Stone Rain (Zack Walker)

ISBN: 0553804561

Condition: Used

From Publishers WeeklyNo good deed goes unpunished in the fourth Zack Walker mystery thriller from Barclay, which finds the newspaper reporter, family man and very reluctant hero just settling back into a semblance of middle-class normalcy after his last adventure (2006's Lone Wolf). That all changes when Zack tries to help good friend, former neighbor and professional dominatrix Trixie Snelling dissuade local tabloid reporter Martin Benson from running a story on her and her business. Not long after Zack tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade Martin to pull the story, Martin turns up dead, tied to a rack with his throat slit, in Trixie's bondage basement-and Trixie, the prime suspect, has disappeared. Zack sets off in search of answers, following a path deep into Trixie's troubled, violent past that could cost him his job, his family and his life. Barclay has a fine ear for dialogue, especially in scenes with Zack and his family, and his expert blend of humor and suspense make this a well-constructed, often witty mystery that's sure to please. (May)Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Product DescriptionMetropolitan newspaper writer Zack Walker has a knack for stumbling onto deadly stories. But its one that his good friend Trixie Snelling doesnt want told thats about to unleash a storm of trouble. As a professional dominatrix in the suburbs, Trixie has her share of secrets, but Zack has no idea what shes really hiding when a local newspaperman threatens to do an expos on hernot until Zack finds a dead body strapped to the bondage cross in her basement dungeon.Now Zack is implicated in a murder, Trixie is missing, and everything he thought he knew about his friend, his town, even his own marriage, reveals a darker side. Zacks twisted trail to the truth will lead to a long-unsolved triple homicide, bikers, drug wars, and a stone-cold killer hell-bent on revenge. Its a story thats already cost him his job and possibly his wife, and, if Zacks not very lucky, it will cost him his life.About the AuthorLinwood Barclay is a former columnist for the Toronto Star. He is the #1 internationally bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels, including The Accident, Never Look Away, Fear the Worst, Too Close to Home, and No Time for Goodbye. Multiple titles have been optioned for film.Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter One"YOU HAVE TO EMPTY all the change out of your pockets," the uniformed woman told me. "And I need your wallet."For a second, I thought about making a joke. Maybe, under less stressful circumstances, I might have. A visit to a prison under normal conditions--does anyone visit a prison under normal conditions?--would have been stressful enough. But my reasons for being here were far from normal. And there wasn't anything normal about the guy sitting in the pickup truck, out in the prison parking lot, waiting for me to do what I'd come here to do.If I'd just been here doing a story for the Metropolitan, when the female guard asked for my wallet I might have said, What is this, a stickup? They don't pay you enough? And then I would have laughed. Ha-ha.But there was nothing to suggest that this woman, black, mid-forties, built like a safe, wearing a shiny black belt with a riot stick attached, was feeling all that jocular herself. Maybe working in a prison does that to you. You didn't have to be an inmate to feel the oppressiveness of the place.I'd already put my cell phone in the plastic tray she'd given me. "Okay, I can see how change would set off this thing," I said, nodding at the security portal, like those ones they have at the airport, that I'd have to walk through to get any further into the prison. "But why do I have to give you my wallet?""You can't take any money into the prison," the woman said sternly. "You're not allowed to give money to the inmates." For just a moment, her hand rested on