White, Frank:The Seti Factor: How the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Is Changing Our View of the Universe and Ourselves
- Taschenbuch 2007, ISBN: 9780802711052
Gebundene Ausgabe
Minotaur Books. Very Good. 5.5 x 0.88 x 8.5 inches. Paperback. 2007. 320 pages. <br>Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, The Princess of Burundi introduc… Mehr…
Minotaur Books. Very Good. 5.5 x 0.88 x 8.5 inches. Paperback. 2007. 320 pages. <br>Winner of the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, The Princess of Burundi introduces American readers to Kjell Eriksson--a crime writer who has quickly become an inte rnational sensation. This spellbinding new thriller opens when a young father fails to show up for supper on a snowy night just b efore Christmas. His is not the only sinister disappearance, and before the final breathtaking climax, a secret killer terrorizes an entire frightened town. Despite being on maternity leave, Ins pector Ann Lindell is determined to find John's murderer. The cru el cat-and-mouse game that follows leads Ann to a deadly confront ation with a treacherous killer. Ann must decide whether to take a huge risk that could result in many more dead bodies in the sno w, including hers and that of her unborn child. Editorial Review s Review Riveting . . . The Princess of Burundi resembles the b ooks of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, not to mention those of the m odern master Henning Mankell. ?The Wall Street Journal Stunning . . . haunting . . . can chill you to the bone. ?Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Terrific . . . subtly brilliant . . . compell ingly suspenseful. ?San Francisco Chronicle Reminiscent of Ed Mc Bain's 87th Precinct series. Don't miss it. ?Library Journal (sta rred review) Ingenious . . . a chillingly well-drawn psychotic. . . . Very satisfying. ?Los Angeles Times A deeply insightful ps ychological thriller. ?Midwest Book Review Suspenseful, intellig ent, and perceptive . . . terrific. ?Publishers Weekly About th e Author KJELL ERIKSSON is the award-winning and internationally bestselling Swedish author of The Ann Lindell Mystery series. His debut won the Swedish Crime Academy award for Best First Novel a nd The Princess of Burundi later won for Best Crime Novel. Erikss on is also a gardener, and now living in Brazil. Ebba Segerberg is a translator of Swedish literature with a focus on Swedish cri me fiction. Her translations include several installments of the Wallander series by Henning Mankell and Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist. She has worked in a variety of other genres and format s including biography, short stories, and screenplays. She holds a PhD in Swedish literature and film studies from the University of California at Berkeley, and currently lives in Saint Louis, Mi ssouri. About the Author KJELL ERIKSSON is the award-winning and internationally bestselling Swedish author of The Ann Lindell My stery series. His debut won the Swedish Crime Academy award for B est First Novel and The Princess of Burundi later won for Best Cr ime Novel. Eriksson is also a gardener, and now living in Brazil. Ebba Segerberg is a translator of Swedish literature with a foc us on Swedish crime fiction. Her translations include several ins tallments of the Wallander series by Henning Mankell and Let Me I n by John Ajvide Lindqvist. She has worked in a variety of other genres and formats including biography, short stories, and screen plays. She holds a PhD in Swedish literature and film studies fro m the University of California at Berkeley, and currently lives i n Saint Louis, Missouri. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Princess of Burundi By Eriksson, Kjell S t. Martin's Minotaur Copyright ©2007Eriksson, Kjell All right res erved. ISBN: 9780312327682 Chapter One The plate trembled, knocki ng over the glass. The milk flowed out over the waxed tablecloth like a white flower. Typical-we have almost no milk left, she tho ught. She quickly righted the glass and wiped up the milk with a dishrag. When is Dad coming home? She twirled around. Justus was leaning up against the doorpost. I don't know, she said, throwing the dishrag into the sink. What's for dinner? He had a book in h is hand, his index finger tucked in to mark the page he was readi ng. She wanted to ask him what it was, but then she thought of so mething and walked over to the window. Stew, she said absently. S he looked out at the parking lot. It had started to snow again. M aybe he was working. She knew he had talked to Micke. He always n eeded extra workers for his snow-removal crew, and it had been co ming down for days now. John wasn't afraid of heights, either. Be rit smiled at the memory of how he had climbed the drainpipe to h er balcony long ago. It was only on the second floor, but still. He could have broken his neck if he had fallen. Just like his fat her, she thought, and her smile faded. She had been furious with him, but he had just laughed. Then he had scooped her up in a tig ht embrace, with a strength you would never have thought John's s lender body was capable of. Later-clearly flattered-she liked to tell the story of his climb and his persistence. It was their