Kit Quinn is a young woman who inhabits dangerous worlds: crime scenes, interrogation scenes, hospitals for the criminally insane. Horribly wounded in an attack by a suspect, she must return to the site of her worst fears. She is asked by the police to advise them on a simple murder inquiry. A young runaway has been found killed by a canal and the chief suspect is the man who wounded Kit. But Kit refuses to accept appearances and her obsessive search for the truth draws her into an underworld of the missing and the unloved which puts her at terrible risk.
In this audaciously original chronicle, we meet Cadence Roth, a Hollywood actress and singer who stands at just 31 inches tall, making her the world's shortest woman. Cady is a true survivor in a town where "you can die of encouragement." After a disappointing early role as a lovable elf in a popular film, where her face was hidden behind a rubber suit, she finds herself performing at birthday parties and bat mitzvahs while waiting for a breakthrough. Through a series of mordantly funny journal entries, the narrative follows Cady across the hazy landscape of Los Angeles, capturing her interactions with agents, studio moguls, and the everyday challenges posed by small children and large dogs. When a lanky piano player enters her life, Cady experiences a whirlwind of new emotions, prompting her to embark on a daring scheme that could finally bring her the fame she craves. Alongside her best friend Jeff, a gay waiter who relates to her struggle for visibility, Cady's journey becomes a modern parable about the mythology of Hollywood and the toll it takes on its participants. This story speaks to the resilience of the human spirit from a perspective rarely explored in literature.
A la veille de la Première Guerre mondiale, Jeronimo Franck, fils bohème et idéaliste d'une famille de banquiers salzbourgeois, vient s'établir sur une petite île de l'Adriatique aussi pauvre qu'oublié du monde. Surnommé le Poète, il n'est est pas moins un commerçant prospère : il redonne vie à "L'Européen", un grand magasin abandonné vingt ans plus tôt par son propriétaire après que son fastueux mariage avec Marta, la plus belle des insulaires, s'est achevé en tragédie. Jeronimo a lui aussi décidé d'épouser la plus belle fille de l'île, et d'offrir pour l'occasion une fête grandiose à la joie des habitants. Mais plusieurs menaces se profilent à l'horizon. L'île, sous domination austro-hongroise, a d'ancestrales aspirations indépendantistes, et un petit contingent de soldats impériaux, venus estimer combien de garçons vigoureux seraient mobilisables pour la Grande Guerre, a été proprement égorgé. Des représailles sont à craindre.
