In this enjoyably high- sleaze potboiler about a mafioso who conquers Hollywood, there's no need for character growth: Every member of the cast is a blackhearted villain, and the great fun is watching them claw each other as the author spins out one unexpected twist, loop, and climax after another.

"Daughter of a cold, controlling mother and an anonymous donor, studious, obedient Elizabeth Fitch finally let loose one night, drinking too much at a nightclub and allowing a strange man's seductive Russian accent to lure her to a house on Lake Shore Drive. The events that followed changed her life forever. Twelve years later, the woman now known as Abigail Lowery lives alone on the outskirts of a small town in the Ozarks. A freelance programmer,...

Calling upon his considerable novelistic skills, Loren D. Estleman exposes the black heart of a seemingly stable, well-run city suddenly pitched into violence and chaos. A delicate balance of forces-greed and corruption, ambition and desire-run out of control in the wake of a serial killer's grisly rampage. A power struggle-between a police chief who has looked the other way for too long, a Mafia boss who holds the city's vices in his powerful grasp,...

Charley Partanna works as a hitman for the Prizzis, New York's most dangerous crime family. When he meets Irene Walker, an LA-based tax consultant, it's pretty much love at first sight. But Irene also moonlights as a hit woman-and had a hand in a big-money heist in Vegas. Now Charley has been told that she's got to go. Faced with divided loyalties, he must make a choice-between the only family he's ever known and the woman he loves.

"Robert B. Parker's beloved PI Sunny Randall returns on a case that blurs the line between friend and foe--and if Sunny can't tell the difference, the consequences may be deadly. When Sunny's long-time gangster associate Tony Marcus comes to her for help, Sunny is surprised--after all, she double crossed him on a recent deal, and their relationship is on shakier ground than ever. But the way Tony figures it, Sunny owes him, and Sunny's willing to...

"Cain Lemaire is an ex-Secret Service agent from New Orleans. With help from his sister who's working in Japan, Cain takes a job in Tokyo as head of security detail for a very successful and important CEO. Cain ends up tangling with the yakuza (Japanese mafia) and unraveling a sex slavery ring"-- Cain Lemaire, an ex-Secret Service agent from New Orleans, had his dream job protecting the President until a scandal lost him his post. Needing a new direction...

Jeffrey Blaine is a good man, a wealthy and powerful Wall Street broker with impeccable social standing. But his wife-who supports charitable foundations from their Park Avenue townhouse-seems to have lost interest in their marriage, and his daughter, a beautiful debutante ready for Yale University in the fall, has turned sullen and rebellious. Having achieved everything he'd ever dreamed of, Blaine now feels unsettled, stagnant, hungry for a new...

Big truck, big dog, big hair. Bad attitude.Roxy Abruzzo, bestselling author Nancy Martin's latest creation, is the loud-mouthed, sexy, independent-minded niece of a Pittsburgh Mafia boss trying to go (mostly) straight. She'd like to stay completely out of her uncle Carmine's shady business dealings, though he's trying to reel her in. She'd like to concentrate on the architectural salvage business she runs mostly on the up-and-up for a tidy profit....