This collection features twenty short stories from humorous thriller writer J. A. Konrath. Included are a few hardboiled tales, some noir, some parody and satire, a few straight-out comedy pieces, and a few stories that didn't fit into Konrath's other two collections, Horror Stories and Jack Daniels Stories.The twenty stories include:The Big Guys - Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award.A Fistful of Cozy - A satire of the mystery cozy genre.Cleansing - An ancient crime of biblical proportions.Lying Eyes - Solve it yourself, given the clues.Perfect Plan - Another solve it yourself. Don't you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown?Piece of Cake - Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman's World.Animal Attraction - Solve it yourself.Urgent Reply Needed - A cautionary tale about dealing with spammers.Blaine's Deal - A parody of hardboiled noir.Light Drizzle - A light-hearted send-up of hitman stories.An... Views: 65
First published in 1960, in Morning at Jalna it is 1863 and the American Civil War is raging south of the border. Still in its early years, the Jalna estate seems far away from the despair and destruction. Philip, who will grow up to become the master of Jalna, has just come into the world, while Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest are children. Life at Jalna is as peaceful as usual until the Sinclairs come to visit. They arrive with the polished manners and soft accents of Old Carolina and quickly appeal to Adelines sense of hospitality. However, as the burden these distant cousins bring grows, the Whiteoaks begin to suspect that the Sinclairs have a deep and dangerous secret. This is book 2 of 16 in The Whiteoak Chronicles. It is followed by Mary Wakefield.Review“Roche's use of metaphor would be helpful to students to understand how language and environment can be used to mirror both characters' lives and story developments.”From the Inside FlapIt is 1863 and life at Jalna is peaceful. Philip, who will grow up to become the master of Jalna, has just come into the world, while Augusta, Nicholas, and Ernest are children. However, the Sinclairs come to visit and the Whiteoaks begin to suspect that the Sinclairs have a deep and dangerous secret. Views: 65
Explodes the myth that pre-settlement Australia was an untamed wilderness revealing the complex, country-wide systems of land management used by Aboriginal people.Across Australia, early Europeans commented again and again that the land looked like a park. With extensive grassy patches and pathways, open woodlands and abundant wildlife, it evoked a country estate in England. Bill Gammage has discovered this was because Aboriginal people managed the land in a far more systematic and scientific fashion than we have ever realised.For over a decade, Gammage has examined written and visual records of the Australian landscape. He has uncovered an extraordinarily complex system of land management using fire and the life cycles of native plants to ensure plentiful wildlife and plant foods throughout the year. We know Aboriginal people spent far less time and effort than Europeans in securing food and shelter, and now we know how they did it.With details of land-management... Views: 65
Kristiana Gregory returns with a stunning new sequel to the bestselling Dear America title THE WINTER OF RED SNOW!Abigail Jane Stewart returns in this brand-new sequel to THE WINTER OF RED SNOW. The Revolutionary War toils on, but the Stewart family can no longer avoid getting involved. Abby's father joins the Continental Army, while Abby, her mother, and her siblings become camp followers. They face daily hardships alongside the troops and continue to spend time helping the Washingtons. Filled with romance and adventure, Abby's frontline view of the war captures the heartache and bravery of the soldiers, as well as the steep cost of freedom. Views: 65
Boone Drake has it made. He’s a young cop rising rapidly through the ranks of the Chicago Police Department. He has a beautiful wife and a young son, a nice starter house, a great partner, and a career plan that should land him in the Organized Crime Division within five years. Everything is going right. Until everything goes horribly, terribly wrong. His personal life destroyed and his career and future in jeopardy, Boone buries himself in guilt and bitterness as his life spirals out of control. But when he comes face-to-face with the most vicious gang leader Chicago has seen in decades, he begins to realize that God is a God of second chances and can change the hardest heart . . . and forgive the worst of crimes. A thought-provoking police thriller from New York Times best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins. Views: 65
A tale of heroism and adventure-a memoir about Sergeant Darrell Shifty" Powers, a highly respected Band of Brothers soldier.When he was a boy growing up in the remote mining town of Clinchco, Virginia, Shifty Powers's goal was to become the best rifle shot he could be. His father trained him to listen to the woods, to "see" without his eyes. Little did Shifty know his finely-tuned skills would one day save his life-and the lives of many of his friends.Shifty's War is a tale of a soldier's blood-filled days fighting his way from the shores of France to the heartland of Germany, and the epic story of how one man's abilities as a sharpshooter, along with an engagingly unassuming personality, propelled him to a life greater than he could have ever imagined." Views: 65
A gripping, beautifully told story of a young man's coming-of-age at seaWhen John Moynihan decided to ship out in the Merchant Marine during the summer of his junior year at Wesleyan University, his father, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was not enthusiastic: As a young man, before joining the U.S. Navy, Pat Moynihan had worked the New York City docks and knew what his son would encounter. However, John's mother, Elizabeth, an avid sailor, found the idea of an adventure at sea exciting and set out to help him get his Seaman's Papers. When John was sworn in, he was given one piece of advice: to not tell the crew that his father was a United States senator.The job ticket read "forty-five days from Camden, New Jersey, to the Mediterranean on the Rose City," a supertanker. As the ship sailed the orders changed, and forty-five days became four months across the equator, around Africa, across the Indian Ocean, and up to Japan--a far more perilous voyage... Views: 65
She stopped at nothing. To get everything. Scheming social climber Alexa may be humbly born. But she's a class-hopping cruise missile aimed at the very top of the gold-digging tree. Only a title, mansion and family tiara will do. Befriending feckless aristo Florrie (three surnames plus black hole where her brain should be) means the grandest doors swing open and the prince of her dreams is in sight. But has Florrie's mother, the formidable Lady Annabel, rumbled what Alexa is up to? Beautiful but penniless student Polly, meanwhile, is in love. Is Max, the handsome young vet she's found in a country lane, quite as ordinary as he seems, however? Passionate love, eye-widening snobbery and more than naked ambition abound in this contemporary Cinderella tale - a deliciously satirical novel of the upwardly mobile. Views: 65
At twelve, Lucy Marie McGowan already knows she'll be a psychologist when she grows up. And her quirky and conflicted family provides plenty of opportunity for her to practice her calling. Now Lucy, her "profoundly gifted" twin brother, Milo, her commitment-phobic mother, and her New Age grandmother are leaving Chicago for Timber Falls, Wisconsin, to care for her dying grandfather--a complex and difficult man whose failure as a husband and father still painfully echoes down through the years.Lucy believes her time in the rural town where the McGowan story began will provide a key piece to the puzzle of her family's broken past, and perhaps even reveal the truth about her own missing father. But what she discovers is so much more--a lesson about the paradoxes of love and the grace of forgiveness that the adults around her will need help in remembering if their family is ever to find peace and embrace the future. By turns heart-wrenching and heart-mending,... Views: 65
Once Mr Chitterwick had given his evidence, thus clarifying that the elderly lady's death was murder and not suicide, it appeared a straightforward case. He had seen something being put into the lady's coffee cup, after all. But then friends and relatives of the accused appeal to Mr Chitterwick, claiming him incapable of such a crime. As Mr Chitterwick investigates, doubts begin to surface, until more evidence arises to hint at a more complicated set of occurrences... Views: 65
