title: An Absolute Gentleman: A Novel
author:  R. M. Kinder 
description: You may never look quite the same way at that punctilious little man down the street after reading this chilling first novel from Kinder, author of two well-received short story collections (<I>A Near-Perfect Gift</I> and <I>Sweet Angel Band</I>). Inspired by her own brush with a serial killer&mdash;back in the late '80s her neighbor Robert Weeks was sentenced to life in prison for two murders and suspected of more&mdash;Kinder deftly limns the deadly odyssey of Arthur Blume, a middle-aged creative writing professor who manages to be both the most ordinary and the most monstrous of creatures. The well-paced action cuts between Blume's Missouri present and horrific past in Georgia as the child of a psychotic teenage mother (which forms his view of treachery as the natural order and women as innately deceptive). Along the way, his slyly dropped clues&mdash;or are they red herrings?&mdash;add to the intrigue. Though one wishes that Kinder had gone lighter on some of the Southern-fried Freud, this artfully told tale of psychological suspense is as gripping as the spider webs Blume is so fond of studying. <I>(Oct.)</I> <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  A Gentleman’s Stipulation
  
  By Jean Wilde
  
  
  A Gentleman’s Stipulation Copyright © 2020
  
  by Jean Wilde
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
  manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
  quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
  places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s
  imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons
  (living or dead), events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  Contents
  
  Chapter 1
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  5
  
  Chapter 2
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  12
  
  Chapter 3
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  17
  
  Chapter 4
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