What She’s Hiding: A Thriller

The day Henry Gladstone, a lawyer at a white-shoe Manhattan law firm, met Leslie Dunlop, he knew she was trouble--but he couldn’t say no. Their steamy affair became a marriage filled with secrets and lies that collapsed as spectacularly as it began.

Cut to today: Leslie, who Henry hasn’t heard from since their divorce, bursts into his office and announces that if he doesn’t hand over a quarter-million dollars, they’ll both be killed. Henry dismisses her story as a stupid attempt to steal his money and--despite his still-smoldering desire for her--tells her to get lost. But when he comes home to find his apartment ransacked, he begins to think this time Leslie may be telling the truth. And now that he desperately needs to find her, she’s disappeared again.

In a harrowing journey through the glittering heights and shadowy corners of New York City, where the legal world meets the dark underside of the city, Henry assembles a team that includes his best friend Aiden, a private investigator named Gabriella, and Aiden’s ex-wife Emma, to track down a missing engagement ring, stay one step ahead of the Russian mob, and uncover the secrets of Leslie’s past. As the screws turn tighter and tighter, Henry must learn who he can trust to uncover the truth...before it’s too late.

In What She’s Hiding, Art Bell masterfully weaves a noirish tale of suspense and emotional turbulence as a dangerous woman draws Henry ever further into a high-stakes game that neither one of them may survive.

Art Bell is a writer and former television executive known for developing and launching the Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) while at HBO; and, as president of Court TV, overseeing daily live courtroom coverage and the production of hundreds of hours of original true-crime television series, documentaries, and movies. His memoir Constant Comedy: How IStarted Comedy Central and Lost My Sense of Humor, was a finalist in the 2020 Best Book Awards in both the memoir and business categories. Bell has had short stories, nonfiction, and satire published in several journals, including Lowestoft Chronicle, Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature, The Ocotillo Review, Fiction Southeast, Castabout Arts and Literature, High Shelf Press, and Writers Read. What She’s Hiding is his first novel. Bell lives with his wife, Carrie, in Park City, Utah.