Irresistible (Conrad Voort Novels) - Hardcover

Black, Ethan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345433475 ISBN 13: 9780345433473

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2000

Synopsis

Nora Clay knows your secrets. She knows everything about you-- your cravings, your indiscretions, your crimes. She knows what terrifies you. Devastatingly sexy and deceptively lethal, Nora Clay can expose the liars, phonies, tricksters, and fools.

And she will make them pay. . . .

But nobody knows Nora Clay, who moves undetected through New York City, shadowing her unsuspecting prey like an avenger. Once she has seduced her victim, she will leave him sweating, hungry for more. Until she stabs out his life in a flash of fury and steel. That is how TV producer Paul Anderson meets his grisly end.

In the middle of Manhattan's worst heat wave in twelve years, sex crimes detective Conrad Voort is assigned the disturbing case. Though distracted by the two women in his own life, and facing a shocking personal revelation, Voort presses on. At the murder scene he finds a taunting message scrawled on the wall with angry stems and slashes: I KNOW YOU. And the killing is far from over. For Nora Clay "knows" other men. Including Conrad Voort. Now, as he pursues one of the most elusive and brilliant killers he has ever confronted, the hunter becomes the hunted.

As the mercury climbs, so does the tension in Ethan Black's gripping new novel of psychological suspense. Featuring a serial seductress as venomous as she is irresistible, this flashy, erotic thriller pulsates with desire and menace.

About this title

About the Author

Ethan Black is a pseudonym for a New York-based journalist who has written several novels and books of nonfiction, including the thriller The Broken Hearts Club, which People magazine featured in its "Worth a Look" column.

From the Inside Flap

ows your secrets. She knows everything about you-- your cravings, your indiscretions, your crimes. She knows what terrifies you. Devastatingly sexy and deceptively lethal, Nora Clay can expose the liars, phonies, tricksters, and fools.

And she will make them pay. . . .

But nobody knows Nora Clay, who moves undetected through New York City, shadowing her unsuspecting prey like an avenger. Once she has seduced her victim, she will leave him sweating, hungry for more. Until she stabs out his life in a flash of fury and steel. That is how TV producer Paul Anderson meets his grisly end.

In the middle of Manhattan's worst heat wave in twelve years, sex crimes detective Conrad Voort is assigned the disturbing case. Though distracted by the two women in his own life, and facing a shocking personal revelation, Voort presses on. At the murder scene he finds a taunting message scrawled on the wall with angry stems and slashes: I KNOW YOU. And the killing is far from over. F

Reviews

A female serial killer who knows everyone's secrets is at the center of Black's gripping, fast-moving second novel featuring New York City sex-crimes detective Conrad Voort (who debuted in The Broken Hearts Club). As the book opens, Voort is fantasizing about ex-girlfriend Camilla Ryan, host of a TV newsmagazine show and a possible suspect in the vicious mutilation and murder of network executive Paul Anderson. But Anderson is only one of four targets who have been marked for death by the real killer, the vivacious and insane Nora Clay. As the murders continue, Voort tries to balance his longing for Camilla with his feelings for a new (and newly pregnant) girlfriend. Investigators, believing conventional wisdom that serial killers are usually male, are thrown off-track by the clues left in Nora's wake. Voort's search for the common denominator that links the dead men leads to Nora, who works as a transcript typist. Her job gives Nora access to New York's best-kept secrets, which she uses to track her potential victimsAand now Voort is on her list. Black has built his tale on character more than on plotAeverything that Nora does is grounded in her solidly detailed and tragic past, making her a credible villain. He also expertly interweaves recurring themes, such as commitment issues, parenting and knowledge-as-power, to connect even the minor characters to the main mystery. In a single riveting sequence, the climax unites every thread Black has spun into the web of his stylish thriller. BOMC and QPB selections; audio rights to Dove. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"I know everything about you, but you don't even know I exist. I know what terrifies you, what makes you stay up nights, craving. I know when you break laws, or hurt people, to get what you want. Your nightmares are my reading fare. Your secrets my lunchtime companions."

The woman, naked, paces in her apartment.

"You think I'm making this up? I know about the three million dollars you've hidden from your wife, in your Chilean bank account. I know the secret deal you've concluded with the Japanese, to sell your optics company, and fire your employees. I know all of you, the liars, phonies, the tricksters, the fools."

The woman grows more agitated.

