Showing results by author "Warren Adler" in All Categories

Twenty-two short stories that will lift your spirits or break your heart from acclaimed author Warren Adler, well known for iconic novel turned international box-office hit The War of the Roses. Written to celebrate the author’s return to New York City after 40 years away from it, Adler focuses his laser eye on New York City in these 22 deftly crafted and compelling short stories. New York, the frenetic, tough-minded, generous-hearted city, magnet for people’s hopes and aspirations, is as vividly and lovingly portrayed here as any of the characters.

The Sunset Gang is as lively, fun, and courageous a group as you'll find anywhere this side of the Last Reward. The fact that you'll find them at Sunset Village, a condominium retirement community in Florida - where an ambulance siren is the theme song and cycling at a stately pace is strenuous exercise - does not mean that they are ready to pack it all in. Not by a long shot.

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald is an unlikely force for justice in Washington, DC's predominantly male police force. As a Senator's daughter and top investigator in the homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, Fiona maneuvers between two vastly different worlds, moving quickly from opulent State galas to gritty crime scenes.

Aging mafia Don Salvatore Padronelli, a.k.a. the Padre, is furious when fanatical terrorists capture his beloved daughter and grandson on a trip to Egypt. Fed up with diplomatic caution that prolongs their captivity, the Padre and his loyal henchman cleverly insinuate themselves into the White House and hold the President and his wife hostage. Now the Padre calls the shots on getting the President to take steps to release his family.

Warren Adler focuses his laser eye on New York City in these 15 vividly rendered short stories, where human relationships are at the center of them all. In a continuation of New York Echoes 2, Adler's themes in New York Echoes 3 deal primarily with intimate human relationships - the bittersweet pangs of first love, the stark reality of regret, revenge, and coming to terms with the past.

Eighty-three-year-old Harvey Franklin never thought he would find love again after losing his wife of more than 50 years. Spending his days walking his beloved poodle in Central Park, he has gotten used to the idea of being alone. Everything changes the morning he meets 80-year-old Sarah Silverman. Romance blooms between the two, and they quickly become entangled in a passionate love affair. When Sarah reveals her husband's battle with dementia, things become complicated....

Mother Nile is the story of Si, the American-born son of an Irish father and Egyptian mother, who goes on a journey through the winding streets of the City of the Dead to solve a half-century-old mystery. When his mother makes an urgent plea on her deathbed, Si knows that he must make the journey to Egypt to find out the truth about his long-lost half-sister, conceived during his mother's affair with King Farouk.

A man seeking to purchase an antique doll for his ailing grandchild opens up a Pandora's Box of hidden family secrets and intrigue that results in bitter hostility and murder. Josh and Emily, through brilliant deduction and imaginative enterprise, discover the clues that lead to the solution that lies at the heart of this mystery. As characters they are similar in conception to the witty bantering loving couple, Nick and Nora Charles of the famed Thin Man series created by the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett.

The poison pen of Polly Dearborn, an infamous Washington Post investigative reporter, has gone silent. When Polly is found hanging from her balcony in the Watergate apartments, Washington's elite and powerful rejoice - the Witch of Watergate is dead! But Polly's voice reaches beyond the grave, and her final articles may contain clues to some big secrets. Homicide detective Fiona Fitzgerald, well-versed in the behind-the-scenes dealings of Washington, doesn't buy the suicide angle.

Thirty-five-year-old Jenny and her 62-year-old mother Norma have always seen the world differently. Estranged for years, everything changes when Jenny learns of Norma’s dire state and rushes to New York City to make a startling discovery: her mother is sick and homeless. Living in a women’s shelter slated to be shut down by developer Albert “Doc” Brenner, Norma is leading the charge in stopping him. When Jenny learns that Norma is dying of cancer, she gives her mother something that she’s always wanted. Will it be enough? Can mother and daughter put their differences aside before time runs out?

