While waiting for a delayed airplane, old Henry Dailey, the Black's trainer, tells young Alec Ramsay a story of his own youth, travelling with his brother, Bill. Bill Dailey's talent as a horse-whisperer was unmatched in the days before the automobile and young Henry tells of an unscrupulous con-man who mistreats horses into behaving temporarily. Bill is determined to show that the man is a fraud, but can he unmask the con without getting hurt?Walter Farley experimented with many genres of writing and here, in his only foray into historical fiction, he weaves a fascinating tale of life when horses were the primary means of transportation.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 762
Charming, insightful and immensely entertaining in its unique presentation of one of America's legendary figures, Mount Vernon Love Story, by famed suspense writer Mary Higgins Clark, shows the reader the man behind the legend, a man of flesh, blood and passion, and in the author's skilled hands, the story and the man come fully and dramatically alive.
Mary Higgins Clark's interest in George Washington was first sparked by a radio series she was writing in the 1960s, called "Portrait of a Patriot," vignettes of American presidents.
Always a lover of history, she wrote this biographical novel -- her first book -- and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, which was the family motto of George Washington's mother. With all events, dates, scenes and characters based on historical research, the book was published in 1969.
Its recent discovery by a Washington family descendent led to its reissue under its new title, Mount Vernon Love Story.
In researching George Washington's life, Mary Higgins Clark was surprised to find the engaging man behind the pious legend. He was a giant of a man in every way, starting with his physical height. In an era when men averaged five foot seven inches, he towered over everyone at six foot three. He was the best dancer in the colony of Virginia. He was also a master horseman, which was why the Indians gave him their highest compliment: "He rides his horse like an Indian."
She dispels the widespread belief that although George Washington married an older woman, a widow, his true love was Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife. Martha Dandridge Custis was older, but only by three months -- she was twenty-seven to his twenty-six when they met. Mary Higgins Clark describes their relationship from their first meeting, their closeness and his tenderness toward her two children. Martha shared his life in every way, crossing the British lines to join him in Boston and enduring with him the bitter hardship of the winter in Valley Forge. As Lady Bird Johnson was never called Claudia, Martha Washington was never known as Martha. Her family and friends called her Patsy. George always called her "my dearest Patsy" and wore a locket with her picture around his neck.
In Mount Vernon Love Story, Mary Higgins Clark tells the story of a rare marriage and brings to life the human side of the man who became the "father of our country." Views: 761
The Redford rail smash was a bad business. On that cold November morning, glittering with sunshine and a thin layer of snow on the fields, the London-Manchester express hit a wagon that had strayed on to the main line from a siding. Engine and two first coaches were derailed; scattered cinders set fire to the wreckage; and fourteen persons in the first coach lost their lives. Some, unfortunately, were not killed outright. A curious thing was that even when all the names of persons who could possibly have been travelling on that particular train on that particular morning, had been collected and investigated, there were still two charred bodies completely unaccounted for, and both of women. Views: 761
Henry Page, owner of The Northern Light, the oldest and most respected newspaper in Tynecastle, is offered a vast sum to turn over control to a mass-circulation group based in London. He refuses - despite entreaties by his wife to accept - and so begins his fight with the Chronicle, an almost defunct newspaper in the same area which is given new life by London-thinking and London men.
Against Henry Page, a journalist who believes in honest presentation of news without bringing in sensationalism, the Chronicle pulls every dirty trick in the trade. And Henry, brought eventually almost to his knees, stoically holds on to his principles and The Northern Light. It is only when he has won the battle that tragedy robs him of the most important thing in his life.
In the magnificent narrative tradition of The Citadel, The Stars Look Down and Cronin's other classic novels, The Northern Light is a great book by a much-loved author. Views: 761
Robert Forester didn't look like the kind of man to be a prowler.
His ex-wife had told the police he was erratic, liable to violence, had even fired a gun at her.
