Jeffery Deaver:Speaking in Tongues
- Paperback 2017, ISBN: 9780340640234
Hardcover
Whitaker House,U.S.. Paperback. Used; Good. **Simply Brit** Shipped with Premium postal service within 24 hours from the UK with impressive delivery time. We have dispatched from our bo… More...
Whitaker House,U.S.. Paperback. Used; Good. **Simply Brit** Shipped with Premium postal service within 24 hours from the UK with impressive delivery time. We have dispatched from our book depository; items of good condition to over ten million satisfied customers worldwide. We are committed to providing you with reliable and efficient service at all times. 02/17/2007, Whitaker House,U.S., 2.5, Orange Sky Books. 1st. Good. Good. Ship within 24hrs. Satisfaction 100% guaranteed. APO/FPO addresses supported, Orange Sky Books, 2.5, Orange Sky Books, 2007-12-30. Paperback. Good. 0x5x7., Orange Sky Books, 2007-12-30, 2.5, Hinkler Books. Paperback. Used; Good. **Simply Brit** Shipped with Premium postal service within 24 hours from the UK with impressive delivery time. We have dispatched from our book depository; items of good condition to over ten million satisfied customers worldwide. We are committed to providing you with reliable and efficient service at all times. 10/26/2017, Hinkler Books, 2.5, Black Swan. Very Good. 5 x 1.44 x 7.78 inches. Paperback. 2008. 496 pages. <br>Who died?' I said. 'Or is it a secret?' 'My mothe r, Vianne Rocher.' Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbled s treets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and Annie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolate sh op. Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the do or. The wind has stopped - at least for a while. Then into their lives blows Zozie de l'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, an d everything begins to change.... But this new friendship is not what it seems. Ruthless, devious and seductive, Zozie de l'Alba has plans of her own - plans that will shake their world to piece s. And with everything she loves at stake, Yanne must face a diff icult choice; to flee, as she has done so many times before, or t o confront her most dangerous enemy..... Herself. From the Hard cover edition. Editorial Reviews Review This is Harris's best n ovel to date. -Financial Times Chocolat was a hard act to follow but Harris has managed it in style. -Daily Express One of Brita in's most popular novelists. -Daily Mail She is so terrific, she can write about anywhere, anything, anyone. -Daily Telegraph Fr om the Back Cover ?Who died?Â'I said. ?Or is it a secret?Â' ?My m other, Vianne Rocher.Â' Seeking refuge and anonymity in the cobbl ed streets of Montmartre, Yanne and her daughters, Rosette and An nie, live peacefully, if not happily, above their little chocolat e shop.Nothing unusual marks them out; no red sachets hang by the door.The wind has stopped ? at least for a while.Then into their lives blows Zozie de lÂ'Alba, the lady with the lollipop shoes, and everything begins to change? But this new friendship is not w hat it seems.Ruthless, devious and seductive, Zozie de lÂ'Alba ha s plans of her own ? plans that will shake their world to pieces. And with everything she loves at stake, Yanne must face a difficu lt choice; to flee, as she has done so many times before, or to c onfront her most dangerous enemy? Herself. Praise for Joanne Ha rris: ?One of BritainÂ's most popular novelistsÂ' Daily Mail ?She is so terrific, she can write about anywhere, anything, anyoneÂ' Daily Telegraph About the Author Joanne Harris is the author o f the Whitbread-short-listed Chocolat (made into a major film sta rring Juliette Binoche), Blackberry Wine; Five Quarters of the Or ange; Coastliners; Holy Fools; Sleep Pale Sister; Jigs & Reels; G entlemen & Players; and, with Fran Warde, The French Kitchen: A C ookbook; and The French Market: More Recipes from a French Kitche n. From the Hardcover edition. About the Author Joanne Harris i s the author of the Whitbread-short-listed Chocolat (made into a major film starring Juliette Binoche), Blackberry Wine; Five Quar ters of the Orange; Coastliners; Holy Fools; Sleep Pale Sister; J igs & Reels; Gentlemen & Players; and, with Fran Warde, The Frenc h Kitchen: A Cookbook; and The French Market: More Recipes from a French Kitchen. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpt. ® Reprint ed by permission. All rights reserved. 