Louisa Luna – författare

The Brooklyn psychiatrist Dr. Caroline Strange is certain she knows what's best for her patients, her family, and pretty much everyone else, but that all changes when a troubled young man arrives for his appointment and makes a pair of alarming confessions: I am going to kill someone, and I know who you really are.Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients’ deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems Nelson Schack may be one step ahead when detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman. It looks like Nelson has made good on his threat - yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.Convinced the police are incompetent, and hell-bent on proving that she’s right, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. But closing in on her target just leads to all the polished pieces of her manicured life splintering as people start to question who she really is.Harrowing, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, the award-winning author Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are is an utterly gripping psychological thriller that begs the question: Can a person ever really outrun their past?

“Opening this book is like arming a bomb--the suspense is relentless and the payoff is spectacular.  Lead character Alice Vega is sensational--I want to see lots more of her.”--Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series   As addictive, cinematic, and binge-worthy a narrative as The Wire and The Killing, Two Girls Down introduces Louisa Luna as a thriller writer of immense talent and verve.      When two young sisters disappear from a strip mall parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, their devastated mother hires an enigmatic bounty hunter, Alice Vega, to help find the girls. Immediately shut out by a local police department already stretched thin by budget cuts and the growing OxyContin and meth epidemic, Vega enlists the help of a disgraced former cop, Max Caplan. Cap is a man trying to put the scandal of his past behind him and move on, but Vega needs his help to find the girls, and she will not be denied.    With little to go on, Vega and Cap will go to extraordinary lengths to untangle a dangerous web of lies, false leads, and complex relationships to find the girls before time runs out, and they are gone forever.

"Lead character Alice Vega is sensational--I want to see lots more of her."--Lee ChildThe electric follow-up to Louisa Luna''s acclaimed thriller Two Girls Down, featuring private investigators Alice Vega and Max Caplan.On the outskirts of San Diego, the bodies of two young women are discovered. They have no names, no IDs, and no family looking for them. Fearing the possibility of a human trafficking ring, the police and FBI reach out to Alice Vega, a private investigator known for finding the missing, for help in finding out who the Janes were--and finding the others who are missing.      Alice Vega is a powerful woman whose determination is matched only by her intellect, and, along with her partner Cap, she will stop at nothing to find the Janes before it is too late.      Louisa Luna is writing new classics of crime fiction, and her partnership of Vega and Cap is rightfully joining the pantheon of the most memorable in crime fiction.

A fourteen-year-old trying to find her way in the world, Doreen is as much an outcast at school as she is at home. Marginalized by her peers, misunderstood by her parents, and mourning the loss of her older brother who disappeared when she was just a child, Doreen finds solace in her fierce love of music and in her best friend, Ted. But when her older sister begins dating a bewildering twenty-one-year-old named Matthew, Doreen must confront feelings she never knew she possessed. Forced into adulthood kicking and screaming (not to mention swearing), Doreen ultimately impels her troubled family to forge a new understanding of the world -- and, maybe more surprisingly, of one another. High school is bad enough; it''s worse when you have only one friend in the world and a family that just doesn''t get it. This breathless coming-of-age novel explores the alienation of adolescence and introduces a bold and shimmering new voice in fiction.

When Louisa Luna first made the scene with the acclaimed BRAVE NEW GIRL, a gritty high school drama with a sympathic heroine named Doreen, she established herself as one of the most promising voices of her generation. Now, Luna more than fulfills this promise with CROOKED, an ambitious novel of startling emotional immediacy and maturity. Melody is just out of prison. Faced with the absence of her brother Gary, who's serving life in San Quentin, and hardened by her own experiences in lock-up, Mel, as she likes to be called, struggles to adjust to the harsh realities of life on the outside. She quickly discovers that freedom is relative, she has no money, no prospects, no guidance. Forced to return to her formerly abusive mother's apartment in Marin County and take on a soul-crushing job hauling port-a-potties, Mel finds herself drinking too much and hanging out with her old gang again. Mel offers us glimpses of her harrowing girlhood, revisits the murky circumstances that put her in prison in the first place, and bravely begins to forge a potential path toward redemption and escape.

