J.W. Jackson, ex-Boston cop turned fisherman, cook, and jack-of-all-trades, is alone on the Vineyard while his wife and children visit relatives. A request from Carole Cohen comes as a blessed diversion. Carole wants J.W. to find the person who's stalking her brother, Roland. Known locally as "The Monk" for his reclusive ways, Roland lives on a beautiful piece of Vineyard real estate that he co-owns with his cousin Sally Oliver. A number of people, including Sally, would do almost anything to convince Roland to sell. Does that include violence? When a body turns up near Roland's land, J.W. has to find out. Views: 49
Ballard's genius for imagining exotic places appears again in Vermilion Sands where he creates a fantasy landscape of the future. These stories feature forgotten movie queens and guilt-ridden femmes fatales who exercise their every whim in a culture of unlimited technology. Views: 49
Judith Find, a powerful business executive, finds herself helpless in the face of a kidnapper's demands. Luke Becker is her reluctant ally in rescuing the victim. And eight-year-old Abel, the victim, is about to become their remarkable guide to freedom from the secrets that have dogged them both. Views: 49
… And behind the Northern Armies came another army of men. They came by the hundreds, yet each traveled alone. They came on foot, by mule, on horseback, on creaking wagons or riding in handsome chaises. They were of all shapes and sizes and descended from many nationalities. They wore dark suits, usually covered with the gray dust of travel, and dark, broad-brimmed hats to shield their white faces from the hot, unfamiliar sun. And on their back, or across their saddle, or on top of their wagon was the inevitable faded multicolored bag made of worn and ragged remnants of carpet into which they had crammed all their worldly possessions. It was from these bags that they got their name. The Carpetbaggers. … And they strode the dusty roads and streets of the exhausted Southlands, their mouths tightening greedily, their eyes everywhere, searching, calculating, appraising the values that were left behind in the holocaust of war. … Yet not all of them were bad, just as not all men are bad. Some of them even learned to love the land they came to plunder and stayed and became respected citizens. Views: 49
Gemma Lincoln has to find the murderer of a police superintendent. But will the Force close around her? Is a cop the killer?Private
Investigator Gemma Lincoln is back. A brother and sister-in-law are
shot dead in the hallway of their family home. The dead man, Bryson
Finn, was a police superintendent; his bereaved wife, Natalie
Sutherland, is a former detective. Was this a case of cop killing cop?
Natalie hires Gemma to find out, fearing that the Force will close ranks
to keep it quiet. That might not be the smartest thing Ms Sutherland
has ever done...While trying to solve this bloody crime, and the
many minor skirmishes that help pay the bills for a PI, Gemma has to
make tough decisions about her own life. Is she in love with Steve? Will
she tell him about the baby? Can she be a mother on her own? Views: 49
v5.0LThere's No Escape From The Mule Hollow Matchmakers... And this time, their next "victim" was Sheri Marsh. Sheri had long endured the town biddies' attempts at matchmaking, even though she had no intention of ever settling down. As the pool of single women dwindled, their efforts doubled, and Sheri needed a plan that would get the meddling mavens off her back for good.... Unless You Get Hitched! Enter taciturn cowboy Pace Gentry. Playing her beau wasn't what this new Christian had expected. But the always aggravating, yet utterly adorable Sheri proved one thing to him--the Lord sure did work in mysterious ways!Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.There's No Escape From The Mule Hollow Matchmakers... And this time, their next "victim" was Sheri Marsh. Sheri had long endured the town biddies' attempts at matchmaking, even though she had no intention of ever settling down. As the pool of single women dwindled, their efforts doubled, and Sheri needed a plan that would get the meddling mavens off her back for good.... Unless You Get Hitched! Enter taciturn cowboy Pace Gentry. Playing her beau wasn't what this new Christian had expected. But the always aggravating, yet utterly adorable Sheri proved one thing to him--the Lord sure did work in mysterious ways! Views: 49
From BooklistStarred Review Fiction can express pain and suffering as little else can, as in this slim novel set in Afghanistan in October 1979, a time between coups and the Soviet invasion. Narrator Farhad, a 21-year-old university student in Kabul, goes out drinking with a friend, forgets the curfew and password, and is apprehended by jackbooted soldiers who beat and kick him, leaving him unconscious in a sewer. Mahnaz, the widowed mother of a young son (her husband was jailed as a political prisoner and executed), takes him into her home. What might seem a simple, compassionate act is not only brave, exposing Mahnaz to danger when the returning soldiers search for the student, but also prohibited by the Muslim culture. Farhad, hallucinating and between life and death, stays for days with a woman without a husband and sees not only her hair but also her breast, as she offers her milk to her brother, a young man traumatized by repeated military torture. In prose that is spare and incisive, poetic and searing, prizewinning Afghani author Rahimi, who fled his native land in 1984, captures the distress of his people. --Michele Leber Review“The language has the rhythm of a Sufi prayer; the novel offers an insight into the deepest fears of the people of Afghanistan.”—_Los Angeles Times_“That sense of losing one’s identity, of being subsumed by a greater, if illogical, power, is a key theme in Atiq Rahimi’s taut, layered novel..._A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear_ is the intimate narrative...of an entire desperate, anguished country.” —_Washington Post_ “An intensely intimate portrait of a man (and by extension his country) questioning reality and the limits of the possible...full of elegant evocations..._A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear resonates deeply because, no doubt, Rahimi has written a true and sad account, but the story could easily be that of any other Afghan, of any other denizen of this modern, anarchic state. In the end, we are left to wonder whether Rahimi has presented us with a story, a dream, or a nightmare, though it is likely all three.”—Words Without Borders_ “An original and utterly personal account of the pressures a totalitarian society exerts on the individual in 1979 Afghanistan, before the Soviet invasion... A flawless translation does justice to Rahimi’s taut, highly calibrated prose.” —_Publishers Weekly_“In prose that is spare and incisive, poetic and searing, prizewinning Afghani author Rahimi, who fled his native land in 1984, captures the distress of his people.”—_Booklist_, starred review “Rahimi is an author known for his unflinching examination of his home country as much as the experimental styles in which he writes... _A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear takes risks in its structure...But Rahimi’s carefully-controlled new novel exploits these uncertainties, joining the past to the present and legend with fact, creating an appropriately surreal narrative, one that rings through with truth.” —ForeWord Magazine_ “A taut and brilliant burst of anguished prose....both a wonderful and a dreadful little book.” —_The Guardian_ “A beautiful piece of writing.” —Ruth Pavey, The Independent “Short but powerful...The beauty of the language lends this work a haunting clarity.” —_The Herald_ “The novella is verbal photography...[it] seems the real thing...seamlessly translated.” —Russell Celyn Jones, The London Times Views: 49
