William Bayer – författare

CITY OF KNIVES is a psychological thriller set in one of the world's most fascinating cities. The destinies of four main characters, each pursuing his/her own agenda, intersect in Buenos Aires.MARTA ABECASIS, homicide detective, known as La Incorrupta ("e;the incorruptible one"e;) is assigned to investigate the murder of a prostitute. As her investigation unfolds she uncovers a political conspiracy involving powerful people who will stop at nothing to obstruct her.BETH BROWDER, a San Francisco teacher, comes to Buenos Aires to search for her missing lover and to immerse herself in the tango. Soon after her arrival she is drawn into a frightening decadent demimonde that pushes her to the brink of madness.DR. TOMÁS HUDSON, a psychoanalyst specializing in the treatment of the damaged children of los desaparecidos ("e;the disappeared ones"e;), is approached by an extortionist offering to sell him the name of the person responsible for the arrest and murder of his wife.HANK BARNES, a militaria dealer, is hired by an anonymous stranger to travel to Buenos Aires to retrieve a long-lost jewel-encrusted dagger that once belonged to Nazi leader, Hermann Goering. As he pursues this quest, he suspects he is being manipulated by the intelligence service of a foreign government.Other characters include a corrupt priest, a young investigative journalist, an incestuous brother-sister, and an imprisoned right-wing military leader. The city in which they cross paths becomes a character itself – Buenos Aires, rich and cruel, haunted by a violent past, a gorgeous city of intrigue and decay, a dangerous city...a City Of Knives.William Bayer is the author of numerous crime novels published in ebook and audiobook form by Crossroad Press. His books have won the Best Novel Edgar Award, the Lambda Prize, and the French prizes, Prix Mystere de Critique. He lives in the California wine country with his wife, food writer Paula Wolfert.From Reviews of the French Language Edition:QUOTIDIEM NATIONAL: "e;A breath taking plunge into the plagues and wounds of a capital city haunted by 'disappeared ones' and dictatorship, rot and false appearances. Saturated by the tango, this is a captivating novel."e;LIBERATION: "e;Intrigue reminiscent of the thrillers of John Le Carre. Superb!"e;LE PARISIEN: "e;My heart was captured by William Bayer's City Of Knives. A series of murders that recall the torture methods of the dictatorship, and, in parallel, a young American woman passionate about tango. The author captures the essence of South America."e;EXPRESSION ACTIVE: "e;A profound immersion in Argentina revealed by the author...a majestic work, masterly and passionate."e;Film director, CLAUDE CHABROL: "e;A great noir novel."e;

New York Times best-selling crime fiction writer, William Bayer, breaks new ground with this novel, a coming-of-age/psychological mystery.Hiding in the Weave, written from the perspective of18 year old Joel Barlev, a senior at Delamere, a school geared to talented young artists, plays off themes typically found in classic boarding school novels (like….)—requited and unrequited romantic relationships, alienation, rebellion, sexuality, troubled home lives, moral dilemmas, epiphanies and acquiring maturity.But there is more here . . . much more . . ."e;What cannot be spoken shall be danced. What cannot be danced shall be woven. And what cannot be woven shall be marked upon the flesh."e;That's the strange mantra of Liv Anders, a gifted dancer and weaver at Delamere. Joel, an equally gifted ceramic artist, finds himself falling in love with her, as intrigued by her mantra as by her casual comment regarding their different art forms: "e;You gouge your pots to show your pain to the world. I hide my pain in the weave."e;It turns out there is something hidden in one of Liv's abstract weavings, and when tragedy strikes, Joel and his two best friends, Justin and Kate, feel compelled to uncover it.The novel follows the four from the start of their senior year at Delamere through graduation and a little beyond.Hiding in the Weave is a novel for adults about the strivings of youth. . . love, passion, art, art-making, growing up and letting go. It takes the traditional coming-of-age boarding school novel into fascinating new territoryEARLY PRAISE FOR HIDING IN THE WEAVE:"e;Hiding in the Weave is an extraordinary novel, one that rings true not merely about the teenage, prep-school protagonists, but about the process and the art of growing up. It has many of the finer qualities of a well-crafted thriller or a mind-bending mystery -- it is puzzling, exciting, filled with tension and demands that each page be rapidly turned. But linked to that are meditations on the relationship between youth and art, and the exquisite excitement of learning. It is a most remarkable book, and one that both entices and educates on every page."e; –John Katzenbach ("e;The Mean Season,"e; "e;Hart's War"e;)"e;William Bayer weaves genres like a master to create HIDING THE WEAVE, a unique and imaginative tapestry of crime fiction, coming of age sagas, and fine arts revelation. A bold new direction from one of our more literate, realistic authors."e; - James Grady ("e;Six Days of the Condor,"e; "e;Mad Dogs"e;)"e;Set in a vividly described prep school, the kind of place that is impressed with its ability to impress, William Bayer's Hiding In The Weave offers a lively cast of students, teachers, administrators, some noble, some predatory. His novel is thoughtful, poignant and, most important. consistently engaging."e; - P.F. Kluge ("e;Eddie & The Cruisers,"e; "e;Alma-Mater,"e; "e;Final Exam"e;)

Passion and rage explode in a bizarre double murder. Two homicides a night were not unusual for New York City, but these weren’t ordinary killings. Someone had decapitated the victims and switched their heads. Detective Frank Janek’s job is to get inside the mind of the lethal genius who committed the heinous act.