Melody is just out of prison. Faced with the absence of her brother, who''s serving life in San Quentin, and hardened by her own experiences in lock-up, Mel sturggles to adjust to the harsh realities of life on the outside. She quickly discovers that freeedom is relative...she has no money, no prospects, no guidance. Forced to return to her mother''s apartment in Marin County and take a job houling portable toilets, Mel finds herself drinking too much and hanging out with her old gang again. Haunted by glimpses of her own harrowing girlhood and of the mysterious circumstances that put her in prison in the first place, she slowly, bravely begins to forge a potential path toward redemption and escape.

Queenie Sells is having what she thinks is a good day. After getting fired from her job at a calendar company for botching daylight saving time, she lands a job offer from a wealthy acquaintance who's trying to track down his girlfriend, a stripper named Trigger Happy. Sounds easy enough -- until Queenie finds Trigger dead in her own apartment. Now that she's become both suspect for the murder and the target for an unknown predator, Queenie's on the run. Hopping from bar to bar, from Coney Island clam stands to the Waldorf-Astoria, she inadvertently lands on the trail of Trigger's killer, putting herself in the line of fire. Along the way she meets Rey, a private eye with a soft spot for tough-talking ladies; Detective Olds, the stuttering cop who thinks Queenie's the culprit; and a dozen New York denizens -- some strange, some sad, some sweet, and some deadly, every one dropping in and out of Queenie's life as she searches for each fragile piece of the puzzle that may eventually lead her to the truth -- before the next body that turns up is her own.

Dr. Caroline is accustomed to hearing her patients’ deepest, darkest secrets, but it seems there is something more to Nelson Schack than meets the eye. When detectives show up later that day, inquiring about a missing woman, it looks like Nelson has made good on his threat - yet somehow it’s Dr. Caroline who becomes the prime suspect.Convinced the police are incompetent, Dr. Caroline takes matters into her own hands, chasing down the elusive Nelson and running headlong into a past she has spent her entire life trying to forget. As she closes in on her target, people begin questioning who Dr. Caroline really is, and all the polished pieces of her manicured life start to splinter.Harrowing, unpredictable, and compulsively readable, the award-winning author Louisa Luna’s Tell Me Who You Are is an utterly gripping psychological thriller that asks, Can a person ever really outrun their past?

In a gritty thriller from the acclaimed author whom William Vollmann called "a real storyteller," a street-smart young woman takes what looks like an easy job and ends up having to solve a murder case -- before the next body that turns up is her own.Queenie Sells is having what she thinks is a good day. After getting fired from her job at a calendar company for botching Daylight Savings, she is informally hired by a wealthy acquaintance to track down his girlfriend, a stripper named Trigger Happy. But Queenie''s seemingly good luck turns hard when she finds Trigger dead in her apartment.Now Queenie''s daily routine of being a drunk smart-ass is put on hold as she becomes both a suspect for the murder and the target for an unknown predator. Hopping from bar to bar, from Coney Island clam stands to the Waldorf-Astoria, she inadvertently lands on the trail of Trigger''s killer and puts herself in the line of fire.Along the way she meets Rey, a private eye with a soft spot for tough-talking ladies; Detective Olds, the stuttering cop who thinks Queenie''s the culprit; and a dozen New York denizens, among them a cult recruiter, a hit man, a thief, and even Rip Torn -- some strange, some sad, some sweet, and some deadly, every one dropping in and out of Queenie''s life as she searches for each fragile piece of the puzzle that may eventually lead her to the truth.With danger closing in on her, Queenie can''t help but realize the precariousness of her own mortality. As she stares out of the window at an old lady on the corner, she thinks, "There is nothing separating you from that old lady right now -- maybe something, maybe time is all, but that''s really nothing when you think about it." After all, thinks Queenie, it''s just days. But unless she can find the killer before the killer finds her, Queenie''s days are seriously numbered.