Most Popular Books by David Ellis

“Wildly entertaining.”—New York Times Book Review From the bestselling and award-winning author comes a wickedly clever and fast-paced novel of greed, revenge, obsession—and quite possibly the perfect murder. Simon and Vicky couldn’t seem more normal: a wealthy Chicago couple, he a respected law professor, she an advocate for domestic violence victims. A stable, if unexciting marriage. But one thing’s for sure: absolutely nothing is what it seems. The pair are far from normal, and one of them just may be a killer. When the body of a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky’s secrets begin to unravel. A secret whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and obsession with revenge. These are just a few of the lies that make up the complex web... and they will have devastating consequences. And while both Vicky and Simon are liars, just who exactly is conning who? Part Gone Girl and part Strangers on a Train, Look Closer is a wild rollercoaster of a read that will have you questioning everything you think you know.

David Ellis’s Line of Vision won the 2002 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel by an American Author Marty Kalish is a young man suffocating in the heat of an affair with a married woman named Rachel. When Rachel’s husband disappears one night, Marty is one of the first to be questioned. With few likely suspects, the police arrest him for murder. We know Marty was outside their home that night. We know he has a motive. We know he’s guilty of something. But is it murder? Everything we have learned—about Marty as a man, his affair with Rachel, and the night in question—comes from Marty himself. But as the trial unfolds to a jaw-dropping conclusion, we learn that there is more to the truth than one man’s narrow line of vision.

A USA TODAY Bestseller Bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis delivers a fast-paced, twisty thriller that will surprise readers at every turn. Leo Balanoff is a diagnosed pathological liar with unthinkable skeletons in his family''s closet. He''s also a crusading attorney who seeks justice at all costs. When a ruthless drug dealer is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the dealer’s brutal syndicate. Risk his life going undercover for the feds or head straight to prison for murder? Leo accepts the FBI’s offer—but it comes with a price, including a collision course with his ex, Andi Piotrowski, a former cop and “the one who got away.” Forced to walk a tightrope between an ambitious FBI agent and a cruel, calculating crime boss, Leo’s trapped in a corner. But he has more secrets than anyone realizes, and a few more cards left to play...

Former college football star and criminal defense attorney Jason Kolarich returns in this shocking thriller from the award-winning author of The Hidden Man. Jason Kolarich has spent the past year struggling to recover from the horrific deaths of his wife and baby daughter. On the night of their deaths, Kolarich was at the office, awaiting a call from a confidential informant named Ernesto Ramirez-a call that never came. Kolarich blames himself not only for the deaths of his wife and child, but for the informant''s murder as well. He can''t bring back his family, but he can find out who killed Ramirez and bring the killer to justice. Unfortunately, Kolarich''s guns-blazing approach to justice lands him smack in the middle of an FBI probe of a deeply corrupt governor and his cronies. To avoid jail, Kolarich must enter a world of wiretaps, double-dealing, and kickbacks, where he soon discovers that the murder of his informant was only the tip of the iceberg. This breach of trust runs up to the highest levels of power, and exposing it may drag Kolarich into the fight of his life.

Jon Soliday is a legal counsel to a powerful politician—his childhood best friend—who is running for governor. The two have shared political success and undying loyalty. But an anonymous letter hinting at black and a colleague’s mysterious death remind them of something else they have in common. A dark secret from the summer of 1979... “Ellis sets a new standard with this superb legal thriller . . . . [a] stunning ending.”—Library Journal

From the Edgar Award–winning author of Life Sentence and Line of Vision. In Jury of One, Shelly Trotter, an able and determined lawyer and a children’s rights advocate, is thrust into a world in which she’s completely unschooled—the criminal court. Her client is a 17-year-old accused of killing a policeman, and she begins to suspect that he may have been involved in an undercover operation to entrap dirty cops, though his role in the scheme remains unclear. Was he the target or the bait—and what does the prosecution really have against him? Then comes the shocker: Shelly fears that she has a connection to this boy, something she has kept secret for years, knowledge that she has hidden from her family and friends for most of her adult life. And as the evidence against the boy mounts, she finds that nothing—not legal ethics, not a statewide political campaign that could swing in the balance—will stop her from keeping him off death row. For with this client, she is truly a jury of one. “Compelling.”—Entertainment Weekly