1 Wednesday, 31 October D Ãa de los Muertos It is a relatively little-known fact that, ove r the course of a single year, about twenty million letters are d elivered to the dead. People forget to stop the mail - those grie ving widows and prospective heirs - and so magazine subscriptions remain uncancelled; distant friends unnotified; library fines un paid. That's twenty million circulars, bank statements, credit ca rds, love letters, junk mail, greetings, gossip and bills, droppi ng daily on to doormats or parquet floors, thrust casually throug h railings, wedged into letter-boxes, accumulating in stairwells, left unwanted on porches and steps, never to reach their address ee. The dead don't care. More importantly, neither do the living. The living just follow their petty concerns, quite unaware that very close by, a miracle is taking place. The dead are coming bac k to life. It doesn't take much to raise the dead. A couple of b ills; a name; a postcode; nothing that can't be found in any old domestic bin-bag, torn apart (perhaps by foxes) and left on the d oorstep like a gift. You can learn a lot from abandoned mail: nam es, bank details, passwords, e-mail addresses, security codes. Wi th the right combination of personal details you can open up a ba nk account; hire a car; even apply for a new passport. The dead d on't need such things any more. A gift, as I said, just waiting f or collection. Sometimes Fate even delivers in person, and it al ways pays to be alert. Carpe diem, and devil take the hindmost. W hich is why I always read the obituaries, sometimes managing to a cquire the identity even before the funeral has taken place. And which is why, when I saw the sign, and beneath it the post-box wi th its packet of letters, I accepted the gift with a gracious smi le. Of course, it wasn't my post-box. The postal service here is better than most, and letters are rarely misdelivered. It's one more reason I prefer Paris; that and the food, the wine, the thea tres, the shops and the virtually unlimited opportunities. But Pa ris costs - the overheads are extraordinary - and besides, I'd be en itching for some time to reinvent myself again. I'd been playi ng it safe for nearly two months, teaching in a lycée in the 11th arrondissement, but in the wake of the recent troubles there I'd decided at last to make a clean break (taking with me twenty-fiv e thousand euros' worth of departmental funds, to be delivered in to an account opened in the name of an ex-colleague and to be rem oved discreetly, over a couple of weeks), and had a look at apart ments to rent. First, I tried the Left Bank. The properties ther e were out of my league; but the girl from the agency didn't know that. So, with an English accent and going by the name of Emma W indsor, with my Mulberry handbag tucked negligently into the croo k of my arm and the delicious whisper of Prada around my silk-sto ckinged calves, I was able to spend a pleasant morning window-sho pping. I'd asked to view only empty properties. There were sever al along the Left Bank: deep-roomed apartments overlooking the ri ver; mansion flats with roof gardens; penthouses with parquet flo ors. With some regret, I rejected them all, though I couldn't re sist picking up a couple of useful items on the way. A magazine, still in its wrapper, containing the customer number of its inten ded recipient; several circulars; and at one place, gold: a banke r's card in the name of Amélie Deauxville, which needs nothing bu t a phone call for me to activate. I left the girl my mobile num ber. The phone account belongs to Noëlle Marcelin, whose identity I acquired some months ago. Her payments are quite up to date - the poor woman died last year, aged ninety-four - but it means th at anyone tracing my calls will have some difficulty finding me. My internet account, too, is in her name, and remains fully paid- up. Noëlle is too precious for me to lose. But she will never be my main identity. For a start, I don't want to be ninetyfour. And I'm tired of getting all those advertisements for stair-lifts. My last public persona was Françoise Lavery, a teacher of English at the Lycée Rousseau in the 11th. Age thirty-two; born in Nante s; married and widowed in the same year to Raoul Lavery, killed i n a car crash on the eve of the anniversary - a rather romantic t ouch, I thought, that explained her faint air of melancholy. A st rict vegetarian, rather shy, diligent, but not talented enough to be a threat. All in all, a nice girl - which just goes to show y ou should never judge by appearances. Today, however, I'm someon e else. Twenty-five thousand euros is no small sum, and there's a lways the chance that someone will begin to suspect the truth. Mo st people don't - most people wouldn't notice a crime if it was g oing on right in front of them - but I haven't got this far by ta king risks, and I've found that it's safer to stay on the move. So I travel light - a battered leather case and a Sony laptop con taining the makings of over a hundred possible identities - and I can be packed, cleaned out, all traces gone in rather less than an afternoon. That's how Françoise disappeared. I burnt her pape rs, correspondence, bank details, notes. I