Maybe he was a psychopathic murderer... Views: 760
Tey's first book; the sad story of a young man's downward path in the difficult post-WWI years in England. Views: 760
The "New Sea" was teeming with a secret life. It was the greatest engineering feat -- the flooding of part of the Sahara Desert. But the new waters that covered up the land also threatened to destroy an ancient, secret civilization beneath the earth. When Mark Sunnet's plane crashed into the New Sea, he and his beautiful companion, Margaret Lawn, were taken prisoner by these secret people. They were taken deep beneath the earth into strange, dark caverns. Caverns that seemed to hold no hope for escape. But Mark and Margaret had to escape. For now, suddenly, they were faced with two terrors -- the secret people who were to be their executioners and the merciless New Sea that threatened to kill them all. . . . Views: 760
Lummox had been the Stuart family pet for years. Though far from cuddly and rather large, it had always been obedient and docile. Except, that is, for the time it had eaten the secondhand Buick . . .
But now, all of a sudden and without explanation, Lummox had begun chomping down on a variety of things -- not least, a very mean dog and a cage of virtually indestructible steel. Incredible!
John Thomas and Lummox were soon in awfully hot water, and they didn't know how to get out. And neither one really understood just how bad things were -- or how bad the situation could get -- until some space voyagers appeared and turned a far-from-ordinary family problem into an extraordinary confrontation. Views: 760
A blockbuster tale from the 1960s--available again after an absence of 15 years--"The Love Machine" tells the story of TV-network titan Robin Stone, "around whom women flutter like so many moths . . . and his rise and fall as he makes the international sex scene, drinks unlimited quantities, and checks out the latest Nielsens" (Newsweek). Views: 760
The Swoop tells of the simultaneous invasion of England by several armies and features references to many well-known figures of the day, among them the politician Herbert Gladstone, novelist Edgar Wallace, actor-managers Seymour Hicks and George Edwardes, and the boxer Bob Fitzsimmons. Views: 759
The novel Dawn of Reckoning, was first published in London in 1925. In 1932, it was published in New York under the title Rage in Heaven. In 1941, it was adapted in the movie 'A Rage in Heaven', a psychological thriller about the destructive power of jealousy which was directed by W. S. Van.
In this story, Phillip Monrell and his former college roommate Ward Andrews arrive at the Monrell home, where they meet Phillip's mother's secretary Stella Bergen. They are both strongly attracted to her but she ends up marrying the idle Phillip.
Phillip is put in charge of the family steel mill, but is not suited for the job. He begins to exhibit signs of mental illness, particularly abnormal jealousy of any competition for his wife's affections. Despite this, he hires Ward to be the chief engineer at the mill. Eventually, Phillip's paranoid suspicion that Ward and Stella love each other drives him to try to kill his rival at work. Ward confronts him and quits. Stella, convinced that her husband is insane, leaves him and meets Ward. Phillip phones them and promises to grant her a divorce if Ward will talk with him in person. Despite Stella's misgivings, Ward agrees to see him. However, Phillip provokes a loud argument and Ward leaves. Afterwards, the madman kills himself, carefully framing Ward for the crime. Ward is arrested, convicted of murder and sentenced to be executed. A frantic Stella is unable to convince anyone of his innocence. The day before the execution, she is visited by Dr. Rameau, a psychiatrist who had been treating Phillip. He is convinced that Phillip committed suicide and that he would have left some message bragging about it. They go to the Monrell mansion and start searching. Mrs. Monrell reveals that her son kept diaries; then, Clark, the butler, recalls that he mailed a package to Paris. They take a flight to France and find the book, which saves Ward from execution.
James Hilton, the son of John Hilton (a schoolmaster) and Elizabeth (a schoolmistress before her marriage) was born on September 9, 1900 in Leigh, Lancashire. He attended the George Monoux School in London before attending Leys School, Cambridge, where he studied and contributed to the school magazine from 1915 to 1918. While he was still an undergraduate at Christ’s College, Cambridge, his first novel, Catherine Herself, was published in 1920. In 1921 he became a freelance journalist, wrote articles, book reviews and a number of his novels which had no commercial success until the publication of And Now Goodbye in 1931. In 1933 he wrote Lost Horizon which won the Hawthornden Prize in 1934. In 1933 he wrote the story of Goodbye, Mr. Chip! which was an immediate success both in Britain and America and by early 1934 Hilton was a best-selling author. There was an insatiable appetite to read his work and all of his earlier novels including 'The Dawn of Reckoning' were reprinted on popular demand.