It begins when the strangely marked body of a young prostitute is found just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. A similarly disfigured corpse of an American nun turns up. Then an Arab boy. As the list of victims grows, their only apparent connection is the bizarre markings on their bodies, it appears that Israel is facing its first serial murder case.David Bar-Lev, chief of the Pattern Crimes Unit of the Jerusalem police, is not so sure. A tough yet sensitive investigator with a powerful intelligence and a querying mind, he begins searching for a pattern that will explain the apparently random killings.At first the disorder is overwhelming, the case unfathomable. But then, as David probes deeper into this particular pattern crime, he is not so sure he wants to understand it. Pieces emerge that suggest that this time the key may lie within his own life. During the course of his investigation he must uncover and confront many painful secrets:• The mysterious behavior of his father, Avraham, a retired psychoanalyst;• The tragic suicide of his brother, Gideon, a talented fighter pilot;• The hidden past of his beautiful Russian lover, the cellist Anna;• The possibility of corruption within the Jerusalem police and the ultra-secret General Security Services(Shin Bet).But despite the pain of these and other revelations, David probes on until he finally glimpses his astonishing solution—for, as one cop says of David Bar-Lev, "e;It is not enough for him to investigate. David has to understand."e;The Jerusalem of Pattern Crimes is not the idealized Holy City of the guidebooks. Depicted as the capital of an angry, anguished, torn-up nation, a city of prostitutes, narcotics dealers, lusting journalists, ruthless politicians and zealots of every stripe, it becomes here an arena for a remarkable story of crime and punishment.This is a book about patterns – in love, in relationships, in politics, in art, in death. And always at the center is David Bar-Lev, one of the most memorable characters in recent crime fiction, relentlessly searching for the pattern that will unlock his case – the pattern he must uncover in order to clarify his vision … of himself, his family, and the country that he loves.With Pattern Crimes William Bayer raises the detective novel to a new level of excellence. In the best-selling tradition of his previous novel, Switch, he has created a powerful story of psychological suspense and one of the strongest, most intriguing novels of recent years.PRAISE FOR PATTERN CRIMES:New York Times: "e;William Bayer has the reader panting to keep up with the pace he sets in 'Pattern Crimes.' The novel's virtues: its intriguing intellectual hero, the multi-layered humanity he encounters in his investigations, and his fascinating observations on a Jerusalem no casual tourist gets to see."e;San Francisco Examiner: "e;Bayer has got the real stuff: a pounding narrative line; real people you can identify with; dialogue that snaps with authority even as it advances the exposition; a riveting sense of locale. Bayer is the new king of the crime fiction heap. At a minimum he has written one unputdownable book."e;Kirkus Reviews (starred review): "e;A richly dramatic and thoughtful police procedural, a sort of 'Gorky Park' set in Jerusalem. Provocative and intelligent entertainment."e;Newsday: "e;'Pattern Crimes' is a surprise from beginning to end¼. Bayer takes us on a psychological roller-coaster of a trip that is harrowing yet always controlled."e;Washington Post: "e;There is an electricity to Bayer's writing - rich design, crackling fabric - that sets it apart from the usual competent thriller. Bayer is a bona fide novelist, you first think to yourself, but it is really the combination of the two, formula writer and writer-writer (not unlike Dashiell Hammett) that puts Mr. Bayer in a special niche."e;

"e;He spent hours drawing sketches of how she might be killed. And the more work he put into them the more exciting the idea became. And then he started following her and then he was caught up. And the more caught up he was the more definitely she was doomed, for once an idea took hold in him he felt compelled to carry it out. It was the Switch that made his crime a work of art... "e;At first the two killings seem unrelated. The lonely call girl murdered on New York City's West Side had never met the prim schoolteacher slain across town in the far safer preserve of the city's Upper East Side. But someone has decapitated them both and switched their heads: a deed that is apparently its own motive, a crime as pointless as it was perfectly executed.Detective Frank Janek immediately knows that he has entered the realm of a lethal madness. Middle-aged, divorced, a man centered solely on his work, Janek is practiced