Don't Blink

Don't Blink

Don't Blink

Don't Blink

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Overview

The good

New York's Lombardo's Steak House is famous for three reasons--the menu, the clientele, and now, the gruesome murder of an infamous mob lawyer. Effortlessly, the assassin slips through the police's fingers, and his absence sparks a blaze of accusations about who ordered the hit.

The bad

Seated at a nearby table, reporter Nick Daniels is conducting a once-in-a-lifetime interview with a legendary baseball bad-boy. In the chaos, he accidentally captures a key piece of evidence that lands him in the middle of an all-out war between Italian and Russian mafia forces. NYPD captains, district attorneys, mayoral candidates, media kingpins, and one shockingly beautiful magazine editor are all pushing their own agendas--on both sides of the law.

And the dead

Back off--or die--is the clear message Nick receives as he investigates for a story of his own. Heedless, and perhaps in love with his beautiful editor, Nick endures humiliation, threats, violence, and worse in a thriller that overturns every expectation and finishes with the kind of flourish only James Patterson knows.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780316088145
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publication date: 09/27/2010
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Sales rank: 35,997
File size: 974 KB

About the Author

About The Author
James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977 James Patterson's books have sold more than 300 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. He writes full-time and lives in Florida with his family.

Hometown:

Palm Beach, Florida

Date of Birth:

March 22, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newburgh, New York

Education:

B.A., Manhattan College, 1969; M.A., Vanderbilt University, 1971

Read an Excerpt

Don't Blink


By Patterson, James

Little, Brown and Company

Copyright © 2010 Patterson, James
All right reserved.

ISBN: 9780316036238

Prologue

IN THE WINK OF A BLINK OF AN EYE

One

LOMBARDO’S STEAKHOUSE ON Manhattan’s tony Upper East Side was justly famous for two things, two specialties of the house. The first was its double-thick, artery-clogging forty-six-ounce porterhouse, the mere sight of which could give a vegan an apoplectic seizure.

The second claim to fame was its clientele.

Simply put, Lombardo’s Steakhouse was paparazzi heaven. From A-list actors to all-star pro athletes, CEOs to supermodels, rap stars to poet laureates—anyone who was anyone could be spotted at Lombardo’s, whether they were brokering deals or just looking and acting fabulous.

Zagat, the ubiquitous red bible of dining guides, said it best: “Get ready to rub elbows and egos with the jet set, because Lombardo’s is definitely the place to see and be seen.”

Unless you were Bruno Torenzi, that is.

He was the man who was about to make Lombardo’s Steakhouse renowned for something else. Something terrible, just unbelievably awful.

And no one seemed to notice him… until it was too late… until the deed was almost done.

Of course, that was the idea, wasn’t it? In his black three-button Ermenegildo Zegna suit and dark-tinted sunglasses, Bruno Torenzi could have been anybody. He could have been everybody.

Besides, it was lunch. Broad daylight, for Christ’s sake.

For something this sick and depraved to go down, you would have at least thought nighttime. Hell, make that a full moon with a chorus of howling wolves.

“Can I help you, sir?” inquired the hostess, Tiffany, the one person who did manage to notice Torenzi if only because it was her job. She was a young and stunning blonde from the Midwest, with perfect porcelain skin, who could turn more heads than a chiropractor.

But it was as if she didn’t even exist.

Torenzi didn’t stop, didn’t even glance her way when she spoke to him. He just waltzed right by her, cool as a cabana.

Screw it, thought the busy hostess, letting him go. The restaurant was packed as always, and he certainly looked like he belonged. There were other customers arriving, getting in her face as only New Yorkers can. Surely this guy was meeting up with someone who was already seated.

She was right about that much.

Table chatter, clanking silverware, the iconic jazz of John Coltrane filtering down from the recessed ceiling speakers—they all combined to fill the mahogany-paneled dining room of Lombardo’s with a continuous loop of the most pleasant sort of white noise.

Torenzi heard none of it.

He’d been hired because of his discipline, his unyielding focus. In his mind there was only one other person in the busy restaurant. Just one.

Thirty feet…

Torenzi had spotted the table in the far right corner. A special table, no doubt about that. For a very special customer.

Twenty feet…

He cut sharply over to another aisle, the heels of his black wingtips clicking against the polished wood floor like a metronome in three-quarter time.

Ten feet…

Torenzi leveled his stare on the bald and unabashedly overweight man seated alone with his back to the wall. The picture he’d been handed could stay tucked in his pocket. There was no need to double-check the image.

This was him, for sure. Vincent Marcozza.

The man who had less than a minute to live.



Continues...

Excerpted from Don't Blink by Patterson, James Copyright © 2010 by Patterson, James. Excerpted by permission.
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