Billowing clouds of smoke violate the neon glow of the Nishi-Ginza when an explosion rips through one of Tokyo's crowded pachinko parlors.
It's a deadly beginning to a trail of deceit and revenge that leads Mack Bolan to a group of corrupt U.S. servicemen operating a drug pipeline back to the States. Their Japanese leader has ambitious plans: he intends to cripple America with the very weapon that scarred him.
Bolan follows his own code of honor to prevent a nuclear bomb from creating another Nagasaki. Views: 60
From Publishers WeeklyFor 213 years, beginning around 1700, the "incorrigible pioneering" of merchant traders of the East India Company furthered the "peculiarly diffuse character" of the British Empire. British author Keay tells an ambitious story with sweep and brio, encompassing the company's origins as a "bane of bedraggled pioneers" in search of spices in the remote Indonesian archipelago; its role in the 1690 founding of Calcutta (an episode of "commercial greed and political mayhem"); and the opening up of China in 1700, which was to become the company's most profitable trade. Keay not only portays some of the adventurers and potentates who encountered one another but also grasps the details of trade, some more momentous than others: one missive from London to India mixed declarations of war with Spain and complaints about a bar bill. The company's monopoly charter was eventually broken not by rival traders but by British manufacturers wanting more overseas outlets for their products. If, as Keay notes, there are "enough incomplete histories of the Company to justify a health warning," then this book is a salubrious contribution. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistConventional wisdom has it that the commercial imperialism of the early English trading companies was intertwined with the political imperialism of the expanding British empire. In this reexamination of the English East India Company, Keay, an author and broadcaster specializing in Asian history, acknowledges that "but for the Company there would have been not only no British India but also no global British Empire." But he also shows that the triumph of imperialism helped bring about the downfall of the company by eliminating its monopolies and creating conditions for the 1857 Indian mutiny. Keay's title is intentionally ironic; he reports, "venal and disreputable, [the company's] servants were believed to have betrayed their race by begetting a half caste tribe of Anglo-Indians, and their nation by corrupt government and extortionate trade." Published two years ago in Britain and cited as one of that year's three best books by the Financial Times (London), The Honourable Company fascinatingly illuminates one of the lesser-known chapters of Asian history. David Rouse Views: 60
An invaluable guide to the art and mind of Virginia Woolf, drawn by her husband from the personal record she kept over a period of twenty-seven years. Included are entries that refer to her own writing, others that are clearly writing exercises; accounts of people and scenes relevant to the raw material of her work; and comments on books she was reading. Edited and with a Preface by Leonard Woolf; Indices. Views: 60
HOLIDAY EDITION: It is November, 1880, and the future looks promising for Annie and Nate Dawson. Nate’s law practice is taking off. Annie has made the transition from pretend clairvoyant to a successful financial consultant. And they are looking forward to spending their first Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays together.For Robert Livingston, the owner San Francisco’s newest grand emporium, the holidays don’t look so promising. Not if he can’t figure out how to stop whoever is stealing from his department store, the Silver Strike Bazaar.However, when he hires the Dawsons to investigate, they discover that behind the doors of his “Palace of Plenty,” nothing is quite what it seems.Pilfered Promises, a sweet cozy historical mystery, is the fifth novel in the Victorian San Francisco Mystery series featuring Annie and Nate Dawson and their friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Views: 60
In THE DEVIL GAVE THEM BLACK WINGS a cursed angel battling a paternal complex shadows an abducted child with a vengeful father who will do anything to get her back… He mourns the loss of innocence in the young neighbor girl who is determined to find the kidnapped child… And he seeks to offer peace to a despondent husband returning to his wife’s childhood home after her death on 9/11… Views: 60
Love doesn't matter. Romance doesn't exist. (Part 11 of 12 in The Future of Sex series) In the year 2060, sex is a game of extremes. No desire is unexplored and even the unimaginable is possible. Alexa Mathis, head of the monolithic O Corporation, has found a prodigy she believes will drive her sex empire to rapturous new limits: Chloe Shaw, a common girl with uncanny gifts that make her a powerful escort. Chloe doesn't believe in love. She believes in ecstasy, and her employer's newest tool to usher "the future of sex": an intelligent network known as The Beam. And so it is until she meets Andrew ... and the whole world changes. The Future of Sex is a 12-part serial that is being published in installments. As such, episodes are short and sometimes end on cliffhangers. Views: 60
On January 6, 2017, a lone gunman took five lives and wounded eight people at Fort Lauderdale Airport. This book is about the Lauderdale shooting told from the perspective of bestselling author William Hazelgrove, who just happened to be there with his wife and children.Though focused on one terrifying incident that the author witnessed, this story is also a prototype of American shootings showing the interplay of victims, police, media, the shooter, and what constitutes this peculiar American form of violence. The author documents the perverse chain of events that set the stage for this tragedy: the failure of police and the FBI to stop this troubled Iraq War veteran, who had earlier approached them and said point-blank that he was hearing voices telling him to kill others; the incredible fact that his weapon was taken and then given back to him, the very gun that would kill five people and shut down a major airport for forty-eight hours; and the... Views: 60
From Publishers Weekly Set in England in 1865, Finch's impressive debut introduces an appealing gentleman sleuth, Charles Lenox. When Lady Jane Grey's former servant, Prue Smith, dies in an apparent suicide-by-poisoning, Lady Jane asks Lenox, her closest friend, to investigate. The attractive young maid had been working in the London house of George Barnard, the current director of the Royal Mint. Lenox quickly determines that Smith's death was a homicide, but both Barnard and Scotland Yard resist that conclusion, forcing him to work discreetly. Aided by his Bunter-like butler and friend, Graham, the detective soon identifies a main suspect, only to have that theory shattered by that man's murder. Finch laces his writing with some Wodehousian touches and devises a solution intricate enough to fool most readers. Lovers of quality historical whodunits will hope this is the first in a series. Views: 60
