Bücher veröffentlicht von Black Opal Books

When booksellers Molly O'Donnell and Emma Clarke set up at the Antiquarian Book Fair in St. Petersburg, Florida, the last thing they expect to find is a dead body. When respected book dealer Jasper Ross shows interest in Emma's most valuable books, she is jubilant. But then, Jasper is found dead-and Emma's books he borrowed have disappeared. Then booksellers at the book fair find many of their high-end illustrated volumes missing, then returned-with their color plates cut out. Who would do such a thing? Molly and Emma join forces with Stewart, a transgender print dealer, to get to the bottom of Jasper's murder and the destruction of the books. Their investigation takes them from antique shops in Old Florida coastal towns to the home of Carmen, a flamboyant, small-time drug dealer and former flame of Molly's. Are the book dealers all what they seem? As they investigate, Molly and Emma find their relationship developing into more than friendship. But will they live to enjoy it?

An inconvenient alibi...a priceless treasure...an MI6 mole It's a lethal cocktail Journalist Emmeline Kirby and her jewel thief/insurance investigator husband Gregory Longdon become targets after a desperate stranger asks them to deliver a fortune in rare red diamonds to hotelier Alexander Colefax. Before they can ask any questions, the man is killed. Driven by dark secrets, Colefax is willing to flirt with treason if it means getting what he wants. His coterie included the son of a Kremlin elite and a Russian mafia boss. When a man's only loyalty is to money, his enemies become twice as ruthless. After Colefax is bludgeoned to death, Emmeline and Gregory discover that his dangerous games involved not only diamonds, but a stolen Fabergé egg that has vanished and a spy named Snowdrop. The trail of lies and revenge leads to Switzerland, where a treacherous double-cross could cost Emmeline and Gregory their lives.

The Magdalenes is a story of redemption and reinvention.Jude Madigan is a successful plaintiff's attorney who lived out a nightmare and spent years keeping it hidden. After being raped and impregnated by a Catholic priest when she was fourteen, she has spent years creating a new life, now driven to get justice for her clients.She buries her past, and her emotions, under a solid veneer of ambition, but just as she's about to bring her biggest litigation case to trial, a strange assignment is forced upon her. Her law firm is given a huge commission to handle the estate of a recently deceased woman, with the catch that Jude, and no one else, must act as trustee. The terms require her to oversee the construction and finances of a Catholic halfway house for prostitutes.Jude fights against this agreement since she turned her back on the church years ago and intends to keep it that way. Her boss insists she complies, not knowing about her past-or the pain of having her daughter taken from her arms minutes after the birth by a nun.Damaged and patched together with anger and shame, Jude is reluctant, but becomes involved with a group of nuns and the prostitutes they're trying to help.But the mystery remains as to why the stranger specified her, a litigation attorney, not an estate attorney, to handle the case. Though Jude struggles both personally and professionally, she discovers that what she feared most was what she needed to heal. Every belief is tested, and a lost dream is realized.

Joe Traynor has fulfilled his obligation as the Interim President of The College of the Florida Keys and has been appointed as the Assistant Superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. At 37, Joe is the youngest in history to serve in this position. His last 18 years have been filled with action, stopping the most horrific criminal groups in the United States. Now, his duties will be filled with days of administration, curriculum and planned events. Other than attending Brown University, Julie has never left the Florida Keys and is a true Conch. Bella, Joe and Julie's newly adopted daughter, born to a Cuban immigrant, who passed away from a brain tumor, speaks more Spanish than English as a seven year old. Tillie will be left alone in Key Largo at age 70 but has a new friend in Ed Lansing. How will this new life, and new careers for both Joe and Julie work out? How will Bella acclimate to the great northeast? On top of that, as soon as he arrives, there is a threat to the Academy by white supremacists that is real. Follow the new life of the family as they adjust. There are more twists and unexpected turns day-to-day, culminating in a crisis of major proportion that could change the Academy forever unless Joe Traynor is able to save the day. What seems to be an idyllic life is anything but...

