<DIV><b>From cult phenomenon to award-winning literary sensation, "the sexiest action figure since James Bond" (<i>Seattle Weekly</i>) returns in an exhilarating new thriller.</b><br><br> <i>It doesn't matter how well trained you are, how big, how fast, how strong; there will always be someone out there bigger or faster or stronger. Always.</i><br><br> That's what Aud Torvingen teaches the students in her self-defense class. But the question is whether Aud really believes this lesson herself-and if not, what it will take for her to learn it.</i><br><br> Aud has trained herself to achieve a fierce, machine-like precision, in hand-to-hand combat as well as life. But in Always she is abruptly confronted with the limits of her own power. Her self-defense classes spin violently out of her grasp and, still reeling from the consequences, she embarks on a seemingly simple investigation of Seattle real estate fraud that pulls her into something far more complicated and dangerous than she had imagined.<BR><BR></DIV>