Set in London in 1989, the year of the fatwah and the fall of the Berlin Wall, this is a thriller with a background of raves, ecstasy, religious ferment and sexual passion. By the author of The Buddha of Suburbia and Sammy and Rosie Get Laid

With The Black Angel, John Connolly takes his Charlie Parker series a step further away from the conventional serial killer thriller and over the border into supernatural horror-which, in fairness, is where these extraordinary books have been heading from the beginning. The question of why and how so many bad people find their way into Parker's orbit has always been lurking in the background of his novels; why so many ghosts of victims point him the way to vengeful justice and why so good a man is so fond of his killer for hire friends Louis and Angel. Many writers would just leave these as givens, but Connolly has too much integrity for that. The search for Louis' junkie whore cousin, and her abductors, leads the trio ever further into darkness. They have fought evil obsessives before, but none as bad as the Believers, a group obsessed with fallen angels and with the strange sculpted objects men have made from human bones. This time at least there is a possibility that what the Believers believe is true, both what they believe about the world and what they believe about Parker-this is a book which ought to be insane and ludicrous and is in fact chilling. -Roz Kaveney

Novel which is set in the time of the Wars of the Roses, telling a tale of murder and revenge in medieval England

Ripped from the pages of the Fall, 1949 issue of "The Phantom Detective" magazine, here is the complete lead novel (including illustrations) – The Black Ball of Death! Marked for murder, the Phantom tackles the puzzling “eight-ball” mystery – in which a sinister clue at the feet of slain Arthur Arden is a harbinger of further violence! Exciting pulp action!

On September 11, 2001, FBI Special Agent Ali H. Soufan was handed a secret file. Had he received it months earlier—when it was requested—the attacks on New York and Washington could have been prevented. During his time on the front lines, Soufan helped thwart plots around the world and elicited some of the most important confessions from terrorists in the war against al-Qaeda—without laying so much as a hand on them. Most of these stories have never been reported before, and never by anyone with such intimate firsthand knowledge. This narrative account of America's successes and failures against al-Qaeda is essential to an understanding of the terrorist group. We are taken into hideouts and interrogation rooms. We have a ringside seat at bin Laden's personal celebration of the 9/11 bombings. Such riveting details show us not only how terrorists think and operate but also how they can be beaten and brought to justice

In this exciting Scarlet Impostor story Dennis Wheatley takes as his background the seventy terrific days from Hitler's invasion of Norway in April to the surrender of the French in June. Gregory Sallust once more plays his part in adventure after adventure in Scandinavia the Low Countries and right through France; his adversary on this occasion being the Black Baroness the French associate of his old enemy Herr Gruppenfuhrer Grauber

**T** **he "thrilling" #1** New York Times **and** USA Today **bestseller (Karin Slaughter): when three bodies are found in a Chicago bedroom, a black book goes missing . . . and the city has never been more dangerous.** Billy Harney was born to be a cop. As the son of Chicago's chief of detectives with a twin sister on the force, Billy plays it by the book. Teaming up with his adrenaline-junkie partner, Detective Kate Fenton, there's nothing he wouldn't sacrifice for his job. Enter Amy Lentini, a hard-charging assistant attorney hell-bent on making a name for herself who suspects Billy isn't the cop he claims to be. They're about to be linked by more than their careers. A horrifying murder leads investigators to an unexpected address-an exclusive brothel that caters to Chicago's most powerful citizens. There's plenty of incriminating evidence on the scene, but what matters most is what's missing: the madam's black book. Now with shock waves rippling through the city's elite, everyone's desperate to find it. As Chicago's elite scramble to get their hands on the elusive black book, no one's motives can be trusted. An ingenious, inventive thriller about power, corruption, and the secrets that can destroy a city, *The Black Book* is James Patterson at his page-turning best. ** **Review** Praise for THE BLACK BOOK: "Brilliantly twisty...Many readers will agree with Patterson that this is the 'best book [he's] written in 25 years.'"―Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) "The mystery is authentic, the lead-up genuinely suspenseful, and the leading characters and situations more memorable than Patterson's managed in quite a while."―Kirkus "It's almost as thrilling to see a writer like James Patterson at the top of his game as it is to read THE BLACK BOOK--a total page-turner that will keep you guessing from start to terrifying finish."―Karin Slaughter "THE BLACK BOOK has more twists than a Formula One race, and the pace is just as fast. Deeply rooted characters, a touch of humor, and a climax nobody can see coming--it's vintage Patterson."―Brad Taylor ### About the Author James Patterson received the Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community at the 2015 National Book Awards. Patterson holds the Guinness World Record for the most # 1 *New York Times* bestsellers. His books have sold more than 325 million copies worldwide. He has donated more than one million books to students and soldiers and has over four hundred Teacher Education Scholarships at twenty-four colleges and universities. He has also donated millions to independent bookstores and school libraries

