A blistering debut that does for the Iraqi perspective on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan what Phil Klay's Redeployment does for the American perspective The first major literary work about the Iraq War from an Iraqi perspective—by an explosive new voice hailed as "perhaps the best writer of Arabic fiction alive" (The Guardian)—The Corpse Exhibition shows us the war as we have never seen it before. Here is a world not only of soldiers and assassins, hostages and car bombers, refugees and terrorists, but also of madmen and prophets, angels and djinni, sorcerers and spirits. Blending shocking realism with flights of fantasy, The Corpse Exhibition offers us a pageant of horrors, as haunting as the photos of Abu Ghraib and as difficult to look away from, but shot through with a gallows humor that yields an unflinching comedy of the macabre. Gripping and hallucinatory, this is a new kind of storytelling forged... Views: 40
Police Officer's Connor Bradwick and Ellie James enforce the law in one of the perennially most dangerous cities in the country: Oakland, CA. Bradwick snaps when he and James bust in on a kidnapping ring, enslaving children for pornography. He brutally executes the three kidnappers, stunning James. He sets up the scene to pass for self-defense with Ellie James cooperation. Their ruse succeeds, triggering a two cop crackdown on crime the city of Oakland's leaders scurry to stop. Dedicated to end 'look the other way' crime suppression tactics, ending in destruction and death for the common people in Oakland, Bradwick and James decide it's time to go on offense.
Connor explains it this way after they rescue the kidnapped children, "The kids made me start thinking about how I want folks to look at us. I don't care anymore to visit someone to tell them we found the people who broke into their business or house and robbed them blind. I want them to wave at us from their house or business as we go by because we prevent the gangbangers, drug dealers and thugs from terrorizing them."
The crime war takes on different meaning when they bust an MS-13 El Salvadoran gangster's illegal alien processing center. Connor and Ellie run headlong into a corrupt politician on the gangster's payroll, and the terrorists behind him. Soon, everyday crime fighting busts become a fond memory. Views: 40
Sometimes, behind the simplest cases... Lawyer Aiden Connolly's new case seems to be a run-of-the-mill paternity dispute. Millionaire Sam Fern suspects that his son is not his own flesh and blood, and he wants a paternity test to prove it. Fern's wife Deena, a glamorous former model, is desperate to convince Aiden of her innocence...and she will go to any lengths to prove it. ...hide the darkest truths. Meanwhile, Aiden is haunted by the memory of another beauty – Brandy White, who he worked to free from a murder charge. The woman he unwittingly fell in love with...and the woman who will once again draw him into a tangle of love and lies. With more than his reputation on the line, can Aiden hold his nerve – when nothing else seems certain? Views: 40
A refreshingly imaginative, daring debut collection of stories which illuminates with audacious wit the complexity of human behavior, as seen through the lens of the natural world.Told with perfect rhythm and unyielding brutality, these stories expose unsuspecting men and women to the realities of nature, the primal instincts of man, and the dark humor and heartbreak of our struggle to not only thrive, but survive. In “Girl on Girl,” a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can’t have in “Meteorologist Dave Santana.” And in the title story, a long fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. In Diane Cook’s perilous worlds, the quotidian surface conceals an unexpected surreality that illuminates different facets of our curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior.Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against each other for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched by a man who stalks them from their suburban yards. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, complicated, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves?As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires. Views: 40
An unexpected encounter leads to a lasting passion…
Lila Jarvis wasn’t prepared to be involved in a rescue after a long day at work. The man she saves is even more surprising and she has no idea what she is in for. From the moment they meet until she goes looking for him to check on him, she is thrown for a loop on what to do with Driscoll. She knows he is a famous singer, yet it’s the man who is tender, open and downright weird—he calls it eccentric—who has her coming back for more. He is like nothing she has experienced before. Lila has no idea where things are going, but she is willing to hold on for the ride with the man who pushes all her buttons.
Driscoll Jacobs knows that when life provides you with an opportunity you take it, make it yours and make sure it never leaves. No woman has made him feel like Lila does—on edge one moment then at ease the next. The sassy woman is a challenge he is looking forward to getting to know better. As he does he finds himself in circumstances he’s never been in before. She is in his blood and he doesn’t plan to let her go.
It started as a meeting neither expected, but with a determined man it will become much more than an unexpected encounter… Views: 40
Katherine Lawrence is a woman who has set up her whole life to make sure that she doesn’t officially exist anywhere. She has a packed suitcase by her door, she changes her hair color every two weeks, she never shares anything from her past. When Kat’s forced to spill her secrets to a group of ex-Rangers and an ex-sniper, it’s Jim who’s tasked with keeping her safe… and keeping her away from the bus station. Suspicious, surly and secretive in his own right, Jim Alden has the strongest urge to strangle Kat for her refusal to trust him – and he also longs to kiss her until her knees give out from under her. When Kat’s past is revealed, Jim fights like hell to convince this tough, exasperating, hurt woman that he can protect her, and that she can stop running for the first time in years. But sometimes the past doesn’t stay there; sometimes the past doesn’t stop looking for you. When Kat’s past threatens her present – and the lives of her friends – she’s ready to run straight in to a future full of fear and loneliness. Can she stay this time, though? Can she be safe and cherished? And can Jim convince her to stay with him… in his life and in his bed? Views: 40
There are two kinds of prison sentence that try to break us: the ones served behind iron bars and the ones served through a lifetime of guilt. Some people are handed just one. The unfortunate are given both. Drew Tucker, despite his formidable reputation, was a man shrouded in darkness who had been dealt every kind of sentence known to man. His only path of survival was to fight and conquer. After five years of solitude, with nothing to keep him company but old ghosts and relentless demons, Drew was finally out, and he had a plan in mind to reign supreme once more. But everything had changed since he’d left the small town of Babylon, Texas, and where he once fit into the world around him, he now felt misguided, misplaced and misunderstood. Freedom wasn’t free anymore and it sure as hell didn’t come cheap. That only got worse when he crossed paths with Ayda Hanagan. Legal guardian of her teenage brother, over worked, underpaid and clinging onto sanity by the skin of her teeth, Ayda should have been easier for Drew to beat down and manipulate. She should have been easier to keep quiet. But, as with everything in his life since he got released, nothing seemed to make any damn sense, and the walls were caving in on Drew now more than ever before. Determined to stay on the road he was born to travel, he was willing to fight whoever got in his way or blocked his path to the top. Even the blue-eyed blonde who seemed to have more mouth than sense. His actions were about to shake up the whole town again, and Drew didn’t care whether that came with or without consequences, or what the hell that meant for the likes of Ayda Hanagan. Views: 40
