Georges Gastin, personnage aussi charismatique qu'insaisissable, sillonne la région à toute allure au volant de sa dépanneuse, portant secours aux accidentés de la route, et de la vie en général. Il ne réclame aucune rétribution pour ses services sinon une oreille attentive à ses histoires. Conducteur surdoué, Georges a trouvé sa place à San Francisco, dont il apprécie l'atmosphère de liberté et le foisonnement artistique. Il vit d'arnaques à l'assurance, et se voit proposer un jour la mission de voler et détruire une superbe Cadillac, cadeau d'une fan enamourée à une star du Rock'n Roll, « The Big Bopper ». Ce dernier, disparu dans le crash qui précipita aussi la mort de deux autres rockers célèbres, Ritchie Valens et Buddy Holy, n'aura pas pu lire la lettre d'amour de son admiratrice placée dans la boîte à gant. Découvrant cette lettre, Georges fait le voeu de lui rendre hommage, et de conduire la Cadillac sur la tombe du Big Bopper, dont il ignore de fait la localisation. Un bocal de pilules de benzédrine sous le siège, Georges se lance donc dans cette quête mi-absurde misymbolique, à la valeur toute personnelle et initiatique. Sa route lui réserve toutes sortes de rencontres, souvent hautes en couleurs, drôles ou émouvantes.
Young, innocent and strikingly beautiful Crystal Wyatt was an outcast, envied and resented by all but her devoted father, with whom she shared a deep love for their remote California ranch. When her father dies, Crystal is alone and unprotected. Devastating events shake the once peaceful valley. With nothing but her dreams, her beauty, and her aweinspiring voice, Crystal escapes to embark on the career that will ultimately make her a star. But stardom itself is shadowed by danger and violence and haunted by a memory that must be resolved before Crystal can find happiness and peace.From the Paperback edition.
Johnny Rossendale has spent the last four years on the seas, away from the titled family he despises. But now he must turn his sailing cutter, the Sunflower, around and sail to Devon, where his mother lies dying.
When Johnny makes landfall, though, he finds that his return is eagerly anticipated by some very sinister foes. After an attempt on his life, he realises that someone thinks a missing painting that belongs to the family is in his hands - and, worse, they are prepared to go to any lengths to get hold of it.
But as Earl of Stowey, Johnny has eight centuries of robber-baron blood pumping through his veins. He won't let the family fortune fall into the hands of others without a fight . . .
Vinnie Miner, 54-year-old Anglophile professor, is in London on a six-month foundation grant. So is her young colleague, Fred Turner. Vinnie is plain and resignedly self-reliant; Fred is arrestingly handsome and moping after a breakup with his wife. Vinnie and Fred have love affairs in London. Fred's is a fraught liaison with an waitress while Vinnie drifts into a relationship with an engineer from Oklahoma she met on the plane, a brash uneducated stereotype American who finally beguiles her (and the reader) with his uncomplicated goodness. . . I devoured the book at a sitting and then went back for a second dip at once' Penelope Lively, Sunday Telegraph
An account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town. Instead he finds a continent that is doubly lost: lost to itself because it is blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; and lost to him because he has become a foreigner in his own country.
