Wickedly dangerous Lance Bingham is fascinated by the newest debutante in town. It's not just her flirty smile that beguiles him—but the diamond necklace she daringly flaunts. His plan to steal back the treasured family heirloom has just become much more enticing! Belle Ainsley's arrival in London has already caused somewhat of a stir. Tarnished with scandal, she knows her reputation is in tatters. But can falling from grace be so utterly ruinous when Lance seems more than willing to catch her?
Set amidst the opulent mansions and cobblestone streets of Old New York, this fifth installment in Rosemary Simpson's acclaimed series brings the Gilded Age to life, as heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter dash down a twisted maze from Fifth Avenue to Five Points in pursuit of stolen diamonds once belonging to Marie Antionette ... Fall 1889: Lady Rotherton has arrived from London intent on chaperoning her niece Prudence through a New York social season to find a suitable husband. It's certainly not her niece's devilishly handsome partner in Hunter and MacKenzie Investigative Law. Aunt Gillian's eye for eligible suitors is surpassed only by her ability to discern genuine gems from nearly flawless fakes. At the Assembly Ball at Delmonico's, she effortlessly determines that the stones in the spectacular diamond waterfall necklace adorning the neck of the wife of banker William De Vries are fake. Insisting on absolute discretion to avoid scandal, the banker employs Prudence and Geoffrey to recover the stolen diamonds pried out of their settings--priceless stones acquired by Tiffany, originally purchased for Marie Antoinette. Their search for a possible fence rapidly leads to a dead end: a jeweler brutally killed in his shop during an apparent theft. The jeweler's murder is only the first in a string of mysterious deaths, as Prudence and Geoffrey pursue their elusive quarry. But the clues keep leading back to duplicity on the part of the De Vries family, who, it turns out, have a great deal to hide...
September 1995. A woman's body is found on the beach of an exclusive Caribbean resort, brutally murdered. A ten million dollar diamond necklace mysteriously disappears and the guests at the resort are evacuated as Hurricane Luis advances from the Atlantic. One of the guests is fifteen year old Alicia Clayton. Evidence from the crime scene is swept away by the hurricane and the body goes missing on the way to the mortuary. The perfect murder. No one is convicted. The case is never closed. The killer walks free.Twenty years later, a diamond necklace shows up at a Hatton Garden jewellery store. It bears a striking resemblance to the original necklace. Alicia, now an investigative journalist, is compelled to return to the abandoned resort and the scene of the murder. Someone is using her to lure the killer out into the open...
When FBI Agent Pete Dobbins is assigned to investigate three murders, in three different cities, connected by ballistics evidence, he discovers a conspiracy of criminal activity that requires him to go undercover in an organization that is believed to be beyond reproach. Dobbins a former minor league baseball star discovers that all of the murders have occurred while the Arizona Sidewinders were in those cities. He determines that he must go undercover, as himself, attempting a baseball comeback. The stakes are raised when the main suspect exploits Dobbins vulnerability. His lovely and irreverent wife Trish, is in the late stages of a difficult pregnancy. Along the way, Dobbins discovers a defense lawyer with a shocking secret, fights for his life with a hired assassin, collaborates with a beautiful US Attorney, tries to help a wrongly convicted man win his freedom and improvises a variety of solutions to heart pounding situations that could blow up his investigation and destroy everything he holds precious.
In this action-packed techno-thriller, a routine computer cleanup sets off an electrifying quest for an enigmatic—and deadly—treasure. After selling his dorm-room startup for millions and effectively retiring at the age of twenty-five, Alex Fife is eager for a new challenge. When he agrees to clean up an old PC as a favor, he never expects to find the adventure of a lifetime waiting for him inside the machine. But as he rummages through old emails, Alex stumbles upon a startling discovery: The previous owner, a shady antiques smuggler, had been trying to unload a mysterious object known as the Florentine on the black market. And with the dealer’s untimely passing, the Florentine is now unaccounted for and ripe for the taking. Alex dives headfirst into a hunt for the priceless object. What starts out as a seemingly innocuous pursuit quickly devolves into a nightmare when Alex discovers the true technological nature of the Florentine. Not just a lost treasure, it’s something far more insidious: a weapon that could bring the developed world to its knees. Alex races through subterranean grottos, freezing morgues, and hidden cellars in the dark underbelly of Los Angeles, desperate to find the Florentine before it falls into the wrong hands. Because if nefarious forces find it first, there’ll be nothing Alex—or anyone else—can do to prevent a catastrophic attack. Leading security specialist Carey Nachenberg delivers expert technical details in this gripping, highly entertaining cyber thrill ride—perfect for fans of Neal Stephenson and William Gibson.
In 2000, Tom Zoellner purchased a diamond engagement ring and proposed. His girlfriend said, "yes" and then, suddenly, walked out of his life making Tom the owner of a used engagement ring. Instead of hitting the self-help shelves of his local bookstore, he hit the road travelling to diamond mines in Africa, Canada, India, Brazil and Russia to discover the true worth of this shining gem. He travelled to Japan to understand how diamonds were linked with engagements and delved into the history of our own American romance with the diamond ring. He gained entry to DeBeers, the London diamond merchants. He visited shopping mall jewellers with starry-eyed couples. Through all of his travels, he searched for an answer to the question "How has one stone created empires, ruined lives, inspired lust and emptied wallets throughout history?" A diamond version of Susan Orleans's The Orchid Thief, Tom Zoellner's The Heartless Stone is a journey to the cold heart of the world's most unyielding gem.
Few defy Lord Rockford and come away unscathed Victoria Lewis has grown up in the long, dark shadows cast by Stonegrave Hall. Yet when the master takes her sick mother into his care, she must finally confront the man whose presence is as brooding as his windswept Yorkshire lands. Men quake at Lord Rockford's mere command, yet this slip of a girl defies him at every turn! His fury at her is matched only by his desire, and Victoria's pure innocence burns brightly in the darkness of the hall. But the light threatens to lay bare secrets that could ruin them both.
