"A well-crafted page-turner that addresses the most important issue of our time. It will keep you reading well into the night."--Vince FlynnA New York Times reporter has drawn upon his experience covering the occupation in Iraq to write the most gripping and chillingly plausible thriller of the post-9/11 era. Alex Berenson's debut novel of suspense, The Faithful Spy, is a sharp, explosive story that takes readers inside the war on terror as fiction has never done before.John Wells is the only American CIA agent ever to penetrate al Qaeda. Since before the attacks in 2001, Wells has been hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, biding his time, building his cover.Now, on the orders of Omar Khadri--the malicious mastermind plotting more al Qaeda strikes on America--Wells is coming home. Neither Khadri nor Jennifer Exley, Wells's superior at Langley, knows quite what to expect.For Wells has changed during his years in the mountains. He has become a Muslim.... Views: 45
From the two-time Booker Prize winner: an exhilarating, exceedingly timely new novel--at once dark, suspenseful, and seriously funny--that journeys to the place where the cyber underworld collides with international power politics.When Gaby Baillieux released the Angel Worm virus into Australia's prison system, hundreds of asylum seekers walked free. And because the Americans run the prisons--as they do so many parts of her country--the doors of some 5,000 jails in the US also opened. Was this a mistake, or a declaration of cyber war? What, if anything, does it have to do with the largely-forgotten Battle of Brisbane between American and Australian forces in 1942? Or with the CIA-influenced coup in Australia in 1975? Felix Moore--known to himself as "Australia's last serving left-wing journalist"--is determined to write Gaby's biography in order to find the answers, to save her, to save his career, and perhaps to save his country. But how to get Gaby to cooperate? Bringing... Views: 45
Think outside of the box—that’s what Annie Dawson must do when she discovers a mysterious birchbark box in the attic of Grey Gables, the home bequeathed to her by her grandmother, Betsy Holden. The old box, exquisitely carved by an American Indian artist, contains a beaded ceremonial regalia collar and an obscure verse: Sister Otter, water dancing, sun splashes over circles you draw. If love took you to desert dry, where would you dance? Annie knows of no American Indian connection to her family in the region around Stony Point, the quaint New England fishing village on Maine’s rugged coastline where the mystery unfolds. But this very personal glimpse into Passamaquoddy life is somehow threaded through Annie’s family history. She is driven to find the connection. The poem poignantly reminds Annie of the loss of Wayne, the love of her life who was swept away by a heart attack nearly two years earlier. She feels that love has taken her to “desert dry.” Will the grief that cries out to her ever be filled again with the dancing waters of love? Meanwhile Annie, her best friend Alice MacFarland and the members of Stony Point’s Hook and Needle Club are preparing handcrafted items for charitable fundraising at the village’s annual Harvest on the Harbor autumn festival. With the mystery of the box and its contents hanging heavy in the air, the crafters decide a First Nations theme would be perfectly appropriate. Is there a simple explanation as to how the beautiful box found its way into the attic at Grey Gables? Or will Annie’s mystery again tear at the seams of Stony Point’s quiet façade? Join Annie, Alice, and the other members of the Hook and Needle Club as they follow the thread of this latest trail wherever it leads. As the mystery reaches its climax, someone will be boxed in. But who? Views: 45
Like the heroine of one of her romances, bestselling author Margie Silver was willing to rise to Cal Van Dyne's challenge. The arrogant tycoon vowed that Margie's sister would not marry his younger brother, and Margie was just as determined that the wedding would take place. Margie expected Cal's assault but not the cynical game of love he played with her on his lavish Florida estate. Suddenly Margie was gambling with her sister's future—and her own—with a passionate adversary who made his own rules... until he met his match. Views: 45
Ludo, Noah, Jamie, Phillip and Jennifer are THE BARE BUM GANG! They have an embarrassing name but a cool Gang Den, so things could be worse. Ludo leads the Bare Bum Gang on a raid through the Valley of Doom, deep in enemy territory. But as they are approaching their target, the BBG are ambushed by the Dockery gang. It looks like they are about to be annihilated (or pelted with mud really hard), but then they are rescued by a strange boy called Alfie. When they get back to their den, they find that their sweet stash has been plundered. The wrappers turn up in Ludo's binocular case. Added to the military fiasco in the Valley of Doom, the sweet theft is the final straw. Can Ludo keep his position as leader of the Bare Bum Gang? Or will he have to resort to desperate measures? Views: 45
