Killerfest

RetailShades of Salman Rushdie! One author has been already been murdered for allegedly insulting Islam. Now, the killers announce that Sebastian Quimper, the world’s most popular thriller novelist, is next. Enter private eye Jake Scarne, who is asked to protect Quimper during the Killerfest, one of the publishing industry’s premier showcases. More than a thousand authors, agents, publishers and literary groupies are scheduled to attend the annual conference in New York. It will be a security nightmare, since Quimper is the honoree and featured speaker. But there is more than Quimper’s life and artistic freedom at stake. With book sales in the hundreds of millions, he is the key to a huge merger that will be announced during the Killerfest -- a merger that will transform an industry reeling under the pressures of self-publishers and the Internet. The New York Police Department and private security firms are on high alert, but Scarne is worried. He launches his own investigation into the killing of the first author and comes to a frightening conclusion. Nothing is as it seems in this twisty tale, which takes Scarne first to the nation’s capital, and later to Europe as he unravels the conspiracy. Once again, he is confronted with a diabolical madman pulling deadly strings from behind a curtain. Throw in a beautiful but deadly woman assassin, a sadistic henchman with a taste for torture, Interpol, sex, violence and some exotic locations (London, India, Belgium and Tuscany, to name a few) and you have another great entry in the Jake Scarne thriller series. De Maria’s writing has “a touch of Bourne, a dash of Bond and a sprig of Spenser." (John Crudele, NEW YORK POST) “While De Maria may have been an award-winning financial reporter, he's an awfully good fiction writer as well.” (NAPLES DAILY NEWS) "Attention mystery readers: Tired of one-dimensional characters, hare-brained plots, generic settings? Your deliverance is at hand.” (Robert Huber, former chief speechwriter for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani) “For those who enjoy dialog of the jocular irony-exaggeration genre, De Maria is a master.” (WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS) “What is really almost beyond belief is how easily De Maria has transitioned from the dry world of financial reporting to the wild and lavish world of novel writing.” (COLLIER CITIZEN)