First published in 1937 by Kahane's Obelisk Press, Girodias added this famous title to Olympia's staple in the late '50s, shortly before censorship laws began to liberalize and The Black Book found could finally cross the channel legally. Though owing much to lifelong friend Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, The Black Book stands on its own with a portrait of the artist as an angry young man, chronicling numerous events among artists and others in a seedy London hotel

Could a twelve-year-old boy and his friend uncover a horrifying secret on their own? Cody Roberts and his friend decide to investigate further into an incident that happened on the way to school one morning. Full of twists and turns, The Black Cadillac takes you on a nail-biting, roller-coaster ride with the two boys. Is it a feel-good, happy ending, or are darker days ahead? This must-read novel will hit home for people with children of their own. Follow one boy’s obsession with trying to find out who the man is in The Black Cadillac

The inimitable Richard Jury returns in a thrilling tale of mystery, madness, and mistaken identity Three months have passed since Richard Jury was left bereft and guilt- ridden after his lover's tragic auto accident, and he is now more wary than ever. He is deeply suspicious when requested on a case far out of his jurisdiction in an outlying village where a young woman has been murdered behind the local pub. The only witness is the establishment's black cat, who gives neither crook nor clue as to the girl's identity or her killer's. Identifying the girl becomes tricky when she's recognized as both the shy local librarian and a posh city escort, and Jury must use all his wits and intuition to determine the connection to subsequent escort murders. Meanwhile, Jury's nemesis, Harry Johnson, continues to goad Jury down a dangerous path. And Johnson, along with the imperturbable dog Mungo, just may be the key to it all. Written with Martha Grimes's trademark insight and grace, The Black Cat signals the thrilling return of her greatest character. The superintendent is a man possessed of prodigious analytical gifts and charm, yet vulnerable in the most perplexing ways

The untold story behind Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat." Philadelphia, 1843: All is not well in Spring Garden. Fresh from her Glass Eye Killer adventure, Cattarina is once again thrust into mystery when she makes a ghastly discovery - a dead black cat hanging from a tree. Human authorities are uninterested in feline affairs, so Cattarina takes it upon herself to find the culprit. With the help of her new Green Street Troop and her human companions, she ferrets out the murderer. But her plan to exact justice unleashes a new set of horrors. Now, much more than Eddy's unfinished story is at stake. If she fails to thwart these events, a dear friend may suffer the black cat's end. Full of Victorian wit and rich detail, this cozy novella is a fictional account of Edgar Allan Poe's real-life animal companion. Fans of historical and animal mysteries are sure to like this series

Released over a period of five years, Lloyd Alexander's beautifully written tales not ony captured children's imaginations but also garnered the highest critical praise. The Black Cauldron as a Newbery Honor Book, and the final volume of the chronicles, The High King, crowned the series by winning the Newbery Medal for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."

