THE SEMPER SONNET
“An adept thriller that is both intelligent and terrifying. Hold tight to your farthingales: this is a roller-coaster ride of a book!” – Bestselling author C.W. Gortner
“Imaginative plotting and depth of character distinguish this centuries-spanning thriller.” – Publishers Weekly
Lee Nicholson takes the academic world by storm, seemingly unearthing a never-before published sonnet by William Shakespeare. When she reads the poem on the air, her words are ignored by all but a small group of people. There are the English and literature buffs. There are the curious and those who seek out hoaxes.
And there are men who will kill to keep the sonnet from ever being read again.
Buried in the language of the sonnet, in its allusions and wordplay, secrets have been hidden dating back to Elizabethan times, shared by the queen and her doctor, by men who seek the crown and men who seek the world. If the riddles are solved, it could explode what the world knows of the monarchy. Or, it could release a pandemic more deadly than the world has ever seen.
Lee’s quest keeps her one step ahead of an international hunt―from the police who want her for murder, to a group of men who will stop at nothing to end her quest, to a mad man who pursues the answers for destructive reasons of his own. Globetrotting as she pieces together what Shakespeare meant, and what he meant to leave unsaid, Lee carries this thriller through to its shocking conclusion.
LOSING ISAIAH
Washington Post:
“Losing Isaiah pushes all the current cultural buttons: the rights of adoptive parents vs. the birth mother’s; the question of whether black children should be adopted by white parents and all the racial issues that go along with that … with warmth and dimension … he gets inside the head of every character.”
Houston Post:
“A fair-minded, sensitive writer with a compelling style …”
Independent on Sunday (UK):
“The suspense structure insists that you career through the pages but towards the end your fingers shrink from their task … the pain, for the loser, is going to be just too acute to bear.”
UK Magazine:
” … a compelling, well-observed read.”
Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
” Margolis does a skillful job of presenting both sides of the story, a story that asks troubling questions and provides no easy answers.”
Manchester Evening News (UK):
” … gripping to the end.”
Publishers Weekly:
” Provocative … engrossing … to its credit, offers no pat answers to complicated issues.”
PRESIDENTS’ DAY
“…a brilliant story of politics at its most venal.”
“The cat-and-mouse game between Mellow and Springer keeps tensions high and the action unpredictable.” - Reviewing the Evidence
In this twisting, ferocious novel of suspense, each presidential candidate has a locked closet of secrets. And one man holds every key.
Julian Mellow has spent his life amassing a fortune from low-risk/high-reward investments. But the one time in his life he got in over his head, he left another man holding the bag, and made an enemy for life, one who has nothing to lose. Now, Mellow has an even greater ambition―to select the next President of the United States―and to make that man do his bidding, in business and beyond.
Mellow’s ruthless plan secretly links to the African nation where his son died years before, where a brutal dictator rules supreme, and where a resistance movement hides in the shadows, waiting for the right time to strike. The novel weaves a brilliant story of politics at its most venal, where murder is a part of the political process, where anyone’s life is up for sale, and where one man could topple the whole kingdom.
CLOSING COSTS
“… in New York, it’s not so much about what you do, who you date or even how you look – it’s about where you live. [Margolis is] a very funny chronicler of this absurdity, in a piece of fiction, no less.” -New York Post
“… a bubbling brew of booms and busts which [Margolis] spices with the bald-faced fakery of sleazy contractors, diabolical domestics and market-savvy pornographers.” -New York Daily News
” … well-drawn characters complement Margolis’s wry observations on Manhattan life and the ups and downs of marriage and career.” -Publishers Weekly
“Fans of Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen will revel in this zesty tale of penthouse envy and dot-com detumescence set in Manhattan’s lofty world of up-and-coming millionaires and down-and-out billionaires … Margolis adroitly targets New York society’s egregious excesses with laserlike accuracy.” -Booklist
When Peggy Gimmel decides to sell the apartment she bought decades ago for a few thousand dollars, she’s thrilled to discover that it’s worth almost $2 million. But her sudden windfall triggers a cascade of unexpected events and plunges her into the dizzying orbit of Lucinda Wells, one of Manhattan’s most successful and ruthless real estate agents. Peggy’s not the only one at Lucinda’s mercy. There’s the technology entrepreneur struggling to salvage his sinking company while gut-renovating his home. The socialite exiled from Park Avenue to the pull-out sofa of her parents’ West Side apartment. The illegal immigrant amassing a fortune printing money. The clueless widow trying to unload a world-class collection of fake artwork. These are just some of the characters whose lives intersect in unlikely ways, all of them nearly overwhelmed by the rocketing real estate market and the hard-charging broker who holds the keys to their futures.
VANISHING ACT
“A good yarn populated with well-drawn characters.” - Booklist
“I’m prepared to offer you fifty thousand dollars for what I have in mind,” the man began.
“Fifty grand is fascinating. What’s the job?”
“I want you to kill me.”
The man, nearly hidden in the shadows inside the black limo, wants his death faked so he will be free to disappear with his lover. Although he needs the money, detective Joe D. knows better than to take the job. But when the tycoon is found murdered, Joe D. is convinced that his would-be client found another “killer.” Thing is, there’s no doubt the man is dead. What happened?
PERFECT ANGEL
“Margolis expertly pulls all our strings and keeps us guessing right up until the final moment.” -Amazon
“Margolis’s strong suit is his ability to juggle an intricate plot and a number of major characters while he keeps his narrative taut and makes every detail count.” -Publisher's Weekly
Perfect Angel is electrifying tale of psychological suspense with a brilliantly original twist, in the best tradition of Mary Higgins Clark and Joy Fielding.
At Julia Mallet’s 35th birthday celebration, a harmless party game goes terribly awry. The next day Julia’s neighbor is brutally and senselessly slain — the first victim of a bloodthirsty psychopath who will kill again and again. And the maniac has left a calling card that only Julia can read — the result of a post-hypnotic suggestion she inadvertently lodged in the subconscious minds of her closest friends the night before. And now Julia knows without a doubt that one of the six people she loves and trusts most in the world is a murderer.
FALSE FACES
“… a hip and urbane debut work … Margolis conveys the intensity and the crass materialism that are the hallmarks of a certain breed of young professionals.”
-Publishers Weekly
Alison Rosen, a young, single Manhattan fashion buyer, first met Linda Levinson seven years ago when both answered the same Village Voice ad for a Fire Island “share.” Since then, they’ve been returning to Seaside Harbor every summer weekend.
One night, after leaving Crane’s, the singles bar that often serves as a pickup place for the lonely, the bored — and the predatory — Linda is found murdered. Did she pick up one too many stray bedmates? Is her killer a spurned bar patron whose advances Linda rejected in her customarily abrupt style? What about the mysterious lover back in the city about whom Linda had spoken but Alison has never met?
Long Island police officer Joe DiGregorio is assigned to work undercover on the case, posing as a yuppie accountant. Together, Joe and Alison, who is unaware of Joe’s masquerade, set out to find the murderer before he strikes again; in the process, they find out that Linda was a woman of many secrets — and they find themselves falling in love in an atmosphere in which nobody can be trusted.