ear liest and most important shared memory. Snow removal. A small tra ctor drove across the parking lot and pushed even more snow up ov er the heavily laden bushes by the edge of the lot. Harry was the driver. She recognized him by his red cap. Harry was the one who had set Justus to work, giving him a summer job when no one else was hiring. Lawn mowing, clearing out trash, weeding. Justus com plained, but he had been bursting with pride at his first paychec k. Berit's gaze followed the snowplow. Snow was falling thickly. The orange signal light revolved on the roof of the tractor. Dark ness settled in over the buildings and the parking lot. The light was flung to the far corners of the grounds. Harry was certainly busy. How many hours had he had to work the past few days? This weather's going to send me to the Canary Islands, he had shouted to her the other day when they met outside the front door. He had leaned on his shovel and asked her about Justus. He always did. She turned and meant to say hello from Harry but Justus had alrea dy gone. What are you doing? she cried out into the apartment. No thing, Justus yelled back. Berit assumed he was sitting in front of the computer. Ever since August, when John had dragged home th e boxes, Justus had sat glued to the screen. The kid has to have a computer. He'll be left behind otherwise, John had said when sh e complained at the extravagance. How much did it cost? I got it cheap, he had told her, and quickly showed her the receipt from t he electronics store when he caught her look. That accusing look, the one he knew so well. She looked around the kitchen but there was nothing else to be done. Dinner was ready. She went back to the window. He had said he would be back around four and it was c lose to six now. He usually called if he was delayed, but that ha d been mostly when he was doing a lot of overtime at the workshop . He had never liked to work late, but his boss, Sagge-Agne Sagan der-had a way of asking that made it hard to say no. It always so unded as if the order in question were going to make or break the company. He had grown more quiet after he was fired. John had ne ver been one to talk much, of course-Berit was the one who suppli ed the conversation-but he became even less talkative after he wa s let go. He had cheered up only this fall. Berit was convinced t hat it had to do with the fish, the new aquarium he had been talk ing about for years and that had become a reality at last. He had needed all that work with the fish tank, had spent a couple of w eeks in September on it. Harry had given him a hand with the fina l assembly. He and Gunilla had come to the grand opening. Berit h ad thought it silly to inaugurate a fish tank but the party had b een a success. Their closest neighbor, Stellan, had looked in, as had John's mom, and Lennart had been sober and cheerful. Stellan , who was normally quite reserved, had put an arm around Berit an d said something about how cute she looked. John had just smiled, though he usually was sensitive about things like this, especial ly when he had had a drink or two. But there was no reason to be jealous of Stellan. Harry had finished clearing the parking lot. The flashing orange signal flung new cascades of light across the path to the laundry facilities and communal rooms. Snow removal. Berit had only a vague idea of what this task involved. Did they still climb up on the roof like in the old days? She could remem ber the bundled-up men from her childhood with their big shovels and ropes slung in great loops over their shoulders. She could ev en recall the warning signs they posted in the courtyard and on t he street. Was he over at Lennart's? Brother Tuck, as John called him. She didn't like it. It reminded her of the bad old days. Sh e never knew what to make of it: Lennart's loquacious self-assura nce and John's pressed silence. Berit was only sixteen when the t hree of them met. First she got to know John, then Lennart. The b rothers appeared inseparable. Lennart, tossing his long black hai r off his face, unpredictable in his movements, always on the go, picking nervously, chattering. John, blond, thin-lipped, and wit h a gentleness about him that had immediately appealed to her. A scar across his left eye created an unexpected contrast with the pale skin in his slightly androgynous face. The scar was from a m otorcycle accident. Lennart had been driving. Berit had been unab le to understand how John and Lennart could be brothers. They wer e so different, both in appearance and in manner. Once she had go ne so far as to ask Aina, their mother, about it. It had been tow ard the end of the crayfish party, but she had only smiled and jo ked about it. It didn't take long for Berit to figure out that th e brothers didn't always make their money in traditional ways. Jo hn worked at the workshop off and on, but it seemed to Berit that this was more to keep up appearances, especially with regard to Albin, his father. John had a criminal bent. Not because he was e vil or greedy, but simply because a conventional lifestyle didn't seem to be quite enough for him. It was something he had in comm on with many of the people around him, teenagers who appeared wel l adjusted on the