All the Dead Were Strangers [Paperback]

Ethan Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2007

With his gut-wrenching brand of suspense, Ethan Black has earned praise from readers and critics alike. Now New York City police detective Conrad Voort returns in his most compelling, complex, and seductive case yet.

After a ten-year separation, Conrad Voort meets his childhood pal Meechum Keefe for drinks in Greenwich Village, and finds him frightened and depressed. Within hours, Meechum disappears -- and the only clue Voort has is a napkin upon which Keefe has scrawled five names. Investigating further, he connects the "accidental" deaths of three people on the list -- and his instincts tell him that the two left alive are next. As he tries to locate them before it's too late, Voort uncovers a vast conspiracy of death that stretches across the country threatening the very fabric of American life. And the conspirators have discovered Voort.

Locked in a shadow war against enemies who follow their own lethal agenda, Voort is torn between upholding the law and sacrificing everything to stop the killing once and for all....

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Penzler Pick, October 2001: Conrad Voort, the protagonist of Ethan Black's three novels set in New York, is of Dutch extraction. The men of the Voort family have been policemen since the Dutch held sway in New York City, and Conrad is, by modern standards, an extremely rich cop for someone who is not on the take. This is just a little background to the best entry yet in this excellent series.

Voort is asked by a friend to meet him at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village. The friend, Meechum Keefe, has something on his mind, but he is reluctant to tell Voort what it is without making it clear that Voort must tread very carefully. Keefe has a list of names on a napkin and explains to Voort that the people on this list are dying, one by one, but there seems to be no connection among them. Keefe is obviously nervous about who is watching them, and Voort follows and confronts a man who seems to be observing them. When he returns to the tavern, Keefe is gone. And Voort never sees him again.

What Voort discovers is that all but one of the people on the list are dead, but that they died in accidents. No foul play is suspected at all. Nor does there seem to be any connection on any front. Politically, they run the gamut from right wing to liberal to no interest in politics. The only thing Voort can do to honor Keefe's plea for help is to make contact with the one person on the list still alive, Dr. Jill Towne, a specialist in rare diseases who practices out of her office on Fifth Avenue. She will have nothing to do with Voort, even after he explains that she might be in danger, until she almost has an accident.

From then on Voort finds himself pulled into one of the strangest cases of his career. He has nothing to go on, but tiny clue by tiny clue, a picture starts to emerge that looks like one of the largest and most far-reaching conspiracies possible. Voort's investigation takes him to West Point and to soldiers who served in Vietnam. The pacing here is terrific and it is impossible for readers to guess what is going on even though they meet the bad guys and become privy to their thoughts and actions. This is a very well constructed plot from the pseudonymous Black and one of the best page-turners of the year. --Otto Penzler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Readers will bite their nails to the quick long before they reach the icy rain-soaked triple climax of this hard-driving thriller, third in a series after The Broken Hearts Club and Irresistible. The author, a savvy New York City newspaperman disguised behind a pseudonym, knows his milieu and so does his hero, NYPD detective Conrad Voort. When an old friend passes him a list of five people scattered around the nation, each having had some relationship with terrorism, Voort confronts with terrifying timeliness the same kind of violence that destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Several of the people on the list are dead "accidentally," but Voort suspects they may have been murdered. Of those still alive, Dr. Jill Towne is a beautiful physician Voort can't help falling for. Her specialty is tropical diseases, and she insists on treating a Saudi financier-turned-terrorist, Abu Bin Hussein, exiled in Afghanistan. Frank Greene, another man on the list, is a reader of Timothy McVeigh's favorite terror primer, The Turner Diaries, and is driving a truckload of fertilizer and dynamite to New York City, to explode it at a party packed with hundreds of policemen. Voort also discovers the existence of a clandestine and murderous government agency, the National Threat Assessment Agency. A former war hero, John Szeska, formerly with NTAA and now an assassin, wants the bomber; he also wants Voort. Black's timely thriller addresses questions of terrorism and government corruption with intelligence and flair. The social underpinnings never get in the way of the supercharged suspense as the novel proceeds to a flawless, slam-bang conclusion. (Aug. 28)Forecast: Speeding off the starting block, this latest Voort thriller is already slated to become a major motion picture (produced by Mace Neufeld), and is a selection of the Literary Guild, the Doubleday Book Club and the Mystery Guild.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (October 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416583777
• ISBN-13: 978-1416583776
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,010,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great!, September 15, 2001

By 

Konrad Kern (OFallon, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All the Dead Were Strangers (Conrad Voort Novels) (Hardcover)

Ethan Black returns with a great novel that's even better than `Irresistible'. A timely thriller that holds nothing back

When Conrad Voort meets up with an old best friend named Meechum Keefe at a tavern in Greenwich Village, he finds that his friend is scared and paranoid. Meechum gives Voort a list of five names and addresses and asks him to find something that ties these names together. The next day Voort finds Meechum is missing, and with the only clue he has to go on, he starts investigating the list. Voort soon finds out that there is very little to tie the people on the list together. The first three on the list seem to have died in separate accidents. The last two are still alive, for now. When Voort tries to locate the last two people, he realizes there lives are in danger. When he locates number four, a beautiful doctor, he falls in love. He soon makes a connection. It seems that terrorism might tie all these people together.