A finalist for the LA Times Book Prize A little girl, snatched from her bed in the dead of night... They knew who killed her. They couldn’t prove it. 26 years later, her brother Sammy doesn’t care about proof. He only cares about justice. Now, only his childhood best friend, attorney Jason Kolarich, can save Sammy from a life sentence for killing a killer. To defend Sammy, Jason must do what authorities could not, decades ago—prove the guilt of the pedophile who killed Sammy’s sister. But a mysterious benefactor, “Mr. Smith,” suddenly appears, offering money, resources, even alibis for Sammy’s defense. And he will stop at nothing—threatening the lives of Jason and his family—to control the outcome of the case. As the trial draws near, Jason races against time to save his family from Mr. Smith’s team and his friend Sammy from life in prison, while two crimes, decades apart, converge in a stunning verdict.

Imbibing in drugs, alcohol and casual sex after a traumatic case, Jason Kolarich resists the advances of a beautiful woman who is not who she seems at the same time he is hired to defend a serial killer who subsequently disappears in the wake of violent attacks.

Watson''s win on Jeopardy came as no surprise to those who had read Deus ex Machina sapiens. It was written largely during the 1990s, around the time that another IBM supercomputer--Deep Blue--was trouncing world chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. The book has since been updated on a few points of detail but its primary message remains intact: the Machine is rapidly evolving as Man''s rival if not replacement for the job of Steward of the Earth. Building upon the work of some of the world''s greatest scientists, philosophers, and religious thinkers, and drawing particularly from developments in the computing and cognitive sciences--particularly, the field of artificial intelligence, or AI--the book reveals the evolutionary emergence of a machine that is not just intelligent but also self-conscious, emotional, and free-willed. In the 1980s and ''90s you used to hear grandiose claims about AI. Machines would soon surpass humans in intelligence, it was claimed by some. The Japanese government spent a billion dollars on one project to make it happen. Well, it didn''t happen, but that didn''t stop the development of intelligence in machines. AI research simply went underground, and has ever since been quietly incorporated into the "ordinary" programs we use every day, without fanfare, without hype. There is still no machine that rivals Homo sapiens in overall intelligence, but today there are machines that far exceed human intellectual capacity in specific domains, from games to engineering to art, and the number of domains is growing exponentially big and exponentially fast. The disappearance of AI from front stage was good insofar as it allowed machines to develop in the right way; that is, through an evolutionary process, which is the only way for something of such complexity to develop. But it was bad insofar as we lost sight of the development of the intelligent machine. Deus brings Machina sapiens back to front stage, where it belongs. After describing the evolutionary development of intelligence in machines it goes on to describe the emotional, intellectual, and ethical attributes of what is no less than an emergent new life form. It asks the Big Question that can only be asked if you accept the very possibility of the new life form: Will it be serpent or savior? The question is answered in the book''s title, which is intended to mean "God Emerging From the Intelligent Machine." The author confesses to having never studied Latin and to have concocted the title from two known Latin phrases: "Deus ex Machina" and "Homo sapiens." The concoction could be grammatically incorrect. The author would be pleased to be corrected.

From bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis Told in chronological reverse, from its enigmatic end to its brilliant beginning, the novel is centered on a woman who is on trial for murder—Allison Pagone, a mother caught between competing forces, each represented by someone who may not care if the pressure kills her in the end. A prosecutor wants Allison convicted and put on death row. An FBI agent believes she can squeeze her into ratting on her family. A daughter and an ex-husband need to save their own skins. And circling them all: a group who would prefer to eliminate her quietly and anonymously, but who also are not what they seem. Our first picture of Allison is in the moments following her death. The story then moves backward in time like the cult film Memento: an hour earlier, then the day before, back and back to the beginning, until we can see what’s really happened—and, most shocking, what hasn’t. At every turn, Allison Pagone knows that what she sees may not be what’s real. The only sure thing is her place in a vortex of half-truths, threats, and suspicion. When her nightmare is over, will she awake in the company of friends—or in the company of liars? In the Company of Liars is a tantalizing tour de force—a “compelling new novel of intrigue, murder, and terrorism” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