in piercing the minds of the criminals he pursues. In the absence of clues from the killer, he has only the awful symmetry of the crime to work with, only his own finely honed intuition. "e;This was a crime conceived in the shadows,"e; he thinks, "e;There was precision in it, and passion. Concentrated rage and a love of order. A need to beautify. Even some strange, unfathomable, as yet uncatalogued species of love."e;The challenge—to become as precise, as creative, as cold as his prey-begins to take its toll. The tenuous psychological thread leads Janek back into the unsettled past—not only the killer's but his own. His own passion and rage and unresolved love. The love he bore for the man who trained him-a retired cop whose apparent suicide he has shied from investigating too closely, the passion for justice that has made him a marked man within the police fraternity. The rage he feels at ancient crimes that have finally burst into full and terrifying flower. And most of all, the new love he feels for the mysterious woman in whom all these strands of the past seem to converge. It is Janek's love for Caroline that leads him at last to a blinding vision of the purpose behind the grisly double homicide.Too late, he realizes that the case of "e;Switched Heads"e; may only be the bait....Praise for Switch:I am very impressed. Switch is superior in characterization, movement, tension, the quality of the writing and the a mind of the writer. William Bayer goes right on my "e;look for list"e; —John D. MacDonald"e;The crime is dazzling, the action fast paced, and there are good insights into police techniques and the police mind."e; —Robert Daley"e;Switch is a novel in which the grit and madness of New York are palpable. As well as engrossing the reader utterly, it does high honor to the grand tradition of the American psychological thriller, and despite the riveting nature of its central act of horror, it also traces an exhilarating love affair between two bloodied but triumphantly humane survivors of the city's attrition."e; —Thomas Keneally"e;Switch has the stunning intensity of The First Deadly Sin, and I can't think of a higher compliment."e; —Mary Higgins Clark

New York Police Lieutenant Frank Janek, hero of William Bayer's million-copy bestseller Switch, returns to solve his strongest, most obsessive, most dangerous case- Wallflower.Riveting psychological suspense, psychosexual intrigue and terror, a labyrinthine journey into a murderer's twisted, tormented past-all the hallmarks of William Bayer's extraordinary crime fiction are here. But with a new dimension. This time the case is personal. This time Janek is out for blood.Bored by the mundane cases that have taken up his time and overwhelmed by the fame that has come to him with his solution to Switch, Janek has gone to Venice to reconsider his life. There he meets brilliant, beautiful, compassionate Monika. He falls in love. It seems like a dream.Then comes the call from New York. His beloved goddaughter, Jess, has been viciously murdered in Riverside Park, her body savagely mutilated. Heartbroken and horrified, Janek immediately returns home to discover that Jess was but one of a number of apparently randomly chosen victims. The only things linking them are the some grisly modus operandi and the same strange signature of the killer-a dead weed placed at the scene of each crime.As Janek delves Into Jess's past, he discovers more than he wants to know-strange rituals, bizarre sex games, odd fascinations. But how are these components of her life connected to her murder? After each revelation comes a new, more puzzling layer of mystery.As Janek gets deeper into the psychology of the case, it becomes more and more an investigation into himself. The closer he comes to understanding the madness behind the crimes, the closer he touches a madness within, a madness that can be cured only by defeating his most formidable opponent, by vanquishing what he comes to recognize as true evil.PRAISE FOR WALLFLOWER:Wallflower (renamed "e;The Forget-Me-Not Murders"e;) was a CBS TV movie-of-the-week, starring Richard Crenna and Tyne Daly."e;A book with depth...Bayer has built a fine story..."e; -London Times"e;Elegantly written and psychologically profound."e; -Glasgow Herald"e;The plot in Wallflower is complex and comes together well. Bayer can paint some great characters, people who are world-weary, tough, but with hearts of gold."e; -Irish press"e;Cleverly crafted and brilliantly plotted. Bayer's best work to date. Wallflower is a top shelf thriller."e; -New York Daily News"e;An impossible-to-put-down thriller."e; -Cleveland Plain Dealer"e;Brilliant: this is Bayer's most suspenseful and resonant..."e; -Kirkus Reviews"e;A powerful psychological drama that equals the impact of the best-selling Switch."e; -Copley News