Croaker spoke to assembled Company: “In olden times the outfit consisted entirely of black soldiers. Thus the name. Its slow drift northward has seen not only its diminution but a shift in its makeup. One-Eye is the black man with us today.” “We are the last of the Twelve True Companies. We have out-endured the others by more than a century, but I fear we’re into our twilight days. I fear this may be the Company’s final commission. A page of history is about to turn. Once it does, the great warrior brotherhoods will be gone and forgotten.” But Croaker was wrong... The first volume of THE BLACK COMPANY series

Prepare to enter the dark passionate world of The Black Dagger Brotherhood and get up close and personal with each one of the Brothers… You’ll find insider information on the Brotherhood, their dossiers, stats and special gifts. You’ll read interviews with your favorite characters, including a heartbreaking one with Tohrment and Wellsie, conducted three weeks before she was killed by lessers. You’ll encounter deleted scenes—accompanied by the whys behind the cuts—in addition to exciting material from the J.R. Ward message boards and the answers to questions posed by readers about the series. You’ll learn what it’s like for J.R. Ward to write each installment of the series, and in a fascinating twist, you’ll read an interview with the author—conducted by the Brothers. For the first time ever, you’ll get an original short story about Zsadist and Bella and see the miracle of their daughter Nalla’s birth and the depth of their love for each other. Also, you’ll get a sneak peek at the much anticipated next book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, Revenge’s story. This is a compendium no Black Dagger Brotherhood fan should miss…and an insider’s guide that will seduce you as powerfully as the sexy band of Brothers and the “ferociously popular” world they live in…

The Black Dahlia is a police novel on an epic scale; a classic period piece that provides a startling conclusion to America’s most infamous unsolved murder mystery. Already hailed as a masterpiece, it establishes James Ellroy as this country’s most powerful living writer of noir fiction. On January 15, 1947, the torture-ravished body of a beautiful young woman is found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles. The victim makes headlines as the Black Dahlia, and her murder sparks the greatest manhunt in California history. Caught up in the investigation are Bucky Bleichert and Lee Blanchard: Warrants Squad cops, friends, and adversaries in love with the same woman. But both are obsessed with the Dahlia — driven by dark needs to know everything about her life, to capture her killer, to possess the woman even in death. Their quest will take them on a hellish journey through the underbelly of postwar Hollywood, to the core of the dead girl’s twisted life, past the extremes of their own psyches — into a region of total madness. With the no-punches-held style that has become the trademark of a James Ellroy novel, this brilliant and savagely original author launches the reader on a roller-coaster ride through the violent world of the ’40s L.A. cop

Nick Carter battles a maniacal dictator and a brutal voodoo cult

Philip Ziegler follows the course of the black plague as it swept from Asia into Italy and then into the rest of Europe. When first published in 1969, this study was described by the Guardian as ‘…as exciting and readable an account as you could wish.’ This new edition of the major study on the subject is illustrated by over seventy contemporary black and white illustrations and eight pages of color. A series of natural disasters in the furthest reaches of the Orient during the third of the fourteenth century heralded what was, for the population of Europe, the most devastating period of death and destruction in its history. By the autumn of 1347 the Black Death had reached the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, and the years that followed were to witness a horrifying and apparently relentless epidemic. One third of England’s population died between the years 1347 and 1350, and over one thousand villages were deserted, never to be repopulated. In towns and cities the cemeteries were unable to provide space for all the dead, and violence and crime spiraled. Travel became dangerous and interruption of food and other supplies across the country added hunger and deprivation to the problems of people already overwhelmed by the threat of the vilest of deaths. In the countryside the population was halved in places, and as land became plentiful, landowners’ profits fell and the government tried in vain to fix labourers’ wages and prices, peasant unrest accelerated and the manorial system disintegrated, culminating eventually in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Throughout Europe whole societies were disrupted; racial tensions built as a direct result of the plague, and persecution of Jews began in earnest throughout the continent. The social and economic consequences of the period were to reach far into the following century