"If you're a scientist, I've learned each detail of the drug you just invented, against baldness, which is not even on the market yet. If you're sick, and trying to hide it, I know which disease infects you; and whether your surgeon thinks you will live or die, screaming, in pain, as tubes carry fresh blood into your body and poison out."

The woman towels herself off, wet from the shower. She is alone.

"And after all that, we've never met."

She addresses a voice-activated tape recorder, on a maple table under a window shielded by iron bars.

"My knowledge comes from science, not magic." She reaches for a glass filled with gin and ice.

"The system that delivers you into my hands begins every weekday at nine a.m., outside my apartment, on 108th Street and Riverside Drive, where I am right now. A brown van double-parks on the far curb. A man in a uniform gets out, holding an eight-by-eleven cardboard envelope. My palms start sweating when I see it. I am an addict waiting for my drug, information about you."

She glances at a loud, wind-up clock on the secondhand dresser. She is in a rush this evening. She must hurry to get downtown.

"The man's name is Louis Vale. After ten years of deliveries, we've never really conversed. But I know him anyway. He lives in Queens, at 1297 Kennedy Turnpike, with an angry wife and two children. He loses half his pay on horses at Aqueduct, which is why his wife filed for divorce, why he started taking cocaine, why a labor dispute erupted at work. Louis is about to be fired.

"Well, fuck you, Louis. You brought it on yourself, like all men."

The room is small, but lovingly put together; with a single bed, oddly childlike for an adult of thirty years, and cheap but polished maple dresser, mirror, rocking chair. There are ferns everywhere, on the cracked sill, by the roach traps, half obscuring a sticker on the refrigerator that says one day at a time. There's a light-colored remnant carpet, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves along two walls, packed with hard-back novels, nonfiction books, and manila folders, so many files that they, not the woman, seem to be the primary occupant of this studio apartment.

The only decorations on the walls are magazine photos--a baby in a carriage, a different baby on a swing, a third baby in a field of grass and daisies--and there is a black laptop computer on the maple dining table, against a far wall.

The woman eyes a handwritten list--four names and addresses--beside the laptop. The first name is anderson, paul; the last, conrad voort.

"I know you all."

She upturns the last of the bottle and sucks the remains of the gin from the plastic glass.

Nora Clay begins to dress.

First comes the garter belt and real stockings, not panty hose. Then the tight, black, short skirt of fine cotton that molds itself to her petite hips. A pullover sleeveless blouse in white defines her flat belly. Black high heels lift her ass, jut her breasts. Bracelets, silver hoops, dangle from her wrist, bright as fishing lures.

"Dr. Neiman said to keep this diary."

The provocative clothes are unlike the rest of the wardrobe hanging in the half-open closet. The dresses on hangers, older, less recently purchased, are long and demure ... calf length, with floral prints. Big orchids or roses, the kind an old woman might wear. There are button-up sweaters and silk scarves to hide her neck. The outerwear is old, long coats in gray or blue, bulky, to conceal the shape of the body. The shoes are flat-heeled. The hats are plain stocking caps.

"Dr. Neiman told me not to drink. Well, fuck you too, Doctor. I happen to know you failed your medical board certification the first two times. And you're about to default on your mortgage. But back to my envelope, and to the horrible thing that happened when Louis Vale came this morning, the thing he said.

"He said, 'Looks like something "personal" for you today too. Not just the usual.' And he handed me two envelopes, one with a return address on it that I never wanted to see again. With a lawyer's note inside, a bracelet and earrings. And a note that said, 'Darling, you were right.'

"I slammed the door on Louis. I ripped open the other envelope, the daily one, but today, even the information inside didn't improve my mood. I couldn't stop weeping.

"You were right?"

Nora Clay is small and gorgeous. She is a petite package of sexual power. Her lean, shapely legs, her walk, her huge brown eyes, her black silky hair cut short above the ears, her Cupid-shaped mouth, which looks mashed, kissed, draws men's glances. She exudes ripeness. She has always made men--if she was not careful, if she wore even a little makeup, dressed even a little attractively, gave them the slightest, most minuscule, most ridiculous excuse to think she might be interested in them--grow so intoxicated they would call out to her in the street, follow her home like dogs, push through crowds in subways to chat with her, beg telephone operators to provide her unlisted number.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0345433475
• ISBN 13: 9780345433473
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400