{"product_id":"night-work-isbn-9780553578256","title":"Night Work","description":"\u003cb\u003eNight Work\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate and her partner, Al Hawkin, are called to a scene of carefully executed murder: the victim is a muscular man, handcuffed and strangled, a stun gun's faint burn on his chest and candy in his pocket. The likeliest person to want him dead, his often-abused wife, is meek and frail--and has an airtight alibi. Kate and Al are stumped, until a second body turns up--also zapped, cuffed, and strangled...and carrying a candy bar. This victim: a convicted rapist. As newspaper headlines speculate about vendetta killings, a third death draws Kate and Al into a network of pitiless destruction that reaches far beyond San Francisco, a modern-style hit list with shudderingly primal roots.\"King is a deft and literate writer whose work never fails to please....A superior novel.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eThe San Diego Union-Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A dense and suspenseful tale. Memorable.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A richly feminist book in which King demonstrates again her remarkable skills in sinking the reader into a special culture\/community where her many-layered stories unfold.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eBooknews\u003c\/i\u003e from \u003ci\u003eThe Poisoned Pen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"King is very, very good at looking society in the face and reflecting on the way it is now.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Sunday Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"As with all Laurie King's books, the facts tell only the smallest part of the truth....King exposes the issue with intensity and passion. It's hard to turn away even if you wanted to.\"\u003cbr\u003e-- \u003ci\u003eMystery News\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRead all the novels by Edgar and Creasey award winner Laurie R. King!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate Martinelli Mysteries:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Grave Talent\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTo Play The Fool\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWith Child\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMary Russell Mysteries:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Beekeeper's Apprentice\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Monstrous Regiment Of Women\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Letter Of Mary\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Moor\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eO Jerusalem\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd her stand-alone novel:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Darker Place \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAvailable from Bantam Books \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd coming soon in hardcover:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFolly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eLaurie R. King\u003c\/b\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of thirteen Mary Russell mysteries, five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli, the Stuyvesant \u0026amp; Grey novels \u003ci\u003eTouchstone\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Bones of Paris\u003c\/i\u003e, and the acclaimed \u003ci\u003eA Darker Place, Folly, \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e Keeping Watch\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Northern California.\u003ci\u003eIt is a place of skulls, a deathly place \u003cbr\u003eWhere we confront our violence and feel, \u003cbr\u003eBefore that broken and self-ravaged face, \u003cbr\u003eThe murderers we are, brought here to kneel.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate Martinelli sat in her uncomfortable metal folding chair and watched the world come to an end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt ended quite nicely, in fact, considering the resources at  hand and the skill of the participants, with an eye-searing flash and  a startling crack, a swirl of colors, then abrupt darkness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd giggles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe lights went up again, parents and friends rose to applaud  wildly, and twenty-three brightly costumed and painted children  gathered on the stage to receive their praise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reason for Kate's presence stood third from the end, a  mop-headed child with skin the color of milky coffee, a smile that  lacked a pair of front teeth, and black eyes that glittered with  excitement and pride.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate leaned over to speak into the ear of the woman at her side.  \"Your goddaughter makes a fine monkey.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLee Cooper laughed. \"Mina's been driving Roz and Maj nuts practicing her  part--she wore one tail out completely and broke a leg off the sofa jumping onto it. Last week she decided she wasn't going to eat anything but  bananas, until Roz got a book that listed what monkeys actually eat.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I hope she didn't then go around picking bugs out of tree trunks.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I think Roz read selectively.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Never trust a minister. Do you know--\" Kate stopped, her face changing. