Find Me

Find Me

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

"Alafair Burke's latest propulsive thrill-ride is a suspenseful, twisty mystery about memory, friendship and secrets. A page-turner of the highest order." -Laura Dave, author of The Last Thing He Told MeThe disappearance of a young woman leaves her best friend reeling and an NYPD homicide detective digging into her own past in this twisty mystery about the power of female friendships. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Better Sister and The Wife.Some pasts won't stay forgotten . . . She calls herself Hope Miller, but she has no idea who she actually is. Fifteen years ago, she was found in a small New Jersey town thrown from an overturned vehicle, with no clue to her identity. Doctors assumed her amnesia was a temporary side effect of her injuries, but she never regained her memory. Hope eventually started a new life with a new name in a new town that welcomed her, yet always wondered what she may have left...
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Missing Justice

Missing Justice

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

Newly promoted Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid's first assignment back after a much-needed vacation is a hot one: Judge Clarissa Easterbrook has gone missing from a wealthy Portland neighborhood, and Sam has to make the DA look good until the prodigal judge returns. Yet it soon becomes clear that the woman didn't vanish voluntarily-and it's no surprise when her bludgeoned body turns up at a local construction site. What is surprising is how quickly a suspect is apprehended while Clarissa's husband, a prominent surgeon, is cleared of suspicion. It all seems a bit cut-and-dried to Sam, especially when she discovers that Clarissa was keeping secrets that the city's elite would prefer to stay hidden. Now, with each piece of the puzzle she uncovers, Sam is getting closer to the truth-and to the wrong side of some very powerful people. It seems Clarissa's secrets may have caught up to her in the worst of ways. And in her quest to exonerate an innocent man, Sam could be next in line...From Publishers WeeklyIn Burke's lively second Samantha Kincaid mystery (after 2003's Judgment Calls), the Deputy District Attorney has just joined the Major Crimes Unit in Portland, Ore., when a local judge, Clarissa Easterbrook, goes missing and is then found murdered. As Kincaid sifts through possible suspects, she also adjusts to the personalities in her new office, including her surprisingly friendly supervisor. Evidence of the judge's affair with a politician and an increasingly confusing crush of contracts, judgments and financial papers make it difficult to believe that Kincaid would seriously consider Melvin Jackson, a poor black man, as the likely murderer. A former drug addict, Jackson was in danger of losing custody of his kids in a case Easterbrook was considering just before her death. Eventually, Kincaid turns to a more obvious source of trouble. Kincaid is an appealing if perhaps too familiar a type—a slightly seasoned, feisty woman who runs impressive distances and confides her endearing foibles to the reader. Burke does a good job of integrating the political and personal lives of her characters, with the detectives of the Major Crimes Unit being particularly well drawn. Witty and concise dialogue helps redeem the somewhat stiff plotting. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistClarissa Easterbrook was a judge in Portland, Oregon, and the wife of a prominent surgeon--until her lifeless body was found near a construction site at the city's edge. Samantha Kincaid, new to the district attorney's Major Crimes Unit, is assigned the case. When Samantha learns that Clarissa was having an affair, suspicion centers on the spouse. Could the doctor have been inspired to perform cranial surgery with a hunk of granite? But the forensic evidence forms a circumstantial case against a former drug addict who could lose his home and possibly his kids based on a ruling by the late judge. As Samantha digs, however, it seems less likely that this was a crime of passion or anger. The second Kincaid mystery by the daughter of James Lee Burke is a very clever whodunit long on red herrings, shadowy motives, and sly humor. The author's background as a former deputy DA in Portland lends gritty ambience to this modern parable of greed and ambition. Wes LukowskyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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The Better Sister

The Better Sister

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

Recommended by Barnes & Noble, Entertainment Weekly, Popsugar, Goodreads, CrimeReads, BookBubKeep your enemies close and your sister closer.Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be the one in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky—always restless and more than a little reckless—was the opposite of her ambitious little sister. She floated from job to job and man to man, and stayed close to home in Cleveland.For a while, it seemed that both sisters had found happiness. Chloe earned a scholarship to an Ivy League school and moved to New York City, where she landed a coveted publishing job. Nicky married promising young attorney Adam Macintosh and gave birth to a baby boy they named Ethan. The Taylor sisters became virtual strangers.Now, more than fifteen years later, their lives are drastically...
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Waking Kylie

Waking Kylie

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Ex comes a new e-short featuring an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, The Wife.After losing a criminal case, a prosecutor asks herself how far she's willing to go to protect the young girl whose future hangs in the balance . . .
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Long Gone

