Richard Rayner is a British author whose works often feature a unique blend of fiction and travelogue, exploring life experiences and cultural observations. His writing is noted for its keen perception and fluid narrative, drawing readers into the environments he examines. Rayner's ability to weave personal reflections with broader themes has established him as a distinctive voice in contemporary literature. His perspective, shaped by living between the UK and the United States, offers a fresh look at modern life.
"The Elephant" is Bradford, a man in the death business and also his son, a fantasist and liar who is named after a cricket field. It is about versions of the truth, the mystery of names, sexual hysteria and a fear of not-feeling. By the author of "Los Angeles Without a Map".
The city is Los Angeles, the birthplace and terminus of the American dream, a city that has come to symbolize both heaven and hell. Billy McGrath is an enigma, half American, half English, who once dreamed of pursuing a career as an academic philosopher, but for the last fifteen years he's been a homicide detective, one of LA's best. He knows the rules, playing them perhaps better than anyone while understanding the reality of a justice system that doesn't always work, that punishes the underprivileged and lets the rich go free. He's a deeply unhappy, possibly suicidal man, divorced from a wife he still adores and separated from a ten-year-old daughter for whom he'd readily die. McGrath is called to a crime scene - a woman dead on a kitchen floor in one of the city's less than inviting neighborhoods, a seemingly routine assignment until he discovers that the murdered woman's son is LA's biggest crack dealer, an idol of the ghetto who offers him a one-million-dollar bounty for the name of the killer. Making the wrongt choice for what might be the right reasons, McGrath initiates both his own fall from grade, and, as he strives to redeem himself, a series of wild and furious actions that hurtle him through many identities of corrupt Los Angeles. In Ian Mcgrath, Rayner has dreated a sympathetic everyman, who becomes both victim and victor. Set against a bleak cityscape, Murder Book is a dark, violent and sexy thriller that is impssible to put down.
In a tiny village in Finland, Esko Vaananen is at the brink of despair -- he loves a woman he can never have. Suddenly, in the magical light of the aurora borealis, he has a vision of an impossibly tall building rising gracefully from the frozen lake and disappearing into the clouds above him. This pilvenpiirtaja -- "cloud sketcher" or skyscraper -- sparks a lifelong quest for beauty in Esko. He will pursue and protect these two passions -- his vision and his love -- no matter how great the cost, for the rest of his life. It is a journey that leads him into the Bolshevik revolution and the Jazz Age nightclubs of New York City and to strike a Faustian bargain with a ruthless gangster -- all in the pursuit of artistic perfection and impossible, unattainable love.
The story of Michael Sullivan (aka the Angel of Death), a hit man for an Irish American gang in Depression-era Chicago. His work crosses into his private life, leading to the death of his beloved wife and son, leading Sullivan and his surviving son to set out on a journey of revenge.
"[W]hat led a poor boy from Liverpool to become a magus powerful enough to take on the Devil and emerge triumphant? A new window onto Constantine's unique and harrowing life is now open with rare cuts, collecting six never-before-reprinted issues of thisgroundbreaking Vertigo series and showcasing some of the pivotal episodes in the working-class wizard's bloody history." -- p. [4] of cover.
Die Rache einer gedemütigten Frau ist lebensgefährlich. Maurice Valentine ist ein ehrgeiziger Architekt, und Las Vegas ist sein El Dorado. Ein Hotel nach dem anderen zieht er in der Stadt des Glücksspiels und der leichten Liebe hoch, und dass sein Auftraggeber die Mafia ist, stört ihn nicht im geringsten. Man schreibt das Jahr 1956, und während draußen in der Wüste Atompilze aufsteigen und das Komitee für Unamerikanische Umtriebe in Hollywood nach Kommunisten sucht, winkt dem zynischen jungen Mann eine große Karriere. Man will ihn zum Senator machen. Da kreuzt eine kühle und zugleich leidenschaftliche Frau seinen Weg. Er hält sie für eine leichte Beute, aber erst als er mit einer Schussverletzung im Krankhaus liegt, wird ihm klar, dass er ein Spiel auf Leben und Tod spielt. Ein atmosphärisch dichter, romantischer Thriller aus der tiefschwarzen Serie: Der Held sitzt in der Falle, getrieben von Ehrgeiz und Angst, er ist unfähig, Schuld von Unschuld zu unterscheiden, echte und falsche Identität verschwimmen vor seinen Augen, das Böse ist bedrohlich und faszinierend zugleich. »Wer Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy und Elmore Leonard schätzt, wird Richard Rayner lieben.« Deggendorfer aktuell
