When Fenella Woods inherited her spinster aunt’s estate, she’d been surprised to learn that Mona had something of a racy past. Everyone she met seemed to have a story about Mona, and most of them seemed to involve wealthy and attractive men.
Even so, Fenella wasn’t prepared for a total stranger to start yelling at her at a party because of her relationship to Mona. Phillipa Clucas thinks that her recently deceased husband had an affair with Mona, something that Mona (who is still hanging around Fenella’s apartment, not quite ready to move on to the afterlife) denies.
An unexplained series of accidents among other women who may or may not have been involved with Phillipa’s husband has Fenella worried. CID Inspector Mark Hammersmith, who is covering for Fenella’s friend Daniel while he’s away, doesn’t seem to share her concerns.
Can she persuade Mark that the series of accidents are really murders? Can she convince him that she isn’t the common link between the cases? And can she work out what’s really happening to the women who used to be Mona’s friends without Daniel’s help?
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The premier anthology of contemporary American poetry continues with an exceptional volume edited by award-winning novelist and poet Sherman Alexie.Since its debut in 1988, The Best American Poetry has become a mainstay for the direction and spirit of American poetry. Each volume in the series presents the year's most extraordinary new poems and writers. Guest editor Sherman Alexie's picks for The Best American Poetry 2015 highlight the depth and breadth of the American experience. Culled from electronic and print journals, the poems showcase some of our leading luminaries—Amy Gerstler, Terrance Hayes, Ron Padgett, Jane Hirshfield—and introduce a number of outstanding younger poets taking their place in the limelight. A leading figure since his breakout poetry collection The Business of Fancydancing in 1992, Sherman Alexie won the National Book Award for his novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. He describes... Views: 42
A decent man would have let her go after our one-night stand, but I’m not decent. Three years ago, Kennedy Mclane saw the real me after we had sex. She saw the ruthless attorney who gets clients—yes, even the guilty ones—off on technicalities. She glimpsed my heart of stone and ran in the other direction, because I’m everything she shouldn’t want.For three long years, I’ve waited for my good girl to turn bad. ’Cause when she does, it won’t matter if she’s ready for me, or if she can take it. Hard. We have unfinished business, and I’ve been more than fair. She'll probably hate me by the end of all this. But I don't care anymore. I’m going to get her out of my system, one way or another.** Views: 42
Diana stands before the mirror preening with her best friend, Maureen. Suddenly, a classmate enters holding a gun, and Diana sees her life dance before her eyes. In a moment the future she was just imagining—a doting wife and mother at the age of forty—is sealed by a horrific decision she is forced to make. In prose infused with the dramatically feminine sensuality of spring, we experience seventeen-year-old Diana's uncertain steps into womanhood—her awkward, heated forays into sex; her fresh, fragile construction of an identity. Together with the sights and sounds of renewal, we experience the tasks of Diana's adulthood: protecting her beloved daughter and holding onto her successful husband.An acclaimed writer and poet, Laura Kasischke has crafted a consciousness that encompasses the truth of a teenager's world and the profound transformation of that world at midlife. Resonant and deeply stirring, The Life Before Her Eyes finds piercing beauty in... Views: 42
v5America's bestselling political humorist finds humor in some of the world's most unlikely places. P. J. O'Rourke travels to hellholes around the globe in "Holidays in Hell" looking for trouble, the truth, and a good time. Now available from Grove Press, P. J. O'Rourke's classic, best-selling guided tour of the world's most desolate, dangerous, and desperate places. "Tired of making bad jokes" and believing that "the world outside seemed a much worse joke than anything I could conjure," P. J. O'Rourke traversed the globe on a fun-finding mission, investigating the way of life in the most desperate places on the planet, including Warsaw, Managua, and Belfast. The result is Holidays in Hell--a full-tilt, no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture, and ideology. P.J.'s adventures include storming student protesters' barricades with riot police in South Korea, interviewing Communist insurrectionists in the Philippines, and going undercover dressed in Arab garb in the Gaza Strip. He also takes a look at America's homegrown horrors as he braves the media frenzy surrounding the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington D.C., uncovers the mortifying banality behind the white-bread kitsch of Jerry Falwell's Heritage USA, and survives the stultifying boredom of Harvard's 350th anniversary celebration. Packed with P.J.'s classic riffs on everything from Polish nightlife under communism to Third World driving tips, Holidays in Hell is one of the best-loved books by one of today's most celebrated humorists.Amazon.com ReviewNo doubt about it: P. J. O'Rourke has a bizarre sense of fun. "What I've ... been," he writes in his introduction to Holidays in