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a vibrating pager, looked  up at Lee, and shrugged in apology before digging the cell phone out of her  pocket and beginning to push her way toward the exit and relative quiet. She was back in a couple of minutes, slipping the phone away as she walked up to the man who had been sitting on her other side during the performance and who  was now standing at Lee's elbow, watchful and ready to offer a supporting hand in the crowd. Lee's caregiver spoke before Kate could open her mouth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"What a pity, you're going to miss the fruit punch and cookies.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe rolled her eyes and said low into Jon's ear, \"Why it couldn't have  come an hour ago . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Poor dear,\" he said, sounding not in the least sympathetic. \"'A  policeman's lot is not a happy one.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"If I find you a ride, would you take her home?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Happy to. I'll be going out later, though.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"She'll be fine.\" Now for the difficult part. \"Lee,\" Kate began.  \"Sweetheart?\" but groveling did not prove necessary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"You're off, then?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'm sorry.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Liar,\" said Lee cheerfully. \"But you've been a very brave honorary godmother, so now you can go and play with your friends. That was Al, I  assume?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate and her partner, Al Hawkin, were on call tonight, and in a city the size of San Francisco, a homicide was no rare thing. She nodded, hesitated, and  kissed Lee briefly on the cheek. Lee looked more pleased than surprised, which  Kate took as a sign that she was doing something right, and Kate in turn felt  gratified beyond the scope of her lover's reaction--their relationship had been more than a little touchy in recent months, and small signs loomed large. She stepped away carefully, looking down to  be sure she didn't knock into Lee's cuffed crutches, and walked around the  arranged folding chairs to congratulate Mina's adoptive parents. They were surrounded by others bent on the same purpose--or rather, Roz was surrounded by a circle of admirers, this tall, brown-haired, slightly freckled  woman who was glowing and laughing and giving off warmth like (as one article in the \u003ci\u003eSunday Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e had put it) a fireplace of the soul.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen she had read that phrase, Kate had wondered to herself if the reporter really meant that Roz was hot. She was, in fact, one of the most  unconsciously sexy women Kate knew.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate hadn't seen Roz in a couple of weeks, but she knew just looking at her, the way she gestured and leaned toward her audience, the way her laugh came and her eyes flashed, that Roz was involved in some passionate quest or other: She seemed to have grown a couple of inches and lost ten years, a look  Kate had seen her wear often enough. Or it could have been from the fulsome praise being heaped on her by the other parents--all of whom, it seemed,  had seen a television program Roz had been on the night before and were eager to tell her how great it had been, how great she had been. Roz threw one arm around the school principal and laughed with honest self-deprecation, and while Kate waited to get a word in, she studied the side of that animated face with the slightly uncomfortable affection a person invariably feels toward someone in whose debt she is and always will be, an ever-so-slightly servile discomfort  that in Kate's case was magnified by the knowledge that her own lover had once slept with this woman. She liked Roz (how could she not?) and respected her enormously, but she could never be completely comfortable with her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRoz's partner, Maj Freiling, stood slightly to one side, taking all this in while she spoke with a woman Kate vaguely remembered having met at one of their parties. Maj was short, black-haired,  and--incongruously--Swedish; her name therefore was pronounced  \"my,\" forming the source of endless puns from Roz. Most people who knew Roz assumed that her quiet partner was a nonentity whose job was to keep house, to  produce brilliant meals at the drop of Roz's hat, and to laugh politely at  Roz's jokes. Most people were wrong. Just because Maj spoke little did not mean she had nothing to say. She was the holder of several degrees in an area of  brain research so arcane only half a dozen people in San Francisco had ever heard of it, and they in turn were not of the sort to be found in Roz's company of politicians and reformers. It seemed to Kate a case of complete  incompatibility leading to a rock-solid marriage, just one more thing she  didn't understand about Roz Hall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKate looked from one woman to the other, and gave up on the attempt to reach Roz. Maj smiled at Kate in complicity as Kate approached. Kate found herself grinning in return as she reached out to squeeze Maj's arm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Thanks for inviting me,\" she said. \"I was going to come to the party afterward, but I got a call, and I have to go. Sorry. Be sure to tell Mina she  was the best monkey I've ever seen.\"","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302261543141,"sku":"NP9780553578256","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553578256.jpg?v=1767733730","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/night-work-isbn-9780553578256","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}