A Carmine Delmonico Novel
Simon & Schuster
December 2009
On Sale: December 1, 2009
384 pages ISBN: 1439177473 EAN: 9781439177471 Hardcover Add to Wish List
Proving once again that she is a master of suspense,
bestselling author Colleen McCullough returns with a
riveting sequel to On, Off.
The year is 1967, and the world teeters on the brink of
nuclear holocaust as the Cold War goes relentlessly on. On a
beautiful spring day in the little city of Holloman,
Connecticut, home to prestigious Chubb University and
armaments giant Cornucopia, chief of detectives Captain
Carmine Delmonico has more pressing concerns than finding a
name for his infant son: twelve murders have taken place in
one day, and Delmonico is drawn into a gruesome web of
secrets and lies.
Supported by his detective sergeants Abe Goldberg and Corey
Marshall and new team member the meticulous Delia Carstairs,
Delmonico embarks on what looks like an unsolvable mystery.
All the murders are different and they all seem unconnected.
Are they dealing with one killer, or many? How is the murder
of Dee-Dee Hall, a local prostitute, related to the deaths
of a mother and her disabled child? How is Chubb student
Evan Pugh connected to Desmond Skeps, head of Cornucopia?
And as if twelve murders were not enough, Carmine soon finds
himself pitted against the mysterious Ulysses, a spy giving
Cornucopia's armaments secrets to the Russians. Are the
murders and espionage different cases, or are they somehow
linked?
When FBI special agent Ted Kelly makes himself part of the
investigation, it appears the stakes are far higher than
anyone had imagined, and murder is only one part of the
puzzle in the set of crimes that has sent Holloman into a
panic. As the overtaxed police force contends with small
town politics, academic rivalry and corporate greed, the
death toll mounts, and Carmine and his team discover that
the answers are not what they seem -- but then, are they ever?