Hell "is a Trouble Tourist--going to see insurrections, stupidities, political crises, civil disturbances and other human folly because ... because it's fun." Forget Hawaii or the Poconos--O'Rourke gets his jollies in places like war-torn Lebanon where he is greeted at the border by a gun barrel in his face, or Seoul, just in time for election-day violence. Wherever he goes, however, O'Rourke takes his quirky sense of humor, laser eye for detail, and artful way with words: a Philippine army officer is "powerful-looking in a short, compressed way, like an attack hamster," and the Syrian army is described as having "dozens of silly hats, mostly berets in yellow, orange and shocking pink, but also tiny pillbox chapeaux.... The paratroopers wear shiny gold jumpsuits and crack commando units have skin-tight fatigues in a camouflage pattern of violet, peach, flesh tone and vermilion on a background of vivid purple. This must give excellent protective coloration in, say, a room full of Palm Beach divorcees in Lily Pulitzer dresses."O'Rourke's flip, sarcastic style isn't for everyone, of course; the concept that anyone could find sightseeing in the Beirut or El Salvador of the 1980s fun might prove offensive to more than a few readers right off the bat. But love him or hate him, P. J. O'Rourke knows how to tell a good story, and if you like your travel writing laced with more than a little cynicism, Holidays in Hell could be just the book you've been looking for.Review'The first few pages of this book made me laugh so much I dropped it on my month-old baby... Holidays in Hell is a splendid read' EVENING STANDARD Views: 42
Prose; fiction, Masculine Views: 42
Anthony Awards (nominee) "Masterful… deftly rendered and deeply satisfying. For days on end I woke with this story on my mind." – David Wroblewski "A very fine novel indeed." – Richard Russo "A highly original crime offering." – George Pelecanos "A great novel." – Dennis Lehane In a small Mississippi town, two men are torn apart by circumstance and reunited by tragedy in this resonant new novel from the award-winning author of the critically-acclaimed Hell at the Breech. Larry Ott and Silas ''32'' Jones were unlikely boyhood friends. Larry was the child of lower middle-class white parents, Silas the son of a poor, single, black mother – their worlds as different as night and day. Yet a special bond developed between them in Chabot, Mississippi. But within a few years, tragedy struck. In high school, a girl who lived up the road from Larry had gone to the drive-in movie with him and nobody had seen her again. Her stepfather tried to have Larry arrested but no body was found and Larry never confessed. The incident shook up the town, including Silas, and the bond the boys shared was irrevocably broken. Almost thirty years have passed. Larry, a mechanic, lives a solitary existence in Chabot, never able to rise above the whispers of suspicion, the looks of blame that have shadowed him. Silas left home to play college baseball, but now he's Chabot's constable. The men have few reasons to cross paths, and they rarely do – until fate intervenes again. Another teenaged girl has disappeared, causing rumors to swirl once again. Now, two men who once called each other friend are finally forced to confront the painful past they've buried for too many years. Views: 42
It is 1321 and the King's favourite, Hugh Despenser, is corruptly using his position to steal lands and wealth from other lords. His rapacity has divided the nation and civil war looms. In Tiverton rape and murder have unsettled the folk preparing for St Giles' feast. Philip Dyne has confessed and claimed sanctuary in St Peter's church, but he must leave the country. If he doesn't, he'll be declared an outlaw, his life forfeit. Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and his friend, Bailiff Simon Puttock, arrive at Lord Hugh de Courtenay's castle at Tiverton for the feast. When a messenger arrives calling for the Coroner, Baldwin and Simon accompany him to view the body of Sir Gilbert of Carlisle, Despenser's ambassador to Lord Hugh. Not far off lies a second corpse: the decapitated figure of Dyne. The Coroner is satisfied that Dyne killed the knight and was then murdered: Dyne was an outlaw, so he doesn't merit the law's attention, but Sir Baldwin feels too many questions are left unanswered. How could a weak, unarmed peasant kill a trained warrior? And if he did, what happened to Sir Gilbert's horse – and his money? When Baldwin and Simon are themselves viciously attacked, they know that there must be another explanation. A more sinister enemy is at large, someone with a powerful motive to kill. But there are so many suspects… Views: 42
Vastrick Security are hired to keep an African Stateswoman alive for just 72 hours until she can deliver a speech that will rock the world. Not too difficult a task unless several African despots, rogue security forces and the world’s deadliest assassin want her dead. The second City of London Thriller has shocks at every turn as the plot races from London to Cuba and on to the USA. Views: 42
How far can a hero fall? Far enough to lose his soul? Dhamon Grimwulf, once a Hero of the Heart, has sunk into a bitter life of crime and squalor. Now, as the great dragon overlords of the Fifth Age coldly plot to strengthen their rule and to destroy their enemies, he must somehow find the will to redeem himself. But perhaps it is too late. Views: 42
