Showing results by author "Warren Adler" in All Categories

The corruptive power of money and ambition in American politics begins in Venice where a Washington woman reporter trying to repair a bad marriage suddenly spots a professional jeweler, a key figure in the world of Washington's powerful social and political elite. When she returns to Washington she is shocked to discover that the jeweler has not returned and has, in effect, disappeared. This piques her curiosity and what she uncovers goes to the heart of political corruption on a grand scale; deals with diamonds smuggled into the country to finance a presidential political campaign.

In this fast-paced erotic thriller, John Champion, a professional hitman and Angela Ford, the wife of the man who orders the hit, engage in a passionate, overpowering, and memorable love affair. Played out against the exotic locales of Florence, the Riviera, the French Alps, and Manhattan, the two lovers endure impossible odds as their relationship deepens and matures. Figuring importantly in the story is Michelangelo's David, a majestic artistic masterpiece that stands in all its naked glory in the Galleria dell' Academia in Florence and the epiphany experienced by Angela in its presence.

Even when murderous gangsters are shoving his head into a toilet, Mickey Fine can’t stop making jokes. He wants a career in comedy so badly that he takes a job as a Tummler, a comedian and host for a hotel in the Catskills, a hotel where he knows the very gangsters who abused him are staying. An already dangerous situation escalates when Mickey falls for Mutzie, the “number one girl” of Pep who is arguably the most violent thug in the hotel. Betrayals and politics within the mob play out behind the scenes while Mutzie joins Mickey on stage.

When Hollywood producer Zane Galvin’s failed movie leaves him with a $5 million debt and 30 days to pay it off, he goes to unpredictable extremes to raise the money. Joining in on his scheme are Zane’s girlfriend, his gardener, the film’s writer, and the director. The plan quickly turns into a wicked game of switching sides, blackmail, betrayal, and greed. Will anyone come out a winner?

The people who run the influential newspaper the Washington Chronicle have just exposed and brought down a President through their investigative reports. Flush with power, they are now attempting to create their own choice for Chief Executive. Clashing relationships within the media and in the political arena reveal the motives, insecurities, and thirst for ascendancy between rival factions fighting for power. With rich emotional characterizations, this story tears the curtain from the spin-doctors and sinister figures that populate the corridors of power in the nation's capital.

From the carcass of a Washington, D.C. car bomb explosion, the CIA launches an investigation into the mysterious events leading to the assassination of Chilean dissident and infamous casanova, Eduardo Allesandro Palmero. As CIA investigator Alfred Dobbs rummages through the evidence, Palmero's mysterious life, from heir to the Chilean oligarchy to a fist-raising Marxist and trickster in disguise, comes to light. But what Dobbs soon discovers soars beyond his wildest imagination. At the height of international terrorism, Eduardo fights his war with an unlikely weapon - seduction.

More stories from Warren Adler’s acclaimed short stories collection The Sunset Gang. Never Too Late for Love combines additional stories written after The Sunset Gang was published, dealing with the same intrepid crew who inhabit Sunset Village. Anyone who is aging—meaning all of us—will revel in these stories of joy, love, sex, and energy that give a deeper meaning to the aging process, especially in what the young might call "the twilight years." In these stories, there is no sense of oncoming doom and life goes on in a perpetual sunset. Anyone who has an "older" friend or parent will marvel at this wonderful, inspiring collection and enjoy reading and re-reading these stories for years to come.

The author tells the truth about the impact of "new" people on a mountain resort. In this collection of fictional short stories, the listener will find insights and truths engendered by the modern invasion of "new folks" to glorious mountain enclaves now dubbed "resorts". These acclaimed stories capture the truth, warts and all, of how modern life can both corrupt and enhance a traditional environment. Based on the author's experience as a long-time resident of this pristine valley in Wyoming nestled in the heart of the Grand Tetons, America's most beautiful mountain range.

