Showing results by author "Warren Adler" in All Categories

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.

Allen Harris is a pillar of the community, a married lawyer of spotless reputation who is asked to assume the presidency of a conservative university after its last president has been fired for engaging in a sexual affair with a student. He is to be vetted by the Board of Directors, who want to be certain that there is nothing in Harris' past that will cause another scandal that has badly damaged the image of the institution. He asserts to the board that his married life is without blemish and he has never engaged in adulterous or clandestine affairs.

During a family reunion at their ancestral castle, the famed Von Kassel family - arms dealers for over 100 years - suddenly find themselves in possession of stolen plutonium capable of creating the most destructive weapon on earth. Previously aloof from the moral implications of their business, the family is torn apart by the deadly potential of their recent acquisition. Family conflicts are ignited that had long been avoided in order to maintain solidarity and the insulation of wealth and power.

A firebombing of a black church in Brooklyn that was once a synagogue sets off a chain reaction of international intrigue and bloody violence. The fire bombers are young men of Arab extraction who mistakenly believe that this church is still a synagogue. In the wake of the bombing, a Wall Street firm sends its token Jewish lawyer to help the church in their insurance claim. In a walled-off area in the basement of the church, the pastor has found three huge trunks filled with gold and precious jewels.

When a commercial artist, her stockbroker husband, and their twin daughters move to Los Angeles, they unwittingly fall prey to a woman who convinces them that she is a psychic and can foresee their future. By persuading them that she holds the key to their success and can protect them from the dangers that threaten them, she gradually takes full control over their careers, their parenting, even their sex lives, until they become her willing accomplices.

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 galas to gritty crime scenes.

For Metropolitan Police detective Fiona Fitzgerald, the mysterious case of the Austrian ambassador's beautiful wife's death is a stark reminder of her upbringing. High-class soirees, men with power, and bored political wives are abundant in this high-profile case. Underneath it all, Fiona understands the publicity nightmare for the Washington elite - and the lengths they will go to for damage control in order to protect their hallowed reputations.

A small town girl from the Midwest is carried away by her "Prince Charming" to the super charged canyons of modern New York City. Warned by her uptight advertising executive husband to beware of strangers, the newlywed cannot repress her small town upbringing and instinctive innocence. She eventually befriends many of the offbeat and quirky tenants in her apartment building and enters into their complicated and sometimes tragic lives.

A womanizing married senator, enjoying a tryst in his Delaware beach home with a beautiful black woman, discovers that his paramour has accidentally drowned. Aware of the scandal that could ensue and destroy his political career, the senator mounts a campaign of cover-up and cynical lies designed to deflect the potential damage. This suspenseful tale of adultery, media manipulation, and political chicanery has familiar overtones and exposes the dilemma faced by any public figure who chooses the path of dissimulation and lying to protect his or her career.

The corruptive power of money and ambition in American politics begins in Venice where a Washington woman reporter trying to repair a bad marriage suddenly spots a professional jeweler, a key figure in the world of Washington's powerful social and political elite. When she returns to Washington she is shocked to discover that the jeweler has not returned and has, in effect, disappeared. This piques her curiosity and what she uncovers goes to the heart of political corruption on a grand scale; deals with diamonds smuggled into the country to finance a presidential political campaign.

Diplomacy, ethics, and passion clash in these chronicles of the social scene in the nation's capital. Originally published in Dossier magazine, these stories are a priceless series from Warren Adler about the rarely revealed, behind-the-scenes peccadilloes of official Washington. Revelations of life in the nation's capital, these stories make you privy to Washington's socially elite circles.

They were the best of friends - or so it seemed. "Couple friends" they told each other and congratulated themselves on how fortunate they were. But marriages and friendships can conceal secrets, as they all know since each is involved in an adulterous relationship with the other's spouse. As each affair heats up, passions even stronger than illicit love reveal themselves.