#1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz delivers a mesmerizing new thriller that explores the razor-thin line between the best and worst of human nature—and the anarchy simmering just beneath society’s surface—as a likeable, successful family man is drawn into a confrontation with a foe of unimaginable malice….Bestselling novelist Cullen “Cubby” Greenwich is a lucky man and he knows it. He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children’s book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old, Milo, affectionately dubbed “Spooky,” and a non-collie named Lassie, who’s all but part of the family.So Cubby knows he shouldn’t let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to him—even if it does appear in the nation’s premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic, Shearman Waxx. Cubby knows the best thing to do is ignore the gratuitously vicious, insulting, and inaccurate comments. Penny knows it, even little Milo knows it. If Lassie could talk, she’d tell Cubby to ignore them, too.Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a career—or a life.But Shearman Waxx isn’t what Cubby expects; and neither is the escalating terror that follows what seemed to be an innocent encounter. For Waxx gives criticism; he doesn’t take it. He has ways of dealing with those who cross him that Cubby is only beginning to fathom. Soon Cubby finds himself in a desperate struggle with a relentless sociopath, facing an inexorable assault on far more than his life. Fearless, funny, utterly compelling, Relentless is Dean Koontz at his riveting best, an unforgettable tale of the fragile bonds that hold together all that we most cherish—and of those who would tear those bonds asunder. From the Hardcover edition. Views: 41
Bulldog Drummond has slain his archenemy, Carl Peterson, but Peterson’s mistress lives on and is intent on revenge. Drummond’s wife vanishes, followed by a series of vicious traps set by a malicious adversary, which lead to a hair-raising chase across England, to a sinister house and a fantastic torture-chamber modelled on Stonehenge, with its legend of human sacrifice.About the AuthorSapper is the pen name of Herman Cyril McNeile, born in 1888 at the Naval Prison in Bodmin, Cornwall, where his father was Governor. He served in the Royal Engineers (popularly known as 'sappers') from 1907-19, being awarded the Military Cross during World War 1. He started writing in France, adopting a pen name because serving officers were not allowed to write under their own names. When his first stories, about life in the trenches, were published in 1915, they were an enormous success. But it was his first thriller, Bulldog Drummond (1920) that launched him as one of the most popular novelists of his generation. It had several amazingly successful sequels, including The Black Gang, The Third Round and The Final Count. Another great success was Jim Maitland (1923), featuring a footloose English sahib in foreign lands. Sapper published nearly thirty books in total, and a vast public mourned his death when he died in 1937, at the early age of forty-eight. So popular was his 'Bulldog Drummond' series that his friend, the late Gerard Fairlie, wrote several Bulldog Drummond stories after his death under the same pen name, which had by then become synonymous with fast-paced, intelligent thrillers and complex, vibrant characters. Views: 41
From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. The dense Wind River Mountains of western Wyoming is where Carlson (_Five Skies_) sets his brooding latest, a tale of expired love and desperate measures. Mack, son of a longtime rancher, has made many missteps in life, culminating in a recent stint in jail where he'd rusted like an old post when the weather turned. While he's in jail, his recently ex-wife Vonnie agrees to join him one last time on their annual ritual of backpacking through the Wyoming wilderness to fish, camp and rediscover each other. Mack, though, has a hidden motive: a friend/technical genius has hired him to retrieve a valuable drone that's crash-landed in the forest. Carlson describes the couple's six days wandering the wooded terrain in delicate, measured prose, careful to miss neither the lush scenery nor the incrementally amplified tension as Mack edges closer to his prize and shady characters from the past appear. Carlson has produced a work of masterful fiction, combining the sad inevitability of a doomed relationship with sheer nail-biting suspense. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review"The Signal takes us into terrain that's stunning and terrible. In doing so, it becomes both an elegy to a broken marriage and a heart- stopping, suspenseful thriller. It's a difficult journey, but relax: with Ron Carlson, you really are in expert hands."-_New York Times Book Review_ "Carlson never drops an extra word or a false phrase, even as "The Signal" accelerates like an avalanche, suspicion rolling into fear and then roaring down with a conclusion that shakes the ground. If men can't be brought back to fiction by books as fine as this one, it's their own damn fault."