When Saffyre Maddox was ten, something terrible happened, and she's carried the pain of it ever since. The man who she thought was going to heal her didn't, and now she hides, learning his secrets, invisible in the shadows. Owen Pick is invisible too. He's never had a girlfriend; he's never even had a friend. Nobody sees him. Nobody cares. But when Saffyre goes missing from opposite his house on Valentine's night, suddenly the whole world is looking at Owen. Accusing him, holding him responsible for Saffyre's disappearance
In an isolated country town afflicted by interminable drought, a charismatic and dedicated young priest calmly opens fire on his congregation, shooting dead five parishioners before being gunned down himself. A year later, accompanied by his own demons from war-time reporting, journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in Riversend. His assignment is deliberately simple: describe how the townspeople are coping as the anniversary of their tragedy approaches. But as Martin meets the locals and hears their version of events, he begins to realise that the accepted wisdom – that the priest was a paedophile whose imminent exposure was the catalyst for the shooting, established through an award-winning investigation by his own newspaper – may be wrong. Just as Martin believes he’s making headway, a dramatic new development rocks the town. The bodies of two German backpackers - missing since the time of the church shootings - are discovered in a dam in the scrublands. It's the biggest story in Australia, the media arrive en masse. Instead of gently easing back into reporting, Martin finds himself thrown into a media storm, and with it a complex mystery. What was the real reason behind the priest’s shooting spree? And how does it connect to the backpacker murders, if at all? Martin struggles to uncover the town’s dark secrets, putting his job, his mental state, and his life all at risk as events escalate around him.
"A woman trying to outrun her past is drawn to a quiet coastal town in Maine--and to a string of unsolved murders--in this haunting tale of romantic suspense from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen."-- Provided by publisher
Award-winning author Elizabeth George delivers another masterpiece of suspense
in her Inspector Lynley series: Lynley and his pugnacious and deeply loyal
Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers find themselves up against one of the most
sinister murder cases they have ever encountered.When a Member of Parliament
shows up at New Scotland Yard requesting an investigation into the suicide of
the son of one of his constituents in the beautiful town of Ludlow, the
Assistant Commissioner sees two opportunities in this request: the first is to
have an MP owing him a favour, and the second is to get rid of Detective
Sergeant Barbara Havers, whose career at the Met has been hanging by a thread
for quite some time. So he assigns Havers to the case and for good measure
partners her with the one person who shares his wish to see the back of her,
Detective Chief Superintendent Isabelle Ardery.But Ardery has her own
difficulties. She is not happy to be sent away from London and as a result is
in a rush to return. This causes her to overlook things, important things, and
prevents her from uncovering an earlier crime that set everything in motion.
No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell delivers the twenty-fourth engrossing thriller in her high-stakes series starring medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Someone is following you... One summer evening in New England, two young girls stumble upon a body. Forensic pathologist Dr. Kay Scarpetta arrives at the scene to find a young woman has been attacked with almost superhuman force. Someone is taunting you... Meanwhile, people close to Scarpetta start receiving suspicious calls. Could they be linked to Scarpetta's anonymous cyber stalker, Tailend Charlie? Someone wants to destroy you... A second death shocks Scarpetta to her core. Because analysis of the body shows a material that doesn't exist on earth. And it's clear that someone, or something, is coming for her, and is hell-bent on creating chaos...
You are being watched. The death of a Hollywood mogul's daughter has the police convinced it's an accident. But Dr. Kay Scarpetta knows better. It's almost as if someone is leaving evidence only she would spot. They are always three steps ahead Scarpetta is sidetracked when she receives a video clip revealing disturbing secrets about her niece, Lucy. But before she can react, the FBI raid Lucy's estate. Time is running out Scarpetta suspects one person is behind it all: the murder, the videos, the FBI. She needs to stop them before it's too late - and everyone she loves is destroyed.
Patricia Cornwell delivers the next enthralling thriller in her high-stakes series starring Kay Scarpetta - a complex tale involving a serial sniper who strikes chillingly close to the forensic sleuth herself.
