To pay off her law school debts, Kerrie works in the public defender's office at the Interspecies Court. She has more clients than she can defend, most of them from cultures she does not understand. The public defender's office loses almost all of its cases, but sometimes it gets a win. Kerrie thinks she has a winner. But does she? Or will winning the case mean she loses at everything else?International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won or been nominated for every major award in the science fiction field. She has won Hugos for editing The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and for her short fiction. She has also won the Asimov's SF Magazine Readers Choice Award six times, as well as the Anlab Award from Analog Magazine, Science Fiction Age Readers Choice Award, the Locus Award, and the John W. Campbell Award. Her stand-alone sf novel, Alien Influences, was a finalist for the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. Io9 said her Retrieval Artist series featured one of... Views: 60
"The FBI was ready to take down America's most politically powerful corporation. But there was one thing they didn't count on." So reads the cover of this high-powered true crime story, an accurate teaser to a bizarre financial scandal with more plot twists than a John Grisham novel. In 1992 the FBI stumbled upon Mark Whitacre, a top executive at the Archer Daniels Midland corporation who was willing to act as a government witness to a vast international price-fixing conspiracy. ADM, which advertises itself as "The Supermarket to the World," processes grains and other farm staples into oils, flours, and fibers for products that fill America's shelves, from Jell-O pudding to StarKist tuna. The company's chairman and chief executive, Dwayne Andreas, was so influential that he introduced Ronald Reagan to Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was his maneuvering that ensured that high fructose corn syrup would replace sugar in most foods (ever wondered why Coke and Pepsi don't taste quite like they used to?). There were two mottoes at ADM: "The competitors are our friends, and the customers are our enemies" and "We know when we're lying." And lie they did. With the help of Whitacre, the FBI made hundreds of tapes and videos of ADM executives making price-fixing deals with their corrivals from Japan, Korea, and Canada, all while drinking coffee and laughing about their crimes. The tapes should have cinched the case, but there was one problem: Their star witness was manipulative, deceitful, and unstable. Nothing was as it seemed, and the investigation into one of the most astounding white-collar crime cases in history had only just begun. Views: 60
After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell wanted to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. So he joined the service, becoming a commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One. Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family. They were assigned to Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen—with the chilling cries of "Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!" echoing from minaret to minaret—Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces. Thrillingly told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership and loyalty.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Campbell decided as a junior at Princeton that attending Marine Corps Officer Candidate School would look good on his résumé. Three years later, in the spring of 2004, he was in Iraq commanding a platoon known by its radio call sign, Joker One. Campbell tells its story, and his, in an outstanding narrative of the Iraq War. Joker One counted around 40 dudes: country boys and smalltown jocks; a few Hispanics and a single black. Some were college men with futures; some had pasts they preferred to forget. The battalion was assigned to one of Iraq's worst hot spots: the city of Ramadi, where faceless enemies found shelter among 350,000 Iraqi civilians. Joker One fought from street to street, house to house and ambush to ambush for seven straight months. By the end of the tour, even the Gunny's hands had started ceaselessly shaking, Campbell writes. Faced with urgent life-and-death decisions, Campbell had learned that there are no great options... you live with the results and shut up about the whole thing. For all his constant self-questioning, Lt. Campbell brought Joker One home with only one KIA—a record as impressive as his account. (Mar. 17) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks MagazineCritics praised Campbell as a gifted and deft writer who retells his Iraq tour in “powerful, exacting detail” (Dallas Morning News). While Campbell avoids much analysis of the war overall, or even his platoon’s specific mission, most critics found this to be a virtue. As the New York Times noted, Campbell “never quite puts his finger on the meaning, if any, of the extraordinary violence,” but he does “[lay] it all out for anyone else who wants to have a try.” Only the Denver Post found Campbell’s unreflective style trying, citing that the author “seems awkwardly obtuse when it comes to ascertaining the needs of other people.” Most reviewers, however, admired the book’s honest day-to-day look at attempting to quell the Iraqi insurgency.Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC Views: 60
'Lawson's sketches are beyond praise.' JOSEPH CONRAD'Lawson gets more feelings, observation and atmosphere into a page than does Hemingway.' EDWARD GARNETTOne of the great observers of Australian life, Henry Lawson looms large in our national psyche. Yet at his best Lawson transcends the very bush, the very outback, the very up-country,, the very pub or selector's hut he conveys with such brevity and acuity: he make specific places universal.Henry Lawson s too often regarded as a legend rather than a writer to be enjoyed. In this selection Lawson is revealed as an author whose delightful, humorous, wry and moving short stories continue to delight generations of readers. This is the essential Lawson collection — the classic of Australian classics. Views: 60
Winner of the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original, short-listed for the 2010 Shamus Award for Best Paperback Original Novel Ex-boxer Joe Grundy is embroiled in the intrigues of his own boss, millionaire Leo Alexander, the owner of Vancouver's Lord Douglas Hotel. Somebody has murdered Leo's live-in servant and not-so-secret lover, and Grundy has to get to the bottom of the incident in order to clear the man he's forged a bond with since first coming to work for him as security for the hotel. But Leo's past serves up more surprises than Grundy bargained for. It seems Leo has had a life full of death, jilted mistresses, spurned spouses, sharp business deals, and explosive relationships with estranged children. Another corpse pops up, Leo is arrested and jailed, and Grundy takes more hits to his body and psyche than perhaps even he can handle. Thoughts of real and imagined death are stalking the corridors of the Lord Douglas, and Joe Grundy has to keep swinging to stay alive and remain sane.Marc Strange was the co-creator of the long-running television series The Beachcombers. As a character actor, he has appeared in numerous television shows and films, most recently in the cable television science-fiction show ReGenesis. His first book, Sucker Punch was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for best first mystery novel. His novel Body Blows followed in 2009 and won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best original paperback.Winner of the 2010 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original Views: 60