Arctic Inferno, the sequel to Arctic Meltdown, is a timely and gripping international environmental thriller set against the background of the devastation of climate change and the melting of the polar ice cap. The heroine, Hanne Kristensen, the beautiful Danish geologist appointed Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources for the newly independent Greenland, has to maneuver through a wave of setbacks to foil both a Chinese attempt to control Greenland's natural resources and a more aggressive Russian attempt to gain hegemony over the sparsely populated fledgling country as well as to save her friend, the ousted Premier of Russia, Pavel Laptov. Her suitor, Canadian diplomat Richard Simpson, aids her in this process as well as in the design and signing of a new and more environmentally focused Arctic Treaty to save the region from complete environmental catastrophe. But at the same time Hanne's private life is complicated by this relationship, as she has to choose between Richard and her long-time lover and childhood friend, Kristi Olafson. This is an action-packed novel with lots of twists and turns guaranteed to keep the reader at the edge of their seats, but also one that brings home the realities we could be living in the very near future.

The pastor's wife is murdered; her dog is also killed. Using a "hair-brained" theory to find a matching dog hair, Sheriff Colton Mitchell follows twists and turns to locate the killer.

Trusting a stranger may prove to be her only means of escape...but at what cost?Abandoned as a child and desperate for the love of a family, Salt Lake City costume designer Tess Horton refuses to believe her newly discovered relatives are part of the Mafia-until they try to kill her. Plagued by assassins, and prophetic dreams she doesn't understand, Tess flees to Mexico only to stumble upon CIA field officer, Max Maxwell.Is he willing to betray her trust...if it means stopping an attack on America?Max is chasing terrorists during a storm on the Sea of Cortez when he runs into an ambush. Knocked out cold he awakens without any memory of who he is and what he is doing in Baja. When assassins arrive, Max follows his instincts and helps Tess escape. With every step they take together Max is drawn closer to his brave companion only to discover when his memories return that betraying her is the only way to stop the worst terrorist attack in US history.

What makes a marriage of two decades begin to unravel? There are no simple answers.Alex and Miriam met-cute at the famous Strand bookstore in Manhattan. It was love at first sight for both of them. Their marriage was blissful. They had a son. All wonderful.But in every family there are secrets and lies, and theirs was no different.An unloving father, The suicide of a beloved sibling. A hidden diary, revealing more secrets, An unknown sibling. A son who is gay and wants nothing more than to be on the stage. An unrewarding job. A lousy boss. A sexual predator. Suddenly a life going nowhere.But there is something more. Alex is on a quest, not just for knowledge and truth. He wants desperately to be a good husband, a good father, a good son. He doesn't know if he can achieve this but he knows he must try.

Two forces in a race against time...who will win? After a whirlwind romance, a middle-aged Russian woman, Lara Petrova, marries an aging British businessman-Derek Harrison. Unbeknown to Lara, Derek, a seemingly successful business owner under immense pressure to keep his business in the black, has agreed to collaborate with the Russian secret services against Lara's son Alex. Laura's son Alex, is studying nuclear energy science for his doctorate at Stockholm University, and has invented an important new source of energy, which could remove the need for fossil fuels for any country which becomes the owner of this ground-breaking technology. The Russians want the invention at any cost, Japan would be more than interested, but the British want it, too. Alex just wants to stay alive...

In order to exonerate his client of murder charges, Defense Attorney Sam Paris enlists the aid of Shannon Clark, an attractive psychiatrist best known for her bestselling but controversial book about the effects of oxytocin, better known as "the love glue", a hormone that can presumably cause a woman to become dangerously attached to and obsessed with the man with whom she is sexually intimate. As Sam becomes romantically involved with the doctor, he learns that she has issues of her own and indeed may be more dangerous and violent than the woman he is defending.

Medical inventor, doctor, and art connoisseur Dr. Matthew Dawson ("MD") is abruptly fired from Mount Sinai Hospital. Then Super Storm Sandy hits and MD is asked to check on his neighbor''s waterlogged Hampton estate where he discovers a famous painting (Pollock No. 5) over the fireplace. The next day the painting mysteriously disappears... Pollock No. 5 will keep you entranced and on the edge of your seat. It''s well written-quick chapters and fabulous descriptive & creative writing makes you really feel you are right at MD''s side! A fast paced and thrilling ride.