Tangier, a sweeping novel of romance and intrigue set in a fabled North African resort, may remind readers of the Alexandria Quartet. In this book Tangier is more than just a place; it is a city of unholy loves. Titled Europeans, Moroccan hustlers, aging former Nazis, decadents of every sort play out their rituals, competing for stunning lovers and social power.Their schemes and passions are a subject of fascination to the hero of the book, a brilliant young police inspector. But even as he is fascinated he is also repelled, searching always to understand the privileged foreign colony, to unravel its weave of secrets. He finds the key, finally, in the person of a beautiful Eurasian woman, whose own mysterious past he manages to unveil. Through her eyes he comes to see Tangier in a new way. Sustained by her love he rediscovers the city and finds a different role in it for himself.Against the drama of this love story other characters emerge: An America Consul becomes embroiled in an affair with his Vice-Consul's wife. A retired British character actor strives to preserve his dignity as his friends betray him and he feels an intimation of his death. A Canadian gossip columnist struggles not to lose himself in the gay world of Tangier. There is a young Frenchman corrupted by his love for an older woman; a radical Arab surgeon; a fifth-rate Soviet spy-a "e;burnt-out case"e;; squabbling writers; cruel social arbiters; a male prostitute named "e;Pumpkin Pie"e;.Watched closely by the police inspector as they slip in and out of each others' lives, these and other characters ignore the storm that gathers slowly above their town. In the end it sweeps them up with dizzying force. Tangier is revealed in a violent and dazzling finale.PRAISE FOR TANGIER—Publisher's Weekly: "e;Colorful - panoramic - an atmospheric novel of conflict, vengeance, intrigue and deceit against the exotic background that is Tangier - a novel which also possesses genuine psychological insights."e;—Washington Post: "e;The city is the main character of this intricate novel in which East and West meet convulsively and with mutual puzzlement. William Bayer keeps scrupulously the narrative promises he has made and implied, the strands woven so cleverly and in such complex patterns, dyed with a strong influence of atmosphere, that one proceeds willingly, even hastily, through the close-packed pages. As the pages turn and evidence accumulates, its hard to avoid the conclusion that what we have on our hands is the work of a moralist. Bayer conceals what he is up to with considerable skill until the reader is firmly hooked and it is too late to back out."e;—Erie PA Times: "e;You can't possibly read the novel Tangier by William Bayer without wanting someday to visit this exotic North African city. Tangier would be worth reading if it were nothing more than a novel of mood, a travelogue, in effect, describing one of the most mysterious cities in the world. But Bayer's Tangier is much more than that; it is also a fine thriller and a psychological novel of considerable insight."e;—Cleveland Plain Dealer: "e;Tangier is a compulsive page-turner. Once you begin this exotic, erotic novel about the foreign colony in the Moroccan city of the title, you'll not be able to stop. In short, William Bayer's Tangier contains all the ingredients a reader could ask of an atmospheric action novel. But the book is more, a psychological novel of extraordinary insights. This is a novel that stays in the mind."e;— Los Angeles Times: "e;The graceful prose is as dazzling as the white washed city in full sun..."e;—Harvard Magazine: "e;Titled Europeans jostle Moroccan hustlers and aging Nazis in an unremitting struggle for lovers and social power. Atmospheric fiction tinged with cynicism."e;

A woman who sees what others cannot see seeks the murderer of a young street hustler, a man she had befriended in photographing San Francisco's dark, sexually charged netherworld.The colors of Kay Farrow's landscape are black, white, and shades of gray. An achromat suffering from total color blindness, Kay possesses a vision that informs her world and sharpens her skills as a talented photographer. When Tim Lovsey, a handsome prostitute, is brutally slain, he becomes much more than Kay's subject. She makes it her mission to find his killer, even though the police would prefer to quietly let the case drop.Kay's search for answers takes her back in time to an unsolved serial murder case with disturbing parallels to Tim's killing- a case whose botched investigation led to her father's ouster from the police force. Searching for the truth, she moves from the back alleys, exotic clubs, and dim corners of San Francisco's underground, where-for the right price-any