Added by: Kahena | Karma: 11524.33 | Fiction literature | 19 August 2011
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The Lacquer Screen - A Judge Dee Mystery
Early in his career, Judge Dee visits a senior magistrate who shows him a beautiful lacquer screen on which a scene of lovers has been mysteriously altered to show the man stabbing his lover. The magistrate fears he is losing his mind and will murder his own wife. Meanwhile, a banker has inexplicably killed himself, and a lovely lady has allowed Dee's lieutenant, Chiao Tai, to believe she is a courtesan. Dee and Chiao Tai go incognito among a gang of robbers to solve this mystery, and find the leader of the robbers is more honorable than the magistrate.
Alex Cross finally took the plunge at the end of Four Blind Mice (2002) and joined the FBI. The training is a little beneath Cross, who has spent years working with the FBI on the toughest cases, but he dutifully attends classes until he's pulled out to consult on a case. Wealthy women have been disappearing around the country. The latest, a judge's wife, was snatched at a shopping mall. It appears these women (and soon several young men as well) are being abducted and sold to people who have "selected" them and paid a hefty sum.
In her 67th novel (following May's The House) bestselling author Steel (more than 530 million copies sold) fashions a plot around a single event: an invitation to a debutante ball in New York City. Attorney Olympia Crawford Rubinstein manages to juggle a challenging full-time job; a loving relationship with her second husband, Harry (an appeals court judge who is her former law professor); the care of their five-year-old son, Max, and her three older children from a previous marriage.
Wes Farrell begins the job of district attorney for the city of San Francisco and immediately sinks into a nightmare case. Roland Curtlee, a man in jail for 10 years for the rape and murder of a woman, has his case thrown out. While waiting for a new trial, the judge grants him bail, a move that sends shock waves through both the local community and the legal realm.
When two lowlifes rob a North Carolina gas station, murder the attendant, and incinerate bystanders, local police quickly arrest the killers at a nearby motel. But a stubborn judge dismisses the case because the suspects were not read their rights, and the sheriff's office and Lieutenant Cam Richter must face the anger of the victims' families.