Rulon Hurt doesn't believe the earth is going to end from an asteroid strike, but his Swiss wife, Yohaba, disagrees. So does her grandfather, former CERN director Leonard Steenberg. One-eighty-two Elsa is shaped like a potato - a potato 27-miles wide and pock-mocked with numerous craters, the remnants of impacts from other, smaller asteroids. Elsa originated several billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, a non-descript member of the main asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. At about the time Alexander the Great was conquering Persia, Elsa was side-swiped by a larger asteroid, lost some of its mass, but continued hurtling through the emptiness of space - this time on a different orbital path that will have it colliding with the earth just south of Geneva, Switzerland on April 13, 2029. Its 27-mile-wide mass moving at 30,000 mph will plunge through the earth's 60-mile thick atmosphere in just over a second and destroy the earth. On impact it will release the energy-equivalent of 200 trillion tons of TNT. Even if it lands in the 6.86 mile-deep Mariana Trench it will still pierce the earth's crust. The resulting earthquake will topple every structure on the planet. All the oceans will boil. The earth's atmosphere will catch fire. Everything will die. Shortly before his death, Albert Einstein predicted this would happen, even down to the exact date, but had time to confide his discovery and his proposed solution to only his three brilliant protégés. The youngest of them, Leonard Steenberg, still lives, and has dedicated his life to fulfilling Einstein's last and greatest mission. Trouble is, mankind doesn't want to be saved.

The hypothetical question, “What if?” has been bandied about for years. The response—always the same. ”Impossible, never, couldn’t happen”, or “too many checks in the system.” No one could just take over The United States—or could they?The murder of a junior senator and the investigation into that killing, by the top man in the U.S. Secret Service, becomes the pivotal point at which the mundane turns sinister. The “impossible” suddenly turns plausible. Clues, and the parties involved are as diaphanous as white smoke—faintly visible, but impossible to get a grip on.The clock is invisible and the time keeps ticking away. Who, how, and when are frustratingly evasive questions, and additional murders yield few clues if any. Can Sam and his small team thwart a plot that has international implications? The race is deadly and the stakes are the ultimate.Sam has only two other men he can depend on. Luis Arguela, his close assistant and Moshe, a close friend and Mossad agent (retired?). They are compelled to follow clues of no substance, murders without logic and vaguely possible suspects. The possibility that the president of the United States is somehow involved must also be considered.Operating in the U.S. with a foreign agency (Mossad) could get Sam fired or jailed, but he has no other options. Through intense, covert investigation they track down the perpetrators and bring together a collection of unusual allies to destroy an international plot, and in a convoluted manner that prevents the public from ever knowing how close the takeover was.

            Vietnam veteran Charlie Alderfer, having defied the odds and regained his health in the VA’s hospice, goes home to resume his well-earned retirement. He hires Ben, an 18-year-old high school senior, to help with heavier chores. The poor, shy kid is a hard-working athlete whom teachers, coaches, classmates, and their parents adore.            Until—Ben’s adoptive parents accuse him of assaulting their ten-year-old bio-daughter. The police and DA, pressured to close 90% of their cases without a trial, lie and terrorize Ben to plead guilty to something. In return, they’ll make the charges go away. Otherwise, he’d go to a super-max prison, labeled a sexual predator. Honest Ben believes them and makes something up about his early childhood.            Charlie, shocked to read the guilty plea in the newspaper, extracts the story from Ben, who has no idea why his parents, and the police, would do this to him. Outraged, Charlie takes Ben to a leading polygraph expert who verifies what Charlie knows of his character. But his family, police and DA refuse to back down. And the test isn’t admissible in court.            Charlie hires a criminal lawyer who withdraws the guilty plea. But Ben’s only defense is his word against a sweet little girl’s, which no jury would buy. Outraged by the impending miscarriage of justice, Charlie digs into the case, researching the players, their motives, and holes in the prosecution’s case. He’s appalled that everyone lies—except Ben. Charlie could not anticipate that his digging would expose Ben and himself to mortal danger from a much larger criminal enterprise in progress.  

