China Lake [Paperback]

'From beginning to end China Lake is a book that no reader of thrillers will be able to put down. Great characters, dynamic plot, nail-biting action – Meg Gardiner gives us everything.' (Elizabeth George 20020809)

'compelling tale, a powerful mix of murder, terrorism and a wealth of dark secrets.' (Publishing News )

'With a colourful cast of richly delineated characters, a protagonist with whom the readers will easily identify – all big-hearted, quick-tongued and hair-trigger-tempered – this novel provides a fast-paced ride through some of the more dubious nooks and crannies of the American dream and is an impressive opening salvo by a Surrey-based expatriate who hits the bookshelves running.' (Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian )

'Sure-footed, action-packed' (Bookseller )

'China Lake makes a strong impression. The story grips and Ms Gardiner is a welcome addition to the ranks of American thriller writers.' (Sunday Telegraph )

'With energetic, punchy prose and a breathless, action-thriller plot, China Lake is an assured debut. Evan Delaney is a great character, and Gardiner is a writer to watch.' (Manchester Evening News )

'A great first novel. Fast and hard-edged. Buy it, read it' (Hull Daily Mail )

'Meg Gardiner's writing crackles with energy' (Writers Forum )

'This is . . . a cracker, with memorable characters, memorable lines and a plot that races along to an explosive ending. A great summer read.' (Huddersfield Daily Examiner )

'Religious fundamentalism, anti-Aids crusaders, nutty relatives, and a Waco-style shootout: they're all here in the exciting mix that Gardiner expertly stirs up. Great stuff.' (Independent on Sunday )

A fast-paced ride through some of the more dubious nooks and crannies of the American dream.

A welcome addition to the ranks of American thriller writers.

'compelling tale, a powerful mix of murder, terrorism and a wealth of dark secrets.'

'Meg Gardiner's writing crackles with energy'

'Sure-footed, action-packed'

'A great first novel. Fast and hard-edged. Buy it, read it'

Evan Delaney is a heroine of our times: a woman with a big heart, a quick tongue and a hot temper that gets her into trouble. She is shocked to discover that Tabitha, her ex-sister-in-law, has joined The Remnant - the Reverend Pete Wyoming's fanatical band of disciples. And that Tabitha is trying to regain custody of her six-year-old son, Luke, currently in Evan's care while his father is posted to the Naval Air Warfare Center. Then one of the Remnant is killed, and Evan's brother is the prime suspect. With her boyfriend, lawyer Jesse Blackburn, Evan tries to clear her brother's name and rescue her nephew. In doing so, she finds herself caught up in a wild plan to steal weapons, and a blazing inferno on a Santa Barbara hillside. (20020809)

As soon as I read Meg Gardiner's first novel, I realised that here was a major new talent. She writes with confidence and assurance and has the knack of creating memorable characters whose fates you become involved with right from the first page. She also has the ability to write fast-paced, heart-in-mouth action suspense. I have signed up three more novels from her and look forward to seeing Evan Delaney's further adventures in the seductive Santa Barbara landscape.

Originally from Santa Barbara, California, Meg Gardiner previously practised law and taught at the University of California. She lives with her family near London. To find out more about her novels, visit Meg's website at www.meggardiner.com (20020809)

Peter Wyoming didn’t shake hands with people, he hit them with his presence like a rock fired from a slingshot. He was a human nail, lean and straight with brush-cut hair, and when I first saw him he was carrying a picket sign and enough rage to scorch the ground. The sign read God Hates Sluts and he held it erect in his fist, aimed so mourners read it as we stepped from the church into the autumn sunshine. Behind him, his followers hoisted other placards. AIDS Cures Whores. Sex Ed = AIDS = Damnation. Ahead, the dead woman’s daughter walked behind the casket, gripping her husband’s hand for support. When Wyoming saw her, he began chanting.
‘Hey, hey, what do you say? Claudine burns in hell today!’
That’s when I made my first mistake. I took him for a grandstander, a bigot, a man who, from the looks of his sign, had trouble with women. And I underestimated him.
Wyoming was the pastor of a church called The Remnant, which proclaimed itself the last swatch of godliness in a pustulating world. They thought Santa Barbara, this postcard city of acrylic blue skies and red tile roofs, of coffee bars and beaches and Mexican-American warmth, was a sluice gate on the sewer pipe to Hell. They liked to drive home the point by jeering at AIDS funerals.
We ignored them. The dead woman’s daughter, Nikki Vincent, had known they were coming and told us to treat them as if they were invisible. Treat them like roaches underfoot.
Now Nikki laid a coffee-brown hand on the coffin. Saying, don’t worry, Mom, I’ll take care of you. Or maybe drawing strength from her mother, one last time. Claudine Girard had never backed down from anything. A small woman with a Haitian French accent, she was an AIDS activist even before the disease raked into her. She had also been my university professor, who salted her literature classes with commands to stand straight and belly up to life. Her death seemed impossible.
She had been well known in Santa Barbara, and reporters were clustering outside the Spanish-style church, under palm trees shirring in the breeze. They looked eager for action. Wyoming, anxious to supply it, tightened his bolo tie and stared at Nikki – seven months pregnant, holding onto her husband’s arm and Claudine’s coffin, ready to run the gauntlet.
He raised his sign. ‘Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch?’
The Remnant shouted, ‘The voodoo witch!’
It was twenty yards to the hearse, waiting at the curb; a long way.
The funeral director, usually all smooth inconspicuous moves and black-suited calm, clasped his hands in dismay. Confrontational funerals were poor advertising for the Elysian Glen Mortuary.
He urged the pallbearers forward. Nikki lifted her chin and followed, her face like varnished wood, sunglasses hiding her swollen eyes.
A snub-nosed woman jutted forward from the crowd. ‘Slut lovers! Queer lovers! Take your mumbo-jumbo back to Haiti!’
Mourners deliberately looked past the protesters. We were a mixed bag – academics rumpled in grief, Claudine’s Caribbean family, and friends like me, with my Celtic looks, middle-class manners, and bitten-back shock. My own religion was a subterranean Catholicism that welled up for deaths and holidays.
God-as-stinkbomb was a novelty to me. I felt myself fraying, but for Nikki’s sake I kept walking, looking into the distance where the October air shimmered over the Santa Ynez mountains. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.