There was a very serious communist strain among American intellectuals before the war. America was a more tolerant place in those days, and Communists were not treated as pariahs. That ended with the McCarthy era.

It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl.

But the lesson of Abraham's story is that God demands the best we have to offer, that which is most precious to us.

Thrillers have been traditionally very masculine books; the women characters often rather decorative.

After a certain point, most people, including editors, will tell you everything you do is great.

She looked at his young face, so full of concern and tenderness; and she remembered why she had run away from everyone else and sought solitude here. She yearned to kiss him, and she saw the answering longing in his eyes. Every fiber of her body told her to throw herself into his arms, but she knew what she had to do. She wanted to say, I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage; but instead she said: "I think I'm going to marry Alfred.

Why was it, Lloyd wondered, that the people who wanted to destroy everything good about their country were the quickest to wave the national flag?