Long Gone

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

What if everything you thought you knew turned out to be a lie?After a layoff and months of struggling, Alice Humphrey finally lands her dream job managing a new art gallery in Manhattan's trendy Meatpacking District. According to Drew Campbell, the well-heeled corporate representative who hires her, the gallery is a passion project for its anonymous, wealthy, and eccentric owner. Her friends think it sounds too good to be true, but Alice sees an opportunity to make a name for herself beyond the shadow of her famous father, an award-winning and controversial filmmaker.Everything is perfect until the morning Alice arrives at work to find the gallery gone—the space stripped bare as if it had never been there—and Drew Campbell's dead body on the floor. Overnight, Alice's dream job has vanished, and she finds herself at the center of a police investigation, with the evidence mounting against her. The phone number Drew gave her links back to a disposable phone. The...
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Close Case

Close Case

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid likes to be where the action is: at the scene of a crime, at the arrest of a suspect, with the cops on the Major Crimes Team. But when street smart, plugged-in reporter Percy Crenshaw is brutally murdered in the midst of pursuing a major story, she knows the stakes are high...Within days, cops have a suspect; then a confession. Yet Samantha suspects that something is very wrong, and her concerns keep coming back to the police. The cop who got the confession used tough tactics. The murdered reporter was romantically linked to a cop's wife. And all of the cops she's concerned about are close to her live-in boyfriend, Detective Chuck Forbes.Forced to prosecute a case in which the defendant may be an innocent man, Samantha must tread carefully to uncover the truth about Percy's murder — without tearing her career, her home life, and the city apart. But just when she thinks her job can't get any more...
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Judgement Calls

Judgement Calls

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid walks into her office in Portland's Drug and Vice Division one Monday morning to find three police officers waiting for her. A thirteen-year-old girl has been brutally attacked and left for dead on the city's outskirts. Given the lack of evidence, most lawyers would settle for an assault charge; Samantha, unnerved by the viciousness of the crime, decides to go for attempted murder. As Sam prepares for the trial, she uncovers a dangerous trail leading to an earlier high-profile death penalty case, a prostitution ring of underage girls, and a possible serial killer. And she finds her judgement - not only in matters of the law but in her personal life - called into question... Review 'Debut novel by daughter of the great James Lee Burke and one that he can proudly applaud. Quite unlike JLB's own work, but exciting, individual and unreservedly excellent. ... An absorbing, enjoyable first outing. Safe to assume they'll be many more.' -- Philip Oakes LITERARY REVIEW  'Burke is a born storyteller and has created an attractive heroine whom I look forward to meeting again.' -- Susanna Yager SUNDAY TELEGRAPH  'A legal thriller with a twist that is stuffed with authentic detail.' YORK EVENING PRESS  'Burke's entry into the world of crime fiction was never going to be easy. The daughter of possibly the genre's greatest exponant - James Lee Burke - the dagers were bound to be drawn from the start. But to her credit, the former Assistant DA manages to hold her own. Judgment Calls is a smart and savvy legal thriller. ... A chip off the old block.' IRISH EXAMINER  'Burke...handles the various threads of the story with aplomb, her characters are believable, her plotting is right on the buton, and in Kincaid she has created a sympathetic protagonist that I'm sure we'll hear about again.' IRISH TIMES About the Author A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra School of Law and lives in New York City. She is the daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke.
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Missing Justice sk-2

Missing Justice sk-2

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid walks into her office in Portland's Drug and Vice Division one Monday morning to find three police officers waiting for her. A thirteen-year-old girl has been brutally attacked and left for dead on the city's outskirts. Given the lack of evidence, most lawyers would settle for an assault charge; Samantha, unnerved by the viciousness of the crime, decides to go for attempted murder. As Sam prepares for the trial, she uncovers a dangerous trail leading to an earlier high-profile death penalty case, a prostitution ring of underage girls, and a possible serial killer. And she finds her judgement - not only in matters of the law but in her personal life - called into question...
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Judgment Calls