-_Washington Post_ "Ron Carlson's new novel is a love story and a wilderness adventure that mounts to a climax of shocking, and satisfying, violence...Carlson paces his tale with craft and care, never hurrying. "The Signal" is about broken innocence and how, for the individual at least, balance might be found again. Carlson's a romantic --- even when he's writing about failings, folly and violence. This novel...has a lingering elegance and power. Lives go wrong, "The Signal" says, but they can be repaired too, if we find our centers and attend to what's around us." -_Los Angeles Times_ "Read Ron Carlson's latest THE SIGNAL and you'll be convinced that the answer to your worries resides in the woods, in getting back to the basics... It's a sweet, tidy little book about a broken rancher. And yet it won't just help you pass the time, it will help you out." -_Esquire_ "Long revered as a master of the short story, Carlson has a talent for describing landscape (both internal and external), and that translates here intact. At fewer than 200 pages, its beach ready, too." -_GQ_
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For control of a South American oil field, two men go to war On the spine of the Andes Mountains, three monuments have been built to honor the god known as oil. These towering derricks, known to the Company as the three sentinels, will change a few lives for the better—and destroy one thousand more. The completion of the sentinels means closing the outdated oil field known as Cabo Desierto, which hundreds of native families call home. Those who live there are to be relocated. Some are happy to move, but most are not. For the sake of their community, these radicals will fight—and they will die. When the protests against relocation claim the life of his wife, Rafael Garay vows revenge against the Company. With his son at his side, he takes arms against the men who control the sentinels, pitting himself against a corporate troubleshooter who has never met a union he couldn't break. Views: 41
From BooklistDespite the title, this compelling story-within-a-story is not about giant slayers, but about children with giant spirits. Eleven-year-old Laurie Valentine has a lonely life but an active imagination. When her one and only friend, Dickie, is diagnosed with polio in 1955, she visits the hospital to tell Dickie and other stricken children a magical story about Jimmy, a destined giant slayer. Besides Dickie, there is Chip, an orphaned farm boy, and Carolyn, a 14-year-old girl who has been inside an iron lung for eight years. The three are transformed by the story and begin to see themselves in Laurie’s characters. When the unthinkable happens, Chip, Dickie, and Carolyn narrate the tale without Laurie, revealing truths about themselves. While the author flawlessly integrates Laurie’s fantasy narration with the 1955 story, the cover art of a giant about to squash little Jimmy might throw readers off a bit. Still, this effectively shows how children face life-changing challenges with incredible determination. Grades 4-6. --Kimberly Garnick ReviewReview, The Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2009:"Young Readers...will not quickly forget this moving, imaginative glimpse of the not-so-long ago past."Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, November 16, 2009:"Distinctive, emotionally honest characters and consistently engrossing prose make this book a standout." Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews, October 16, 2009:"This profound, magical, dryly comical novel reminds readers of the power of story, but they will already be feeling it in their bones. Masterful."From the Hardcover edition. Views: 41
Stone-Cold Lover Mel Teshco Heiress Loretta Shaw is notorious for her loose morals and sexual needs. Trouble is, it’s taken her one too many one-night stands to realize that no man can extinguish the sexual fire she feels toward her guardian, Cray Diamond. A long-ago curse made Cray immortal—a gargoyle, a guardian, who is impelled to protect a human chosen by the curse. He is imprisoned in stone during daylight hours but dusk returns him to flesh and bone to carry out his immortal duty. That Cray can shift between human and living gargoyle at night bothers Loretta not one bit. She’s seen him naked many times and her desire for him—in any shape or form—knows no bounds. She’s tired of his resistance. He’s her gargoyle…and she wants him in her bed. Views: 41
Bestselling Author D. D. Scott is treating you to a short story collection featuring one of her own stories as well as stories by some of her fave Indie Epub Authors, including Talli Roland, Chicki Brown, Lisa Lim, MG Ainsworth, Buck Buchanan, Sheila Seabrook, Diane Vallere and Christy Hayes. With this Viva La Valentine Anthology, you’ll never again think of Valentine’s Day in quite the same way. Views: 41
One of Richard Nixon's most incisive works on American foreign policy, Real Peace argues that lasting peace can only be achieved through "hard-headed détente"—a pragmatic mixture of military preparedness, effective arms control, and improved East-West economic ties. Views: 41
The teenage tennis star had a frighteningly brutal trainer-her father. So nobody cried when he got strangled in the women's locker room. Now V.I. Warshawski wants to clear the number one suspect-who was showering alone at the time in "Strung Out". And in "Skin Deep", after his trip to the salon the stranger wasn't looking so good. Maybe it was the poison facial. V.I. Warshawski tries a few new creams herself while she looks for somebody, anybody connected to this guy. Views: 41