From Kirkus Reviews Second tense, tightly wound tangle of a case for Hieronymous Bosch (The Black Echo, 1991). This time out, the LAPD homicide cop, who's been exiled to Hollywood Division for his bumptious behavior, sniffs out the bloody trail of the designer drug ``black ice.'' Connelly (who covers crime for the Los Angeles Times) again flexes his knowledge of cop ways-and of cop-novel clich‚s. Cast from the hoary mold of the maverick cop, Bosch pushes his way onto the story's core case-the apparent suicide of a narc-despite warnings by top brass to lay off. Meanwhile, Bosch's boss, a prototypical pencil-pushing bureaucrat hoping to close out a majority of Hollywood 's murder cases by New Year's Day, a week hence, assigns the detective a pile of open cases belonging to a useless drunk, Lou Porter. One of the cases, the slaying of an unidentified Hispanic, seems to tie in to the death of the narc, which Bosch begins to read as murder stemming from the narc's dirty involvement in black ice. When Porter is murdered shortly after Bosch speaks to him, and then the detective's love affair with an ambitious pathologist crashes, Bosch decides to head for Mexico, where clues to all three murders point. There, the well-oiled, ten- gear narrative really picks up speed as Bosch duels with corrupt cops; attends the bullfights; breaks into a fly-breeding lab that's the distribution center for Mexico's black-ice kingpin; and takes part in a raid on the kingpin's ranch that concludes with Bosch waving his jacket like a matador's cape at a killer bull on the rampage. But the kingpin escapes, leading to a not wholly unexpected twist-and to a touching assignation with the dead narc's widow. Expertly told, and involving enough-but lacking the sheer artistry and heart-clutching thrills of, say, David Lindsay's comparable Stuart Haydon series (Body of Evidence, etc.)

A splendid, violent spring suddenly grips Bucharest in the 1980s after a brutal winter. Tolea, an eccentric middle-aged intellectual who has been dismissed from his job as a high school teacher on "moral grounds," is investigating his father's death forty years after the fact, and is drawn into a web of suspicion and black humor. "Reading 'The Black Envelope,' one might think of the poisonous 'black milk' of Celan's 'Death Fugue' or the claustrophobic air of mounting terror in Mr. Appelfeld's 'Badenheim 1939'... Mr. Manea offers striking images and insights into the recent experience of Eastern Europe." — New York Times Book Review

This book is the first in the Valdemar series, though it was published after most of them. Here, we get to meet Urtho, the powerful Mage of Silence, and Skandranon, the great Black Gryphon. This book takes place in the last years of the Mage Wars between Urtho and the evil Adept BloodPath-Mage Ma'ar. Also in this book we meet AmberDrake, Skan's close Kestra'chern friend. Kestra'chern's are healers of mind & spirit as well as body. We also meet Zhaneel, a Gryfalcon, and the first of her kind created by Urtho; Kechara, a misborn gryphon that has such a strong Mind gift that Urtho hides and protects her in his Tower; Cinnibar, who is a skilled Healer; Cinnibar's lifebonded, Tamsin; and Gesten, a friendly hertasi that becomes friends with Skan and Drake. Find out in this book how Urtho defeats the evil Ma'ar and how the Cataclysm effects the world for many centuries thereafter

Attacked on a rainy London street, veteran spy Justine DeCabrillac knows only one man can save her: Hawker, her oldest friend . . . her oldest enemy. London's crawling with hidden assassins and someone is out to frame Hawker for murder. The two spies must work together to find who's out to destroy them

His family is dead. His home is lost. Gwaynn Massi was alone, on the run and being hunted by the deadly Tar Navarra, Executioner from the Temple Islands. If he is to survive, Gwaynn must avoid capture at all costs. Navarra is ruthless. Navarra is relentless. Navarra is Death; the Black Horseman himself, and he will not stop until Gwaynn Massi is in his grasp

A reign of terror begins for Alfred and Emma Munday when they take their failing marriage to the solace of an old country house

