From Barnes & Noble

Self-made billionaire Bob King can't fathom the meaning of the word "retirement." Though a trio of heir apparents are waiting hopefully in the wings, he devises a plan to make himself CEO for life. In this case, a very short life: For one of his associates, Bob's latest selfish act seals his doom. But this "remedial murder" is only the first step of treachery....

From the Publisher

Bob King is a self-made billionaire who parlayed a rusty backhoe into the 27th spot on Forbes' list. Now, his corporation is a multi-billion dollar construction company that instills greed and competition among friends, including his son Scott and his two best friends, Thane and Ben. But instead of handing over the company's crown, Bob reveals a massive public offering that will make him CEO for life. Thane's wife, Jessica, is furious and goads him into a conspiracy to kill Bob. When the board of directors makes Thane CEO, Ben investigates the truth--and Thane realizes that he can only be safe if his old friend is also dead.

Author Biography: TIM GREEN lives in Skaneateles, New York.

Kirkus Reviews

An ambitious soccer mom drives her husband to murder. When Jessica Coder was a child, her mother held Jessica's hand to a red-hot stove burner. Years later, Jessica lost her first child when her husband Thane's business associate, James King, refused help that could have saved the boy's life. Now Jessica seeks revenge. She prods her sappy husband to shaft King in a business deal that will make them rich enough to turn their upstate New York home into a palace and send them jetting all over the world. So what if Thane has to consort with the Mafia, deceive the FBI and murder three men? He suffers an occasional crisis of conscience, even spotting King's (read Banquo's) ghost a couple of times. But his wife's passionate whispers keep him going. "You eat or you get eaten," Thane admits to a prison psychiatrist in one of several scenes that dminish the suspense factor by revealing early on that Thane and Jessica are doomed. Alas, convicted killer Thane gives readers little to pull for, as does wife Jessica, a ludicrous and nearly laughable Lady Macbeth from Skineatles who pops pills, hides from mirrors and comes on to a repellant Mafioso. Green (Exact Revenge, 2005) thus leaves himself with only the chase to engage readers. Jessica's scheme, intricate enough, gives Thane the daunting task of pitting the FBI against the mob against King's business enterprise, which is involved in building a New Jersey shopping center to rival the Mall of America. All of this plays out in some fairly supple action scenes. Nevertheless, the book possesses a been-there escaped-that quality, as when Thane, headed home in his truck during a lightning storm, floors it to ditch some FBI agents. This pot never quiteboils.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641870019
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641870019
• Format: Hardcover, 320pp
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Pub. Date: April 2006
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 19,164

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Kingdom Come

Warner Books

Chapter One

"That's an interesting statement," the shrink says. "Most people wouldn't kill a man who was like a father to them."

"He wasn't my father."

"I said 'like' a father."

I nod, because that was true.

"I guess, when you think about it," I say, "he gave me things my father never did. But he also took things away. Money. My wife. My child. Things no father would take from his son."

"What do you mean he took them?" the shrink asks. "That's not what really happened, is it? He didn't take your wife."

"Okay. He moved the pieces on the board in a way that they were taken from me. It's all the same."

"And he deserved to die for that? The others too?"

"I don't know if any of them deserved it," I say. "But it happened, and it would have happened that way to most people. All I wanted was to get ahead, to have my wife, my family."

"Do you really think so, Thane?" he says, looking at his notebook. "That most people would have done what you did?"

"I thought you shrinks are supposed to ask about my mother. What's all this father stuff?"

"You didn't kill your mother-figure," he says in his deep rumble of a voice.

"Or my wife."

He raises an eyebrow. "Why do you mention her? Did she deserve what happened?"

I look awayand sigh. "In a way. Maybe. I dream about it. Her."

"Freud said dreams are wishes," he says. "Look. Let's just start from the beginning. How about you tell me the story?"

"So you can write a book?" I ask.

"So I can help."

"You think I need help?" I say. "I'm a shell. A couple of weeks and I'm out of here. This is just going through the motions. I'll walk out of here and I won't even be Thane Coder anymore. Mike Jenkins. That's the name they're giving me. They've got me a job in a metal shop. Fifteen dollars an hour and a little two-bedroom box outside Bozeman. You ever been to Montana?"

"You're still a person," he says. "You still need to cope."

Over the past six years, I've seen other guys like this. Other shrinks with dreams of helping those beyond help, or who didn't have what it takes to have an officeful of books and leather furniture. They never really help. They just dredge up the muck that's better off left at the bottom. But there's something about the idea of finally being free that makes me giddy enough to want to talk, even about this.

"How far back?" I ask with a sigh.

"What about the storm?" he says, tapping his pen. "Tell me about that. From what I've seen in your file, that seems to push a button."

On the other side of the brick and bars, I hear the sound of the scum spilling out into the yard below. Hooting in the cold air. Their words drift skyward in smoky puffs. The noise of their obscene banter is muffled by the dirty window of the small square room. I look out and see the wall. At its crest the empty eye of the tower stares down. A guard bent over a book. His rifle nowhere in sight.

I think about Jessica, my wife. Pretty dark hair. Sexy in a girlish way. She was a sweet girl. That's how I'd describe her, what she was, even after everything. Even though I blame her.

How sick.

How could a prison head doctor understand that?

"I never thought I could kill anyone," I say, then I sigh again because I know I'm going to tell him, even though it won't do either of us any good.

"I don't mean in a rage, or in self-defense, or in a war. I mean killing someone to get what you want. That wasn't me. But even the best of us has that bad side. I'm not saying I was the best, but I wasn't the worst either. I think I was about where most people are. It was the situation."

He's taking notes now, the blue Bic rolling across the yellow paper. One fat finger is constricted by a college ring with an orange stone. The gold inscriptions are flattened and worn. I'm used to the shrinks writing when I talk, but not this way, in big looping letters that list to one side.

"What?" he says.

"Nothing. I loved my wife. Jessica. I loved the men too. The ones I killed. You believe that? But love, hate. Sometimes they're close, right?"

The shrink smiles like I just figured out that the world is round. He grabs his college ring and gives it a twist.

"And, I wanted the money. Real money. Yeah, I know. I had millions coming to me. But the more money you have, the more you want. You own a mansion on the beach in Tortola, you want a private plane to get there. Then your neighbor takes you out on his yacht and you think how nice that'd be. Maybe a chopper to get there quicker. It never ends. Trust me, when I started out, I thought if I could make a hundred thousand dollars a year with a mortgage-free house I'd have everything I ever needed. That was before Jessica, though."

"You blame that on her, then?" he asks. "This greed."

"I grew up where you didn't try to pass things off on other people," I say. "But you listen, then you figure out how much of it was me and how much her. You'll get it."

I take a deep breath and say: "Six years ago, but it doesn't seem that long. It was a bad night."

"In what way?"

"In the way that after that, it was all downhill," I say. "The weather too, this cold rain and wet snow that fell straight down. The sky was black."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Kingdom Come by Tim Green Copyright © 2006 by Tim Green. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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