Defeated by South Korean and U.S. forces, North Korea secures an oil rig off the coast of California for a retaliation effort. Now, it's up to the Navy SEALs to force them to surrender — or sink. Views: 28
Vampire Mountain is the fourth title in the gut-wrenching saga of Darren Shan. Darren Shan and Mr. Crepsley make a long and dangerous trek to the vampire's stronghold in the mountains. The trek is a test of skill and endurance one which sees Darren's vampire nature develop, and a new understanding of the mysterious blue-robed servants of the sinister Mr. Tiny. Gavner Purl makes a welcome return when he joins Darren and Mr. Crepsley, but they face more than the cold on their way to the vampire princes — the vampaneze have been there before them… Will Darren's meeting with the Vampire Princes restore is human nature, or turn him further towards the darkness… Views: 28
Harold Kline is an albino--an outcast. Folks stare and taunt, calling him Ghost Boy. It's been that way all of his 14 years. So when the circus comes to town, Harold runs off to join it.Full of colorful performers, the circus seems like the answer to Harold's loneliness. He's eager to meet the Cannibal King, a sideshow attraction who's an albino too. He's touched that Princess Minikin and the Fossil Man, two other sideshow curiosities, embrace him like a son. He's in love with Flip, the beguiling horse trainer, and awed by the all-knowing Gypsy Magda. Most of all, Harold is proud of training the elephants, and of earning respect and a sense of normality. Even at the circus, though, two groups exist--the freaks, and everyone else.Harold straddles both groups. But fitting in with those who are "normal" comes at a price, and sometimes it's recognizing the truth beneath what's apparent that ultimately leads to happiness . . . and turns a boy into a... Views: 28
Amazon.com ReviewAlex McKnight, the burned-out former cop turned PI of Steve Hamilton's Edgar Award-winning first novel, A Cold Day in Paradise, was a promising catcher who never quite made it to the majors. But his old teammate Randy Wilkins did, for one game with the Detroit Tigers that effectively ended the pitcher's career. What Randy can't forget about that game was the beautiful young woman he met the night before he blew his future in professional sports. Over two decades later, he's come to McKnight to track down the mysterious Maria, whose memory still haunts him. The trail is pretty cold after all these years, but Alex manages to get a line on Maria's relatives, who aren't exactly thrilled to make his acquaintance. In fact, they're downright hostile when Alex finds them in a small Michigan town, and he just barely escapes with his life. But he perseveres, and ultimately makes his way to an even smaller resort town, where the natives are almost as unfriendly. The police chief is so hostile to Alex's efforts that he quickly realizes someone else is on her tail, and that there's a good reason she's been hiding out for so long. Not only that, when someone shoots Randy and almost kills him, Alex is in for another nasty surprise. His old friend isn't who he seems to be, and Alex himself may be the victim of exactly the kind of scam Randy's been running since he left the majors.Hamilton has a well-developed sense of place, and he's good at exploring the complexities of his protagonist. But it's Randy the reader wants more fully realized, even after the mystery is solved and Alex makes a beeline back to Paradise. This is a taut, well-written thriller that fulfills Hamilton's promise as a writer to watch. --Jane AdamsFrom Publishers WeeklyEdgar and Shamus Awards-winner Hamilton's third Alex McKnight thriller (after A Cold Day in Paradise; Winter of the Wolf Moon) is the next best thing to Evelyn Wood. It is un-put-downable. McKnight, a former Detroit cop, was "retired" by a bullet that remains lodged in his chest. He owns a small business in upstate Michigan and likes to spend his time in the local pub watching his beloved Tigers on TV. One day, an old friend walks in a man he hasn't seen for 30 years. Alex has a soft spot for old buddies who exploit him mercilessly. This one is no exception. He wants Alex to help him find an former girlfriend whom he hasn't seen in decades. As he won't listen to reason, he and Alex are soon in Detroit on the almost nonexistent trail of his boyhood love. It is a leisurely but interesting trek that doesn't quicken until it seems to peter out entirely. Then, an unexpected act of violence causes everything we have believed real to blur into a haze of doubt. We are in the glorious, shadowy realm of noir where nothing is what it seems. Alex, the street-smart cop, is momentarily a babe in the woods in a pit of vipers. Hamilton's prose moves us smoothly along and his characters are marvelously real. His world is an existential one merciless to the innocent but in this exceptionally entertaining novel, McKnight is a decent man whose wits are a match for a whole world of vipers. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Views: 28