The corpse in the hotel room appears to be that of a missing LAPD narcotics officer. Rumours abound that he had crossed selling a new drug called Black Ice from Mexico and the LAPD brass are quick to declare his death aside. But Harry Bosch isn't so sure; prompted by odd, inexplicable details from the crime scene, and attraction to the widow, he begins his own investigation. An investigation that takes him over the border to Mexico and into a dangerous labyrinth of shifting identities and deadly corruption

A year after the events of The Sword of Shannara, Shea has become very ill. Fearing for his life, Flick goes to a woods witch and seer named Audrana Coos. She gives him a small bottle of liquid and tells him to give it to Shea secretly. She also tells him that Shea will soon go on another quest and that Flick should not dissuade him. Flick does not believe her, but he slips the liquid into Shea’s ale later and the next day Shea’s health has completely recovered. Later Flick tells Shea about the woods witch and Shea thanks him and assures him that he will not be going on any quests or leaving the Vale again. Then Panamon Creel arrives

An unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this. Featuring • Deadly Diamonds • Dancing Rats • A Prize Fighter Fighting for His Life • A Parrot that Wouldn’t Talk Including • Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon as it was originally published • Lester Dent’s Luck in print for the first time

The BIGGEST, the BOLDEST, the MOST COMPREHENSIVE collection of PULP WRITING ever assembled! Weighing in at over a thousand pages, containing over forty-seven stories and two novels, this book is big baby, bigger and more powerful than a freight train — a bullet couldn’t pass through it. Here are the best stories and every major writer who ever appeared in celebrated Pulps like Black Mask, Dime Detective, Detective Fiction Weekly, and more. These are the classic tales that created the genre and gave birth to hard-hitting detectives who smoke criminals like packs of cigarettes; sultry dames whose looks are as lethal as a dagger to the chest; and gin-soaked hideouts where conversations are just preludes to murder. This is crime fiction at its gritty best. Including: • Three stories by Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Dashiell Hammett. • Complete novels from Carroll John Daly, the man who invented the hard-boiled detective, and Fredrick Nebel, one of the masters of the form. • A never before published Dashiell Hammett story. • Every other major pulp writer of the time, including Paul Cain, Steve Fisher, James M. Cain, Horace McCoy, and many, many more of whom you’ve probably never heard. • Three deadly sections — The Crimefighters, The Villains, and The Dames — with three unstoppable introductions by Harlan Coben, Harlan Ellison, and Laura Lippman. Featuring: • Plenty of reasons for murder, all of them good. • A kid so smart — he’ll die of it. • A soft-hearted loan shark’s legman learning — the hard way — never to buy a strange blonde a hamburger. • The uncanny “Moon Man” and his mad-money victims

Darian Frey is down on his luck. He can barely keep his squabbling crew fed and his rickety aircraft in the sky. Even the simplest robberies seem to go wrong. It's getting so a man can't make a dishonest living any more. Enter Captain Grist. He's heard about a crashed aircraft laden with the treasures of a lost civilisation, and he needs Frey's help to get it. There's only one problem. The craft is lying in the trackless heart of a remote island, populated by giant beasts and subhuman monsters. Dangerous, yes. Suicidal, perhaps. Still, Frey's never let common sense get in the way of a fortune before. But there's something other than treasure on board that aircraft. Something that a lot of important people would kill for. And it's going to take all of Frey's considerable skill at lying, cheating and stealing if he wants to get his hands on it... Strap yourself in for another tale of adventure and debauchery, pilots and pirates, golems and daemons, double-crosses and double-double-crosses. The crew of the Ketty Jay are back!