surface but who drifted around the eastern part s of Uppsala most evenings and nights in anxious herds. They pick ed pockets, snatched purses, stole mopeds and cars, broke into ba sements, and smashed shopwindows as the spirit moved them. A few, like John and Lennart, were permanent fixtures. Others came and went, most of them dropping out after six months or a year. Some took classes at the Boland School in order to become painters, co ncrete workers, mechanics, or whatever other professions were ope n to working-class youths in the early seventies. Others took job s straight out of middle school. None of them continued with more formal academic subjects at the high school level. They had neit her the will nor the grades for that. Most of them lived at home with their parents, who were not always the ideal people to preve nt substance abuse, theft, and other illegal activities. They had enough of their own problems and often stood by, quite powerless to do anything to stop their offspring. They were awkward and em barrassed when dealing with the welfare workers, psychologists, a nd other social officials, confused by the bureaucratic language, their own inadequacies, and their intense sense of shame. If I h adn't had them, it would all have gone to hell, John had said onc e. It was only when he was getting regular work at the factory th at he started to move away from life on the streets and the gangs . Regular work, a new sense of being appreciated, decent wages, a nd then Berit. Lennart delivered groceries by day and hung out at the pool hall in Sivia at night. John was there too. He was the better player of the two, though that hardly bothered Lennart, wh o spent most of his time on the flipper machines down below. That was where Berit met them. She had come with a girl named Anna-Le na, who was in love with a boy who frequented the place. She fell in love with John at first sight. He snuck around the pool table with the cue in his hand and played with intense concentration, something that appealed to Berit. He rarely said anything. His ha nds were slender. She studied his fingers splayed on the green ma t, his gaze focused along the stick, serious. It was the seriousn ess she noticed. And eyelashes. His gaze, the intense gaze. She w asn't sure what made her start thinking about the pool hall. It h ad been years since she had been there. It was probably because s he had been thinking about Brother Tuck, and about how John was p robably with him. She didn't want to call. They were probably dri nking. Sometimes John felt he had to have a real session with Len nart. It didn't happen very often nowadays, but when his mind was made up nothing could stop him. Not even Justus. The boy knew it , knew his father deep under the skin, and his protests were neve r particularly loud or long-lived. Once, when Justus was about tw elve, John let himself be talked out of it and came home. Justus had called his uncle himself and demanded to speak to his father. Berit was not allowed to listen; Justus had locked himself in th e bathroom with the portable phone. John came home after half an hour. Staggering, but he came home. It was as if these occasional evenings with his brother functioned as a temporary return to hi s former existence. These drinking sessions kept the brothers clo se. Berit had no idea what they talked about. Old times, their ch ildhood in Almtuna, or something else? They didn't have much comm on ground. They cleaved to each other because of their shared pas t. Berit sometimes felt something akin to jealousy when confronte d with this world that was largely foreign to her. Their childhoo d, the early years, appeared to be the only source of joy when th ey were talking. Even Lennart's voice, normally void of emotion, grew warm. And Berit stood outside all of this. Her life with Joh n didn't count, or so it seemed to her. She entered his life when everything turned, when his childhood reached a definitive end. She wasn't there in the early, light-filled days, the happy years that would be remembered and retold. When is he coming? Soon, sh e replied, shouting. She was grateful that Justus was in his bedr oom. He's probably clearing snow somewhere. I've never seen anyth ing like it. She expected him to say something else, but he didn' t. She wanted to hear his voice, but he didn't say anything. What is he doing, thinking? Did she dare leave the kitchen and go to his room? But the half-darkness of the kitchen was all she could handle. No light, no quick flickering characters on a computer sc reen, no questioning looks from Justu, Minotaur Books, 2007, 3, New: Walker & Company, 1990. Hardcover in non price-clipped dust-jacket. 250 pages. Bibliography, Index. First edition, first printing with full number line. No previous ownership marks. The author posits the interesting philosophical questions of what if/if not intelligent extraterrestrial life is proven to exist as a result of NASA's renewed exploration of deep space, interviewing top scientists such as Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. A clean, square, fresh and unmarked copy. Near fine in a near fine dust-jacket. . First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall., Walker & Company, 1990, 4<
