COVER CHARACTERISTIC (#9): HANDCUFFS

"Cages come in lots of different colors and shapes. Some are gilded, while others have a slamming door. But golden handcuffs are still handcuffs."

Amy Harmon

*Cover Characteristic is a book meme hosted by Sugar & Snark. Check it out and participate!

6. Handcuffs & High Heels (Ruby Wisdom #1) by J.M. Edwards

Summary:

Meet Ruby Wisdom. Smart and sensible. Humorous and heroic. Tough and tender. As the only private investigator in tiny Wormwood, New York, Ruby handles a wide range of cases—everything from jewel heists and cheating husbands to stolen wedding gowns, kidnapped artwork and fraudulent heirs.

In Handcuffs & High Heels, Ruby is hired by the wife of a millionaire when the woman suspects her husband is having an affair. And he is—several of them. But when Ruby begins connecting the duplicitous dots, the deceitful spouse ends up in a much more difficult dilemma than being caught with his hands in Cookie’s jar. And that’s when the real investigation begins. 

5. Count All Her Bones (Girl, Stolen #2) by April Henry

Summary:

Six months ago, Griffin Sawyer meant to steal a car, but he never meant to steal the girl asleep in the backseat. Panicked, he took her home. His father, Roy, decided to hold Cheyenne―who is blind―for ransom. Griffin helped her escape, and now Roy is awaiting trial. 

As they prepare to testify, Griffin and Cheyenne reconnect and make plans to meet. But the plan goes wrong and Cheyenne gets captured by Roy’s henchmen―this time for the kill. Can Cheyenne free herself? And is Griffin a pawn or a player in this deadly chase?

4. The Murdock Papers: Part 6 (Daredevil #81) by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev (Illustrator)

Summary:

It's the end of an era. The end of the Eisner-Award winning Bendis/Maleev run is here, and you'll have to see it to believe it! The team that outed Matt Murdock will leave you awestruck with a major change in the life of the Man Without Fear. A major, major change. 'Nuff said! Guest-starring everyone!

3. Designers in Handcuffs: How to Create Great Graphics When Time, Materials and Money Are Tight by Pat Matson Knapp

Summary:

Graphic designers at all levels offer advice on how to survive when their hands seem tied. The book identifies the key areas of restraint in graphic design projects: budgets, deadlines, client relationships and artwork, plus unexpected limitations like computer failure or loss of key personnel.

2. The Phantom Detective - The Broadway Murders - August, 1938 24/1 (The Phantom Detective #66) by Robert Wallace & Rafael De Soto (Artist)

Summary:

Before Superman, before Batman and Captain America, taking on those criminals of the 1930s the Phantom Detective fights for justice! 

Reprinting Robert Wallace's "The Broadway Murders," two flaming corpses, the doomed pawns in a daring killer's game, are hurled into the midst of a throng of Manhattan merrymakers - and catapult the Phantom into action as he embarks on one of his most exciting manhunts!

1. Houdini: A Musical by Muriel Rukeyser

Summary:

This previously unpublished work presents the spectacular life of world-renowned escape artist, Harry Houdini. Part biography part fantasy, Houdini unlocks Rukeyser's worlds of illusion and reality as she leads us from Houdini's childhood in Appleton, Wisconsin (picking up pins with his eyelids) to his acts under water and onstage. 

We meet his wife Bess, his mother, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the poet's own Marco Bone, vehicle of voices, spirits, and songs. Rukeyser presents Houdini's shocking congressional testimony against spiritual mediums. She shows his great feats of escape, his complex relationships with his mother and his wife, and his ironic, untimely death.