Supporting a friend who has lost custody of his young daughter, Barbara and her partner, Inspector Thomas Lynley, are further shocked when the girl's mother reports that the child has been kidnapped as part of a plot that risks Barbara's career.
There were four of us down there for the first thirty-two months and eleven days of our captivity. And then, very suddenly and without warning, there were three. Even though the fourth person hadn't made any noise at all in several months, the room got very quiet when she was gone. For a long time after that, we sat in silence, in the dark, each of us wondering what this meant for her and for us, and which of us would be the next in the box.
A sniper has Washington's corrupt elite in their sights. When two of the most corrupt people in politics are assassinated by a skilled sniper, Detective Alex Cross is called to action. As more crooked politicians are picked off, the media frenzy intensifies. Public opinion is divided - is this anonymous marksman a villain or a hero? As Cross investigates the case, he receives a call from his deadliest adversary and his worst fears come true. The Mastermind is in DC, and this time he won't stop until Cross and his family are dead . . .
The basis for DEEP WATER, now a major ITV TV series, starring Anna Friel. 'One of the most hypnotically gripping books I've read in a long, long time.' TESS GERRITSEN Your friend's child is missing. It's your fault. No family is perfect. A husband, three children and a full-time job, so many plates to keep spinning. No wonder you forgot you were supposed to be looking after your friend's daughter. But no one has seen her since yesterday. And she's not the first to go missing from your small town. So who's hiding something? 'She writes with a singular voice and a passion that roars off the page . . . With a sharp, double-twist ending it announces Daly as a potential star' Daily Mail 'Fiendishly addictive' Guardian 'Riveting! Daly plunges straight into the heart of every parent's worst nightmare with page-turning results' Lisa Gardner 'The sort of book that causes you to lose half a day without even noticing' Elizabeth Haynes, author of Into the Darkest Corner
After working on one of the worst mass killings in US history, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns home to recover, but an unsettling call drives her straight back to work. The body of a young woman has been discovered inside the sheltered gates of MIT, draped in an unusual cloth and posed in a way that is too deliberate to be the killer's first strike. A preliminary examination reveals that the body is covered in a fine dust that under ultra-violet light fluoresces blood-red, emerald-green and sapphire-blue, and physical evidence links this to another series of disturbing homicides in Washington, DC. As Scarpetta pieces together the fragments of evidence she discovers that the cases connect, yet also seem to conflict, and with so much at stake, it's clear that she is the only one who can solve it . . . Dust is a thrilling, addictive novel featuring one of the most iconic, original and compelling characters in crime fiction today.
In "I, Alex Cross," Detective Alex Cross is devastated by the murder of his niece and vows to find her killer. As he investigates, he uncovers a dangerous world tied to Washington's elite and a notorious club. With thrilling twists and revelations, this gripping tale showcases Cross at his best.
Detective Lindsay Boxer finally gets married. But a missing newborn and a series of violent attacks push the Womens Murder Club back to full throttle before the wedding gifts are even unwrapped.
Kay Scarpetta has arranged to meet an inmate at the high-security Georgia Prison for Women. The prisoner is a convicted sex offender and the mother of a vicious and diabolically brilliant killer. Against advice, Scarpetta is determined to hear this woman out - she believes she may hold some answers to the murder of her former deputy. But soon she finds connections to a string of grisly killings, including the slaughter of a Savannah family years earlier. She can see a pattern to these killings, but who is behind them and why? As she learns more, Scarpetta is compelled to conclude that this is only the beginning of something far more destructive: a terrifying terrain of conspiracy and potential terrorism on an international scale. And she is the only one who can stop it...
NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is on a tour of Europe's most gorgeous cities. But the sights aren't what draw him - he sees each museum, each cathedral, and each cafe through the eyes of his daughter's killer. Kanon's daughter, Kimmy, and her fiance were murdered while on holiday in Rome. Since then, young couples in Madrid, Salzburg, Athens and Paris have been found dead. Little connects the murders, other than a postcard to the local newspaper that precedes each new victim. Now Kanon teams up with the Swedish reporter, Dessie Larsson, who has just received a postcard in Stockholm - and they think they know where the next victims will be. With relentless logic and unstoppable action, Postcard Killers may be James Patterson's most vivid and compelling thriller yet.
It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta - despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN - to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesley's. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package - possibly a bomb - waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionaires with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past
"And in The Front, peril is what comes to them all. D. A. Lamont has a special job for Garano. As part of a new public relations campaign concerning the dangers of declining neighborhoods, she's sending him to Watertown to come up with a "drama," and she thinks she knows just the case that will serve. Garano is very skeptical, because he knows that Watertown is also the home base for a loose association of municipal police departments called the FRONT, set up so that they don't have to be so dependent on the state - much to Lamont's anger. He senses a much deeper agenda here - but he has no idea just how deep it goes. In the days that follow, he'll find that Lamont's task, and the places it leads him, will resemble a house of mirrors - everywhere he turns, he's not quite sure if what he's seeing is true."--BOOK JACKET.
Copenhague, 1905. Severine Riis, esposa del pintor danés Viktor Riis, posa para él, siempre de espaldas. Para sobrellevar el silencio de las sesiones, comienza a escribir un diario con sus reflexiones íntimas. Bucarest, 1985. Joen Alsted, embajador de Dinamarca, hereda seis cuadros de Viktor y se relaciona con la familia Moore, donde su hija Freya cautiva a Sophia, su esposa, quien anhela ser madre. Londres, 2005. Tras la muerte de su marido, Sophia decide vender las obras de Riis, y el joven historiador del arte Peter Finch se encarga de su documentación. Freya, ahora casi treintañera, es invitada a la casa de Sophia, donde descubre los diarios de Severine. Esto desata una investigación sobre la vida y obra de Riis, con consecuencias inesperadas. Paula Vene Smith presenta una historia cautivadora en la que seis cuadros enigmáticos impactan la vida de varios personajes a través del tiempo. La autora explora la relación entre arte y vida, creando un caleidoscopio de emociones que atrapa al lector desde el inicio.
When one member of the Women's Murder Club is brutally attacked, her three companions work to keep her attacker behind bars, while Lindsay Boxer investigates a series of kidnappings in which children and their nannies are being abducted without ransom demands.
Join the Women's Murder Club on an exhilarating thrill ride as love and murder test their friendships like never before. Someone is killing the richest people in the city-and the Women's Murder Club will pay a high price for hunting him. At the party of the year, San Francisco's most glamorous couple is targeted by a killer-and it's the perfect murder. While Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the high-profile killings, a saintly street preacher is brutally executed. Reporter Cindy Thomas inquires into this neglected case and discovers the victim may have had very dark secrets. As the search for two criminals tests the limits of the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay sees sparks fly between Cindy and Lindsay's partner, Detective Rich Conklin. The Club now faces its toughest challenge: Will love destroy all that the four friends have built?
Leaving behind her forensic pathology practice in South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta takes up an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured patient in a psychiatric ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talk - and the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard. He says his injuries were sustained in the course of a murder ... that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The only thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murdered - and that more violent deaths will follow...
Investigating the arson deaths of a wealthy couple, San Francisco detective Lindsay Boxer and Assistant DA Yuki Castellano find the case further complicated by the disappearance of a former governor's son, internal pressure, and the media.
Alex Cross must face the world's most dangerous agents, criminals, and assassins. The fate of the world rests in his hands. In broad desert daylight, a mysterious platoon of soldiers evacuates the entire population of Sunrise Valley, Nevada. Minutes later, a huge bomb detonates a hundred feet above the ground and lays waste to homes, cars, and playgrounds: a town annihilated in an instant. The Russian supercriminal known as the Wolf claims responsibility for the blast. Alex Cross is on vacation in San Francisco with his girlfriend, Jamilla Hughes, when he gets the call. World leaders have just four days to prevent an unimaginable cataclysm. Racing down the hairpin turns of the Riviera in the most unforgettable finale James Patterson has ever written, he confronts the truth of the Wolf's identity, a revelation that even Cross himself may be unable to survive.
