Synopsis
Kate Chandler has accepted a commission that will solidify her reputation as a world-class gem cutter. But during what should have been a simple transfer, seven rare, priceless sapphires vanish without a trace, along with their courier, her brother Lee, who now, quite possibly, is dead. And suddenly Kate is on the run, pursued by federal agents who believe she's the criminal mastermind of a cunning bait-and-switch.
Only Kate suspects the terrifying truth: that she's stumbled into a conspiracy of deceit, betrayal, and cold-blooded murder that goes far beyond a simple jewel heist. Getting Sam Groves, the FBI special agent who's her constant shadow, to trust her is a step in the right direction -- but it may be too little and too late in a bloody game where terror dictates her every move. Because a ruthless assassin has already received the order that Kate Chandler must die ...
Recommendations
The Robert Ludlum Value Collection: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum
by Robert Ludlum
Like Kate, your protagonist wakes into a nightmare of mistaken identity and relentless pursuit, but Ludlum layers on amnesia as the ultimate complication—Jason Bourne doesn't even know who to trust because he doesn't know who he is. You'll get that same breathless pacing and the cat-and-mouse dynamic with authorities, but with an added psychological dimension that makes every revelation sting differently.
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The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley
This one's set in 1950s England with an eleven-year-old chemistry prodigy as your detective, which sounds like a departure—but Bradley builds the same intricate puzzle-box mystery where a young protagonist with specialized knowledge (chemistry here, gem-cutting there) stumbles into something far darker than expected. The voice is completely different from Lowell's, but that mounting sense of 'I know too much now' is identical.
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Something in the Soil Legacies and Reckonings in the New West
by Patricia Nelson Limerick
A genuine curveball: Süskind's novella about a man confronting his past in a single night reads nothing like a thriller on the surface, but it has that same claustrophobic sense of walls closing in and the protagonist realizing they're trapped by circumstances beyond their control. It's literary fiction, yes, but the psychological intensity and the way truth emerges through layers of deception will satisfy the same part of your brain that loved Lowell's conspiracy unraveling.
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The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
Published in 1930, this is your bridge to classic crime fiction—Sam Spade operates in that same morally ambiguous space where Kate finds herself, never quite sure who's using whom. Hammett's dialogue crackles with the kind of sharp tension you get in Lowell's confrontations, and the plot's obsession with a valuable object that corrupts everyone who touches it echoes the sapphires' curse.
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The Silkworm
by Robert Galbraith
Galbraith (Rowling's crime pseudonym) gives you a detective partnership with real friction—Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott circle each other with professional tension that mirrors Kate and Sam's dynamic, but adds layers of class and gender complexity. The mystery itself involves a world of specialists and insiders (publishing, here; gems there), and that insider knowledge becomes both protection and liability.
View bookAbout Elizabeth Lowell
E
Elizabeth Lowell
Born 1944
Individually and with co-author/husband Evan, Ann Maxwell has written seventy novels and one non-fiction book. There are 30 million copies of these books in print, as well as reprints in 30 foreign languages. The novels range from science fiction to historical fiction, from romance to mystery to suspense. Writing as Ann Maxwell, she began her career in 1975 with a science fiction novel, CHANGE. Since then, seven of her nine science fiction novels have been recommended for the Science Fiction Writers of America Nebula Award; A DEAD GOD DANCING was nominated for what was then called TABA (The American Book Award). In 1976 Ann and Evan (as A. E. Maxwell) collaborated with a Norwegian hunter and photographer, Ivar Ruud, on THE YEAR-LONG DAY, a nonfiction work that was condensed in Reader’s Digest and published in four foreign editions and three book club editions. In 1985, the first A. E. Maxwell crime novel featuring a couple called Fiddler and Fiora was published by Doubleday. The second in the series, THE FROG AND THE SCORPION, received a creative writing award from the University of California. The fourth book in the series, JUST ENOUGH LIGHT TO KILL, was named by Time Magazine as one of the best crime novels of 1988. Ann and Evan (writing as Ann Maxwell) have published four suspense novels, the most recent of which is SHADOW AND SILK. These novels appeared on nation-wide bestseller lists. In 1982, Ann began publishing romances as Elizabeth Lowell. Under that name she has received numerous professional awards in the romance field, including a Lifetime Achievement award from the Romance Writers of America (1994). Since July of 1992, she has had more than thirty novels on the New York Times list, as well as other national and international best seller lists. Her most recent romantic suspense is BEAUTIFUL SACRIFICE.
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