuable information from top corporations, and now the people she has stolen from are desperate for revenge. Meanwhile, the mysterious Ray Grant, Jin Li's former lover, is tracked down by her ruthless brother Chen and offered an impossible choice: help Chen find Jin Li, or place his own father in danger. As the hunt for Jin Li gathers pace, the stakes are high on all sides. Will Ray find her before her enemies do? Can Chen and his Shanghai 'associates' be trusted to keep their word? And what is the secret that could affect them all?

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Jeffery Deaver

Five feet two inches of slick repartee, near-purple hair, and poetic imagination, twenty-year-old Rune hasn't been in Manhattan for very long. But she's crafty enough to have found a squatter's paradise in an empty TriBeCa loft, and a video store job that feeds her passion for old movies. It's a passion she shares with her favorite customer, Mr. Kelly, a lonely old man who rents the same video over and over. The flick is a noir classic based on a real-life unsolved bank heist and a million missing dollars. It's called Manhattan Is My Beat.That's the tape Rune is picking up from Mr. Kelly's shabby apartment when she finds him shot to death. The police suspect a robbery gone wrong, but Rune is certain the key to solving the murder is hidden somewhere in the hazy, black-and-white frames of Mr. Kelly's beloved movie. But as Rune hits the mean streets of New York to find answers, she gets caught up in a dangerous adventure more chilling than anything Hollywood could dream up. As her story draws to its terrifying conclusion, Rune's final close-up may include the killer of a co-star.From the Paperback edition.

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Chris Knopf

After one of Southampton real estate lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski's clients attempts to evict his sister-in-law from his own home, he turns up dead, and Jackie finds herself working on something more dangerous than real estate.