Chasing The Dime Michael Connelly by Michael Connelly 9780316153911, 0316153915, B000FC1MN2 instant download after payment.

Henry Price has a whole new life-new apartment, new telephone, new telephone number. But the first time he checks his messages, he discovers that someone had the number before him. The messages on his line are for a woman named Lilly, and she is in some kind of serious trouble. Price is inexorably drawn into Lilly's world, and it's unlike any world he's ever known. It is a nighttime world of escort services, websites, sex, and secret identities. Price tumbles through a hole, abandoning his orderly life in a frantic race to save the life of a woman he has never met.

Price's skills as a computer entrepreneur allow him to trace Lilly's last days with some precision. But every step into Lilly's past takes Price deeper into a web of inescapable intricacy-and a decision that could cost him everything he owns and holds dear.

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Amazon.com Review

Henry Pierce is about to become very rich--as soon as his firm, Amedeo Technologies, gets an infusion of capital from a big backer. But the brilliant chemist's workaholic habits are disrupted when his lover, the former intelligence officer of his company, breaks up with him. Lonely and dispirited, he moves into a new apartment and gets a new phone number that attracts a lot of callers, but not for him. His new telephone number seems to have previously belonged to one Lilly Quinlan, an escort whose Internet photo arouses Henry's curiosity, especially when L.A. Darlings, whose Web page features the beautiful young woman, can't tell Henry how to find her. With the same single-mindedness that made him a high-tech superstar, Pierce pursues his search for the missing girl, motivated by his guilt over the disappearance years earlier of his own sister, who, like Lilly, was also a prostitute (and ultimately the victim of the Dollmaker, a serial killer from Connelly's 1994 novel The Concrete Blonde.) But that motive is too thin to support Pierce's sudden abandonment of his career at such a critical juncture, even if forces unknown to him are setting him up for a fall. Despite those holes in the plot and a less than compelling protagonist, the novel succeeds due to Connelly's literary and expository gifts and his more interesting secondary characters. --Jane Adams

The copy on the galley of Connelly's slick new thriller doesn't mention Hitchcock, but most reviews probably will, with the novel's many surprises and "wrong man" plot line. Even the opening echoes Hitch's North by Northwest, in which Cary Grant's mistaken interception of a bellboy's page leads to disaster; here it's nanotechnology entrepreneur Henry Pierce's getting a phone call that triggers the trouble. The call is for a prostitute, Lilly, and it's the first of many; turns out that the Web site on which she advertises, L.A. Darlings, has Pierce's new home phone number next to a photo of gorgeous Lilly. But when Pierce visits the Web site's offices, he learns that Lilly has vanished. Where has she gone? His search to find the missing woman-prompted by his insatiable curiosity and by memories of his tragic, long-ago hunt for his sister, also a prostitute-draws Pierce into mortal danger. It also pushes him into conflict with the law, for when the cops cotton to Lilly's disappearance, Pierce becomes the number one suspect-serious bad news for this scientist whose company is being visited by a major investor in just a few days. Connelly's plotting is shrink-wrap tight, his characters-particularly Pierce, whose impulsiveness is balanced by his measured applications of the scientific method to analyze his plight-are smartly drawn. It's the rare reader who will be able to finger the villain behind all the mayhem. While very entertaining, however-this is the perfect book for a long airplane ride-the novel lacks the moral resonance and weight of Connelly's most impressive works, such as City of Bones.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Once again, Connelly (Blood Work) keeps the reader's heart racing and the pages turning. After a messy breakup, Henry Pierce is just settling into his new apartment and new life. However, any peace he might find ends as soon as he checks his phone messages for the first time. There are several, all left for a woman named Lilly. She apparently had the number before Henry, and the messages seem to indicate that she's in some sort of trouble. Because of an incident deep in his past, Henry decides to locate Lilly and attempt to help her. Needless to say, he quickly finds himself in over his head, dealing with web pornographers, gangsters, and thugs, trusting nobody while trying to save both Lilly and himself. Connelly takes what could have been a typical suspense thriller and turns it into something exceptional through nonstop action and surprising twists. This one will move quickly off the shelves in public libraries.
Craig Shufelt, Lane P.L., Fairfield, OH
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Connelly is as hot as it gets right now. His last Harry Bosch novel, City of Bones [BKL Mr 1 02], made the jump from genre favorite to mainstream best-seller, and his 1998 stand-alone thriller, Blood Work, has been transformed into a Clint Eastwood film. His new stand-alone is a bit of a departure--more concept thriller than noir mood piece--but it's a grabber from the beginning, and the subject matter is utterly compelling. Henry Pierce is a high-tech entrepreneur on the verge of a breakthrough in an experimental field called molecular computing. More powerful and much smaller than the silicon version, molecular computer chips will make possible such marvels as diagnostic computers that can be dropped into the bloodstream. But what will power the molecular computers on their journey through the body? That's where Pierce's soon-to-be-patented invention comes in, but only if he can get the necessary funding--and if he can keep his mind off the phone calls he's been getting at his new apartment, calls intended for a hooker named Lilly, who may be in serious trouble. Recognizing the parallel between Lilly and his late sister, Pierce is drawn into the hooker's world, hoping to save Lilly as recompense for failing to save his sister. Savvy readers will be able to spot the real villain and connect many of the dots before Pierce does, but that won't diminish their fascination with the marvelously detailed particulars of both experimental computing and online sex for hire. Connelly brings the two worlds together in a slam-bang finale that will leave fans gasping. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Michael Connelly is the author of the bestselling series of Harry Bosch novels, and the bestsellers "A Darkness More Than Night," "Void Moon," "Angels Flight," "Blood Work," and "The Poet." Connelly has won an Edgar Award, a Nero Wolfe prize, a Macavity Award, and an Anthony Award.