John Dortmunder as a butler? Well, he’s not really a butler; he’s just playing one at the heavily guarded estate of crooked tycoon Monroe Hall. A corporate pariah surrounded by loot, including a fleet of priceless vintage cars, Hall soon finds his needs—from driving to cooking—eagerly fulfilled by Dortmunder and his gang. Dortmunder’s plan: to change in one fell swoop from loyal servants to merry robbers, and drive off with ill-gotten plunder. There’s just one problem. Monroe Hall has as many enemies as antiques. Before Dortmunder can go from serving to stealing, Hall disappears and the cops are knocking on the door. And after a violent crime is committed, Dortmunder is in the worst place possible. For as everyone knows, whenever there’s mischief in a mansion … the butler always did it! Views: 24
From Publishers WeeklyThe leaves of autumn are in full splendor, and so is Maron's talent in her 10th Deborah Knott adventure (after 2002's Slow Dollar). Asked to fill in for a vacationing judge up in the Blue Ridge high country, Deborah jumps at the chance to put some space between her and Colleton County detective Dwight Bryant, whose engagement ring has suddenly and almost inexplicably appeared on her finger. But Knott quickly finds that the serene appearance of Cedar Gap belies the troubles brewing beneath its surface. One man is dead before Deborah even arrives, and his accused killer, Daniel Freeman, is a friend of Deborah's nieces, who are sharing their parents' mountainside condo with Her Judgeship. Yet before heads or tails can be made of the current situation, Knott is present when an evening of pickin' and grinnin' ends with the disappearance of one of a newly formed trio of real estate developers. And her ride home with the stunningly handsome "Lucius the Luscious" Burke, the local DA, may just put an end to her quandary about getting hitched to Dwight. Her entire stay in Cedar Gap is fraught with dangers, romantic and otherwise, as Deborah finds herself pursued to the brink of death itself. The roadways aren't the only thing with hairpin turns in this gripping puzzler. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. FromNorth Carolina judge Deborah Knott may be all business when it comes to court, but she's usually fun loving when she's around her energetic family and her friend turned fiance Dwight Bryant. The stress of her impending marriage has made her prickly and uneasy, though, so she jumps at the chance to sub for a judge in another part of the state. After all, what better place to do serious thinking about her life than a gorgeous tourist town in the Blue Ridge Mountains? Unfortunately, the town is abuzz with the recent murder of a local doctor, and the accused is a friend of Deborah's college-age twin nieces. The twins are convinced their friend is innocent, and when another man is found dead, it begins to appear they are right. The mountain setting plays a huge role here, and Maron does a beautiful job with it, adding local color, as well as delightful regionalisms, to give her characters plenty of personality. When it comes right down to it, however, it's the comfortable ordinariness of Maron's distinctively unheroic heroine that makes this entry in the long-running series so appealing. Stephanie ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Views: 24
Zachary Nixon Johnson, the last private eye on Earth, is back in action in the second book in the Nuclear Bombshell series, and this time the mystery is four times more dangerous.The wise-cracking PI and his AI super computer sidekick, HARV, are hired by Ona Thompson, one of four genetically-engineered super women known collectively as the Thompson Quads. Her sister has been murdered, and she needs Zach to locate the killer. The list of suspects is long—including a butler, security experts, a giant monkey—and the list of motives is even longer. Vengeance, envy, wealth, and fun could all be at play. And in true Zach Johnson fashion, it isn't long before his fedora's filled to the brim with danger and destruction.But the biggest question facing Zach is what happens if the real killer turns out to be his client... Views: 24
1493. The former thief-turned-unwitting-explorer Skiouros returns from the New World with his eyes set on Borgia-controlled Italy. Gathering old friends to his cause he once more sets out upon his quest for vengeance against the pretender Sultan, Cem. But in a world of corruption and wickedness, does Skiouros really have the darkness of heart to murder a man in cold blood? Views: 24
