Moving Target

New York: William Morrow & Company. Fine in Fine dust jacket. 2001. First Edition. Hardcover. . 1.51 x 9.59 x 6.45 Inches. 464 pages. <I>"When you read this, I'll be dead...."</I>These are the troubling words Serena Charters's grandmother has written on a note accompanying four pages of a centuries-old illuminated manuscript delivered after the old woman's passing. That the strange inheritance has considerable worth seems obvious -- but what Serena doesn't realize is how many secrets it hides...and how many lives it has already cost.Seeking answers, she turns for professional help to Rarities Unlimited, and specifically to Erik North, a reclusive manuscript appraiser with a passion for the past, its people, and its treasures. But Erik's careful examination of the vellum pages and the agonized jottings of a medieval scribe is raising perplexing questions -- about the true importance of Serena's legacy, the possible location of the remainder of the lost manuscript...and the senseless murder of an eccentric old woman in the blistering beat of California's Mojave Desert.Suddenly, without warning, Serena and Erik find themselves thrust into the center of a lethal firestorm that rages between two worlds...between a past long dead yet living on in an ancient text and a contemporary landscape fraught with peril and terror. Now there is no one they dare trust except each other as they make their way across the concrete and neon deserts of Palm Springs and Los Angeles, getting closer by the minute to a shocking revelation about what really is at stake and how far a killer will go to possess a vanished treasure. In the blink of an eye, Serena Charters and Erik North have become targets of an unseen and determined stalker. And their only hope of survival is to keep moving...A spellbinder that bristles with almost unbearable intensity, Elizabeth Lowell's <I>Moving Target</I> is a masterful tale of intrigue, secrets, danger, and murder -- a breathtaking work that brings one of America's favorite storytellers to an electrifying new level. .