Title is pale thin manipulative Duke of Andover, Tracy Belmanoir (noir = black), who kidnaps Diana Beauleigh from aunt Betty in Bath. But Diana loves generous highwayman Jack Carstares, now heir, who took the blame for card-cheating brother Richard 7 years before. Richard wed Tracy's sister Lavinia; she and brother Andrew drain his money. Author's debut at 17

The newest full-length Rex Stout novel provides not only a new experience for Nero Wolfe fans, but also a new experience for Nero himself. It’s one thing for Nero to move his hand across a glove and put his finger on a distant seat of murder; it’s quite another thing for him to move his ponderous body father than across a room. Yet, believe it or not, in The Black Mountain Nero not only leaves his house but he actually leaves the United States, crosses and ocean, a continent, and a sea, and — with Archie — penetrates, disguised, into one of the most dangerous and controversial places on earth. From there on it’s Nero Wolfe as Nero never was before: a Nero compelled to cope with sinister international plotters, to deal with an enemy to whom murder is but a trivial incident, to return to New York on one of the strangest missions in all detective fiction

From the author of the masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front, The Black Obelisk is a classic novel of the troubling aftermath of World War I in Germany. A hardened young veteran from the First World War, Ludwig now works for a monument company, selling stone markers to the survivors of deceased loved ones. Though ambivalent about his job, he suspects there’s more to life than earning a living off other people’s misfortunes. A self-professed poet, Ludwig soon senses a growing change in his fatherland, a brutality brought upon it by inflation. When he falls in love with the beautiful but troubled Isabelle, Ludwig hopes he has found a soul who will offer him salvation—who will free him from his obsession to find meaning in a war-torn world. But there comes a time in every man’s life when he must choose to live—despite the prevailing thread of history horrifically repeating itself

Abandoned as a baby, her exotic beauty prompted hushed whispers of gypsy blood. But lovely Carmel March remained shrouded in mystery.... When tragedy struck her adopted home of Commonwood House, little Carmel had been bundled off to Australia. Returning to England as a young woman, she became haunted by questions from her past, as well as the shocking revelation that she had been rushed from a murder scene those many years ago. Yet she was convinced that the wrong man had been sentenced for the crime. Was the answer locked away in her childhood memory -- or in the dark, secretive behavior of her old childhood friend, Lucian? And what fateful role did the opals -- always present at crucial moments of her life -- play? For only when she released the dark secrets imprisoned at Commonwood would she find the freedom to love

Murder at Sloppy Joe’s sends a hunted and heartbroken man twisting and turning down the black path of fear. Human life is something you can take away, but not give back, Scotty remembered as he thought about his embrace with death. The body had simply slipped to the floor, and now he was charged with a murder he didn’t commit. His only proof of innocence destroyed, his only sanctuary a swarthy outcast in a black garret, Scotty had little to live for. Swift and terrible revenge and a search for a photograph negative haunted his mind. With never a moment’s rest, never a sob of relief, the build-up, the atmosphere of terror, and the frantic effort to escape bind the reader closer and closer to tortured Scotty. A stealth of night cloaks this unusual study of fear

Iris Murdoch The Black Prince First published in 1973 To Ernesto de Marchi

Since the beginning of time, the angelic hosts of the High Heavens and the demonic hordes of the Burning Hells have been locked in a struggle for the fate of all Creation. That struggle has now come to the mortal realm…and neither Man nor Demon nor Angel will be left unscathed…. Darrick Lang is coming home. Years ago he left the town of Bramwell to walk the wide world as a soldier of fortune and champion of the realm. But Bramwell is not as he left it. Something dark and terrifying has ensnared the townsfolk, something very old and very patient, tangling innocents in a web of malice and profaning the very earth itself. Now that same power calls to Darrick?

