CRAIG HOLDEN

Darcy Arlen, a beautiful young American, is dangerously bored. Though shes on a very pricey tour of Europe, shes already sick of museums and ruins, and eager for distraction. After slipping away from the group one afternoon, she meets Will, an attractive young drifter who carries about him the scent of true adventure. Will invites Darcy back to the hostel where hes been staying and introduces her to Justine, his darkly seductive lover and mentor. Justine, a master of the con, senses a grand opportunity in this amenable blonde. She and Will manage to turn things so that Darcy not only accompanies them to Venice, but finances the trip as well. There they meet Maurice, a shady figure who offers them a job smuggling an important package to Greece. As the threesome travels across Europe toward the island of Crete, what unfolds is an astonishing tale of shifting alliances and shocking betrayals, of sexual obsession and mercenary enterprise, of conflicting passions and fateful choices. When the adventurers finally reach the village of Matala with the package in hand, they learn that what they have delivered is more valuable, and the repercussions of their involvement more terrifying, than they ever could have imagined. Endlessly surprising and altogether riveting, Matala is an unforgettable novel about the intersection of love and ruthlessness.

An exquistely written novel of love and betrayal, of money and power, set at the apex of that time of glitz and innocence known as the Jazz Age. CINCINNATI, 1927...Lawyer George Remus became the countrys biggest bootlegger, grossing over $80 million until his arrest. Upon his release from prison, he learns that his beautiful wife, Imogene, has left him and that his bank accounts are empty. On the morning of their divorce, he runs her car off the road in the middle of rush hour in Eden Park and shoots her to death.Shocked and fascinated by this horrible crime, the country gears up for a sensational trial pitting the man known as the king of the bootleggers against Chief Prosecutor Charlie Taft, the youngest son of the former president. The trial is a national spectacle, a lens focused on the fabulous rise and fall of the Remus empire and the tragic love story within it, and an attempt to answer some tantalizing questions: What actually happened to the fortune? What are the motives of the federal agent who brought Remus down? What complex emotions and desires, leading ultimately to the ruin of three men, really lie within the heart of the woman known as the Jazz Bird?Based on a true story, The Jazz Bird is at once a love story, a crime novel, and the tale of the courtroom battle between two powerful men whose respective futures hang in the balance.

In his earlier acclaimed novels, Craig Holden created a thrilling vision of America that was at once lyrical and dark. Now, with The Narcissists Daughter, he expands that vision in his most accomplished and controversial work to date, a drama about the collision between two families, both riddled with desires but from opposite sides of the tracks. From the outside the Kesslers appear to have it all: Dr. Ted Kessler is a decorated veteran who now runs the lab at a large medical center. He and his wife, Joyce, live with their daughter, Jessi, in a beautiful house in the estate section of an Ohio city in the 1970s. Ted is widely respected as a clinician, researcher, manager, and businessman. But when he resolves to mentor an ambitious working-class student, this idyllic little world is threatened. Syd Redding, the gruff, streetwise narrator of The Narcissists Daughter, has no plan in mind for the Kesslers. Hes a bored pre-med student with few prospects, a failure for a stepfather, and a sister who seems to be following his example. Soon after he meets Kesslers wife and daughter, he finds himself ensnared in the secret machinations of this magnetic family on the brink of unraveling. The Narcissists Daughter is the compulsively readable and suspenseful story of a simple affair that blossoms into obsession, exploitation, and finally, a passion for revenge that threatens to ruin the lives of everyone involved.

In his critically acclaimed novels The River Sorrow and The Last Sanctuary, Craig Holden forged a powerful, poetic vision of the American heartland. Now the writer The New York Times calls "astonishing" returns to this haunting landscape in his newest work. At once a suspenseful search for the truth in a teenage girls abduction and a multilayered rumination on family, love, and friendship, Four Corners of Night explores bold new terrain in literary suspense fiction.Its 9:00 A.M. in an unnamed Midwestern city. Bank Arbaugh and Mack Steiner have just come off a typical night shift--patrolling the city, scaring off prostitutes, shaking up the usual suspects. Sitting in Dennys, waiting for bacon and eggs, they get a call over the radio: A teenage girl is missing. With a glance, the two cops--best friends since childhood, as close as brothers-- know their lives have shifted off balance, because seven years before, Banks own daughter went missing and has not been found to this day.Two parallel stories: two girls from opposite sides of town, seven years separating them. As evidence mounts, one case begins to illuminate the other, until finally, the inevitable conclusion is revealed. Craig Holden takes us on a harrowing journey into the night, and exposes not only the heart of a tattered American city, but also of two men whose lives are intertwined in loss, envy, and love.Stunning, haunting, and unforgettable, Four Corners of Night is a book that makes us think about friendship, the stuff of heroism, and the meaning of truth. Holden stops at nothing to ask the question: To what lengths will we go to overlook what we dont want to see?

In one of the most unique and powerfully realized debut novels of the decade, Craig Holden creates a page-turning drama that is both emotionally shattering and harrowingly plausible.When a fatally burned victim is brought into the Morgantown General Hospital emergency room, a young doctors life is changed irrevocably. For Dr. Adrian Lancaster, the arrival of "John Doe" is only the first of a bizarre and bloody series of events that will force him to relive his violent past and put him on the run. On the road and underground, accused and accuser, Lancasters only hope for survival lies in facing the terrifying truth.