Everyone thinks Emmy Dockery is crazy. Obsessed with finding the link between hundreds of unsolved cases, Emmy has taken leave from her job as an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an all-consuming fire. Not even Emmy''s ex-boyfriend, field agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, will believe her that hundreds of kidnappings, rapes, and murders are all connected. That is, until Emmy finds a piece of evidence he can''t afford to ignore. More murders are reported by the day--and they''re all inexplicable. No motives, no murder weapons, no suspects. Could one person really be responsible for these unthinkable crimes? INVISIBLE is James Patterson''s scariest, most chilling stand-alone thriller yet.

Organised around a dramatic account of D. H. Lawrence''s desperate struggle against tuberculosis, and of the bizarre events which followed his death, this book offers a series of often grimly humorous reflections on death and dying. Lawrence is the main focus throughout but there are references to a number of other famous literary consumptives.

When Jason Kolarich accepts the case of a homeless Iraq War veteran accused of murdering a young paralegal, his course seems clear: to mount an insanity defense for a man suffering so badly from post-traumatic stress disorder that he has no real memory of the crime. But as Kolarich digs deeper, he realizes that, unlikely as it seems, his client is probably innocent. Only days before her death, the murdered paralegal had stumbled onto something she wasn''t supposed to know ... information that someone would kill to keep secret. Her murder was no random crime but a targeted hit, and the wrong man was charged. As Jason Kolarich races to discover the truth in time to save his client, he finds himself embroiled in a mystery involving the Mob, a mysterious assassin known only as "Gin Rummy," and a conspiracy of wealthy international terrorists with explosive plans for his city. With thousands of lives at stake, Kolarich has more on the line than ever before ... and time is running out.

A polemical attack on the ways recent Shakespeare biographers have disguised their lack of information

Although love and sex are central to Lawrence, critics have paid surprisingly little attention to the way these two topics are treated in his work. Reasons for this are suggested in the preface to this book which is written in the spirit of Wittgenstein’s claim that, when we are puzzled or challenged by a phenomenon, we should be less concerned with seeking new knowledge than putting into order what we already know. Yet those concerned by the present dip in Lawrence’s reputation (among academics, if not the general public) have to be worried by how strange and unexpected the results are when Lawrence’s dealings with love and sex are followed throughout his life and career. This is what this book undertakes to do, describing how the tortuous developments in his relationship with Jessie Chambers are reflected in his writing, his struggle against his undoubted leanings towards homosexuality, the war he declared on the concept of romantic love and how, after insisting on the idea of male dominance, he returned (although only in part) to a more humane vision of relations between the sexes in the various versions of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Its aim is to suggest that although Lawrence is undoubtedly a major writer, his greatest achievements are not to be found where he is popularly assumed to be at his most impressive and that the authority he assumes, in his last years, when he lectures the young on love and sex, ought to be regarded as dubious.

No detailed description available for "Literary Lives".

Paul Riley has built a lucrative career based on his famous prosecution of Terry Burgos, who gruesomely murdered six girls. Now, fifteen years later, the police are confronted with a new series of murders and mutilations. Riley realizes that the two cases are connected and finds himself at the center of a police task force—as an investigator…and a suspect. Watch a QuickTime trailer for this book.

Given the increasing number of old people, the proliferation of books about old age is hardly surprising. Most of these come from cultural historians or social scientists and, when those with a literary background have tackled the subject, they have largely done so through what are known as period studies. In Blasted with Antiquity, David Ellis provides an alternative. Skipping nimbly from Cicero to Shakespeare, and from Wordsworth to Dickens and beyond, he discusses various aspects of old age with the help of writers across European history who have usually been regarded as worth listening to. Eschewing extended literary analyses, Ellis addresses retirement, physical decay, sex in old age, the importance of family, legacy, wills and nostalgia, as well of course as dying itself. While remaining alert to current trends, his approach is consciously that of the old way of teaching English rather than the new. Whether ‘blasted with antiquity’ like Falstaff in Henry IV Part Two, or with the ‘shining morning face’ of an unwilling student, his accessible and witty style will appeal to young and old alike.

