Margins
Killing Icarus book cover
Killing Icarus
2021
First Published
4.38
Average Rating
297
Number of Pages

Kemprecos co-authored the bestselling NUMA Files series with adventure author Clive Cussler. Art historian Abi Vickers has hit the proverbial wall. Her husband ran off with his secretary, leaving Abi in financial ruin from his bad investments. Her galleries, her reputation, her apartment in Boston’s toney South End have been ripped from her life by an unforgiving legal system. When an old mentor offers her a temporary job and the use of his cottage overlooking Cape Cod Bay, she hopes the sun-drenched scenery that inspired artist Edward Hopper will help pull her life back together. As she leaves Boston for the windswept cliffs of Truro, she looks forward to calm days, spectacular sunsets, and the mind-cleansing practice of Zen archery. But her hope for tranquility is soon shattered when she learns that a historic aviation event is about to be reenacted practically on her doorstep. Suddenly, instead of finding sanity, Abi wonders if she’s going insane—especially when she starts seeing shadows moving across the star-speckled night sky. Only after she discovers a deadly WWII secret in a long-lost Hopper sketch does she realize the troubles that plagued her in Boston were child’s play compared to the dangers she’s about to From the deadly cat-and-mouse game she must play with hired killers on the Nantucket ferry, to the threats that seem to emanate from an old barn near a fortress-like abandoned mansion. Even with the help of a small town police officer dealing with his own personal baggage, and a German journalist who is not what he appears to be, Abi must tap into intellectual and physical resources she never knew she possessed if she wants to survive.

Avg Rating
4.38
Number of Ratings
126
5 STARS
55%
4 STARS
31%
3 STARS
13%
2 STARS
1%
1 STARS
1%
goodreads

Author

Paul Kemprecos
Paul Kemprecos
Author · 11 books

My fiction-writing career owes it start to the bad navigation of an 18th century pirate. For it was in 1717 that a ship, the Whydah went aground, reportedly carrying a fabulous treasure. In the 1980s, three salvage groups went head-to-head, competing to find the wreck. The controversy over the salvage got hot at times and I thought there might be a book in their story. I was working for a newspaper at the time. I developed my own detective, an ex-cop, diver, fisherman, and PI named Aristotle “Soc” Socarides. He was more philosophical than hard-boiled. Making his first appearance in “Cool Blue Tomb,” the book won the Shamus award for Best Paperback novel. After many years in the newspaper business, I turned to writing fiction and churned out five more books in the series. Clive Cussler blurbed: “There can be no better mystery writer in America than Paul Kemprecos.” Despite the accolades, the Soc series lingered in mid-list hell. By the time I finished my last book, I was thinking about another career that might make me more money, like working in a 7-11. Several months after the release of “Bluefin Blues,” Clive called and said a spin-off from the Dirk Pitt series was in the works. It would be called the NUMA Files and he wondered if I would be interested in tackling the job. I took on the writing of “Serpent” which brought into being Kurt Austin and the NUMA Special Assignments Team. Austin had some carry-over from Soc, and another team member, Paul Trout, had been born on Cape Cod. The book made The New York Times bestseller list, as did every one of seven NUMA Files that followed, including “Polar Shift,” which bumped “The DaVinci Code” for first place. After eight NUMA Files I went back to writing solo. I wrote an adventure book entitled, The Emerald Scepter, which introduced a new hero, Matinicus “Matt” Hawkins. I have been working on the re-release of my Soc series in digital and print, and in 2013, responding to numerous requests, I brought Soc back again in a seventh Socarides book entitled, Grey Lady. My wife Christi and I live on Cape Cod where she works as a financial advisor. We live in a circa 1865 farmhouse with two cats. We have three children and seven granddaughters. To learn more about Paul Kemprecos, check out his website at http://www.paulkemprecos.com.

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