Judgment Calls

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

A seemingly simple assault case spirals into a complex web of violence and deception in this bold debut thrillerDeputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid walks into her office in Portland’s Drug and Vice Division one Monday morning to find three police officers waiting for her. A thirteen-year-old girl has been brutally attacked and left for dead on the city’s outskirts. Given the lack of evidence, most lawyers would settle for an assault charge; Samantha, unnerved by the viciousness of the crime, decides to go for attempted murder. But as she prepares for the trial, she uncovers a dangerous trail leading to a high-profile death penalty case, a prostitution ring of underage girls, and a possible serial killer. And she finds her judgment—not only in matters of the law but in her personal life—called into question.In Samantha Kincaid, Alafair Burke has created a complex, appealing character—a woman consumed by a sense of justice, who is...
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212 eh-3

212 eh-3

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

When New York University sophomore Megan Gunther finds personal threats posted to a Web site specializing in campus gossip, she's taken aback by their menacing tone. Someone knows her daily routine down to the minute and is watching her—but thanks to the anonymity provided by the Internet, the police tell her there's nothing they can do. Her friends are sure it's someone's idea of a joke, but when Megan is murdered in a vicious attack, NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher is convinced that the online threats are more than just empty words. With smooth, straight-talking partner J. J. Rogan at her side, Ellie tries to identify Megan's enemies, but she begins to wonder if the coed's murder was more than just the culmination of a cyber obsession. Phone records reveal a link between Megan and a murdered real estate agent who was living a dangerous double life. The detectives also learn that the dead real estate agent shared a secret connection to a celebrity mogul whose bodyguard was mysteriously killed a few months earlier. And when Megan's roommate suddenly disappears, they know they have to find her before another young woman dies. Exposing the darkness that lurks beneath the glamorous surface of New York City,  212  delivers yet another "knuckle-biting journey that'll keep you turning pages until the very end" (Faye Kellerman).
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If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense

If You Were Here: A Novel of Suspense

Alafair Burke

Mystery & Thrillers

If You Were Here is a thrilling novel of suspense from Alafair Burke, the author Dennis Lehane calls “one of the finest young crime writers working today.”Manhattan journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing the story of an unidentified woman who heroically pulled a teenaged boy from the subway tracks. When she locates a video that captures part of the incident, she thinks she has an edge on the competition scrambling to identify the mystery heroine, but is shocked to discover that the woman in the video bears a strong resemblance to Susan Hauptmann, a close friend who disappeared without a trace a decade earlier.What would have been a short-lived metro story sends McKenna on a dangerous search for the missing woman—a search that will force her to unearth long-buried truths much closer to home…Review“If You Were Here is a winner: a suspenseful, tightly plotted story of friendship, lies, and betrayal. Alafair Burke writes deftly about secrets buried close to home. An accomplished novel by an assured author.” (Meg Gardiner, author of *The Shadow Tracer*)“After finishing If You Were Here, I don’t feel I can trust anyone ever again, except Alafair Burke to provide a cracking good read.” (Linwood Barclay, author of *Trust Your Eyes*)“Outstanding….Burke’s accuracy in legal and judicial technicalities is impressive although most readers will find simpler pleasures in her sharp writing, well-constructed plot, and dimensional characters.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review))“Exciting....Lawyer turned-journalist McKenna finds her life turned upside down when she recognizes a friend from her college years who disappeared without a trace a decade before on a video of a near-tragedy on the subway….Will engage [Burke’s] growing audience.” (Booklist)“Burke’s first class adventure has murder and mayhem wrapped up in an intricate, innovative plot. Gripping from the first page....Will keep readers guessing until the end.” (RT Book Reviews, 4 ½ starred review)“Delivers a cleverly nuanced plot that will keep the pages turning. [Burke’s] smart writing is fast-paced and engaging, and this book should appeal to most mystery readers, especially those looking for compelling, intelligent story lines. . . .. a delight.” (Library Journal) From the Back CoverMagazine journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing the latest urban folktale—the story of an unidentified woman who heroically pulled a teenage boy from the subway tracks seconds before the arrival of an oncoming train. When McKenna locates a video snippet that purportedly captures the incident, she thinks she has an edge on the competition scrambling to identify the mystery heroine. McKenna is shocked to discover that the woman in the video bears a strong resemblance to Susan Hauptmann, a close friend—and a classmate of her husband's at West Point—who vanished without a trace ten years earlier. The NYPD concluded that the nomadic Susan—forced by her father into an early military life, floundering as an adult for a fixed identity—simply started over again somewhere else.But McKenna has always believed that the truth went deeper than the police investigation ever reached and sees Susan's resurfacing as a sign that she wants to be found. What might have been a short-lived Metro story sends the former prosecutor turned reporter on a twisting search that leads across New York City—and to dark secrets buried dangerously close to home. . . .
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