The Rich and the Dead: A Novel (Lila Day Novels, 1) - Softcover

Spector, Liv

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0062258397 ISBN 13: 9780062258397

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, 2014

Synopsis

To solve the crime of the century, she'll have to go back in time....

Welcome to Star Island, where Miami's wealthiest residents lead private lives behind the tall gates of their sprawling mansions. It's a blissful escape from the hot and dirty city—or it was, until New Year's Day 2015, when twelve of the most powerful people in the world were found murdered in the basement of a Star Island mansion.

The massacre shocked the nation and destroyed the life of investigator Lila Day. Her hunt for the Star Island killer consumed her. But the case went unsolved, resulting in her dismissal from the Miami PD.

Now, three years later, life hands Lila an unexpected second chance: reclusive billionaire Teddy Hawkins approaches Lila and asks her to solve the case. But how do you investigate a crime when all the leads have long ago gone cold? The answer, Teddy tells her, is to solve the case before it happens. He's going to send Lila back in time.

With nothing left to lose, an incredulous Lila travels back to 2014, determined to find the Star Island killer once and for all. But as she goes undercover among the members of Miami's high society, she finds herself caring for—and falling for—people who are destined to die that fateful night. Now she must either say good-bye or risk altering the future forever.

About this title

About the Author

Liv Spector was raised on Cape Cod and currently lives in Canada. She has worked as an oyster shucker, dancer, farmhand, journalist, and teacher. A graduate of McGill University in Montreal, she received her MFA from Brooklyn College.

From Booklist

On New Year’s Day, 2015, all 12 members, but only the members, of the Janus Society, an exclusive, secretive philanthropic club, convened at a member’s gated villa on Star Island, accessible only by boat from Miami Beach. All were murdered, execution style, creating a locked-room mystery that stumped Miami’s best detective, Lila Day. Three years later, in 2018, the dispirited and discredited Lila is fired from her hotel-security job. She is ripe for taking an offer from Teddy Hawkins, a billionaire inventor, to reopen the Janus case—but with a twist. Hawkins, a friend of the victims, pays her to use his newly invented time machine to travel back in time to live among the victims in the months before the murders, hoping that she will be able to identify the killer before he kills. And so Lila Day becomes Camilla Dayton, a rich newcomer to the Miami moneyed set. Fancy cars, posh pool parties, and glittering nightlife are the veneer shielding the sinister purpose of the Janus Society. Although the means for solving the crime seems forced, the combination of mystery, evil, glamour, and light science fiction makes for an engrossing series debut. --Karen Muller

Edition details

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0062258397
• ISBN 13: 9780062258397
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320