Showing results by author "Marisha Pessl"

Once upon a time, back at Darrow-Harker School, Beatrice Hartley and her five best friends were the cool kids, the beautiful ones. Then the shocking death of Jim - their creative genius and Beatrice's boyfriend - changed everything. One year after graduation, Beatrice is returning to Wincroft - the seaside estate where they spent so many nights sharing secrets, crushes, plans to change the world - hoping she'll get to the bottom of the dark questions gnawing at her about Jim's death. But as the night plays out, Beatrice senses she's never going to know what really happened.

On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive, cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova - a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than 30 years.

This is a darkly hilarious coming-of-age novel and a richly plotted suspense tale told through the distinctive voice of its heroine, Blue van Meer. After a childhood spent moving from one academic outpost to another with her father, Blue is clever and possessed of a vast lexicon of knowledge. But when a drowning and the shocking death of a teacher lead to a confluence of mysteries, Blue is left to make sense of it all with only her gimlet-eyed instincts and cultural references to guide - or misguide - her.

As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, The Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class, Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free.

Cult horror director Stanislas Cordova hasn't been seen in public since 1971. When his daughter Ashley is found dead in a believed suicide, journalist Scott McGrath is not convinced. For McGrath, another death connected to the legendary director seems more than a coincidence. Driven by revenge, curiosity and a need for the truth, he finds himself pulled into a hypnotic, disorientating world which begins to threaten his grip on reality.

Tief unten im Schacht leuchtet rot ihr Mantel. Ashley ist tot - erst 24 Jahre alt - eine Leiche in einer verlassenen Lagerhalle Manhattans. Ein Unfall? Oder Selbstmord? Und was hat Cordova, der übermächtige Vater und besessene Filmemacher, mit ihrem Tod zu tun? Der Schlüssel zum Geheimnis liegt in seinen magischen Filmen, die nach und nach zu einer Wirklichkeit werden, aus der es kein Entkommen gibt.

Blue hat den Blues. Ihr Vater, der Universitätsprofessor, zieht schon wieder um. Nie länger als ein Semester bleiben Tochter und Vater an einem Ort. Bald kennt Blue jedes College in Nordamerika. Zum Glück hat sie die Bücher - ihre engsten Vertrauten.