TOTAL FEAR In the woods of North Carolina, it awaits, ready to unleash a shocking plan of revenge. Soon the victims will understand what it is to be helpless and alone. They will wish for mercy, but there will be none. Because actions have consequences, and someone must always pay... TOTAL PANIC For Florida psychic Mira Morales, spending the holidays at a remote farm in Asheville is a chance to spend some needed family time with her FBI fiancé, Shep, and her teenaged daughter, Annie, while they try to forget the horrors of the past. She has no idea that an even greater terror is waiting out there in the dark, wooded hills surrounding them; a fear beyond the reach of her abilities, because this time, the killer has prepared for her. And then, without warning, everything in Mira's world goes black... TOTAL SILENCE Now, isolated and alone, held silent captive in a cunning killer's secret lair, Mira has no way to warn the others of what is coming... of the twisted wrath of a dangerous psychopath whose work has only just begun...From Publishers WeeklyIn this riveting paranormal thriller from MacGregor (Black Water, etc.), Florida psychic Mira Morales, her FBI agent fiancé, Wayne Sheppard, and her 14-year-old daughter, Annie, pay a visit to old friends, Ramona and Jerry Stevens, at their woodland cabin outside Asheville, N.C. Soon after arrival, Mira opens the cabin door to a seemingly pleasant woman who introduces herself as Allie then pulls out a gun. For a stranger, Allie seems to know an awful lot about Mira and Sheppard. When Mira flees to the Stevens' barn, Allie chases her and shoots her in the thigh. Hurting Mira wasn't part of Allie's plan, but it does make it easier to abduct Mira in her Land Rover. While Sheppard and Annie work on tracking Mira down, the story flashes back 15 years to focus on the dysfunctional, wealthy Curry family. These flashbacks are the book's biggest strength, as they present a tantalizing puzzle involving Dean Curry and his power-mad older sister, Allie, and provide a convincing motive for Allie's violent actions. The story works so well as a family drama that the supernatural elements are almost forgotten. Still, Mira's special gift, which later becomes Annie's, turns an already exciting yarn into something truly unusual. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Views: 24
William Shakespeare lived at a time when the medieval world — a world of magic, astrology, witchcraft, and superstition of all kinds — was just beginning to give way to more modern ways of thinking. Shakespeare and Galileo were born in the same year, and new ideas about the human body, the earth, and the universe at large were just starting to transform Western thought. Shakespeare was not a scientist — the word did not even exist in Elizabethan times — but a handful of scholars are now examining Shakespeare's interest in the scientific discoveries of his time: what he knew, when he knew it, and how he incorporated that knowledge into his work. His plays, poems, and sonnets were not "about" science — but they often reflect scientific ideas, and the more carefully we look at those ideas the better we can appreciate the scope of Shakespeare's achievement. A close reading of Shakespeare's works reveals the depth of his interest in the natural world.... Views: 24
A collection of thirteen short horror stories by American, English and Scottish authors featuring ghosts, monsters and other frights. Views: 24
I see us in a million montages—you and me, Ava, in a million vignettes. Visions of us.
You are beneath me. You stare up at me. You gaze, lovingly, into my eyes, and you do not look away as you come apart. I see this moment, over and over and over again…
You whisper something, as the shudders wrack you, yet the words you whisper are lost to me. I want those words—they mean everything.
What is it you whisper in the moment of our most intimate completion?
My name, surely.
What is it you whisper, Ava?
Please, tell me. Whisper those sounds to me again, even just once, I beg you.
Come to me, and come for me, and come with me: I will hear those sweet, dulcet syllables blooming from your lips and I will know myself, and I will know I am home.
* *
Memory is a harsh mistress: she embellishes the beautiful and serene, yet she also sharpens the edges of pain.
All I have left of my husband, Christian, is memory. Everything else is gone. Our son, Henry, conceived and cherished and born and grown in the fertile soil of our love…he is dead. He molders six feet under the black loam of a Florida cemetery. The home we created for ourselves, in Ft. Lauderdale, is a pile of rubble, demolished by a hurricane. That home, and everything in it, is utterly gone. Even the rubble, by now, is likely cleared away.
And all I know is, right now…I’m scared of letting myself grieve for Henry.
I’m scared I’ll never find Christian. And if I never find Christian, what will I do?
Who will I be?
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Pete has to pull the most important prank of his life to bring about justice. (RL4.0) Views: 23
The contributors to this fascinating volume--a Who’s Who of U-boat historians--include: Erich Topp (U-Boat Ace, commander of U-552); Eric Rust (Naval Officers Under Hitler); Timothy Mulligan (Neither Sharks Nor Wolves); Jak Mallman Showell (Hitler’s U-boat Bases); Jordan Vause (Wolf); Lawrence Patterson (First U-boat Flotilla); Mark Wise (Enigma and the Battle of the Atlantic); Keith Gill (Curator, Museum of Science and Industry), and Theodore Savas (Silent Hunters; Nazi Millionaries). Views: 23
