Vera Caspary – författare

In the doorway of an elegant New York apartment, blood seeps over silk negligee, over polished wood floors and plush carpet: a beautiful young woman lies dead, her face disfigured by a single gun shot.But who was Laura? What power did she hold over the very different men in her life? How does her portrait bewitch even Mark McPherson, the hard-bitten detective assigned to find her murderer?One stormy night, Mark's investigation takes an unexpected turn...

A beautiful woman - with no memory - and the people who claim to know her may not have her best interests at heart...'Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion' New York TimesKate and Allan Royce are driving home from a party in Westport, Connecticut one night when they see a girl in a beautiful but muddied dress wandering in the road and stop to pick her up. She is suffering from amnesia, so they name her Elizabeth X and take her into their home while the police try to establish her identity.They are left in peace, until first a couple claim her as their daughter and then a psychiatrist arrives to say that she has escaped from his clinic. What does seem certain is that she is the child of wealthy parents.But who really is Elizabeth X, and what has happened to her?

When the woman you love may be dead, or worse - unknowable - obsession takes over.A young woman is found dead in her Manhattan apartment. In the aftermath, the men who knew her begin to tell their stories: a possessive mentor, a devoted fiancé, a cynical columnist. At the centre of it all is Laura: dazzling, ambitious and impossible to pin down. As Detective Mark McPherson pieces together her life, he finds himself drawn not just to the crime, but to the woman she seemed to be....BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days