sexual fantasy can be realized, to the elite enclaves of the city's most privileged class. Kay knows Tim's murderer resides somewhere within these disparate worlds, at an intersection as gray and murky as the shadows that define her world.Putting her life and all she holds dear at risk, Kay must sort through the riddles of the past before she can discover the shocking truth of Tim's death. Along the way, she finds the chiaroscuro of culpability pointed in shades of lust, jealousy, greed, and desire.The Magicians Tale was a National Bestseller and selected by The New York Times as a "e;Notable Book."e; It won the Lambda Award for Best Mystery.PRAISE FOR THE MAGICIAN'S TALE:THE NEW YORK TIMES:"e;A strange seductive story as eerie as a midnight walk in the fog. It is Kay's extraordinary vision that arrests us; with the starkness of a reverse negative, it shows us light and dark, truth and deception, reality and illusion, even good and evil in ways we never imagined."e;CHICAGO TRIBUNE:"e;Brilliantly conceived and colorfully told."e;PEOPLE:"e;...mesmerizes, but the book's lingering spell lies in the way its heroine's perspective enables us to see, as if the first time, her beloved San Francisco in all its chiaroscuro splendor."e;PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:A vibrant, melancholy narrative voice and street-true characters. The story line traces a sophisticated puzzle with memorably jagged figures."e;SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER:"e;By warned that once you start, you won't want to put down The Magicians Tale, a most compelling read."e;NELSON DeMILLE:"e;If you like your thrillers atmospheric, kinky and brooding, then The Magician's Tale is right up your alley. The writing is spare, savvy and San Francisco street-smart. This is one of those books that suck you in, page by page, until you're firmly in the world created by the author. A very intense read."e;RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON:"e;Seductively written...compellingly suspenseful."e;ABOUT THE AUTHOR:New York Times best-selling author WILLIAM BAYER has written numerous crime novels. His books have won several prizes, including the "e;best novel"e; Edgar, have been published in fifteen foreign languages, and his Janek series novels have been made into seven television movies all broadcast on CBS. He and his wife, cookbook author, Paula Wolfert, lived in the Sonoma Valley in Northern California.

Awarded the 2005 Prix Mystere de la Critique for best foreign crime novel...New York Times bestselling author William Bayer, described by Robert B. Parker as "e;a first-rate master of heart-pounding suspense,"e; returns with this breathtaking, multilayered new tale of a twenty-five year old society murder and the many long shadows it still casts.A man and a woman are making love....One hot summer afternoon a quarter century ago, a wealthy socialite and her young lover, a private school teacher, were gunned down in a cheap hotel room on the outskirts of the Midwestern city of Calista. Now, forensic sketch artist David Weiss has returned to his hometown to cover a routine celebrity murder trial for ABC. For someone who has earned a reputation for cracking high-profile cases with his portraits of suspects based on eyewtiness accounts, chruning out courtroom sketches is merely pedestrian work. But Calista holds other attractions for David. First, there are the welcome attentions of CNN reporter Pam Wells. Then there's the notoriously unsolved double murder at the Flamingo Court motel that has haunted him since boyhood.Like his psychoanalyst father before him, David becomes obsessed with one of the Flamingo victims, Barbara Fulraine -- who was as fascinating as she was enigmatic -- and with the bizarre circle of friends, gangsters, columnists, and lovers who surrounded her. David's father believed that if he could unlock Barbara's troubling, recurring nightmare -- which she called "e;the dream of the broken horses"e; -- his solution would mark a watershed in his career. Now David, armed with old news clippings and police interviews, as well as an extraordinary psychological case study of Mrs. Fulraine recently discovered among his deceased father's effects, seeks to use his highly honed professional skills to reassemble the face of her killer. But with each eyewitness interview and each fresh stroke of his pencil, David finds himself being hurled down a path of ever-darkening mystery, obsession and dread.One of our most elegant and commanding writers of psycho-erotic suspense, William Bayer has crafted a riveting, sharp-edged psychological thriller, perhaps his finest, most compelling work to date.Advance comment on The Dream Of The Broken Horses has been highly favorable:"e;The investigation into a 