In 1935, Hilton married his English wife, Alice Brown, and left for the film capital Hollywood. Many of his books became world-wide hit movies, most notably Lost Horizon (1937), Goodbye Mr Chips (1939) and Random Harvest (1942). Hilton became established as a scriptwriter and contributed to the Greer Garson wartime classic Mrs. Miniver. He was a popular figure in Hollywood and counted Frank Capra, Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson amongst his friends and won the Best Screenplay Oscar for Mrs. Miniver in 1942. His first marriage ended in divorce in 1937 and he married Galina Kopineck, a young starlet. This marriage also proved volatile and Hilton divorced her eight years later. He continued to write best-selling novels during and after the Second World War including Random Harvest, So Well Remembered and Time and Time Again. On December 20, 1954 Hilton died in hospital in Long Beach, California of liver cancer. Views: 759
A hilarious spoof on the classic country-house murder mystery, from the Russian masters of sci-fi—never before translated
When Inspector Peter Glebsky arrives at the remote ski chalet on vacation, the last thing he intends to do is get involved in any police work. He’s there to ski, drink brandy, and loaf around in blissful solitude.
But he hadn’t counted on the other vacationers, an eccentric bunch including a famous hypnotist, a physicist with a penchant for gymnastic feats, a sulky teenager of indeterminate gender, and the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Moses. And as the chalet fills up, strange things start happening—things that seem to indicate the presence of another, unseen guest. Is there a ghost on the premises? A prankster? Something more sinister? And then an avalanche blocks the mountain pass, and they’re stuck.
Which is just about when they find the corpse. Meaning that Glebksy’s vacation is over and he’s embarked on the most unusual investigation he’s ever been involved with. In fact, the further he looks into it, the more Glebsky realizes that the victim may not even be human.
In this late novel from the legendary Russian sci-fi duo—here in its first-ever English translation—the Strugatskys gleefully upend the plot of many a Hercule Poirot mystery—and the result is much funnier, and much stranger, than anything Agatha Christie ever wrote. Views: 759
A mythological masterpiece about dedication and the disintegration of romantic affection
In this magnificent epic poem, John Gardner renders his interpretation of the ancient story of Jason and Medeia. Confined in the palace of King Creon, and longing to return to his rightful kingdom Iolcus, Jason asks his wife, the sorceress Medeia, to use her powers of enchantment to destroy the tryrant King Pelias. Out of love she acquiesces, only to find that upon her return Jason has replaced her with King Creon’s beautiful daughter, Glauce.
An ancient myth fraught with devotion and betrayal, deception and ambition, Jason and Medeia is one of the greatest classical legends, and Gardner’s masterful retelling is yet another achievement for this highly acclaimed author. Views: 758
A modern classic in which John le Carré expertly creates a total vision of a secret world, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy begins George Smiley's chess match of wills and wits with Karla, his Soviet counterpart.
It is now beyond a doubt that a mole, implanted decades ago by Moscow Centre, has burrowed his way into the highest echelons of British Intelligence. His treachery has already blown some of its most vital operations and its best networks. It is clear that the double agent is one of its own kind. But which one? George Smiley is assigned to identify him. And once identified, the traitor must be destroyed. Views: 758
Upon its initial publication in 1975, 'Salem’s Lot' was recognized as a landmark work. The novel has sold millions of copies in various editions, but it wasn’t until Centipede Press published a special limited edition in 2004 that King’s masterpiece was brought to brilliant and eerie life.
With the addition of fifty pages of material deleted from the 1975 manuscript as well as material that has since been modified by King, an introduction by him, and two short stories related to the events of the novel, this edition represents the text as the author envisioned it.
Centipede’s deluxe edition, of which only 900 copies were printed, features lavishly creepy photographs by acclaimed photographer Jerry Uelsmann, printed interior endpapers, and a stunning page design.
Doubleday is proud to make this volume, printed from the original design of the Centipede Press edition, available to the general reader. No King aficionado’s library will be complete without owning this definitive illustrated edition of the great 'Salem’s Lot'. Views: 757
