"Put Spenser and Travis McGee together, and you have Miami Jones... I don't mean to suggest that AJ Stewart is the next coming of Robert Parker or John D. MacDonald. It's way too early for that. But he's off to a good start." - reader reviewer for the Miami Jones series. College Sports Can Be Murder A university president with delusions of grandeur. A property developer with mob ties. A crooked politician fast-tracking projects for cash. Just another day in South Florida. When Miami Jones is hired by an old college friend to investigate the drug overdose of a star student-athlete, he is thrust into the dark intersection of academia, politics and the Miami drug world, where he finds himself fighting to not just solve the crime, but to save those he loves most. Views: 60
This new work by Gerald Murnane is a fictionalised autobiography told in thirty sections, each of which begins with the memory of a book that has left an image on the writer's mind. The titles aren't given but the reader follows the clues, recalling in the process a parade of authors, the great, the popular, and the now-forgotten. The images themselves, with their scenes of marital discord, violence and madness, or their illuminated landscapes that point to the consolations of a world beyond fiction, give new intensity to Murnane's habitual concern with the anxieties and aspirations of the writing life, in the absence of religious belief. A History of Books is accompanied by three shorter pieces of fiction which play on these themes, featuring the writer at different ages, as a young boy, a teacher, and an old recluse. Views: 60
With Valentine's Day right around the corner, Harry hatches one of his bright ideas. He's going to stage a wedding?to Song Lee! Views: 60
The further adventures in the wildly popular series about Samantha and her mustang the PhantomIn Mountain Mare, Sam finds a beautiful horse in the mountains. The mare seems to belong to someone, but can Sam figure out who — before the Phantom Stallion claims the mare as his own? Views: 60
A mesmerizing, indelible coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston's tightly-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler out to change the worldA haunting story of fatherhood, national identity, and what it means to be an immigrant in America today, The Parking Lot Attendant explores how who we love, the choices we make, and the places we're from combine to make us who we are.The story begins on an undisclosed island where the unnamed narrator and her father are the two newest and least liked members of a commune that has taken up residence there. Though the commune was built on utopian principles, it quickly becomes clear that life here is not as harmonious as the founders intended. After immersing us in life on the island, our young heroine takes us back to Boston to recount the events that brought her here. Though she and her father belong to a wide Ethiopian network in the city, they mostly keep to themselves,... Views: 60
Based on extensive interviews with the survivng veterans, No Victory in Valhalla relives the dramatic struggle of the famed "Screaming Eagles" paratroopers in some of the toughest fighting of World War II. Famously profiled in Band of Brothers, the division as a whole was awarded Unit Citation for its heroic defense of Bastogne - a first in the history of the US armed forces.It's late November 1944, after 71 days fighting in Holland, and the 506th Parachute Infantry are withdrawn having suffered heavily during Operation Market-Garden, and are looking forward to three months R&R. However, this is not to be. On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched the offensive which came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge and the 101st Airborne Division was rushed into action to stem the German tide. The ensuing large-scale combat operation would write the most dramatic chapter in the history of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment and Third Battalion in... Views: 60
Along the banks of the Ohio River, the small town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has been the home of quiet pleasures and safety for Adrienne Reynolds and her fourteen-year-old daughter Skye since the death of Adrienne's husband four years ago. Their sense of safety is shattered, however, when Adrienne and Skye find the body of one of Adrienne's best friends, Julianna, in a once-elegant, now abandoned hotel named La Belle Riviere. La Belle has a long history of misfortunes, but Julianna's murder is the most gruesome.Evidence indicates Julianna that had a secret lover whom she met regularly in the hotel, and who could have been with her in her final moments. The only person who knows this lover's identity is the hotel caretaker, Claude Duncan. But Claude is quickly silenced-drugged and burned to death in his small cottage on the grounds of La Belle the night after Julianna's death. One by one, people close to Adrienne are brutally murdered, and... Views: 60
In steel-tipped prose, Craig Davidson conjures a savage world populated by fighting dogs, prizefighters, sex addicts, gamblers, a repo man and a disappearing magician. The title of the lead story, "28 Bones", refers to the number of bones in a boxer's hands; once broken, they never heal properly, and the fighter's career descends to bouts that have less to do with sport than with survival: no referee, no rules, not even gloves. In "A Mean Utility" we enter an even more desperate arena: dogfights where Rottweilers, pit bulls and Dobermans fight each other to the death. Davidson's stories are small monuments to the telling detail. The hostility of his fictional universe is tempered by the humanity he invests in his characters and by his subtle and very moving observations of their motivation. In the tradition of Hemingway, "Rust and Bone" explores violence, masculinity and life on the margins. Visceral and with a dark urgency, this is a truly original debut. Views: 60
Deborah Santana is best known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana--a thirty-year bond that endures to this day. But as a girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of a white mother and a black father--the legendary blues guitarist Saunders King--her life was charged with its own drama long before she married.In this beautiful, haunting memoir, Deborah Santana shares for the first time her early experiences with racial intolerance, her romantic involvement with musician Sly Stone and the suffering she endured in that relationship, and her adventures in the freewheeling 1960s. Yet it is her spiritual awakening that is the core of this story. The civil rights movement was the foundation of her growth, the Woodstock era the backdrop of her love with Carlos. The couple was drawn indelibly together by a search for truth and spirituality, but while yearning to be filled with God's light, they were pulled dangerously toward a manipulative cult. They... Views: 60