Ballerina Dita Marx and her composer husband, Dan Di Bello, have a two o'clock appointment at the now-boarded-up Harlem Center for the Arts with board president, Arlen Van Aiken, whose board voted to close down the center, which was very painful for the community, as well as Dita and Dan. They want to retrieve The Phoenix, a statue created in memorial to three board members lost when the World Trade Center collapsed September 11, 2001. But Dita is late, and Dan goes into the center looking for Arlen, whom he finds murdered in the basement, bludgeoned with the very statue Dan has come to collect. When the bodies begin to pile up and Dan is later arrested for murder, Dita is outraged and determined to prove his innocence-even if it means risking her own life…

Forty-eight hours ago, a serial murder case that spanned nine years ended. Or did it?Four children intrude upon the scene of the suicide of Henry Slater, claiming he's their dad. Dr. Frank Khaos and Detective Sam Wright become their temporary guardians. The goal-to find the children's biological mothers. Or has Henry Slater added them to his dossier of kills? Through the investigation, the NYPD detectives and FBI Special Agent Brett Case uncover a kidnapping ring and do find the mothers, but are they fit-and willing to take their children back? As Sam and Frank fall in love with them over nine weeks, and the reality sets in, Libra, the Scale of Justice, kicks their butts. What's right for the children is against the law.Another case falls into Agent Case's lap. A murder spree and drug involvement with Jarrett Miller, Vicki Trenton's first husband. To make matters worse, Miller has ties to the biological parents of Dr. Khaos whom he has to travel to Florida to confront as a stipulation to the execution of Slater's will.How will Frank deal with the two people who've been his Achilles' heel his entire life, and will he and Sam get the family they desire so much?

Danger lurks in the forest…But Greg Gillie, a handsome Scot with a mysterious past, protects the Shrouded Isle and the lands beyond from the menacing fae.A woman's arrival disturbs the wee folk…Becca Shaw, an American widow, takes a family vacation to the island. Each day she remains, Greg struggles as more and more fae steal away from the forest hill and menace the people.Can the exodus be stopped?As the danger increases, Becca strives to repair her relationship with her still-grieving girls and befriend the suspicious villagers. Resisting their blossoming feelings for one another, Greg and Becca team up to find answers. Why are the fae escaping? How can Greg and Becca stop them?For their sake and the sake of the world, let's hope they're up to the task…Kilts and Catnip, the first book in a new fantasy series, is filled with sweet romance, delightful humor, and exciting adventure.

When Marabella Vinegar's favorite neighbor, Sam Lipschitz, dies, everyone, including the NYPD, thinks it was natural causes. After all, Sam was pushing eighty, with a heart condition. But Marabella knows Sam's heart problem was mild and under control with medication-and she's already acquainted with Sam's greedy relatives-so she doesn't think there was anything natural about it. Neither does her sleuthing sidekick, her mother-the-ghost-detective, who has recently dropped back into Marabella's life, happy to interfere again. Not only that, but Rose, another elderly neighbor, tells Marabella she overheard Sam arguing with someone in his apartment about money, and was threatening to change his will. Rose caught a shadowy glimpse of the person fleeing Sam's apartment and is worried the person saw her. The next day, Marabella finds Rose, severely injured, on the floor of the building's laundry room, saying she was pushed. Marabella can't convince her old nemesis, NYPD Detective, now Lieutenant, Rivera, that people are being murdered. So she vows to track the killer down with her mother's help, by investigating the heirs to Sam's considerable estate. Can she and her mother find the killer and get enough evidence to convince Rivera? Or is Marabella doomed to become the next victim?

It all happened so long ago. Does a murderer still stalk the small Connecticut village? Is he watching? Is he still killing? Local policeman, Gordy Powell, who lives on a small farm with an attached pond, is rarely put in harm’s way: traffic stops, car thefts, burglaries, an occasional runaway, domestic squabbles, etc. All that changes one horrible winter night in 1997, when a state senator’s daughter and grandchildren drown after their car spins out of control on the icy road and plunges into Gordy’s pond. When the pond is drained in an effort to straighten the road, a 1938 Chrysler is found on the muddy bottom, a bullet hole through the head of the skeleton in the front seat, and a sixty-year-old murder mystery unfolds. Is the killer still alive and living in town? Has he killed again and never been caught? Gordy must use his best investigative skills to solve the crime and capture the killer—except that the killer is also after him, wreaking havoc in Gordy’s life…