Blue Heaven: Winner of the Edgar Award, Kategorie Best Novel 2009. In this town, the bad have it good . . . - Softcover

Box, C.J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312365713 ISBN 13: 9780312365714

Verlag: Minotaur Books, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Blue Heaven is the break-out novel from C. J. Box, the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Joe Pickett series.

A twelve-year-old girl and her younger brother are on the run in the Idaho woods, pursued by four men they have just watched commit murder―four men who know exactly who William and Annie are. And where their mother lives.

Retired policemen from Los Angeles, the killers easily persuade the local sheriff to let them lead the search for the missing children. Now there's nowhere left for William and Annie to hide…and no one they can trust. Until they meet Jess Rawlins.

Rawlins, an old-school rancher, knows trouble when he sees it. He is only one against four men who will stop at nothing to silence their witnesses. But in this thrilling mystery novel from C.J. Box, these ex-cops don't know just how far Rawlins will go to protect William and Annie…and see that justice is done.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

C. J. Box is the author of more than thirty books, including the Joe Pickett series and the Cassie Dewell series, and a story collection. His books have been translated into twenty-seven languages. He has won the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe, and Barry Awards, as well as the French Prix Calibre .38, and has been a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. A Wyoming native, Box has also worked on a ranch and as a small-town newspaper reporter and editor. He's an executive producer of ABC TV's Big Sky, which is based on his Cody Hoyt/Cassie Dewell novels, as well as executive producer of the Joe Pickett television series for Spectrum Originals. He lives with his wife on their ranch in Wyoming.

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"A non-stop thrill ride" —Harlan Coben

A twelve-year-old girl and her younger brother are on the run in the Idaho woods, pursued by four men they have just watched commit murder—four men who know exactly who William and Annie are. And where their mother lives.

"Grade ‘A'...don't miss it."—Rocky Mountain News
Retired policemen from Los Angeles, the killers easily persuade the local sheriff to let them lead the search for the missing children. Now there's nowhere left for William and Annie to hide…and no one they can trust. Until they meet Jess Rawlins.

"A thriller with a heart."—Boston Globe

Rawlins, an old-school rancher, knows trouble when he sees it. But he is only one against four men who will stop at nothing to silence their witnesses. What these ex-cops do not know is just how far Rawlins will go to protect William and Annie…and see that justice is done.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Blue Heaven

By C.J. Box

Minotaur Books

Copyright © 2008 C.J. Box
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312365714

BLUE HEAVEN (Chapter 1)

FRIDAY, 4:28 P.M.

If twelve-year-old Annie Taylor had not chosen to take her little brother William fishing on that particular Friday afternoon in April during the wet North Idaho spring, she never would have seen the execution or looked straight into the eyes of the executioners. But she was angry with her mother.

Before they witnessed the killing, they were pushing through the still-wet willows near Sand Creek, wearing plastic garbage bags to keep their clothes dry. Upturned alder leaves cupped pools of rainwater from that morning, and beaded spiderwebs sagged between branches. When the gray-black fists of storm clouds pushed across the sun, the light muted in the forest and erased the defining edges of the shadows, and the forest plunged into a dispiriting murk. The ground was black, spongy in the forest and sloppy on the trail. Their shoes made sucking sounds as they slogged upstream.

Annie and William had left their home on the edge of town, hitched a ride for a few miles with Fiona, the mail lady, and had been hiking for nearly two hours, looking in vain for calm water.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” ten-year-old William said, raising his voice over the liquid roar of the creek, which was angry and swollen with runoff.

Annie stopped and turned to William, looking him over. A long fly rod poked out from beneath the plastic he wore. He had snagged the tip several times in the branches, and a sprig of pine needles was wedged into one of the line guides.

“You said you wanted to go fishing, so I’m taking you fishing.”

“But you don’t know anything about it,” William said, his eyes widening and his lower lip trembling, which always happened before he began to cry.

“William …”

“We should go back.”

“William, don’t cry.”

He looked away. She knew he was trying to stanch it, she could tell by the way he set his mouth. He hated that he cried so easily, so often, that his emotions were so close to the surface. Annie didn’t have that problem.