Rabbi Gabrielle takes leave from her rabbinical duties to pursue a doctorate in biblical studies at the University of Chicago. She is summoned to Israel by the Director of Antiquities in Jerusalem when her scholarly live-in boy friend cannot be found to help investigate the robbery of a newly discovered cave at Qumran, site of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. In the search to find him, Gabrielle becomes aware of her friend's involvement in this robbery and while attempting to shield him, gets swept into a cloak and dagger intrigue involving the Catholic Church and the Government of Israel. Views: 28
You can’t escape who you are, but no one ever stops to explain to you the cost of discovering such knowledge. By the time Gwen learns that her fiery red hair marks her as more than just a bad temper on two legs, it’s too late to make a choice. Catapulted into a realm she doesn’t understand Gwen is forced to embrace an unknown legacy and rely on the word of and old friend, who is more than he seems Views: 28
An achingly beautiful collection of poems about one week in a secondary school where everything happens all at once. Zooming in across our cast of characters, we share moments that span everything from hoping to make it to the end of the week, facing it, fitting in, finding friends and falling out, to loving lessons, losing it, and worrying, wearing it well and worshipping from afar. In Everything All At Once, Steven Camden's poems speak to the kaleidoscope of teen experience and life at 'big school'.'All together. Same place.Same walls. Same space.Every emotion under the sunFaith lost. Victories won.It doesn't stop. Until the bell. Now it's heavenNow it's hell.Who knows?Not meI just wrote what I can seeSo what's it about? Here's my responseIt's about everythingAll at once.' Views: 28
A superb memoir by a key member of the 1960s and '70s counterculture in Britain.Through a long and chequered career, Mick Farren has functioned as a writer, poet, rock star, recording artist, rabble-rouser, critic and commentator, and even won a protracted obscenity trial at the Old Bailey. After resisting the idea for a long time, he has finally written his own highly personal and insightful account of the British counterculture in the 1960s and '70s, from the perspective of one who was right there in the thick of it. With a continuing and unashamed commitment to the tradition of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, he recounts a rollercoaster odyssey—sometimes violent and often hilarious—from early beatnik adventures in Ladbroke Grove, through the flowering hippies to the snarl of punk. He gives a firsthand, insider's account of the chaos, disorder and raging excess of those two highly excessive decades. At the centre of the book is Farren's career in the underground,... Views: 28
There is little of the overt fantastic in this great, bloody sprawl of a novel, in which tortured souls follow twisting paths through WWII Shanghai; rather, there is a gradual stretching of the ordinary to the extraordinary. And eventually all those twisted paths converge at the final, dreadful performance of Quin's Shanghai Circus. Views: 28
Derek Fallon discovers all the angst that comes with being twelve—he just wants to feel grown up, but life gets in the way with a series of mishaps that make him look like a baby. He passes out during a worm dissection in science class, falls flat on his face in gym class and gets a fat lip that causes him to lisp all day, and his plans for a monster-truck party turn into a bouncy house disaster. Why isn't being in middle school as great as Derek imagined? Thankfully, with a little help from his friends—and, ironically, a Toys for Tots fundraiser—things seem like they could start shaping up at last.My Life as a Joke by Janet and Jake Tashjian is a Christy Ottaviano Book Views: 28
Maggie Conner might not have had much experience with men—okay, so she'd had absolutely no experience with men—but that didn't mean she couldn't find love matches for her female clients. All she needed was the right man....Trouble was, she'd found exactly the wrong man—Nick Kaplan, a hard-muscled, love-'em-and-leave-'em type with a dangerously seductive smile. Not only was Nick pure temptation in a leather jacket, he was also Maggie's new roommate!So why not make him over into somebody else's perfect man? Well, for one thing, the more up-close-and-personal time they spent together, the more Maggie wanted to keep Nick all to herself.... Views: 28