closed all accounts in her name. Books, clothes, furniture and the rest, I gave to the Croix Rouge. It never pays to gather moss. After that I needed t o find myself anew. I booked into a cheap hotel, paid on Amélie's credit card, changed out of Emma's clothes and went shopping. F rançoise was a dowdy type; sensible heels and neat chignons. My n ew persona, however, has a different style. Zozie de l'Alba is he r name - she is vaguely foreign, though you might be hard pressed to tell her country of origin. She's as flamboyant as Françoise was not - wears costume jewellery in her hair; loves bright colou rs and frivolous shapes; favours bazaars and vintage shops, and w ould never be seen dead in sensible shoes. The change was neatly executed. I entered a shop as Françoise Lavery, in a grey twinse t and a string of fake pearls. Ten minutes later, I left as someo ne else. The problem remains: where to go? The Left Bank, though tempting, is out of the question, though I believe Amélie Deauxv ille may be good for a few thousand more before I have to ditch h er. I have other sources, too, of course, not including my most r ecent - Madame Beauchamp, the secretary in charge of departmental finances at my erstwhile place of work. It's so easy to open a credit account. A couple of spent utility bills; even an old driv ing licence can be enough. And with the rise of online purchasing , the possibilities are expanding on a daily basis. But my needs extend to far, far more than a source of income. Boredom appals me. I need more. Scope for my abilities, adventure, a challenge, a change. A life. And that's what Fate delivered to me, as if b y accident this windy late-October morning in Montmartre, as I gl anced into a shop window and saw the neat little sign taped to th e door: Fermé pour cause de décès. It's been some time since I last came here. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Montmartre i s the last village in Paris, they say, and this part of the Butte is almost a parody of rural France, with its cafés and little cr êperies; its houses painted pink or pistachio, fake shutters at t he windows, and geraniums on every window-ledge; all very conscio usly picturesque, a movie-set miniature of counterfeit charm that barely hides its heart of stone. Perhaps that's why I like it s o much. It's a perfect setting for Zozie de l'Alba. And I found m yself there almost by chance; stopped in a square behind the Sacr é-Coeur; bought a café-croissant at a bar called Le P'tit Pinson and sat down at a table on the street. A blue tin plate high up on the corner gave the name of the square as Place des Faux-Monna yeurs. A tight little square like a neatly made bed. A café, a cr êperie, a couple of shops. Nothing more. Not even a tree to softe n those edges. But then for some reason, a shop caught my eye - s ome kind of a chichi confiserie, I thought, though the sign above the door was blank. The blind was half-drawn, but from where I w as sitting I could just see the display in the window, and the br ight-blue door like a panel of sky. A small, repetitive sound cro ssed the square; a bundle of wind-chimes hanging above the door, sending out little random notes like signals in the air. Why did it draw me? I couldn't say. There are so many of these little sh ops along the warren of streets leading up the Butte de Montmartr e, slouching on the cobbled corners like weary penitents. Narrowf ronted and crook-backed, they are often damp at street level, cos t a fortune to rent and rely mainly on the stupidity of tourists for their continued existence. The rooms above them are rarely a ny better. Small, sparse and inconvenient; noisy at night, when t he city below comes to life; cold in winter, and most likely unbe arable in summer, when the sun presses down on the heavy stone sl ates and the only window, a skylight not eight inches wide, lets in nothing but the stifling heat. And yet - something there had caught my interest. Perhaps the letters, poking out from the meta l jaws of the post-box like a sly tongue. Perhaps the fugitive sc ent of nutmeg and vanilla (or was that just the damp?) that filte red from beneath the sky-blue door. Perhaps the wind, flirting wi th the hem of my skirt, teasing the chimes above the door. Or per haps the notice - neat, hand-lettered - with its unspoken, tantal izing potential. Closed due to bereavement. From the Hardcover edition. ., Black Swan, 2008, 3, Hodder Paperbacks. Paperback. Used; Good. **Simply Brit** Shipped with Premium postal service within 24 hours from the UK with impressive delivery time. We have dispatched from our book depository; items of good condition to over ten million satisfied customers worldwide. We are committed to providing you with reliable and efficient service at all times. 08/05/1999, Hodder Paperbacks, 2.5<
