Like a Charm: A Novel in Voices by Karin Slaughter (Editor), Peter Robinson, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Denise Mina

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
One of the most distinctive suspense releases to come along in years, Like a Charm -- about an accursed bracelet and its many ill-fated owners -- is both a collaborative novel and an anthology that includes stories by some of the biggest names in the crime fiction and mystery genres: Laura Lippman, Mark Billingham, Karin Slaughter, Lee Child, and Peter Robinson, to name a few.

The bracelet's journey begins in the North American wilderness during the 19th century. In Slaughter's "Rootbound," a trapper meets an Indian seductress whose primeval magnetism and mesmerizing gold bracelet lead him to the heights of ecstasy -- and to his ultimate doom. After traveling down the Mississippi and across the Atlantic, an emotionally unstable woman working at a veterinary clinic receives the bracelet as a present from her employer in Lynda La Plante's "The Goblin." But the most harmless of intentions are misunderstood and someone ends up being euthanized. Billingham's "Stroke of Luck" pits a cheating wife and her lover, a neurologist named Alan, against her abusive husband. At a late night rendezvous where Alan is preparing to give his lover an old charm bracelet his late mother once owned, the enraged husband shows up -- but so does a homicidal stalker.

This exceptional and riveting work -- a blend of suspense, mystery, and horror -- is noteworthy not only for its array of exceptional short stories but also for how all those stories, like trinkets on a charm bracelet, link up to create a much larger narrative. Mystery and suspense fans looking for something out of the ordinary should definitely check out this highly unusual -- and highly entertaining -- collaborative work. Paul Goat Allen

From the Publisher

Desire leaves a man destroyed ... A young girl's curiosity reveals secrets better left hidden ... Jealousy drives a woman mad ... An obsession with numbers precipitates a deadly revenge ... Ambition leads to a curious exchange ... An uncanny likeness changes two lives forever ... The hand of fate lies buried in the past ...

An unforgettable novel in seventeen parts by some of the most prestigious crime writers working today.

One bracelet, seventeen charms ...

From nineteenth-century Georgia, where the bracelet is forged in fire, to wartime Leeds, the seedy underside of London's Soho, a Manhattan taxi, the frozen cliffs of Nova Scotia, and back to Georgia, each writer weaves a gripping story of murder, betrayal, and intrigue.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0641898037
  
• ISBN-13: 9780641898037
• Format: Paperback, 363pp
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Pub. Date: May 2005
• Edition Description: Bargain
• Sales Rank: 21,846