“How many times did Tom tell you he was going to take you fishing?” Annie asked.

William wouldn’t meet her eyes. “A bunch,” he said.

“How many times has he taken you?”

He said sullenly, “You know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I sort of like him,” William said.

Annie said, “I sort of don’t.”

“You don’t like anybody.”

Annie started to argue, but didn’t, thinking: He may be right.“I like you enough to take you fishing even though I don’t know how to fish. Besides, how hard can it be if Tom can do it?”

An impudent smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

“Look,” she said, raising her plastic bag to show him she was wearing Tom’s fishing vest. She had taken it without asking off a peg in their house. “This thing is filled with lures and flies and whatever. We’ll just tie them to the end of your line and throw ’em out there. The fish can’t be much smarter than Tom, so how hard can it be?”

“… if Tom can do it,” he said, his smile more pronounced.

That was when they heard a motor rev and die, the sound muffled by the roar of the foamy water.

The betrayal occurred that morning when Tom came downstairs, asked, “What’s for breakfast?” Annie and William were at the table dressed for school eating cereal—Sugar Pops for William, Frosted Mini-Wheats for her. Tom asked his question as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn’t. Tom had never been in their home for breakfast before, had never stayed the night. He was wearing the same wrinkled clothes from the night before when he’d shown up after dinner to see their mom, what he called his fishing clothes—baggy trousers that zipped off at the thigh, a loose-fitting shirt with lots of pockets. This was new territory for Annie, and she didn’t want to explore it.

Instead, she found herself staring at his large, white bare feet. They looked waxy and pale, like the feet of a corpse, but his toes had little tufts of black hair on their tops, which both fascinated and disgusted her. He slapped them wetly across the linoleum floor.

“Where’s your mom keep the coffee?” he asked.

William was frozen to his chair, his eyes wide and unblinking, his spoon poised an inch from his mouth, Sugar Pops bobbing in the milk. William said, “On the counter, in that canister thing.”

Tom repeated “canister thing” to himself with good humor and set about making a pot of coffee. Annie bored holes into the back of his fishing shirt with her eyes. Tom was big, buff, always fake-friendly, she thought. He rarely showed up at their house without a gift for them, usually something lame and last-minute like a Slim Jim meat stick or a yo-yo he bought at the convenience store at the end of the street. But she’d never seen him like this—disheveled, sleepy, sloppy, talking to the two of them for the very first time like they were real people who knew where the coffee was.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He turned his head. His eyes were unfocused, bleary. “Making coffee.”

“No. I mean in my house.”

William finally let the spoon continue its path. His eyes never left Tom’s back. A drip of milk snaked down from the corner of his mouth and sat on his chin like a bead of white glue.

Tom said, “Your house? I thought it was your mother’s house.” All jolly he is, she thought angrily.

“Is this it for breakfast?” Tom asked, holding up the cereal boxes and raising his eyebrows.

“There’s toast,” William said, his mouth full. “Mom makes eggs sometimes. And pancakes.”

Annie glared at her brother with snake eyes.

“Maybe I’ll ask Monica to make me some eggs,” Tom mumbled, as much to himself as to them. He poured a cup of coffee before it filled the carafe. Errant drips sizzled on the hot plate.

So it was Monica, not your mother, Annie thought.

He came to the table, his feet making kissing sounds on the floor, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She could smell her mother on him, which made her feel sick inside.

“That’s Mom’s chair,” she said.

“She won’t mind,” he said, flashing his false, condescending smile. To him they were children again, although she got the feeling Tom was just a little scared of her. Maybe he realized now what he’d done. Maybe not. He pointedly ignored Annie, who glared at him, and turned to William.

“School, eh?” Tom said, reaching out and tousling the boy’s hair. William nodded, his eyes wide.

“Too bad you can’t take the day off and go fishing with me. I really got into some nice ones last night before I came over. Fifteen-, sixteen-inch trout. I brought a few to your mom for you guys to have for dinner.”

“I want to go,” William said, swelling out his chest. “I’ve never gone fishing, but I think I could do it.”

“You bet you...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Minotaur Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312365713
• ISBN 13: 9780312365714
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland