Vicky Bliss is the first to admit she doesn't know a thing about Egyptology. But her familiarity with criminality brings an intelligence agency to her office with an offer she can't refuse: they want her as an undercover operative on a luxury Nile cruise because certain information has come their way that a major theft of Egyptian antiquities is in the works.Vicky suspects the man they are seeking is her occasional lover and frequent adversary, Sir John Smythe.Then, on the first day of her Nile cruise, she spots him - with a beautiful woman clinging to his arm.Stunned and furious, Vicky is too preoccupied with her own feelings to concentrate on crime on the cruise - but then one of the crew is brutally murdered and Vicky finds she must put all her emotions aside and join forces with her duplicitous lover if she wants to solve the case... Views: 18
Arthur Nersesian’s underground literary treasure is an unforgettable slice of gritty New York City life… and the darkly hilarious odyssey of an anonymous slacker. He’s a perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, and he’s just trying to survive. But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater, the fuck-up’s tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation. “Read it and howl,” says Bruce Benderson (author of User ), “and be glad it didn’t happen to you.” Views: 18
Star Girl is a pint-sized superhero with gigantic appeal for 10-year-old Sophie, a French Canadian girl about to make a cross-Canada move with her family. In 1949, the year Newfoundland joins Confederation, Sophie soars over flooded prairies, dinosaur badlands, and the peaks of the Rockies. Each chapter is a snapshot of provincial history and an adventure in which she flies her cape, and the flag, in the name of Stars everywhere! Views: 18
At first a boy's body is discovered, then William, Cess's best friend, disappears . . . What is the mystery behind these sinister events? Cess works caring for the chickens at Montacute House but on her thirteenth birthday everything changes. She finds a precious locket hidden in the chicken coop and is convinced someone has placed it there for her to find. But the day is overshadowed by fear as a boy's body is found by the river, and then when William disappears, Cess is accused by the villagers of bewitching her best friend. Cess is determined to find William and prove the villagers wrong, but is soon embroiled in a plot that threatens her world and forces Cess to draw on powers she never knew she possessed, powers that will place her life in danger if they are discovered by the villagers. Witchcraft, politics and religious ambition combine in this gripping and wonderfully realised novel set in the Somerset of the 1500s. Views: 18
Meredith Fischer’s marriage is comatose and barely breathing. She loves her sexy husband, but he doesn’t see her, doesn’t hear her, and may be involved with one of the cute young students at the college where he teaches. She can either pull the plug on her marriage or try to revive it. Views: 18
There's a bar at the crossroads on the way out of town. Or the way in, depending on whether you're coming or going. Marcie and her husband have run it for years. They had children once, but not any more. After thirty years of marriage, there aren't many secrets left. Couples often tell themselves that, although it's not always true.Arlene appeared in the bar one day not long before Franky Albertino came back, thinking she'd find someone she'd once known, looking for a man named Jack. Franky was hoping that people might have forgotten the mess he left the first time around. Both of them were wrong. Women were always Franky's problem. Women and money. What Arlene's problem is isn't clear. It's obvious she has a history, but then which of us doesn't?As Arlene gets closer to finding Jack - her father? Her lover? - the bar becomes a scene of a great unravelling; secrets buried a lifetime ago are dragged into the light. In Things We Nearly Knew, Jim Powell... Views: 18
When a double agent in Cuba suddenly disappears, there is concern that he might have gone rogue, working against ROOM 59 and the world at large. But one of the agency's top spymasters has a blood tie to the operative in question, which leaves him with an agonizing choice: allow the mission to be scrubbed, and leave thousands to die in the resulting bloodbath―or risk everything he knows, including his career, to keep his secret deeply buried. Views: 18
Respected horror anthologist Stephen Jones edits this collection of 17 stories inspired by the 20th century's master of horror, H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth," in which a young man goes to an isolated, desolate fishing village in Massachusetts, and finds that the entire village has interbred with strange creatures that live beneath the sea, and worship ancient gods. Views: 18
"A brilliant and breathless performance…vintage Burgess… The whole performance stuns." – The Boston Globe "Readers will howl with laughter – a wickedly amusing book." – The Atlantic Monthly "Resurrected by popular request… Enderby the poet stalks about in this fourth Enderby novel, the mouthpiece, as usual, of his author's concern for language and sardonic, sometimes sour appraisal of modern popular culture… Burgess displays the uncanny ear for dialect for which he is noted and, with customary bravado, opens and closes his story with Will Shakespeare himself." – Publishers Weekly "Enderby / Burgess is an absolutely hilarious and sage observer of people, language and life: There are at least a dozen moments in this short book which will make you laugh out loud." – San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle "Enderby is one of Burgess' funniest literary inventions, combining verbal virtuosity with world-class eccentricity." – Houston Post "Literate, funny and smart." – Playboy "Here is a writer who can make the plausible comic and the comic plausible. In the process he enriches our sense of what it means to enjoy life." – San Diego Union Views: 18