Born the son of slaves in America’s Deep South, he escaped the stifling racism of his native land to pursue a dream of freedom, wealth and personal happiness that took him from Brussels to Monte Carlo, and from Moscow to Constantinople. Embracing triumph and tragedy and spanning continents, wars and revolution, his life story is as colourful as it is improbable. He is the ‘Black Russian’. Frederick Bruce Thomas was born in 1872 to former slaves who had become prosperous farmers in Mississippi. When his father was brutally murdered, the teenaged Frederick fled the Deep South and headed for New York City, where he worked as a waiter and valet. Deploying charm, charisma and cunning, he emigrated to Europe, criss-crossing that continent to find employment as a multilingual waiter in locations as diverse as London and Leipzig, Venice and Vienna, before settling in Moscow in 1899. There he married twice, acquired a mistress, and became one of that city’s richest and most fêted restaurateurs and nightclub impresarios. But then came the shock of the Bolshevik Revolution. Frederick and his family were forced to flee Russia for Constantinople, where, ever resourceful, he reinvented himself afresh, opening nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey. However, Frederick’s luck was finally running out: the long arm of American racism and his own extravagance landed him in a debtor’s prison in 1927, after which death came swiftly. Written with a novelist’s verve, The Black Russian is both the extraordinary story of the most engaging and unexpected of heroes, and a meticulously researched and richly characterized tour of the changing political and cultural landscape of the early twentieth century

The Black Sheep’s Baby is part of Creighton’s “Into the Heartland” series. I gather from the references to other characters that this is an inter-generational series and that the hero of the current release, Eric Lanagan, is the son of characters from the earlier books. I assume that the circumstances that turned him into a “black sheep” were delineated in a previous story. This tale begins with Eric driving down the interstate towards his parent’s home in Iowa. The prologue also introduces us to Los Angeles lawyer, Devon O’Rourke, who wakes dreaming of her dead sister Susan’s pleading for help. She begins to pack her bags for her trip to Iowa. What is bringing Eric and Devon together is five-week old Emily, Devon’s sister’s daughter. Eric, a photojournalist, had been on assignment from an LA paper to do a story about runaway teens when he met nineteen year old Susan O’Rourke. He took Susan under his wing and learned her tragic story. Abused by her prosperous father and unable to get help, she had fled home at fourteen and lived on the streets with all its terrors. When it became clear that she would not survive the birth, she asked Eric if she could name him as Emily’s father. She made him promise that he would never allow Emily into the custody of her father. The O’Rourkes had learned of Susan’s death and Emily’s birth. They had sued for custody and a judge had ordered Eric to take a DNA test to determine his parentage. Rather than submit, Eric had fled the state and headed for home. Devon, guilty over having somehow failed Susan, is determined to protect her infant daughter from someone she believes is incapable of giving Emily the life she deserves. The two meet up at the Lanagan family homestead in the middle of a blizzard and with Christmas coming on. Lucy Lanagan has been missing her son and hoping that he will be home for Christmas. She is understandably delighted when he turns up and even more pleased when he presents her with Emily, the grandchild she has dreamed of. When Devon appears, stranded in the snow, Lucy welcomes her as well. When she learns that the lawyer wants to take Emily away from Eric, she decides on a bit of matchmaking. This may not make much sense, but I guess it made sense to Lucy. After all, before long Eric and Devon – antagonists to the core – begin experiencing a seemingly inexplicable attraction to each other. However attractive he may find Devon, Eric does have a hidden agenda. He is convinced – and Devon’s complete lack of childhood memories supports his belief – that she too was abused by her father. If he can just get her to remember, then he won’t have to worry about the O’Rourkes’ custody suit. While I am generally a fan of Creighton’s stories, this one didn’t quite work for me. Perhaps my lack of familiarity with the previous books detracted from my enjoyment of The Black Sheep’s Baby. More probably, the romance just didn’t work for me. Devon is clearly a wounded soul. Despite her academic and professional success, she is hiding something terrible from herself. Eric is actually a less well-defined character. Clearly his rejection of family tradition and the family farm was a formative factor in his and his family’s life, but it is not really fully explored. Why the hero and heroine fall in love never quite seems clear, given the circumstances. I am sure that those who have read and enjoyed Creighton’s “Into the Heartland” series will want to read this next installment. I suggest that other readers may want to think twice. – Jean Mason