Kem Nunn

From Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Kem Nunn and principal heir to the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Nathanael West (The Washington Post)an intense psychological suspense novel about a San Francisco neuropsychiatrist who becomes sexually involved with a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder, whose pathological ex-husband is an Oakland homicide detective.A dark tale involving psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violenceChance is set amid the back streets of Californias Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean. Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chances blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with heror is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isnt quite sureand thereby hangs his fascination with her. Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that long guarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctors carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.Amid San Franciscos fluid, ever-shifting fog, in the cool, gray city of love, Dr. Chance will at last be forced to live up to his name. Chance is a twisted, harrowing, and impossible-to-put-down head trip through the fun house of fate, mesmerizing until the very last page.

Lost in a southern California barrio, Earl Dean has a hard time believing there is one living soul in this foul-smelling night who wants to be found by a salesman hawking vacuum cleaners. What awaits Earl in the faint flow of a distant porch light is the world of Dan Brown...Dan Browns brother has been killed. Dan has plans to handle the revenge, and Earl has strayed into the crossfire. Dan is the last of the road warriors, a murderous, drug-crazed biker who only thinks of laws as things to break. But more than Buddy Brown lies dead in the moonlight. From a time when the valley was the hub of the nations citrus industry to the defoliated sorry mess of today, it has come down to one fact: Earl Dean, broken-hearted vacuum cleaner salesman, owns the last single acre of orange groves in Pomona. And like his great-grandfather before him, he must come forward to claim his inheritance.

From Kem Nunn, the National Book Award-nominated author of Tapping the Source and The Dogs of Winter, comes an exquisitely written tale of loss and redemption. Nunn renders the dangerous beaches and waters of Californias borderland as only the critically acclaimed poet laureate of surf noir can, and Tijuana Straits confirms his reputation as a master of suspense and a novelist of the first rank.When Fahey, once a great surfer, now a reclusive ex-con, meets Magdalena, she is running from a pack of wild dogs along the ragged wasteland where California and Mexico meet the Pacific Ocean -- a spot once known to the men who rode its giant waves as the Tijuana Straits. Magdalena has barely survived an attack that forced her to flee Tijuana, and Fahey takes her in. That he is willing to do so runs contrary to his every instinct, for Fahey is done with the world, seeking little more than solitude from this all-but-forgotten corner of the Golden State. Nor is Fahey a stranger to the lawless ways of the border. He worries that in sheltering this woman he may not only be inviting further entanglements but may be placing them both at risk. In this, he is not wrong.An environmental activist, Magdalena has become engaged in the struggle for the health and rights of the thousands of peasants streaming from Mexicos enervated heartland to work in the maquilladoras -- the foreign-owned factories that line her countrys border, polluting its air and fouling its rivers. It is a risky contest. Danger can come from many directions, from government officials paid to preserve the status quo to thugs hired to intimidate reformers.As Magdalena and Fahey become closer, Magdalena tries to discover who is out to get her, attempting to reconstruct the events that delivered her, battered and confused, into Faheys strange yet oddly seductive world. She examines every lead, never guessing the truth. For into this no-mans-land between two countries comes a trio of killers led by Armando Santoya, a man beset by personal tragedy, an aberration born of the very conditions Magdalena has dedicated her life to fight against, yet who in the throes of his own drug-fueled confusions has marked her for death. And so will Fahey be put to the test, in a final duel on the beaches of his Tijuana Straits.

En poussant la porte d''une maison dans un quartier déglingué de Pomona, Earl Dean, représentant en aspirateurs, déboule en plein milieu d''une veillée funèbre. Le cadavre d''un homme poignardé baign

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALISTKem Nunns surf noir classic is a thrilling plunge into the seedy underbelly of a Southern California beach townthe inspiration for the film Point Break.People go to Huntington Beach in search of the endless parties, the ultimate highs, and the perfect waves. Ike Tucker has come to look for his missing sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blonds, Ikes search takes him on a journey through a twisted world of crazed Vietnam vets, sadistic surfers, drug dealers, and mysterious seducers. He looks into the shadows and finds parties that drift toward pointless violence, joyless vacations, and highs you may never come down from...and a sea of old hatreds and dreams gone bad. And if hes not careful, his is a journey from which he will never return.

People came to Huntington Beach in search of the endless party, the ultimate high and the perfect wave. Ike Tucker came to look for his sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blondes, Ike looked into the shadows and found parties that drifted towards pointless violence, joyless violations and highs you might never come down from... and a sea of old hatreds and dreams gone bad.

Out of the blue Jack Fletcher, a former hot-shot surf photographer now surviving on hack work, cheap beer and muscle relaxants, gets a call from the surfing magazine he worked for back in his glory days. Assigned to photograph Drew Harmon surfing the remote reef known as Heart Attacks, the photographer cant quite believe his luck: both the surfer and the wave are the stuff of legend, and mean a ticket back into the big time.With two young surf punks in tow, Fletcher heads off for the grim wilderness of Northern California, and the Indian territory where Harmon now lives with his half-mad wife Kendra, who roams the woods at night wearing the clothes of a murdered girl. This is not what Jack had expected, and things get worse.To reach the fabled Heart Attacks and ride the winter waves Harmon, Fletcher and the punks must cross the tract of blasted headland known to the local Hupa, Yurok and Tolowan Indians as The Devils Hoof. When a child dies in an accident, the white men are blamed; the Indians, swearing vengeance, kidnap and brutalise Kendra, then set off to kill the surfers.In this desolate wasteland the search for the perfect wave becomes a quest for survival, as events lead inevitably to their final, tragic climax.

Heart Attacks is Californias last secret spotthe premier mysto surf haunt, the stuff of rumor and legend. The rumors say you must cross Indian land to get there. They tell of hostile locals and shark-infested waters where waves in excess of thirty feet break a mile from shore. For down-and-out photographer Jack Fletcher, the chance to shoot these waves in the company of surfing legend Drew Harmon offers the promise of new beginnings. But Drew is not alone in the northern reaches of the state. His young wife, Kendra, lives there with him. Obsessed with the unsolved murder of a local girl, Kendra has embarked upon a quest of her own, a search for truthhowever dark that truth may prove to be.The Dogs of Winter is a portrait of two men and an appealing yet troubled young woman set against an unforgettable background of stark and violent beauty.

From the LA Times Book Prize-winning author comes a suspenseful and mind-bending novel about Eldon Chance, a forensic neuropsychiatrist at the end of his rope - now a Hulu TV series starring Hugh Laurie and Gretchen Moi.Chance is a dark story about psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violence; a tale told amid the back streets of Californias Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean.Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into his blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective seemingly suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with her; or is it her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his training, isnt quite sure and soon finds himself up against her husband, Raymond, a formidable and dangerous adversary.Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. Around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals, long-guarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctors carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion.Chance is a twisted, harrowing, and impossible-to-put-down head trip through the funhouse of fate; its not pretty, its not sweet, but it is disturbing and unforgettable.

Finalista del National Book Award. Un clásico de la novela negra que nos sumerge en el corazón de una ciudad costera del sur de California.La mayoría de la gente que llega a Huntington Beach –la meca

Finalista del National Book Award. Un clásico de la novela negra que nos sumerge en el corazón de una ciudad costera del sur de California. La mayoría de la gente que llega a Huntington Beach –la mec