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Lex Talionis by Ian Campbell Lenny Kovakis arose from the dead one Friday morning with a mother of a headache. He sat up and massaged his temples, but the pain stayed lodged stubbornly in front of his left ear. What did he drink last night? Where the hell was he? He looked around the boring beige room with its boring furniture and a painting of a cottage by the sea and thought Hotel? He shrugged and drew the thin blanket back. He must’ve really tied one on last night: this was the first time ...

PROLOGUE _Thursday 19 December 2002_ _Charles Landau hated being lied to. The fact that he lied regularly to nearly everyone he knew had no bearing on this. He hated being lied to, but he could accept that it happened. People had their reasons. What he truly hated was being lied to clumsily, by people who should have known better. And Peter was a clumsy liar, and a man who should have known much better. Peter, of all people: they’d known each other since graduate school, Charlie always first ...

_Thursday 19 December 2002_ “BANG! Just like that. For an instant, I thought it might have been a gunshot.” Elise was trying not to sob as she spoke. “So I ran over here to see what happened.” Inspector Mustapha Alawi turned back to look down at Elise, whose pale gamine face was blotched with tears and mascara. “And that’s when you saw his head, Ms. Morgan?” “Doctor Morgan.” She shook her head. “Never mind. Call me whatever you want. I thought it was the cart. There’s a cart with a Mac and a...

The sunny patio was too tempting to resist, even through the tinted glass windows of the coffeehouse. Before sitting down at the wobbly oval metal table, she picked up the ashtray with two fingertips and a grimace of distaste, then placed it atop the low cement wall that encircled the patio. She nodded and smiled at the trio of gorgeous black men at the only other occupied table. They had better manicures and more expensive shoes than she was ever likely to have. She sipped her coffee while e...