When their 23-year-old daughter goes missing, divorcees Harry and Paulie are forced to leave behind their newly constructed lives to track Grace down. But Grace isn't lost, not physically at least. They find her seemingly unharmed in California on a sunny farm the other residents call 'Camp Star'. But nothing is as it seems.... Sinister motives lurk behind the smiles of those at the camp, and the two soon learn that Grace is in the clutches of a notorious cult. Under the spell of mind control, she denies Harry and Paulie as her family and shuns their love.

When a commercial artist, her stockbroker husband, and their twin daughters move to Los Angeles, they unwittingly fall prey to a woman who convinces them that she is a psychic and can foresee their future. By persuading them that she holds the key to their success and can protect them from the dangers that threaten them, she gradually takes full control over their careers, their parenting, even their sex lives, until they become her willing accomplices.

Milton Gold is a fringe operating "hustling lawyer", barely making it in the cutthroat chaos of 1970s New York City. His world is suddenly turned inside out when he meets the mysterious and beautiful Karla Smith, a Polish-American woman, who approaches him with an assignment that will test his skills beyond anything he has ever experienced.

A young New York couple, unable to have children and whose marriage seems to be sputtering, is advised to leave their tense urban lives and take a vacation in a more bucolic environment. Out west, they are suddenly confronted by violent rednecks and chased deep into the surrounding wilderness. Braving floods, avalanches, wild animals, and human predators, they come face-to-face with death.

The Sunset Gang is as lively, fun, and courageous a group as you'll find anywhere this side of the Last Reward. The fact that you'll find them at Sunset Village, a condominium retirement community in Florida - where an ambulance siren is the theme song and cycling at a stately pace is strenuous exercise - does not mean that they are ready to pack it all in. Not by a long shot.

Mother Nile is the story of Si, the American-born son of an Irish father and Egyptian mother, who goes on a journey through the winding streets of the City of the Dead to solve a half-century-old mystery. When his mother makes an urgent plea on her deathbed, Si knows that he must make the journey to Egypt to find out the truth about his long-lost half-sister, conceived during his mother's affair with King Farouk.

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald's privileged upbringing in the nation's capital and her intimate knowledge of its inner workings come in handy when Fran Miller, a top lobbyist and legal expert, turns up dead on Independence Day. It looks like suicide, but when the clues lead back to Mark Chancellor, the husband of Fiona's best friend, things get complicated. Chancellor is at the top of his game, well connected in Washington and known to believe that money is the planet's most powerful weapon.

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald is an unlikely force for justice in Washington, D.C.'s predominantly male police force. As a senator's daughter and top investigator in the homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, Fiona maneuvers between two vastly different worlds, moving quickly from opulent galas to gritty crime scenes.

For Metropolitan Police detective Fiona Fitzgerald, the mysterious case of the Austrian ambassador's beautiful wife's death is a stark reminder of her upbringing. High-class soirees, men with power, and bored political wives are abundant in this high-profile case. Underneath it all, Fiona understands the publicity nightmare for the Washington elite - and the lengths they will go to for damage control in order to protect their hallowed reputations.

Allen Harris is a pillar of the community, a married lawyer of spotless reputation who is asked to assume the presidency of a conservative university after its last president has been fired for engaging in a sexual affair with a student. He is to be vetted by the Board of Directors, who want to be certain that there is nothing in Harris' past that will cause another scandal that has badly damaged the image of the institution. He asserts to the board that his married life is without blemish and he has never engaged in adulterous or clandestine affairs.

Cult is a thriller with a chilling climax that shows how the power of sinister forces using mind control techniques can turn innocent people into weapons of destruction. Barney Harrigan, a successful computer entrepreneur, discovers that his young and impressionable wife has been lured by her fanatical sister into the "Glory Cult", a ruthless and powerful group in Oregon run by a charismatic "Guru".

After serving his Brooklyn district for years, Congressman Sullivan discovers that his once comfortable Irish-American majority has given way to a diverse district of blacks and Hispanics. Challenged by a more liberal opponent, he tries everything possible to maintain his seat only to painfully learn that he and his views are outdated and irrelevant to today's world. But he doesn't bow out of the race gracefully, and the fierce ensuing campaign brings new insights to the meaning of democracy.