Kem Nunn

Heart Attacks is California's last secret spot - the premier mysto surf haunt, the stuff of rumor and legend. The rumors say you must cross Indian land to get there. They tell of hostile locals and shark-infested waters where waves in excess of thirty feet break a mile from shore. For down-and-out photographer Jack Fletcher, the chance...

People came to Huntington Beach in search of the endless party, the ultimate high and the perfect wave. Ike Tucker came to look for his sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blondes, Ike looked into the shadows and found parties that drifted towards pointless violence,...

The 'disturbing and provocative' (Los Angeles Times) novel about a forensic neuropsychiatrist at the end of his rope-now a major TV series starring Hugh Laurie and Gretchen Moi-from award-winning author Kem Nunn.Chance is a dark story about psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly...

From Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner Kem Nunn and "principal heir to the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Nathanael West" (The Washington Post)--an intense psychological suspense novel about a San Francisco neuropsychiatrist who becomes sexually involved with a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder, whose pathological ex-husband is an Oakland homicide detective. A dark tale involving psychiatric mystery, sexual obsession, fractured identities, and terrifyingly realistic violence--Chance is set amid the back streets of California's Bay Area, far from the cleansing breezes of the ocean. Dr. Eldon Chance, a neuropsychiatrist, is a man primed for spectacular ruin. Into Dr. Chance's blighted life walks Jaclyn Blackstone, the abused, attractive wife of an Oakland homicide detective, a violent and jealous man. Jaclyn appears to be suffering from a dissociative identity disorder. In time, Chance will fall into bed with her--or is it with her alter ego, the voracious and volatile Jackie Black? The not-so-good doctor, despite his professional training, isn't quite sure--and thereby hangs his fascination with her. Meanwhile, Chance also meets a young man named D, a self-styled, streetwise philosopher skilled in the art of the blade. It is around this trio of unique and dangerous individuals that long guarded secrets begin to unravel, obsessions grow, and the doctor's carefully arranged life comes to the brink of implosion. Amid San Francisco's fluid, ever-shifting fog, in the cool, gray city of love, Dr. Chance will at last be forced to live up to his name. Chance is a twisted, harrowing, and impossible-to-put-down head trip through the fun house of fate, mesmerizing until the very last page.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST Kem Nunn's "surf noir" classic is a thrilling plunge into the seedy underbelly of a Southern California beach town--the inspiration for the film Point Break. People go to Huntington Beach in search of the endless parties, the ultimate highs, and the perfect waves. Ike Tucker has come to look for his missing sister and for the three men who may have murdered her. In that place of gilded surfers and sun-bleached blonds, Ike's search takes him on a journey through a twisted world of crazed Vietnam vets, sadistic surfers, drug dealers, and mysterious seducers. He looks into the shadows and finds parties that drift toward pointless violence, joyless vacations, and highs you may never come down from...and a sea of old hatreds and dreams gone bad. And if he's not careful, his is a journey from which he will never return.

Offering shelter to a young Mexican woman who barely survived an attack on her life, former surfer and ex-convict Fahey finds their subsequent relationship threatened by those who would kill the woman for her activism activities against exploitative foreign factory owners. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

Heart Attacks is California's last secret spot--the premier mysto surf haunt, the stuff of rumor and legend. The rumors say you must cross Indian land to get there. They tell of hostile locals and shark-infested waters where waves in excess of thirty feet break a mile from shore. For down-and-out photographer Jack Fletcher, the chance to shoot these waves in the company of surfing legend Drew Harmon offers the promise of new beginnings. But Drew is not alone in the northern reaches of the state. His young wife, Kendra, lives there with him. Obsessed with the unsolved murder of a local girl, Kendra has embarked upon a quest of her own, a search for truth--however dark that truth may prove to be. The Dogs of Winter is a portrait of two men and an appealing yet troubled young woman set against an unforgettable background of stark and violent beauty.