After a lavish night of guilty pleasures in Monte Carlo, four best friends face an awful morning of arrests -- and a fight for survival. Only minutes after Abbie Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter the most luxurious, sumptuous, sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Their lavish presidential suite overlooks Monte Carlo, and they surrender: to the sun and pool, to the sashimi and sake, to the Bruno Paillard champagne. As the weekend moves into pulsating discos, high-stakes casinos, and beyond, Abbie is transported to the greatest pleasure and release she has ever known. In the morning''s harsh light, Abbie awakens on a yacht, surrounded by police. Something awful has happened: something impossible, unthinkable. Abbie, Winnie, Serena, and Bryah are arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. And now the vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime-a fight for survival. Guilty Wives is the ultimate indulgence, the kind of nonstop joy-ride of excess, friendship, betrayal, and danger that only James Patterson can create.

Discover a dangerous world of manipulation, obsession, and murder in James Patterson''s scary, sexy standalone thriller. Ben isn''t like most people. Unable to control his racing thoughts, he''s a man consumed by his obsessions: movies, motorcycles, presidential trivia-and Diana Hotchkiss, a beautiful woman Ben knows he can never have. When Diana is found dead outside her apartment, Ben''s infatuation drives him on a hunt to find out what happened to the love of his life. He soon discovers that the woman he pined for was hiding a shocking secret. And now someone is out to stop Ben from uncovering the truth about Diana''s illicit affairs. In his most heart-pumping thriller yet, James Patterson plunges us into the depths of a mind tortured by paranoia and obsession, on an action-packed chase through a world of danger and deceit.

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How can you prove your innocence when you can''t remember the crime?Being a cop runs in Billy Harney''s family. The son of Chicago''s Chief of Detectives whose twin sister, Patti, also followed in their father''s footsteps, Billy would give up everything for the job, including his life. After a brutal shooting, Billy is left for dead alongside his tempestuous former partner and an ambitious assistant district attorney out for blood. But somehow Billy survives. He remembers nothing about the events leading up to the shootout and is charged with double murder.Desperate to clear his name, Billy retraces his steps to get to the bottom of what happened. When he discovers the existence of a little black book that everyone who''s anyone in Chicago will stop at nothing to get their hands on, Billy suspects it contains the truth that will either set him free, or confirm his worst fears...

In this follow-up to the #1 bestselling thriller Invisible, every perfect murder looks like an accident, but as bodies start to pile up across the country, two FBI agents realize that something horrible is happening. FBI agent Emmy Dockery is absolutely relentless. She''s young and driven, and her unique skill at seeing connections others miss has brought her an impressive string of arrests. But a shocking new case -- unfolding across the country -- has left her utterly baffled. The victims all appear to have died by accident, and have seemingly nothing in common. But this many deaths can''t be coincidence. And the killer is somehow one step ahead of every move Dockery makes. How? To FBI special agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, everyone in the FBI is a suspect -- particularly Emmy Dockery (the fact that she''s his ex-fiancee doesn''t make it easier). But someone else is watching Dockery. Studying, learning, waiting. Until it''s the perfect time to strike.

''Byron in Geneva'' focuses sharply on the poet''s life in the summer of 1816, a famous time for meteorologists (for whom 1816 is the year without a summer), but also that crucial moment in the development of his writing when, urged on by Shelley, Byron tried to transform himself into a Romantic poet of the Wordsworthian variety.

Part study of Leavis, part memoir of being taught by him and his lasting influence on the author and on a whole generation of English Literature scholars.