"When the bady of eleven year old Thuy Sen is found in San Francisco bay, the police qwiftly charge Rennell and Payton Price with her grisly murder. A twelve person jury, helped along by an incompetent lawyer for the defence, is quick to find the brothers guilty - and to sentence them both to die for their crimes.
A beautiful summer ́s evening in a Kent field and around their two caravans a group of strawberry pickers celebrates a birthday. An idyllic scence. But this is a group leading dangerous lives - exploitative employers, British regulations and gang masters with guns will all threaten them as they take to the caravan road to find their destinies.
The 'book of the dead' is the morgue log in which all cases are entered. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to have a new meaning. Fresh from her battle with a psychopath in Florida, Scarpetta moves to South Carolina and opens a private forensic pathology practice. A string of brutal killings shatters her dreams of a quiet life.
Alex Cross battles the most ruthless and powerful killer he has ever encountered - a predator known only as "the Wolf. "Alex Cross's first case since joining the FBI has his new colleagues stymied. Across the country, men and women are being kidnapped in broad daylight and then disappearing completely. These people are not being taken for ransom, Alex realizes. They are being bought and sold. And it looks as if a shadowy figure called the Wolf - a master criminal who has brought a new reign of terror to organize crime - is behind this business in which ordinary men and women are sold as slaves. Even as he admires the FBI's vast resources, Alex grows impatient with the Bureau's clumsiness and caution when it is time to move. A lone wolf himself, he has to go out on his own in order to track the Wolf and try to rescue some of the victims while they are still alive. As the case boils over, Alex is in hot water at home too. His ex-fiancee, Christine Johnson, comes back into his life - and not for the reasons Alex might have hoped.
A candid and intimate narrative unfolds in this engaging novel by a celebrated contemporary writer. The story delves into personal themes, offering readers a deep connection with the characters and their experiences. The author's distinctive voice and insightful storytelling invite exploration of complex emotions and relationships, making it a compelling read for those seeking authenticity in literature.
A Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she's planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk-its motto: "Any crime, any time." In particular, she's been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she's found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder-in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?Her investigator is not so sure-not sure about anything to do with this woman, really-but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but the lives of everyone around them. It's not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed . . . and they're about to get much worse.Sparks fly, traps spring, twists abound-this is the master working at the top of her game.View the trailer for "Patricia Cornwell's At Risk", premiering on Lifetime on April 10, 2010.
"Definire "pigro" un bambino significa non aver capito nulla di lui." Quello che spesso chiamiamo "pigrizia" è in realtà uno stato psicofisico che ha delle ragioni accertabili, molto simili a ingranaggi inceppati, ad anelli deboli della catena che regola il buon funzionamento della mente e del corpo di ognuno di noi. MeI Levine, esperto dei problemi dell'apprendimento, individua otto cause di scarso rendimento, e le illustra una per una con il racconto di un caso esemplare: disfunzione motoria; difficoltà di memoria a lungo termine; scarsa capacità di controllo dell'"energia mentale"; impulsività e frenesia sociale; inadeguatezza linguistico-espressiva; difficoltà di ideazione e di elaborazione di pensiero critico e creativo; problemi di organizzazione. Che fare una volta individuata l'origine del problema? Il passo successivo, come ci mostra Levine, è stabile alcune modalità di intervento, in grado di esaltare i punti di forza della personalità di ciascuno e spingerlo così ad affrontare ogni ostacolo con l'energia ritrovata dell'ottimismo. La pigrizia non è un male incurabile. Come ci insegna questo libro, semplicemente non esiste. Esistono piuttosto tecniche e strategie per valorizzare e potenziare tutti quegli aspetti che consentono ai presunti pigri di sfruttare al meglio conoscenze, abilità e doti peculiari. Facendo di ogni bambino l'eroe di uno sforzo produttivo e felice.