Terrorists and secret organizations all play a crucial role in this well crafted and very well written thriller. From the descriptive narrative to the tight dialogue, this story puts you in the center. Very entertaining and very involving. I very much look forward to Ethan Black's future novels.

Highly recommended.

Inside the covers:
A scorpion wants to cross a river, but he can't swim, so he asks a frog to carry him across. The frog says "are you crazy? If I put you on my back, you'll sting me and I'll die." The scorpion says, "That's stupid. If I do that we both die." So the frog says yes. And when they're in the middle of the river, the scorpion stings him. They're going under. The scorpion says, "I can't help it. It's my nature."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting and original, August 28, 2001

By 

Nick G - See all my reviews

This review is from: All the Dead Were Strangers (Conrad Voort Novels) (Hardcover)

New York detective Conrad Voort has not seen his friend Meechum since they were children, so it comes as a welcome surprise when he gets a phone call from his old buddy inviting him for drinks. As Voort meets his friend in a Manhattan bar, he notices his friend is acting strange…a little nervous, a little scared, and a lot paranoid. As Voort probes his friend with questions, Meechum skirts around giving any answers, only telling his friend he has made a list of names and he would like Voort to investigate the names on the list. Puzzled, but willing to do his friend the favor, Voort agrees. Twenty-four hours later, Meechum is missing! As Voort begins looking into the list of names he is shocked to find that all of the people, except for two, have died in so called "accidents". Determined to get in touch with the two survivors, he comes in contact with Dr. Jill Towne, the fourth name on the list. Dr. Towne is, at first, not very cooperative, but after a visit from other men claiming to be FBI, and an almost "accident" against her, she opens up to Voort and wants his help. While Voort continues his quest for answers, the men behind the diabolical plan discover Voort’s intentions, and must put a stop it, no matter the cost…even murder. Forced to make a terrible choice, Voort must go head-to-head with two very dangerous men, face some shocking truths about the friend he thought he knew, and deal with his feelings for Dr. Towne, a woman who may be a key player in a massive conspiracy that will lead to a brutal act of mass murder. ‘All The Dead Were Strangers’ is a very exciting thriller. Most of the plot remains a secret, and it needs to, for Ethan Black exposes just enough information to jolt the reader and keep them turning the pages. The gritty streets of Manhattan come alive with lies, deceit, conspiracy, and murder in a mystery that proves Ethan Black is one of our finest new thriller writers. After two previous novels, Mr. Black earns his place alongside best-selling authors Michael Connolly, and John Sandford as he continues with his stunning Conrad Voort series. Fans of fast-paced, original detective thrillers should treat themselves and read ‘All The Dead Were Strangers’, and then go back and read the two previous novels in the series ‘The Broken Hearts Club’, and ‘Irresistible’. A MUST read! ...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dynamite read, August 28, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All the Dead Were Strangers (Conrad Voort Novels) (Hardcover)

. It has been a decade since NYPD detective Conrad Voort and Meechum Keefe seen each other. The old childhood friends share drinks in the historic White Horse Tavern in the Village, but instead of a nostalgic camaraderie, Meechum acts apprehensive and on edge. The next day, Conrad learns that Meechum has vanished leaving behind a list of five names on a napkin he wrote on in the bar.

Conrad quickly realizes that the common thread of the list from Meechum Keefe is that each person has been involved directly or indirectly with violence. Several died allegedly from accidents, but Conrad wonders if murder occurred. As he makes further inquiries into the remaining survivors, Conrad finds himself attracted to one of them, Dr. Jill Towne currently treating a terrorist. He soon finds preliminary evidence that a top secret government agency hires killers to eliminate threats to security (that is to that agency) including nosy detectives getting to close to the truth.

With THE BROKEN HEARTS CLUB, IRRESISTIBLE, and now ALL THE DEAD WERE STRANGERS, Conrad Voort proves he is a great lead character in a continuing police procedural series. The current plot raises questions on terrorism and antiterrorism, but the clever Ethan Black never allows his political-social thesis interfere to even slightly slow down his thriller. By enhancing the plot with issues involving the means justifying the ends, Mr. Black will catapult readers into seeking the previous two Voort books and his other tales as the audience will conclude that ALL THE DEAD WERE STRANGERS is a great novel.

Harriet Klausner