UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FANTASY FICTION · FICTION
P. C. Hodgell
Also known as: P.C. Hodgell, Patricia Christine Hodgell
Caitlyn O'Malley was a lass, but none would have known it who saw her swaggering along Dublin's narrow cobbled laneways on that misty April afternoon in 1784.
— from Dark of the moon
Most acclaimed
Dark of the moon
Virgil Flowers-tall, lean, late thirties, three times divorced, hair way too long for a cop's-had kicked around for a while before joining the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. First, it was the army and the military police, then the police in St. Paul, and finally Lucas Davenport had brought him into the BCA, promising him, "We'll only give you the hard stuff."He'd been doing the hard stuff for three years now-but never anything like this. In the small town of Bluestem, where everybody knows everybody, a house way up on a ridge explodes into flames, its owner, a man named Judd, trapped inside. There is a lot of reason to hate him, Flowers discovers. Years ago, Judd had perpetrated a scam that'd driven a lot of local farmers out of business, even to suicide. There are also rumors swirling around: of some very dicey activities with other men's wives; of involvement with some nutcase religious guy; of an out-of-wedlock daughter. In fact, Flowers concludes, you'd probably have to dig around to find a person who didn't despise him.And that wasn't even the reason Flowers had come to Bluestem. Three weeks before, there'd been another murder-two, in fact-a doctor and his wife, the doctor found propped up in his backyard, both eyes shot out. There hadn't been a murder in Bluestem in years-and now, suddenly, three? Flowers knows two things: This wasn't a coincidence, and this had to be personal.But just how personal is something even he doesn't realize, and may not find out until too late. Because the next victim . . .may be himself.Filled with the audacious plotting, rich characters, and brilliant suspense that have always made his books "compulsively readable" (Los Angeles Times), Dark of the Moon is vintage Sandford, further proof that he "is in a class of his own" (The Orlando Sentinel).
God Stalk
Jame is a Kencyr. Kencyrs are not native to the planet where they now live. For thirty centuries they have been the weapon that their Three-Faced God has used against the power of the Perimal Darkling. And though they have fought well, the Darkling has come to planet after planet, and the Kencyrs have moved on. Jame knows this as she stumbles out of the hilly, barren Haunted Lands into the city of Tai-tastigon. But she knows little else. She does not remember where she has been or what she has done for the last ten years of her life. Her memory goes back only a week or two—to finding her home destroyed and all her family dead. In Tai-tastigon Jame begins a new life that seems to be at odds with all that the Kencyrs stand for. Kencyrs are honest and just, but Jame becomes an apprentice to the most renowned thief in the powerful Thieves' Guild. Kencyrs are confirmed monotheists, yet Jame explores the rituals and activities of the thousands of gods, templed and untempled, in this religious center; she even kills a god and then resurrects him. And at the inn, the Res aB'tyrr, where she lives, she finds herself using the most sacred dances of her people, dances she does not even remember learning, for the entertainment and sometimes the destruction of the inn's patrons. Within herself Jame finds power she does not want and doubts she defies her heredity to harbor. She moves through the rich and bloody stew of Tai-tastigon like a hot spice. Her probings, to find herself and to discover what her powers mean to her and her people, combined with influences already at work, very nearly destroy the city. And yet, they bring her face to face with a destiny she must accept.
The God Stalker Chronicles
Jame is a Kencyrath, the chosen people of the Three-Faced God, who fight the demonic being called Perimal Darkling. At the same time, she fights an internal battle for their honor because 3,000 years ago the leader of the Kencyrath betrayed his people to the Darkness for his own immortality. She also must find her ten-year older brother Tori and return to him the sword and ring of their father. If that is not enough she has to stand before the rathorns, wear the cloak of living snakes, kill one god, and resurrect another. All in a day’s work for Jame.