È impossibile, nella carriera di un detective, dimenticare il disordinato, incessante movimento delle mosche necrofaghe su un cadavere umano. Uno spettacolo orribile che prima o poi un poliziotto è costretto a contemplare. Adesso le mosche Calliphora potrebbero essere un lontano ricordo per Kay Scarpetta che, lasciati Richmond e l'Istituto di medicina legale della Virginia, si è trasferita a Delray Beach, in Florida. Un lavoro da consulente free lance, decisamente più tranquillo. Ma gli spettri, si sa, ritornano. La strana morte in Louisiana di una ricca signora, apparentemente per overdose, ben presto mostra inquietanti collegamenti con la scomparsa di numerose donne nella zona di Baton Rouge.
Four crime-solving friends face off against a killer in San Francisco in the Women's Murder Club novel that started James Patterson's thrilling series. Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered--before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong. Full of the breathtaking drama and unforgettable emotions for which James Patterson is famous, 1st to Die is the start of the #1 New York Times bestselling series of crime thrillers.
Jack Mullen is a driven student of the law. His brother Peter is a servant of the rich, parking the cars of the Hamptons' elite-and perhaps satisfying their more intimate needs as well. Then Peter's body is found on the beach. Jack knows the drowning was no accident, but someone's unlimited power and money have bought the cops, the judges, the system. Now Jack is learning a lesson in justice he never got in law school ... and his astonishing plan to beat the billionaires will have you reeling-and cheering-to the very last page.
A high-powered San Francisco defense attorney becomes the defendant in a scandalous murder case involving accusations of adultery and sexual abuse, divorce, an ugly custody battle, extortion, and conflicting loyalties
Elfrida Phipps loves her new life in the pretty Hampshire village. She has a tiny cottage, her faithful dog Horace and the friendship of the neighbouring Blundells - particularly Oscar - to ensure that her days include companionship as well as independence. But an unforeseen tragedy upsets Elfrida's tranquillity: Oscar's wife and daughter are killed in a terrible car crash and he finds himself homeless when his stepchildren claim their dead mother's inheritance. Oscar and Elfrida take refuge in a rambling house in Scotland which becomes a magnet for various waifs and strays who converge upon it, including an unhappy teenage girl. It could be a recipe for disaster. But somehow the Christmas season weaves its magical spell and for Elfrida and Oscar, in the evening of their lives, the winter solstice brings love and solace.
Tutto ha inizio al Deep Water Terminal di Richmond, quando, in un container di un cargo proveniente da Anversa, viene rinvenuto il cadavere di un uomo in avanzato stato di decomposizione. L'autopsia, eseguita da Kay Scarpetta, non riesce a stabilire con certezza la causa di morte dell'uomo e la polizia non è in grado di identificarlo dai pochi effetti personali ritrovati. Unica traccia ritrovata, quella che potrebbe essere la firma dell'assassino su uno scatolone all'interno del container: Loup-Garou. Sarà questa misteriosa firma a portare Kay Scarpetta oltreoceano, in Francia, dove l'Interpol sta da qualche tempo indagando su una serie di raccapriccianti omicidi riconducibili appunto a Loup-Garou.
1967, Lake City, Ohio. Tony Lord and Sam Robb, both in their teens, are best friends and athletic rivals. Twenty-eight years later, Tony is a successful San francisco attorney; sam is an assistant principal at Lake City High School. Sam has never left home, and Tony has never returned since the trauma that changed his life: the brutal murder of his first love, Alison, of which he was wrongly accused and which turned everyone, even Sam, against him. Now Sam is a suspect. One of his female students has been murdered. Tony, reluctantly but inevitably, comes back to defend him. At once, Tony is plunged into the unfinished business of his past. In the merciless arena of a murder trial, he must confront not only his fear that Sam is a murderer but also the buried truths that obscure the real meaning of Alison's death. Powerful in its portrayal of the complexities of male friendship, of the darkest recesses of love, and of the many ways in which the past stakes its claim upon the present, Silent Witness is that rare suspense novel which is far more - the kind of story we have come to expect from Richard North Patterson.
