The High Flyer: A Novel (St. Benet's Trilogy, Band 2) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 3: St. Benet's Trilogy

Howatch, Susan

 
9780345439482: The High Flyer: A Novel (St. Benet's Trilogy, Band 2)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345439481 ISBN 13: 9780345439482
Verlag: Ballantine Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

“A gripping two-pronged tale of psychological terror and spiritual redemption.”—The New York Post

Successful London lawyer Carter Graham has power, sex appeal, and a well-ordered life. Everything has gone according to plan, including her recent marriage to Kim Betz, an investment banker with the right combination of looks and position. On the surface it appears to be a match made in heaven. The only problem is Kim’s ex-wife. Sophie begins to follow Carter like a shadow, making outrageous claims about Kim’s involvement in the occult.

Convincing herself that Sophie is mad, Carter moves ahead with her life. But something is amiss–and as Sophie’s stories are corroborated by other unwelcome disclosures from Kim’s past, Carter is thrown into a terrifying web of suspicion and betrayal, pushing her sanity to the edge. In desperation, Carter seeks help from Nicholas Darrow, the charismatic priest of St. Benet’s Healing Center. Though a religious skeptic, Carter hopes to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to envelop her life–and begins a compelling journey into the very nature of good and evil, wisdom and redemption. . . .

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Susan Howatch was born in 1940. She obtained a law degree from London University and then immigrated to the United States, where she lived for eleven years. During that time she wrote eight novels, including her international bestsellers Penmarric and The Wheel of Fortune. In 1980 she returned to England, where she began to study Church history. The result was the six novels that make up the Starbridge series. In 1993 she made headlines by funding a lectureship in theology and natural science at Cambridge University.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Successful London lawyer Carter Graham has power, sex appeal, and a well-ordered life. Everything has gone according to plan, including her recent marriage to Kim Betz, an investment banker with the right combination of looks and position. On the surface it appears to be a match made in heaven. The only problem is Kim's ex-wife. Sophie begins to follow Carter like a shadow, making outrageous claims about Kim's involvement in the occult.
Convincing herself that Sophie is mad, Carter moves ahead with her life. But something is amiss-and as Sophie's stories are corroborated by other unwelcome disclosures from Kim's past, Carter is thrown into a terrifying web of suspicion and betrayal, pushing her sanity to the edge. In desperation, Carter seeks help from Nicholas Darrow, the charismatic priest of St. Benet's Healing Center. Though a religious skeptic, Carter hopes to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to envelop her life-and begins a compelling journey into the very nature of good and evil, wisdom and redemption. . . .

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Flirting with the Enemy

There is no shortage of highly individualised beliefs. In fact I am constantly amazed at what people do believe; half-remembered bible stories, odd bits of science fiction, snippets of proverbial wisdom passed on through grandmothers or glossy magazines. *** We are bombarded with different beliefs, different values, different customs, different interpretations. Experts give us different and incompatible analyses. We are faced with a kaleidoscope of different images. And the overall effect, I suggest, is to reduce all differences to the same level, to make us immune to real distinctions, to imply that the most we can hope for is not truth but mere opinion.

john habgood

Confessions of a Conservative Liberal

One

A helpful exercise is to ask ourselves what our main life-shaping desires are. What do we most want to do and be? What are the priorities we feel most deeply about?

david f. ford

The Shape of Living

I

When I first saw my temporary secretary it never occurred to me to flirt with him. Even in 1990, when suing for sexual harassment was still considered to be primarily an American activity, an office flirtation would have been considered unwise for a high flyer, and besides, this particular male hardly struck me as being irresistible. He had curly hair, chocolate-coloured eyes and a chunky, cherubic look. My taste in men has never encompassed overgrown choirboys.

Walking into my office I found him stooped over my computer, and since I was not expecting a male secretary I assumed he was someone from the maintenance department. I did notice that he was dressed as an office drone in a grey suit, drab tie and white shirt, but maintenance men often resembled office drones these days; it was a side-effect of the technological revolution.

Abruptly I demanded: “What’s the problem?” and added for good measure: “Who the hell are you?” I always feel irritable on Monday mornings.

He glanced up, decided I was just another dumb blonde hired to massage a keyboard and made the big mistake of adopting a patronising manner. “Relax, sweet pea,” he said casually, “I’m the temp from PersonPower International! I’ve been assigned for two weeks to Mr. Carter Graham.”

