The Abelard Press
The Abelard Press
ANNOUNCES
ANNOUNCES
A new Sylvie Kaplan
DETECTIVE-THRILLE
Birds of Prey
Birds of Prey
About the author:
Lawrence Kinsman holds a doctorate in 20th-centuury American Literature from the State University of New York at Albany. His first book -- Water from the Moon and Other Love Stories -- earned Kinsman the award for "Outstanding Emerging Writing for 1996" from the New Hampshire Writers Project. His second book, a collection of four novellas titled A Well-Ordered Life, contains the first Sylvie Kaplan crime story. Kinsman is Professor of English at Southern New Hampshire University, where he has taught since 1984.
In Birds of Prey Lawrence Kinsman serves up the workings of a vast international crime network, computer hacking at all levels, several sudden and bloody assassinations, the freakishly focused misdeeds of a serial killer (or killers) motivated by religious-sexual mania--and a thousand terrifying questions. Boston Homicide Detective Sylvie Kaplan and her partner Dennis Shaw find themselves investigating the murder of a former fashion model who is somehow connected to the assistant secretary of defense. A box of computer disks showing elaborate weapons schematics arrives mysteriously by U.S. mail, addressed to the murdered girl. The disks then lead Kaplan and Shaw to Voltran, a local defense contractor allegedly putting the finishing touches on an advanced missile guidance system called Falcon, soon to be delivered to the U.S. Air Force. Why, the two detectives wonder, are Voltran employees who know anything about Falcon dropping like flies? As this story of industrial espionage unfolds, a much darker crime spree overtakes the City of Boston: someone is abducting and murdering lesbian couples in grotesque parodies of Christian religious rituals. Bostonians find themselves harried by daily snowstorms and the far heavier burden of nameless, faceless terror.
Birds of Prey was edited by Lisa Veilleux of Bow, NH, and typeset by Hobblebush Books.
Comments from an "Average Reader":
"I could not put down Lawrence Kinsman's new crime novel Birds of Prey – not to answer the phone, not to run errands, not to hold a shelf while my husband nailed it securely into place – not even to make lunch. Mr. Kinsman's writing is smooth and fast moving, often funny and charming and shockingly insightful. His cop characters are likeable. But make no mistake, this book can be every bit as gruesome and intense as Patricia Cornwell at her bloodiest. The plot twists come fast and hit hard. Kinsman has all his police and forensics stuff down cold, but what makes his novel such a standout is his heroine, Boston Homicide Detective Sylvie Kaplan. She is far more human and appealing and therefore more interesting than Cornwell's oh-so-perfect Kay Scarpetta. Kaplan is not predictable. Kaplan makes mistakes and occasionally utters a four-letter word. Actually, like any tough cop, she uses profanity quite often. She screams like a madwoman at her departing fiancé, as he is packing up to leave her and the thirteen-month-old baby they recently adopted together. Sylvie Kaplan is completely, messily human. In other words, this is not just a crime novel; it's a real novel-novel. A recent rave review in the PORTSMOUTH NEW HAMPSHIRE HERALD – the article that tipped me off to the book's existence – announced that Birds of Prey is to be the first novel in a long series. I'm not sure I can wait for the next one!"
- Deborah Letourneau, Dover, New Hampshire
Comments from the "Experts":
"Lawrence Kinsman's Birds of Prey has it all – sex love, betrayal, murder, money, guns, and Byzantine intrigue – all our favorites - wondrously mixed with ethnicity, gender issues, the class war, and a beautiful woman detective who spits one liners like George Carlin. An irresistible read."
– Eugene K. Garber, author of The Historian
"Birds of Prey is a brilliantly and tightly plotted contemporary American crime novel, a superb page turner. Detective Sylvie Kaplan is, by the way, more than likely to blow Kay Scarpetta clean out of the water."
– Robert J. Begiebing, author of The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin
"Bird of Prey's dual story lines – one concerning high-tech international weapons trafficking and the other a series of brutal murders of lesbian couples – propel this volatile narrative like twin NASA booster rockets. The two crime lines run their parallel courses, finally intersecting to give us a stunning vision of the Janus face of evil in all its hideousness and banality. Even more compelling than the ongoing bloodbath, however, is the novel's extraordinary heroine, Boston Homicide Detective Sylvie Kaplan. She is brilliant, beautiful, bisexual, and a single mother. And like all literary detectives, she swears her allegiance to law and order while fearing that her daily efforts to keep chaos at bay are no more than a punishing exercise in futility. Setting aside her existential terrors hour by hour, she pushes on, dealing with an abruptly departing fiancé, poopy diapers, a bossy bourgeois mother, media harassment, a rather slow-witted captain, and a small army of professional killers. The peculiar limits of the detective genre do not prevent this writer from developing characters of genuine complexity and depth. In fact, Kinsman's rich characterizations and keen observation of significant physical detail nearly bring the detective novel into the realm of literary fiction."
– Edmund White, author of The Married Man
How to buy:
346 pages / Hardcover ISBN 0-9648817-4-8
/ Price: $25.00 USA; $38.50 CAN
Paperback ISBN 0-9648817-5-6 / Price $15.00 USA; $26.50 CAN
Paperback ISBN 0-9648817-5-6 / Price $15.00 USA; $26.50 CAN
Available at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide April 1, 2002. Birds of Prey can also be purchased, at a discount, directly from the publisher, Kevin Sheffield, by e-mailing requests to: [email protected]
NOTE: The regular retail price of the hardcover version of Birds of Prey is $25.00; however, anyone purchasing the hardcover directly from the publisher will automatically receive a $5 discount. The discount is already figured into the price listed below. Special discounts are available on the paperback version when purchased by reading groups.
The Abelard Press
P.O. Box 242
Manchester, NH 03105-0242.