A Dark and Lonely Place
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Buchanan, the novel she has always wanted to write: the gripping saga of star-crossed lovers across generations.
From Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Buchanan, the novel she has always wanted to write: the gripping saga of star-crossed lovers across generations. A century ago, when Indians and alligators roamed frontier Miami, the legendary John Ashley was accused of murder and sentenced to hang. He insisted he was innocent and went on the run with his sweetheart, Laura Upthegrove.
John and Laura became the most notorious, colorful, and compelling figures in Florida’s violent outlaw history. Their sensual and dreamy saga is juxtaposed with the taut and suspenseful story of their fictional descendants who share the same love and dangers a hundred years later. In today’s Miami, Homicide Sergeant John Ashley investigates a millionaire’s spectacular murder and instantly recognizes a stunning model linked to the case as the girl who has haunted his dreams since childhood. Her name is Laura, and the lightning-fast attraction is supernaturally mutual.
The homicide case goes bad, Ashley is falsely accused of murder just like his ancestor, and the new lovers go on the run as history repeats itself. The question is, how powerful is the past? Do the present-day renegades stand a chance? Can we change our own destiny? Or must the end always be the same for dangerous people in dangerous times?
In a sweeping epic that explores the inevitability of fate, A Dark and Lonely Place draws the reader into an unforgettable world of intrigue, drama, romance, and tragedy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Half of this uneven novel from Edgar-finalist Buchanan (Nobody Lives Forever) offers a fictionalized history of the infamous, if little-known outside Florida, Prohibition-era gangster John Ashley and his moll, Laura Upthegrove. This solidly written, journalistic account can stand alone, elevating Ashley with his misunderstood criminal legacy to the ranks of a John Dillinger or a Clyde Barrow. The other half focuses on 21st-century Miami homicide detective John Ashley (no relation to the first John Ashley) and the love of his life, a beautiful model named you guessed it Laura. While Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize winning police beat reporter, clearly knows her way around cops and cop lingo, this time around the devil's in the details. Detective Ashley's clean-living life takes dramatic twists and turns eerily similar to those of his Prohibition-era predecessor when he's wrongfully accused of murder. Alas, Buchanan takes the similarities to an unbelievable extreme. Smooth prose can redeem only in part the credulity-challenging present-day plot.
