by Phillip Margolin (2005)
New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin returns with an explosive thriller about how a young tabloid reporter’s “paranoid” theories just might be true. Vanessa Kohler is a tabloid reporter living and working in Washington DC. She writes fantastic stories about a vast government conspiracy to cover up a secret military unit headed by General Wingate, a popular presidential candidate. Most dismiss her as a paranoid crackpot using sensationalism to sell papers. But a few powerful men know better, and they’ve gone to great lengths to discredit her. But by chance Vanessa discovers that a key player in this story - long assumed dead - may be living under a new identity. Vietnam vet Carl Rice, who was involved in a secret military operation that resulted in the murder of a congressman. Vanessa knows Rice holds the key to proving her theories - and demonstrating General Wingate may not be the man he appears to be.It's a beautiful summer night in Portland, Oregon.Ami Vergano, a young attorney and single mother, arrives at her son Ryan's Little League game with their tenant and new friend, Dan Morelli. When the assistant coach calls in sick, Morelli seems happy to help out. But then one player roughly blocks another, and a fight erupts. Before the game ends, Ami witnesses violence that shocks and horrifies her and makes her question everything she thought she knew about Morelli.On the other side of the continent, in a cheap motel room in Washington, D.C., ex-mental patient Vanessa Kohler, a reporter for Exposed, a tabloid that specializes in alien-abduction stories, watches a piece on television about the Little League massacre and quickly places a call to the FBI. For years she's been telling anyone who will listen about a vast government conspiracy to conceal a secret military unit headed by Gen. Morris Wingate, a presidential candidate, and for years every-one has dismissed her stories. But when Vanessa sees Dan Morelli fighting, she believes she's found the key to proving that her theories are true.Vanessa hires Ami Vergano to represent Morelli, who is charged with attempted murder, and Ami is drawn into Vanessa's paranoid world. Are Vanessa, a former mental patient, and Morelli, a confessed mass murderer, telling the truth about one of the nation's most respected soldiers and politicians? Or are their charges a product of two sick minds? Ami has to decide who -- and what -- to believe, in Phillip Margolin's most exciting and surprising thriller since his breakout bestseller, Gone, But Not Forgotten.
Mary Jane Clark
TV reporter Eliza Blake, a widow with a child, hunts for the killer of an anchorman in her New York station. The novel has details on the day-to-day coverage of television news, including probing the sex life of politicians. A first novel.
P.D. James
Cheverell Manor is a lovely old house in deepest Dorset, now a private clinic belonging to the famous plastic surgeon George Chandler-Powell. When investigative journalist Rhoda Gradwyn arrived there one late autumn afternoon, scheduled to have a disfiguring and long-standing facial scar removed, she had every expectation of a successful operation and a pleasant week recuperating.Two days later she was dead, the victim of murder.To Commander Adam Dalgliesh, who with his team is called in to investigate the case, the mystery at first seems absolute. Few things about it make sense. Yet as the detectives begin probing the lives and backgrounds of those connected with the dead woman--the surgeon, members of the manor staff, close acquaintances--suspects multiply all too rapidly. New confusions arise, including strange historical overtones of madness and a lynching 350 years in the past. Then there is a second murder, and Dalgliesh finds himself confronted by issues even more challenging than innocence or guilt.P. D. James has gained an enviable reputation for creating detective stories of uncommon depth and intricacy, combined with the sort of humanity and perceptiveness found only in the finest novelists. The Private Patient ranks among her very best.
James W. Ziskin
"February 1962: Tony Eberle has just scored his first role in a Hollywood movie, and the publisher of his hometown newspaper in upstate New York wants a profile of the local boy who's made good. Reporter Ellie Stone is dispatched to Los Angeles for the story. But when she arrives on set to meet her subject, Tony has vanished. The director is apoplectic, Tony'sagent is stumped, and the producer is found murdered. Ellie is on the story, diving headfirst into a treacherous demimonde of Hollywood wannabes, beautiful young men, desperately ambitious ingenues, panderers, and pornography hobbyists. Then there are some real movie stars with reputations to protect. To find the killer, Ellie must separate the lies from the truth, unearthing secrets no one wants revealed along the way. But before she can solve the producer'smurder, she must locate Tony Eberle"-- "Ellie Stone, a young newspaper reporter in 1960s' upstate New York, is sent to Los Angeles to cover the story of a local boy about to debut in his first Hollywood movie. But when he disappears and Ellie investigates, she puts her life at risk by asking too many questions that make the Hollywood elite uncomfortable"--
Sara J. Henry
Freelance writer Troy Chance is snapping photos of the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival ice palace when the ice-cutting machine falls silent. Encased in the ice is a body. One of her rooommates falls under suspicion and the media descends. Troy is assigned to write an in-depth feature on the dead man, who, it turns out, was the son of a wealthy Connecticut family but playing at a blue collar life. The deeper Troy digs into his life and death, the murkier things become.