Detective Jenna Murphy comes to the Hamptons to solve a murder -- but what she finds is more deadly than she could ever imagine. Trying to escape her troubled past and rehabilitate a career on the rocks, former New York City cop Jenna Murphy hardly expects her lush and wealthy surroundings to be a hotbed of grisly depravity. But when a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead in the abandoned Murder House, the gruesome crime scene rivals anything Jenna experienced in Manhattan. And what at first seems like an open and shut case turns out to have as many shocking secrets as the Murder House itself, as Jenna quickly realizes that the mansion''s history is much darker than even the town''s most salacious gossips could have imagined. As more bodies surface, and the secret that Jenna has tried desperately to escape closes in on her, she must risk her own life to expose the truth-before the Murder House claims another victim. Full of the twists and turns that have made James Patterson the world''s #1 bestselling writer, The Murder House is a chilling, page-turning story of murder, money, and revenge.

An attorney and mother of two discovers her husband’s secret life—and it might cost them all their lives. "Wow! Lies He Told Me is a roller coaster from start to finish! I was hooked from the first page, and the final twist blew me away! This is a thriller you won''t want to miss!" —Freida McFadden, #1 bestselling author of The Housemaid Everyone in Hemingway Grove, Illinois, knows David and Marcie Bowers. David owns the local pub. Marcie is a former big-city lawyer who practices family law. When David jumps into Cotton River to save a drowning stranger, he’s celebrated as a hero. His muscled physique, shaved head, and piercing blue eyes are broadcast on every news outlet. For most people, newfound fame is a lifeline. For David Bowers, it’s a death sentence. For Marcie Bowers, it’s a test. A wife knows the difference between a loving husband and father and a cold-blooded assassin. Right?

Detective Billy Harney’s reputation as a dirty cop may be the only thing keeping Chicago clean in James Patterson’s most critically-acclaimed thriller since The Black Book. u200bFor Detective Billy Harney, getting shot in the head, stalked by a state’s attorney, and accused of murder by his fellow cops is a normal week on the job. So when a drive-by shooting on the Chicago''s west side turns political, he leads the way to a quick solve. But Harney''s instincts—his father was once chief of detectives and his twin sister, Patti, is also on the force—run deep. As a population hungry for justice threatens to riot, he realizes that the three known victims are hardly the only casualties. When Harney starts asking questions about who''s to blame, the easy answers prove to be the wrong ones. On the flip side, the less he seems to know, the longer he can keep his clandestine investigation going . . . until Harney''s quest to expose the evil that''s rotting the city from the inside out takes him to the one place he vowed never to return: his own troubled past.

The basic thesis of essentialism is that the laws are nature are imminent in existing things, rather than imposed from without. Largely discarded since the days of Aristotle, essentialism has lately been making inroads as a metaphysics of science. Ellis (history and philosophy of science, U. of Melbourne, Australia) summarizes the positions of his brand of the philosophy in a manner that is less rigorously scholastic than his earlier effort Scientific Essentialism (Cambridge U. Press, 2001) and more tailored for a lay audience. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The 4th edition of this book provides laboratory staff and clinicians with a quick benchtop reference on the identification and antifungal susceptibility of human and animal fungal infections. It contains descriptions of all the major medical fungal pathogens, 179 species from 109 genera. This updated edition includes new and revised descriptions and he authors have reconciled current morphological descriptions and name changes with more recent genetic data. The most common fungal species are described, including members of the yeasts, mucoromycetes, conidial moulds, dimorphic pathogens, and dermatophytes. This handy reference is essential for laboratory staff and clinicians dealing with the identification and management of human and animal fungal infections, researchers in medical microbiology and mycology laboratories.

In this companion to #1 New York Times bestseller The Black Book, Detective Billy Harney chases down a billionaire crime boss and a prison escape artist while a young girl''s life hangs in the balance. As Chicago PD’s special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he’s investigating is down to his last twenty million. He’s also being held in jail. For now. Billy’s unit is called in when an escape plan results in officers down and inmates vanished. In an empty lot, Billy spots two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note: Hi, Billy Are you having fun yet?