Purchase
A love story... A Murder Mystery
Harper
February 2008
On Sale: January 29, 2008
304 pages ISBN: 0061430250 EAN: 9780061430251 Hardcover
Add to Wish List
Fiction | Mystery
Part love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of
the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and
deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about
class, politics, art, love, and madness—and explores what
happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite
ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules. Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Cole is a wild, stunningly
beautiful heiress, the adopted only child of a highly
regarded New York brain surgeon and his socialite wife.
Twice married, Vanessa has been scandalously linked to any
number of rich and famous men. But on the night of July 4,
1936, at her parents' country home in a remote Adirondack
Mountain enclave known as The Reserve, two events coincide
to permanently alter the course of Vanessa's callow life:
her father dies suddenly of a heart attack, and a
mysteriously seductive local artist, Jordan Groves, blithely
lands his Waco biplane in the pristine waters of the
forbidden Upper Lake. . . . Jordan's reputation has preceded him; he is internationally
known as much for his exploits and conquests as for his
paintings themselves, and, here in the midst of the Great
Depression, his leftist loyalties seem suspiciously undercut
by his wealth and elite clientele. But for all his worldly
swagger, Jordan is as staggered by Vanessa's beauty and
charm as she is by his defiant independence. He falls easy
prey to her electrifying personality, but it is not long
before he discovers that the heiress carries a dark, deeply
scarring family secret. Emotionally unstable from the start,
and further unhinged by her father's unexpected death,
Vanessa begins to spin wildly out of control, manipulating
and destroying the lives of all who cross her path. Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondack wilderness
to the skies above war-torn Spain and Fascist Germany, The
Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic
novel of suspense that adds a new dimension to this
acclaimed author's extraordinary repertoire.
Comments
No comments posted.
Registered users may leave comments.
Log in or register now!
|