Story #1 from the Wedding Flirts! 5 Romantic Short Stories collection (13,000 words) When Samantha’s invited to a frenemey’s wedding, she can’t show up dateless and pathetic—even though she is dateless and pathetic. So, Sam hires a hottie to pose as her perfect fiancé. But when he needs her to return the favor, Sam starts wishing the fake relationship was real. Can they turn their lies into love Views: 45
From Doris Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is the second instalment in the visionary novel cycle 'Canopus in Argos: Archives'. This is the story of the kindly Queen of Zone Three, who rules a land free of all harshness, and her forced marriage with the soldier-king of Zone Four, which is hierarchic, disciplined, inflexible, dutiful. This apparently difficult marriage, unwanted by both, requires a compromise between impulse and reason, between instinct and logic. Ben Ata learns to accept and then to love the ruler of Zone Three and her alien ways; and she learns to love and to need him. But when the Queen is commanded by the Providers to return to her own realm, she must obey, shattering though it is to leave her husband and child. Ben Ata, in turn, is ordered to marry the savage beauty who rules Zone Five, a land that both unites and reverses the other two Zones. In 'The Marriages …' Doris Lessing uses science-fiction brilliantly to investigate the conflict... Views: 45
You may have read newspaper reports of zombiish behavior in people who have taken the sleeping drug called Ambien. These people get up in the middle of the night to walk, eat, and drive cars in their sleep. The next day they sometimes find themselves in jail and have no memory of what they had done. And have you heard, as well, of the patients who wake up after years in a vegetative state - ten minutes after they’ve been given Ambien? COME OUT TONIGHT is a gripping psychological thriller inspired by these reports. Henry Jackman, a pharmacist’s assistant working in a run-down drugstore in New York City, wakes up one morning to find his girl friend unconscious on his living room rug. Someone has attacked her. He calls an ambulance, and manages to get her to the hospital alive but comatose. There she progresses from coma to vegetative state, never quite becoming conscious... until the day Henry gives her Somnolux, a new-generation sleep aid. Henry, an insomniac, has himself been taking Somnolux. He has been experiencing blackouts, something he doesn’t quite admit to, not even to himself. There is evidence he’s been doing some strange things in his sleep: women’s underwear turns up in his drawers; sexy women in his bed. Could Henry have attacked his girlfriend himself without any knowledge of the fact? Enter Donna Sirken, a no-nonsense, over-worked homicide detective who for seventeen years has clawed her way up the NYPD ranks to her current position as Detective Second Grade. “I’d have sworn until this very moment that criminals are not evil,” Donna tells us. “Sure, they’re violent, lazy, banal, or just plain bad. They want something for nothing, or their father beat them into a lifelong resentment against the world ….They grew up poor, abused, or just plain angry. Something set them on the road to crime, but Evil? C’mon.” A study of who we truly are, COME OUT TONIGHT is more than a whodunit. Profound, keenly observed and caustically funny, it will leave you thinking long after it is done.ReviewFrom Kirkus ReviewsRozanski's (Six Clicks Away, 2010, etc.) psychological thriller probes the dark side of insomnia drugs, including sleepwalking, nocturnal binge eating and blackouts.Henry Jackman is a pharmacist whose life takes on a new twist when he begins dating an attractive, brilliant medical researcher who willingly provides him with Somnolux, a new insomnia drug, to help him sleep. The medication leaves him rested and alert each day, but he begins to realize he may be sleepwalking or experiencing blackouts along with other odd behaviors he continues to disregard. He awakens one morning to find his girlfriend bludgeoned and near death in his apartment, with no signs of forced entry. She survives in a vegetative state as Jackman's life begins to follow a bizarre pattern. People keep appearing in his life who recognize him, but he knows nothing about them....He is pursued by Donna Sirken, a New York City homicide detective patterned after the classic trope of a hard-nosed, single-minded cop with a less than disciplined personal life. As Jackman continues to deny his symptoms and behaviors, she uncovers disturbing facts about him: women he is sleeping with, a jealous husband and a potential witness who ends up dead. When Jackman gives his sleeping girlfriend Somnolux and she awakens, a series of fast-moving events accelerate the action to a startling climax. Chapter narratives alternate between Jackman and Sirken, each replaying key events through the eyes of the other character and creating suspense....An absorbing thriller based on a real-life issue, with depth, suspense and intriguing psychological twists and turns. Views: 45