After serving his Brooklyn district for years, Congressman Sullivan discovers that his once comfortable Irish-American majority has given way to a diverse district of blacks and Hispanics. Challenged by a more liberal opponent, he tries everything possible to maintain his seat only to painfully learn that he and his views are outdated and irrelevant to today's world. But he doesn't bow out of the race gracefully, and the fierce ensuing campaign brings new insights to the meaning of democracy.

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald is an unlikely force for justice in Washington, D.C.'s predominantly male police force. As a senator's daughter and top investigator in the homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, Fiona maneuvers between two vastly different worlds, moving quickly from opulent state galas to gritty crime scenes. Former Washington Post reporter Jason Martin knows there's something secretive going on in the high echelons of politics, and he wants to prove it.

In an attempt to reconnect with his two alienated adult children, George Temple replicates the memorable horse trek through the forbidding Yellowstone wilderness they had enjoyed 20 years earlier. But his callous children, Courtney and Scott, accompany him only to persuade him to restore the financial support he has withdrawn. As they are led by a drunken guide and a venal horse wrangler over potentially lethal terrain, their bonding experience quickly disintegrates.

Milton Gold is a fringe operating "hustling lawyer", barely making it in the cutthroat chaos of 1970s New York City. His world is suddenly turned inside out when he meets the mysterious and beautiful Karla Smith, a Polish-American woman, who approaches him with an assignment that will test his skills beyond anything he has ever experienced.

In this fast-paced erotic thriller, John Champion, a professional hitman and Angela Ford, the wife of the man who orders the hit, engage in a passionate, overpowering, and memorable love affair. Played out against the exotic locales of Florence, the Riviera, the French Alps, and Manhattan, the two lovers endure impossible odds as their relationship deepens and matures. Figuring importantly in the story is Michelangelo's David, a majestic artistic masterpiece that stands in all its naked glory in the Galleria dell' Academia in Florence and the epiphany experienced by Angela in its presence.

When their 23-year-old daughter goes missing, divorcees Harry and Paulie are forced to leave behind their newly constructed lives to track Grace down. But Grace isn't lost, not physically at least. They find her seemingly unharmed in California on a sunny farm the other residents call 'Camp Star'. But nothing is as it seems.... Sinister motives lurk behind the smiles of those at the camp, and the two soon learn that Grace is in the clutches of a notorious cult. Under the spell of mind control, she denies Harry and Paulie as her family and shuns their love.

Ken Kramer and his wife, Maggie, appear to have a comfortable life and loving marriage. But their peaceful life is shattered when Ken is taken along on a business dinner and introduced to Maggie’s major client, Eliot, and his wife, Carol - who happens to be Ken’s old flame. Though Carol was once the love of his life and the object of his sexual obsession as a young man, the Carol he meets seems determined to not recognize him at the dinner table. Baffled by her non-recognition, he learns that she has totally reinvented herself.

When Hollywood producer Zane Galvin’s failed movie leaves him with a $5 million debt and 30 days to pay it off, he goes to unpredictable extremes to raise the money. Joining in on his scheme are Zane’s girlfriend, his gardener, the film’s writer, and the director. The plan quickly turns into a wicked game of switching sides, blackmail, betrayal, and greed. Will anyone come out a winner?

The second volume of Adler’s New York stories in which all the heartache, joy, pain, and anguish of the Big Apple zeitgeist comes to life. These unforgettable stories will make you laugh and cry as a remarkable parade of characters pursue their busy lives in the greatest city on earth.

More stories from Warren Adler’s acclaimed short stories collection The Sunset Gang. Never Too Late for Love combines additional stories written after The Sunset Gang was published, dealing with the same intrepid crew who inhabit Sunset Village. Anyone who is aging—meaning all of us—will revel in these stories of joy, love, sex, and energy that give a deeper meaning to the aging process, especially in what the young might call "the twilight years." In these stories, there is no sense of oncoming doom and life goes on in a perpetual sunset. Anyone who has an "older" friend or parent will marvel at this wonderful, inspiring collection and enjoy reading and re-reading these stories for years to come.