Praise for the Aimée Leduc series set in Paris: "Compelling. . . . Aimée makes an engaging protagonist, vulnerable beneath her vintage chic clothing and sharp-witted exterior."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Charming. . . . Aimée is one of those blithe spirits who can walk you through the city's historical streets and byways with their eyes closed."--The New York Times Book Review "The buzz is partly about her heroine's hip, next-generation, cutting-edge investigations and partly about Paris, a setting of unrivaled charm."--Houston Chronicle "Cara Black books are good companions. . . . Fine characters, good suspense, but, best of all, they are transcendentally, seductively, irresistibly French. If you can't go, these will do fine. Or, better yet, go and bring them with you."--Alan Furst "Conveys vividly those layers of history that make the stones of Paris sing for so many of... Views: 56
Mickey Spillane socks you a scorching thriller about a tough ex-GI who can't remember his past or forget a buddy's bloody murder. There's plenty of boiling action, excitement, and suspense as well as a bevy of beautiful, cunning women in this whirlwind thriller--the shock-powered story of a brave man's determination to buck small-town corruption and avenge his innocent friend. Views: 56
The Stars are Ours! is a 1954 science fiction novel describes the first interstellar voyage, undertaken to escape the tyranny that rules the Earth. This is the first novel in the Astra duology. Followed by Star Born . Views: 56
Moorcock is off at full throttle. Every scene has ironic meaning. A couple of minor stories, and we're into the lush, manic rush to Armageddon that is STORMBRINGER! Still the greatest plot on the planet, build and build until the final, cataclysmic - and said to be the best in all fantasy fiction - ending, which is completely stunning. Long before Pullman won the Whitbread Moorcock was offering this mad, bad and thoroughly humane fantasy to the world. He remains a giant. Views: 56
It was a very simple case-just a matter of missing moneyBut it soon became more… a lot more.First there was a young widow whose lust for wealth was insatiable; then there was a half-crazed ex-cop who decided to take the law into his own hands. Add to that a stunningly beautiful model.Soon it was a lot more than just some missing money. Soon it was a web of intrigue and danger.And murder! Views: 56
Travel, sex, death and love - a most surprising collection of stories.'I love airports. I love the opera of airports . . . Families with high-gloss airport emotion, a linkage of smiles, tears and touching. A moratorium on malice, air-conditioned goodwill. When the airport sanctuary is left, the automatic doors open into the sweaty heat and blown litter, and they also re-open the wounds of the family and the dust blows into the lacerations.' In an odyssey which moves across a world stage, Tales of Mystery and Romance touches high comedy and low farce - the non-event of the Jack Kerouac Wake, the dispute over the exact form of secular penetration achieved by Milton, an argument with an ex-wife over 'motel sex' - and much tender and perceptive observation. You will come away from this book at least knowing something about belly dancers, the intricacies of homosexual sex, and even life after death. Views: 56
Further adventures from the much–loved Captain Blood, the 'Robin Hood' of the Spanish Seas. In his latest exploits, The Chronicles of Captain Blood takes him to new adventures with as much excitement and swashbuckling adventure as ever before. Winning invaluable treasures, rescuing his crew from almost certain death and saving an English settlement are all in a day's work for this remarkable hero of land and sea. Views: 56
In this novel by a Nebula Award–winning author, a man looks for love in a society where you can be anyone you want, on a moon at war with Earth. In a story as exciting as any science fiction adventure written, Samuel R. Delany's 1976 SF novel, originally published as Triton, takes us on a tour of a utopian society at war with . . . our own Earth! High wit in this future comedy of manners allows Delany to question gender roles and sexual expectations at a level that, twenty years after it was written, still make it a coruscating portrait of "the happily reasonable man," Bron Helstrom—an immigrant to the embattled world of Triton, whose troubles become more and more complex, till there is nothing left for him to do but become a woman. Against a background of high adventure, this minuet of a novel dances from the farthest limits of the solar system to Earth's own Outer Mongolia. Alternately funny and moving, it is a wide-ranging tale in which... Views: 56
Novel length offering in the Lord Darcy series; where magic takes the place of technology and the investigator’s friend is suspected of murder by magic.
Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1967. Views: 56
Are you craving Christie? Yearning for a plot? Whimpering softly into your teacup about the days when one could count on a nice civilized, mannerly sort of murder, with a sleuth who was reasonably free of neuroses and substance addictions? Patricia Moyes to the rescue! In Dead Men Don’t Ski she introduces Inspector Henry Tibbett, a blissfully ordinary English copper with a pleasantly plump wife and a nose for the bad guys. Sadly for Henry (but happily for us) that nose has a knack of ruining his vacations. In Dead Men, he and Emmy are headed for the Italian Dolomites, ready for a spot of skiing and some first-class people-watching, all those athletic youngsters in their swanky late-1950s ski outfits. It’s all very “Mad Men” until one dead body turns up, and then another, and it becomes clear that Murder has come to the mountain.**About the AuthorPatricia Moyes (1923-2000) was a British mystery writer best known for her “Henry Tibbet” series of old-fashioned mysteries. During WWII Moyes joined the Royal Air Force and became a radar operator and flight officer. Subsequently, she worked as assistant to actor and director Peter Ustinov, with whom she collaborated on a film script. She also spent some years as assistant editor for British Vogue. A cat lover, Moyes wrote two books about cats. Views: 56
Brilliantly portrayed by a novelist with "a talent for hyperbole and downright yarning unequaled since Mark Twain", (Saturday Review), this slave's-eye view of the Civil War exposes America's racial foibles of the past and present with uninhibited humor and panache.Mixing history, fantasy, political reality, and comedy, Ishmael Reed spins the tale of three runaway slaves and the master determined to catch them. His on-target parody of fugitive slave narratives and other literary forms includes a hero who boards a jet bound for Canada; Abraham Lincoln waltzing through slave quarters to the tune of "Hello, Dolly"; and a plantation mistress entranced by TV's "Beecher Hour". Filled with insights into the political consciences (or lack thereof) of both blacks and whites, Flight to Canada confirms Reed's status as "a great writer" (James Baldwin)."A demonized Uncle Tom's Cabin, a book that reinvents the particulars of slavery in America with comic rage". -- The New York Times Book Review"Wears the mantle of Baldwin and Ellison like a high-powered Flip Wilson in drag...a terrifically funny book". -- Baltimore Sun Views: 56
From the Inside FlapThis exquisite, resonant novel is a brilliant portrait of marriage by a contemporary American master. Even as he lingers over the lustrous surface of Viri and Nedra's marriage, James Salter makes us see the cracks that are spreading through it, flaws that will in time mar it beyond repair. "An unexpectedly moving ode to beautiful lives frayed by time." Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.OneWE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.The day is white as paper. The windows are chilled. The quarries lie empty, the silver mine drowned. The Hudson is vast here, vast and unmoving. A dark country, a country of sturgeon and carp. In the fall it was silver with shad. The geese flew overhead in their long, shifting V's. The tide flows in from the sea.The Indians sought, they say, a river that "ran both ways." Here they found it. The salt wedge penetrates as far in as fifty miles; sometimes it reaches Poughkeepsie. There were huge beds of oysters here, seals in the harbor, in the woods inexhaustible game. This great glacial cut with its nuptial bays, the coves of wild celery and rice, this majestic river. The birds, like punctuation, are crossing in level flight. They seem to approach slowly, accelerate, pass overhead like arrows. The sky has no color. A feeling of rain.All this was Dutch. Then, like so much else, it was English. The river is a reflection. It bears only silence, a glittering cold. The trees are naked. The eels sleep. The channel is deep enough for ocean liners; they could, if they wished, astonish the inner towns. There are turtles and crabs in the marshes, herons, Bonaparte gulls. The sewage pours from the cities further up. The river is filthy, but cleanses itself. The fish are numbed; they drift with the tide.Along the banks there are houses of stone, no longer fashionable, and wooden houses, drafty and bare. There are still estates that exist, remnants of the great land parcels of the past. Near the water, a large Victorian, the brick painted white, trees high above it, a walled garden, a decaying greenhouse with ironwork along the roof. A house by the river, too low for the afternoon sun. It was flooded instead with the light of morning, with the eastern light. It was in glory at noon. There are spots where the paint has turned dark, bare spots. The gravel paths are dissolving; birds nest in the sheds.We strolled in the garden, eating the small, bitter apples. The trees were dry and gnarled. The lights in the kitchen were on.A car comes up the driveway, back from the city. The driver goes inside, only for a moment until he's heard the news: the pony has gotten loose.He is furious. "Where is she? Who left the door unlatched?""Oh God, Viri. I don't know."In a room with many plants, a kind of solarium, there is a lizard, a brown snake, a box turtle asleep. The entry step is deep, the turtle cannot leave. He sleeps on the gravel, his feet drawn up close. His nails are the color of ivory, they curl, they are long. The snake sleeps, the lizard sleeps.Viri has his coat collar up and is trudging uphill. "Ursula!" he calls. He whistles.The light has gone. The grass is dry; it creaks underfoot. There was no sun all day. Calling the pony's name, he advances toward the far corners, the road, the adjoining fields. A stillness everywhere. It begins to rain. He sees the one-eyed dog that belongs to a neighbor, a kind of husky, his muzzle gray. The eye is closed completely, sealed, covered with fur so long ago was it lost, as if it never existed."Ursula!" he cries."She's here," his wife says when he returns.The pony is near