Sooner or Later [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Adler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

She saw him in the shadows.  She felt him watching her.  She knew he was going to get her...

The killer always left a signature on his victims...an X carved in their flesh.  But he'd spent the last twenty years in a mental hospital.  Long enough for the world to forget him.  But not long enough for him to forget the rich old woman who had him committed--or her pretty granddaughter.

Now he's been set free.

Ellie Duveen was busy running her own restaurant and tenderly watching over her fragile grandmother.  Then she met former cop Dan Cassidy, the owner of a local vineyard, and Ellie's hectic life slowed just enough to let her fall in love.

So Ellie didn't notice when police found a dead body marked with a grisly X.  She only felt someone watching her.  Following her.  And as a terrifying secret came back from the past to haunt her, Ellie needed an ex-cop's instincts and more.  She needed her own unshakable courage to outsmart a killer's deadly, twisted plan.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Adler has written a fast-paced, suspenseful romance that is easy but fun reading. Ellie Duveen, with "misty blue-gray eyes and curly red hair worn long and flowing," lets us know that she is too busy for a relationship as she struggles to make her California cafe a success. Dan, an NYPD homicide detective, "dark-haired and blue-eyed, built tall and rangy," starts a new life after taking a medical retirement and moving to California to open a winery. Buck Duveen, with a "fine head of copper-red hair, dark eyes and a lean-jawed, handsome face," is a genius psychopath obsessed with Ellie, whom he last saw more than 20 years ago when she was a child. Guess who gets out of the insane asylum? Guess who is the family secret? Guess who walks into Ellie's cafe? And guess where this all leads? For public libraries.?J. Sara Paulk, Coastal Plain Regional Lib., Tifton, Ga.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

The ninth cream-stuffed suspenser by Adler, who, in Now or Never (1997), broke from the rich-and-famous genre into the champagne-laced serial-killer field, where she remains. Ellie Parrish Duveen was five when the brakes of her parents' Bentley convertible failed and the car plunged off a steep California road. Or had the brakes been tampered with? The orphaned Ellie survived, her forehead only scarred, and she grew up under the care of wealthy grandmother Lottie. But as it happened, Ellie's father had a son, Buck, from an earlier marriage. Buck was strictly psycho, and although he dressed and comported himself like Cary Grant, he had the lousy habit of strangling prostitutes during sex. Arrested for such indulgences, Buck beat a jail rap and wound up in a private New York hospital for rich sickos. After 20 years, his grandmother's money ran short and Buck was booted out, essentially for nonpayment. He still had a small sum in the bank, though, which by now had accrued to $35,000 traveling money. Set free, Buck kills another prostitute to get back in shape and entrains to California, where he learns that Ellie has opened a restaurant. He then begins to consider recovering his part of the family property and fortune through murder. Meanwhile, busy Ellie has no time for romance, but sooner or later, of course, it must come. It does so in the form of ex-NYPD detective Dan Cassidy, who, after taking a bullet in Manhattan, has retired to the West and bought a small winery near Ellie's restaurant. They meet, and love blooms, but gets set aside. Still, any reader will bet that, sure as night follows day, Ellie will eventually find herself being throttled by Buck in the Duveen family manse--with Dan, naturally, racing toward them in the night. Swift plotting and sensuous decor, but the end (alas) is never in doubt. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Dell (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440224659
• ISBN-13: 978-0440224655
• Product Dimensions: 4.1 x 1.1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elizabeth Adler is a self-confessed romantic, a travel addict and a foodie, all of which she brings to the reader in her novels, along with a tough thrust of suspense and an unfolding mystery that keeps you on your toes. Elizabeth has lived in many countries and when she's not writing spends time discovering even more places to bring to you, with her husband, Richard - still in love after all these years - as are the characters featured in her past three novels, Mac Reilly the Malibu PI and Sunny Alvarez, his lover and side kick. You have to read about them to know them! Elizabeth lives in California and has the ability to take you to all those romantic places she knows so well, Capri, Venice, Tuscany, St. Tropez, Monte Carlo, and of course, Malibu. You will feel you are there, with her, sitting on that Italian terrace, sipping that coffee, smelling the delicious food, savoring the heat and the sunshine and the mystery unfolding for you. Elizabeth is five-three and wishes she were taller, blind as a bat without her glasses that anyway she is too vain to wear, and at 128 lbs till thinking about that diet. She has one daughter, Anabelle who is married to rock musician Eric Avery and two kitties, the Siamese, Sweet Pea who rules the household, and an adorable black cat Sunny.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't stop reading!, March 29, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Germantown, Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sooner or Later (Hardcover)

This was the first book by Elizabeth Adler that I have read and I couldn't put the book down. I went to sleep thinking about the book, I awoke at 3am and started reading it again. I had to go to work and couldn't wait to get home to finish it. Yes, even though we knew who the killer was and we knew why, it wasn't enough for me to stop reading. Ms. Adler kept me in suspense, not only with with the killer's plans, but wondering when Dan and Ellie were going to find out they needed each other. Yes, it was predictable, but so enjoyable to find that wonderful chemistry between two people. That's what keeps me coming back to an author. I enjoyed the book very much and look forward to more works by Ms. Adler.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nail-Biting Suspense Mixes With Sensuous Romance, February 22, 2005

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sooner or Later (Mass Market Paperback)

Elizabeth Adler is one of those wonderful authors whose books always satisfy me. SOONER OR LATER falls into her group of romantic suspense novels that feature a strong female lead, a dashing cop (in this case, newly retired and having purchased a California vineyard) and a psychopathic killer obsessed with the female. What could be trite in the hands of a lesser writer becomes engrossing and spellbinding with Adler thanks to clever plotting, interesting back story on the characters, and likeable supporting characters.

Ellie Duveen is a chef, trained in France, and owner of a charming French cafe where she cooks, waits tables, keeps the books, does whatever needed to become highly successful. When our fiercely independent heroine crosses paths with the retired New York cop who has moved to California to start a wine-making business, the sparks are electric. But can two people from such different worlds connect? Will the city girl be able to find happiness with a man who has had enough of city life and only wants the quiet and solitude of his vineyard? You bet, and the predictable path to romance makes for a highly enjoyable read.

A psycho from the past, grisly murders, long-buried memories, a doting grandmother, and exquisite French cooking make this a most enjoyable novel that will not only have you on the edge of your seat with suspense but reveling in the romance as well.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best of Elizabeth, October 6, 2003

By 

Jorge Frid (Mexico City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sooner or Later (Mass Market Paperback)

The story of Ellie Duveen will keep you reading all the time, but the books goes out of the story so many times that has parts really boring, it has two mistakes that could be written in other way, for example if a man is a pervert, completely insane, dangerous, and the family doesn't have money to keep him at the mental hospital, the hospital just let him free even if he attacked one guard?
Take this book to your next flight and maybe you will enjoy it.