After he accidentally shoots a teenager at a tense standoff, FBI Hostage Rescue Team member Mark Sanders is sent to St. Louis to work as a field agent and get his bearings while the bad press starts to settle. Just weeks away from returning to Quantico to resume his work on the HRT, Mark has a chance encounter with an old flame, Emily Lawson. But their reunion is cut short by a sniper. Now Mark must find the shooter before he tries to strike again. But what is his motive--and who was his intended target? Can Mark put the pieces together, keep Emily safe, and rekindle a long-dead relationship at the same time?A fast-paced tale of romance, suspense, and intrigue, An Eye for an Eye is the exciting second installment in the Heroes of Quantico series. Views: 60
Book One in the Brides of Caralon series. When Maven, the eldest daughter of Caralon's mighty ruler, is given in marriage to the fearsome Dane of Rawley, she's horrified. Bad enough that she should be any man's possession, but she's heard the dreadful tales about Dane, tales of force and brutality. She goes into the marriage refusing to submit to him in any way—the only problem is, the sensuously forceful Dane demands her submission, especially in his bed, and he's determined to get it. As Maven begins to clash with the Beast of Rawley, she needs all her wits about her to win their erotic battle for control. Views: 60
In Lori Ostlund’s debut collection people seeking escape from situations at home venture out into a world that they find is just as complicated and troubled as the one they left behind.In prose highlighted by both satire and poignant observation, Ostlund offers characters that represent a different sort of everyman—men and women who poke fun at ideological rigidity while holding fast to good grammar and manners, people seeking connections in a world that seems increasingly foreign. In “Upon Completion of Baldness” a young woman shaves her head for a part in a movie in Hong Kong that will help her escape life with her lover in Albuquerque. The precocious narrator of “All Boy” finds comfort when he is locked in a closet by a babysitter. In “Dr. Deneau’s Punishment” a math teacher leaving New York for Minnesota as a means of punishing himself engages in an unsettling method of discipline. A lesbian couple whose relationship is disintegrating flees to the Moroccan desert in “The Children beneath the Seat.” And in “Idyllic Little Bali” a group of Americans gathers around a pool in Java to discuss their brushes with fame and ends up witnessing a man’s fatal flight from his wife.In the eleven stories in The Bigness of the World we see that wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far away.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Ostlund's remarkable debut collection deftly navigates the treacherous shoals of decaying relationships in which the protagonists often escape to faraway lands in order to find themselves, or, at the very least, their partners. Fate, for the globe-trotting teacher-entrepreneur of And Down We Went, takes the form of an untimely bird dropping; in Bed Death, it is a Malay waitress who casually takes a sip of orange juice from the narrator's glass. Ostlund's artful prose is playfully complex and illuminating, evocative and unsentimental, as in Upon the Completion of Baldness, in which the narrator's girlfriend returns home from a trip completely bald. Remarks the narrator, the chilly desert air seemed to startle her as though, in that moment, she realized that there was a price to be paid for having no hair, and while I still said nothing, I was happy to see her suffer just a bit. A specific disenchantment inhabits these stories—the disenchantment of the uncompromising romantic confronted with the evaporative nature of love. Each piece is sublime. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"These sly stories are funny and unpredictable and graced with priceless details you'll carry with you long after the last page is turned. Whether charting the loneliness of youth, or tracing the emotional upheavals of lovers abroad, Ostlund proves to be a wise, charming, and irresistible guide." --Eric Puchner, author of Music Through the Floor: Stories"The Bigness of the World is simply a stunning collection--every story jewel-crafted and resonant. I read stories to meet people I do not know and have not imagined, but even in that context Lori Ostlund's people are unique. I begin by thinking that I know these characters or have known them. And then somewhere along the way, they shape shift and startle me. Over and over again I find myself looking at the world from a fresh perspective--this sharp-eyed compassionate writer's rendering of the world I thought I knew. This is a book to remake our imaginary landscape--the kind of book I not only recommend, I advocate. Read this, I want to tell people. You need these stories. You do." --Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina Views: 60
Pushing the Dan Brown buttons - a rip-roaring, edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller. Jerusalem, 70 AD. As the legions of Rome besiege the Holy Temple, a boy is given a secret that he must guard with his life. Southern Germany, December 1944. Six emaciated prisoners drag a mysterious crate deep into a disused mine. They too give their lives to keep the secret safe - they are murdered by their Nazi guards. Egypt, Valley of the Kings, present day. A body is discovered among some ruins. It appears to be an open-and-shut case but the more Inspector Yusuf Khalifa of the Luxor police uncovers about the dead man, the more uneasy he becomes. And his investigation turns out to be anything but routine. Khalifa doesn't know it yet, but he is on the trail of an extraordinary long-lost artifact that could, in the wrong hands, turn the Middle East into a blood bath. It's a dangerous path he's taking - and to make matters worse, he's not alone... From ancient... Views: 60
My new job: "Gracie Lee Harris, dead body finder." First it was my con man husband. Now it's Frank, the no-good contractor renovating my apartment. I think Ray -- uh, Detective Fernandez -- is starting to wonder about me, since I'm always sticking my nose into his homicide investigations. That could be the reason he keeps coming to question me.... Frank was less than, well, frank, with people (shady behavior and more); now someone has made sure he's less than alive. They say God doesn't give us more than we can handle, but I wish He didn't think I could handle so much! Views: 60
Science Fiction/Fantasy. 60524 words long. Views: 60