Carrie Grethen, partner in crime to William Temple Gault, has escaped from prison. Before she does so she sends Kay Scarpetta a message which makes it all too clear that she blames her (and Lucy, and Benton Wesley, and Pete Marino) for Gault's death, and has specific - if cryptic - plans for revenge. Wary and quite shaken, Scarpetta still has a professional life to get on with, including investigating the death of an unknown female in a fire which has destroyed the isolated farmhouse home of her erstwhile political boss. The post mortem reveals that the woman was stabbed before the fire was started, but while Scarpetta and her colleagues are puzzling over means and motive they are called out to the scene of another fire and another murder. The pattern is the same, the answers as elusive and then Benton disappears while following up a tip-off. Suddenly, and with appalling clarity, Scarpetta sees that Carrie has set up a scenario in which she can manipulate them all and in which she appears to have the inescapable upper hand. A novel of high suspense from the acknowledged mistress of the forensic thriller.
When the Empire died they were born - a new hope for the New Republic. The young twins of Han Solo and Princess Leia are now fourteen, and enrolled at Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy on Yavin 4. Together with friends both old and new, the future heroes of an already legendary saga begin their training.
A “gem of a novel” that sends up marriage, academia, and literary stardom, by the New York Times–bestselling author of They May Not Mean To, But They Do (Publishers Weekly). In this delightful novel from an author who “has been favored in so many ways by the muse of comedy,” we meet Margaret Nathan, the brilliant but forgetful author of an unlikely bestseller (The New York Review of Books). Happily married to a benevolently egotistical, slightly dull but sexy professor, Margaret seems blessed—until she finds herself seduced by an eighteenth-century novel she discovers in the library. Wrapped in its lascivious world, Margaret begins to imitate its protagonist, embarking on a hilarious jaunt around Manhattan in search of renewed passion. Will she find fulfillment through her escapades or settle for her husband? Part romantic comedy, part intellectual parody, Rameau’s Niece is wise, affecting, and thoroughly entertaining.
As the war between the Republic and the scattered remnants of the Empire continues, two children--the Jedi twins--will come into their powers in a universe on the brink of vast changes and challenges. In this time of turmoil and discovery, an extraordinary new Star Wars saga begins.... While Luke Skywalker takes the first step toward setting up an academy to train a new order of Jedi Knights, Han Solo and Chewbacca are taken prisoner on the planet Kessel and forced to work in the fathomless depths of a spice mine. But when Hans and Chewie break away, they flee desperately to a secret imperial research laboratory surrounded by a cluster of black holes--and go from one danger to a far greater one.... On Kessel, Luke picks up the trail of his two friends, only to come face to face with a weapon so awesome, it can wipe out an entire solar system. It is a death ship called the Sun Crusher, invented by a reclusive genius and piloted by none other than Han himself...
At Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy a brilliant young student, Kyp Durron, delves dangerously into the dark side of the Force. Impatient to rid the universe of its conflicts, Kyp steals a doomsday weapon - the Sun Crusher - to subjugate the Republic's last enemies.
Seeking rich, powerful allies to bring into the Rebel Alliance and a new home planet for the refugees of her native Alderaan, Princess Leia considers a proposal that could tip the balance of power against the evil Empire. The Hapes Consortium of 63 worlds is ruled by the Queen Mother, who wants Leia to marry her son, the dashing and wealthy Prince Isolder. Han Solo has always dreamed of marrying Leia himself, and now he makes a desperate last gamble to win her back. Soon he, Isolder, Luke Skywalker and Artoo will be at the center of an adventure leading to an awesome treasure, a group of Force-trained "witches," and a showdown with an invincible foe. Features a bonus section following the novel that includes a primer on the Star Wars expanded universe, and over half a dozen excerpts from some of the most popular Star Wars books of the last thirty years!