Figure of Eight - Hardcover

Ellen Cusak left Ukraine as a young teenager, skating her way to fame and fortune and capturing the hearts of millions of adoring fans in her adopted country. Shortly after winning the World Championship, she married a Hollywood celebrity and dropped out of sight. Now that the romance is over and the bills are mounting, she's gliding toward a comeback, with a book deal, a TV special, and lucrative endorsements in the offing. That's when the threatening letters and phone calls begin, hinting at a dark secret in her past. A photograph of a young skater in a blue dress with an astonishing resemblance to Ellen appears mysteriously on the trophy wall in her living room, and an unidentified corpse turns up in her backyard.

When security specialist Pete Golding, who has secrets of his own, is called in to track down what at first seems to be the stalking of an obsessed fan but turns out to be a case of murder, Lynch's ingenious plot takes the reader on a circuitous route to the truth.

Golding is a complex and well-drawn protagonist, and in this chilling thriller by an accomplished writer (The Policy) he emerges as a man who himself is no stranger to obsession. The pace rarely falters as Golding's dogged detecting sheds light on the dark underside of sunny L.A., the price of celebrity, and the chicanery of those who prey on the hopes and dreams of infertile women. A good read, with a hero who deserves a comeback of his own. --Jane Adams

The BookcassetteŽ format is a special recording technique developed as a means of condensing the full, unabridged audio text of a book to record it on fewer tapes. In order to listen to these tapes, you will need a cassette player with balance control to adjust left/right speaker output. Special adaptors to allow these tapes to be played on any cassette player are available through the publisher or some US retail electronics stores.