25-year-old double murder of a wealthy socialite and her yoiung lover is renewed with vigor in this sharp and sexy thriller from Edgar-winning author William Bayer. Compelling psycho-erotic suspense...."e; Publisher's Weekly"e;Edgar winner Bayer writes a psycho-erotic thriller, that, in a detective's yearning for a glamorous beauty murdered when he was only a boy, conjures up the classic film Laura. Bayer, whose previous novels starred NYPD detective Frank Janek, makes a startling yet satisfying departure. Richly atmospheric...."e; Booklist (starred, boxed review)"e;Bayer returns from his pseudonymous sabbatical as David Hunt (The Magician's Tale, etc.) to spin a dizzyingly complex tale of a long-unsolved felony. Bayer (Mirror Maze etc.) turns the case into something ambitious, penetrating...."e; Kirkus Reviews"e;The Dream Of The Broken Horses is a hypnotic blend of suspense, mystery and revelation. Erotically charged and poetically rendered, it worked its way straight into my own dreams. It's great to read a smart, sexy thriller and this is one I recommend."e;-- T. Jefferson Parker (author of Silent Joe and Laguna Heat)ABOUT THE AUTHOR:New York Times best-selling author WILLIAM BAYER has written numerous crime novels. His books have won several prizes, including the "e;best novel"e; Edgar, have been published in fifteen foreign languages, and his Janek series novels have been made into seven television movies all broadcast on CBS. He and his wife, cookbook author, Paula Wolfert, lived in the Sonoma Valley in Northern California.

Originally released under the pseudonym David Hunt.A shocking and provocative new thriller from the author of the national bestseller The Magician's Tale. Kay Farrow, a color-blind photographer who sees the world in black, white and shades of gray, probes the mysterious death of her beloved mentor on a quest that takes her to the darkest intersections of San Francisco's Mission District."e;Eerie as a midnight walk in the fog,"e; said The New York Times Book Review of David Hunt's The Magician's Tale, "e;showing us light and dark, truth and deception, reality and illusion, even good and evil, in ways we never imagined."e; "e;Hunt mesmerizes with his sleight of hand,"e; praised People magazine, "e;The book's lingering spell lies in the way its heroine's perspective enables us to see, as if for the first time, her beloved city in all its chiaroscuro splendor."e;When distinguished photojournalist Maddy Yamada is struck by a motorcyclist at two in the morning in a seedy area far from her Marina apartment, Kay Farrow's grief is tempered by suspicion, What could have drawn the reclusive Maddy so far from home at such an hour? Kay believes Maddy's work in progress-blurry, abstract images uncharacteristic of a woman famous for her unsparing clarity of vision--holds elusive clues, clues Kay is determined to decipher.Tracing old photographs and undeveloped film discovered in one of Maddy's cameras, Kay begins to bring into focus Maddy's activities at the time of her death. The territory Kay must cover runs from the back alleys of the Mission to the elite enclaves of Pacific Heights and beyond, to a very private shooting preserve miles north of the city. Lurking in her path is a netherworld of decadence and evil--and evidence that Maddy's death was no accident.Kay doggedly pursues a winding path to justice, negotiating a labyrinth of debauchery and dark desires.PRAISE FOR TRICK OF LIGHT:NEW YORK TIMES:"e;Following her own vision (and nudged on by Bayer's hypnotic prose), Kay Farrow conducts an investigation that goes down some very dark alleys and leads to some very bleak truths. But in the inverted imagery of this strange world, the blacker it gets, the lovelier it looks. The air of dreamlike menace that hovers of Trick Of Light, Bayer's sequel to The Magician's Tale, transforms San Francisco from a daytime city of brilliant color and clarity into an eerie netherworld."e;HOUSTON CHRONICLE:"e;Beautiful, magical, treacherous. The story unreels like a film noir, full of black-and-white images, grays and shadows....Remarkable...."e;SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER:"e;Bayer's San Francisco is not the tourist City by the Bay, but its dark underbelly. The evil that confronts Kay Farrow is built up step by painful step. Nothing rings false in the terrific Trick Of Light."e;ABOUT THE AUTHOR:New York Times best-selling author WILLIAM BAYER has written numerous crime novels. His books have won several prizes, including the "e;best novel"e; Edgar, have been published in fifteen foreign languages, and his Janek series novels have been made into seven television movies all broadcast on CBS. He and his wife, cookbook author, Paula Wolfert, lived in the Sonoma Valley in Northern California.