I dropped my bag on the visitor’s chair, folded my arms across my chest and dug my high heels into the carpet. Then I said in a voice designed to bend nails: “I’m Carter Graham.”

The man jumped as if stung by a bee, and as his head jerked up I realised that his square jaw was incompatible with the choirboy image. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said at once. “I must have misunderstood the lady in personnel who directed me here.”

“The lady in personnel must be suffering from amnesia. She knows I only work with female temps.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am, but let me reassure you by saying—”

“You’re gay.”

“No, but I can do everything women and gays can do with computers, and I’ve even taken a course in DTP.”

I saw no reason to put up a front by pretending to know what this latest technological time-waster was. “DTP?”

“Desk-Top Publishing, ma’am.”

“I don’t approve of dubious activities taking place on a desk-top. Are you seriously—seriously—trying to tell me that PersonPower International have had the nerve to send a heterosexual white Anglo-Saxon male to work in my office?”

“Maybe they see it as their contribution to multiculturalism, ma’am.”

Worried about my ability to keep a straight face I turned aside, tramped to the window and stared at the crowded street four floors below. Only after I had carefully counted to ten did I swing back to face him and say: “All right, so be it. Welcome to Curtis, Towers.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“But now you listen to me, and you listen well. This is a first-names office but you and I are going to use surnames for the duration of your time here. I’m not having all those hormones and pheromones stimulated by any pseuds’-corner office intimacy.”

“In that case would you care to be addressed as Miss Graham, Mrs. Graham or Ms. Graham?”

“Well, I certainly didn’t go through a wedding ceremony only to be called ‘Miss’ at the end of it, and I’m not Mrs. Graham, I’m Mrs. Betz. But my marital status is hardly your concern.”

“Right, Ms. Graham.”

“And your name is—”

“Eric Tucker.”

“Okay, Tucker, get me unsugared coffee, black as pitch and strong enough to make an elephant levitate. Then we’ll start to flay the fax till it screams for mercy.”

He never asked where the coffee machine was or where he could make coffee or whether he would be able to obtain a takeaway from the cafeteria. He just responded smartly: “Yes, ma’am,” and zipped out of the room. That impressed me. But I also heard the note of amusement in his voice and knew I was not the only one who had played the scene poker-faced but tongue-in-cheek. That alarmed me. Sharing the same sense of humour can be a snare in an office setting. Humour leads to intimacy which leads to loss of detachment which leads to bad judgement which leads to a mess. I resolved to be on my guard.

I wished he were much younger than I was, but I thought he too was probably in his mid-thirties. Younger men were easier to muzzle and keep on a short leash; younger men were less likely to think a woman’s place was not in the boardroom; younger men were easier to intimidate, control and organise. But this smooth-talking item was not a younger man. Nor, I was sure, was he ever again going to remind me of an elderly cherub or an overgrown choirboy.

At that point I spent three seconds wondering why he was working as a temporary secretary and three seconds wondering, in the casual way one does with new acquaintances of the opposite sex, what he was like in bed. Then I said to myself impatiently: “Bloody sex! Why are we all so obsessed with it?” and focused my mind instead on the intricate fiscal affairs of my major clients, the Unipax Transworld Corporation.

II

Arriving home at seven I mixed my first drink of the day and moved out onto the balcony to survey the sky. It was pale blue with puffs of wispy white. The sun was still some way from the horizon, but in the distance the gothic towers and spires of the Palace of Westminster were already forming a shadowy mass streaked with slanting shafts of gold.

I breathed deeply, swallowed a mouthful of my vodka martini and turned my attention from the City of Westminster to its neighbour, the City of London. The square mile of the capital’s financial district stretched to the south and east far below; I saw it as a dense, man-made jungle knifed by skyscrapers which reflected the powerful rays of the setting sun as if they were shards of mirrored glass rising from a dung-heap. Half a mile away the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral appeared to float above the canyons of Cheapside and Old Bailey like an exotic mushroom blooming on an unkempt lawn.

The phone rang.

Stepping back into the living-room I grabbed the receiver. “Hullo?”

There was no reply.

My right hand tightened its grip on my glass. “Hullo?” I repeated sharply, but when the silence remained unbroken I hung up. Immediately the phone rang again. This time, without waiting for the silence, I snarled: “Get a life!” and slammed the receiver into its...

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Verlag
Ballantine Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345439481
ISBN 13 
9780345439482
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
528
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Buchpark GmbH
gpsr@buchpark.de

Krügerweg 1
Trebbin
Brandenburg
14959
Deutschland

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