Alice Blanchard
British Pbk Original - timewarner (2003) |
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The Breathtaker
In the heart of tornado country, a howling funnel of destruction screams across the prairie and slams into the sleepy town of Promise, Oklahoma. As the mammoth twister splinters houses, shreds crops and tosses cars through the air, only three of the town’s terrified residents know that an even more malevolent force has come to torment them - and they will not live to tell anyone.
When Police Chief Charlie Grover finds three mutilated corpses in a tornado-ravaged farmhouse, his first thought is that the victims were impaled by flying debris. But then he discovers that they were brutally murdered and that their executioner has left a particularly hideous calling card. Yet how could the killer predict exactly when and where a tornado would strike and use it to cover his tracks?
Enlisting the aid of tornado-chasing scientist Dr Willa Bellman, Charlie will step into a chaotic world of high-tech risk-taking in search of a cunning criminal ... one he soon suspects is stalking him - and his lonely, vulnerable, teenage daughter. For this is a killer unlike any he’s encountered before: one who conspires with the awesome power of nature to commit and conceal unspeakable crimes.
'Superb' Daily Express
| Paperback - Bantam (2000) |
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First British Edition Bantam (1999) |
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Darkness Peering
See Review by
Cath Staincliffe
- Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester
The dead girl lay face up on the edge of the pond, a snake coiled in the muddy hollow of one arm. For Police Chief Nalen Storrow it is a shocking reminder of the violence he thought he had put behind him when he moved his family to the small town of Flowering Dogwood, Maine. And now Storrow's search for the truth leads to a chilling possibility: the murderer might be his own son, Billy.
Eighteen years later the murder of the girl in the pond has not been solved. Now another cop is obsessed with the case - Rachel Storrow, Nalen's daughter. No sooner does Rachel reopen the investigation than another young woman disappears. A cunning and merciless psychopath is moving undetected through the town, and once again Billy is a suspect. Plunged into a world where darkness follows even the innocent, Rachel must unearth secrets that so decades and face a staggering personal truth.
Darkness Peering is a harrowing suspense debut with turbulent depths and revelations that continue to surprise until the very last page. But it is also a powerful portrait of a cop who walks the tightrope between honour and justice, and in doing so tests her own humanity.
American rights for Darkness Peering were sold for $1,500,00. Foreign rights have already been sold in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Japan and Sweden and a movie option has been sold.
'A novel of uncommon complexity, grace and power' Jonathan Kellerman
'Deeply scary' New York Times
'Superb' Daily Express
About The Author
Alice Blanchard grew up in Connecticut and studied at Emerson and Harvard. She is the author of a collection of short stories, The Stuntman's Daughter, which won the Katharine Anne Porter Prize, and of the novel, Darkness Peering. She has also received a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, a New Literary Award and a Centrum Artists in Residence Fellowship.
She lives in Los Angeles.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Breathtaker
(timewarner Pbk,
2003)
Pbk Dec 03
Darkness Peering
(Bantam,
1999)
Bantam Pbk Feb 00
(Rachel Storrow)
The Breathtaker
by Alice Blanchard