the kitchen door, tranquil, dark, eating an apple. He touches her lips. She bites him absent-mindedly on the wrist. Her eyes are black, lustrous, with the long, crazy lashes of a drunken woman. Her coat is thick, her breath very sweet."Ursula," he says. Her ears turn slightly, then forget. "Where have you been? Who unlocked your stall?"She has no interest in him."Have you learned to do that?" He touches an ear; it is warm, strong as a shoe. He leads her to the shed, whose door is ajar. Outside the kitchen he stamps dirt from his shoes.The lights are on everywhere: a vast, illuminated house. Dead flies the size of beans lie behind the velvet curtains, the wallpaper has corner bulges, the window glass distorts. It is an aviary they live in, a honeycomb. The roofs are thick slate, the rooms are like shops. It gives off no sound, this house; in the darkness it is like a ship. Within, if one listens, there is everything: water, faint voices, the slow, measured rending of grain.In the principal bath, with its stains, sponges, soaps the color of tea, books, water-curled copies of Vogue, he steams in peace. The water is above his knees; it penetrates to the bone. There is carpeting on the floor, a basket of smooth stones, an empty glass of the deepest blue."Papa," they call through the door."Yes." He is reading the Times."Where was Ursula?""Ursula?""Where was she?""I don't know," he says. "She went out for a walk."They wait for something further. He is a storyteller, a man of wonders. They listen for sounds, expecting the door to open."But where was she?""Her legs were wet," he announces."Her legs?""I think she was swimming.""No, Daddy, really.""She was trying to get the onions on the bottom.""There are no onions there.""Oh, yes.""There are?""That's where they grow."They explain it to each other outside the door. It's true, they decide. They wait for him, two little girls squatting like beggars."Papa, come out," they say. "We want to talk to you."He puts aside the paper and sinks one last time into the embrace of the bath."Papa?""Yes.""Are you coming out?"The pony fascinates them. It frightens them. They are ready to run if it makes an unexpected sound. Patient, silent, it stands in its stall; a grazing animal, it eats for hours. Its muzzle has a nimbus of fine hair, its teeth are browned."Their teeth never stop growing," the man who sold her to them said. He was a drunkard, his clothes were torn. "They keep growing out and getting wore down.""What would happen if she didn't eat?""If she didn't eat?""What would happen to her teeth?""Make sure she eats," he said.They often watch her; they listen to her jaws. This mythical beast, fragrant in the darkness, is greater than they are, stronger, more clever. They long to approach her, to win her love.2IT WAS THE AUTUMN OF 1958. Their children were seven and five. On the river, the color of slate, the light poured down. A soft light, God's idleness. In the distance the new bridge gleamed like a statement, like a line in a letter which makes one stop.Nedra was working in the kitchen, her rings set aside. She was tall, preoccupied; her neck was bare. When she paused to read a recipe, her head bent, she was stunning in her concentration, her air of obedience. She wore her wrist watch, her best shoes. Beneath the apron, she was dressed for the evening. People were coming for dinner.She had trimmed the stems of flowers spread on the wood of the counter and begun to arrange them. Before her were scissors, paper-thin boxes of cheese, French knives. On her shoulders there was perfume. I am going to describe her life from the inside outward, from its core, the house as well, rooms in which life was gathered, rooms in the morning sunlight, the floors spread with Oriental rugs that had been her mother-in-law's, apricot, rouge and tan, rugs which though worn seemed to drink the sun, to collect its warmth; books, potpourris, cushions in colors of Matisse, objects glistening like evidence, many of which might, had they been possessed by ancient peoples, have been placed in tombs for another life: clear crystal dice, pieces of staghorn, amber beads, boxes, sculptures, wooden balls, magazines in which were photographs of women to whom she compared herself.Who cleans this large house, who scrubs the floors? She does everything, this woman, she does nothing. She is dressed in her oat-colored sweater, slim as a pike, her long hair fastened, the fire crackling. Her real concern is the heart of existence: meals, bed linen, clothing. The rest means nothing; it is managed somehow. She has a wide mouth, the mouth of an actress, thrilling, bright. Dark smudges in her armpits, mint on her breath. Her nature is extravagant. She buys on impulse, she visits Bendel's as she would a friend's, gathering up five or six dresses and entering a booth, not bothering to draw the curtain fully, a glimpse of her undressing, lean arms, lean trunk, bikini underpants. Yes, she scrubs floors, collects dirty clothes. She is twenty-eight. Her dreams still cling to her, adorn her; she is confident, composed, she is related to long-necked creatures, ruminants, abandoned saints. She is careful, hard to approach. Her life is concealed. It is through the smoke and conversation of many dinners that one sees her: country dinners, dinners at the Russian Tea Room, the Caf? Chauveron with Viri's clients, the St. Regis, the Minotaur.Guests were driving from the city, Peter Daro and his wife. "What time are they coming?""About seven," Viri said."Have you opened the wine?""Not yet."The water was running, her hands were wet."Here, take this tray," she said. "The... Views: 56
He was just a no-account cowhand. Then they pinned a tin star on his chest and he was the law. They swore him in quicker than lightning and didn't expect him to live long enough to pocket his first pay. After all, what chance did a green-as-grass cowpoke have against the killer they called Tularosa? But now Frank Carrico was gunned for justice. And he was going to clean up South Fork with bullets and fists. Because the young lawman was crazy enough to try ... and good enough to succeed! Views: 56
