Watched by a ceiling camera inside a Macao casino, Clarity Nice joins videographer Plum Bailey, boarding Heir Force One, the plane of Sheik Hari Al-Najib, after offering to him a ring that points to an ancient sorority. Rejected by his family, known as the dumbest loss-making machine of the Emirates, Hari seeks the help of Clarity to sort his love life and make his first dollar on his own.Watched by a ceiling camera inside the Florentia Moenia casino in Macau, teleoperator Clarity Nice joins the woman watching her, videographer Plum Bailey, in a live dealer gambling room broadcasting over the internet. Plum leads Clarity with her on board Heir Force One, the plane of Sheik Haroun Al-Najib, known colloquially as Hari, after offering to him the luxurious ring made by the firm Mauboussin, brought by Clarity to Macau, which points to an ancient sorority identified by a symbol known as the 'incomplete triangle'. Rejected by his family, known as the dumbest human loss-making machine of the Emirates, Hari likes to wear shabby clothes, which include a sweater with growths patched with puffs of woolfiller, ripped jeans, worn out brown leather shoes with one of the soles open, and housing several white pebbles.A golden bachelor with a solid reputation of lacking qualification and being indecisive whatever he does, Hari has not decided to marry, and is confused by all the women around him, who want to be near him in order to enjoy the affluent lifestyle of 'HDH', His Dumb Highness, as everyone else but himself thinks of him. Hari does not care about failure, and sees it as something inherent in business and in general.Seen as a nuisance by his family for their business, because of his loss making business blunders and repeated incompetence, his list of achievements including only failures and money losing ventures or trades, Hari heads for the Caribbean to sort out his love life and make his first dollar on his own. His plane lands in the British Virgin Islands and he gets a job as waiter in a terrace of Tortola. After an unfortunate tip to a tourist on a penny stock which fails, Hari is fired from his job, and becomes jobless again.Sheik Hari is a sociable guy, who trusts himself when someone else tells him he is rich. He is rich, but someone else always ends up managing his money, either his family or his retainer Hakeem, a man who resents all the fortune around him, and seeks a chunk of all the money thrown away by Hari's disastrous forays into business, trade, or investing.After an email sent by error by Hari results in the landing of a consortium of journalists investigating the Sheik and the holdings of his company, Clarity helps Hari sort out some of the problems arising out of the unwanted notoriety. The mess created by Hari includes a scandal called Scrub Leaks, involving the Sheik's family assets and other powerful members of the elite, and a money laundering charge by the BVI financial services commission, which leads Hari's girlfriend to leave him. As a result of the mess, Hari, and Clarity, are arrested and are led to jail in Tortola.Stuck with Hari in jail, awaiting a trial which the authorities want as example of their compliance with laundering legislation, Clarity will have to find an ingenious way to leave jail and the island, to elude the charges against them by bringing to the police commissioner those who tampered with the Sheik's account in Tortola. Lacking any local allies, the only way for Clarity out of Hari's mess, is to strike a deal exchanging favors with Plum, who is seeking a valuable list of connections owned by the Sheik, in order to reach the sorority headed by an older woman, Lady Mulham, which brings to their members an explanation of 'completion', in particular the completion of its symbol, the incomplete triangle. (This is the regular banana humor version of the Shabby Sheik) Views: 707
When he published his first novel, Lucky Jim, in which his misbehaving hero wreaks havoc with the starchy protocols of academic life, Kingsley Amis emerged as a bad boy of British letters. Later he became famous as another kind of bad boy, an inveterate boozer, a red-faced scourge of political correctness. He was consistent throughout in being a committed enemy of any presumed “right thinking,” and it is this, no doubt, that made him one of the most consistently unconventional and exploratory writers of his day, a master of classical English prose who was at the same time altogether unafraid to apply himself to literary genres all too often dismissed by sophisticates as “low.” Science fiction, the spy story, the ghost story were all grist for Amis’s mill, and nowhere is the experimental spirit in which he worked, his will to test both reality and the reader’s imagination, more apparent than in his short stories. These “woodchips from [his] workshop”—here presented in a new selection—are anything but throwaway work. They are instead the essence of Amis, a brew that is as tonic as it is intoxicating. Views: 706
Love Virtually ends as Leo leaves Austria for America. He and Emmi have still not met, but the intensity of their correspondence has been threatening Emmi’s marriage. But shouldn’t these unconventional lovers be given another chance?
When Leo returns from Boston, he gradually resumes his email contact with Emmi. But he has plans to settle down with Pamela, the woman he met in America. Emmi and Leo meet at last in person, in an attempt to draw a line under their relationship, but they cannot stop writing to each other. When Pamela learns of Leo’s secret and unusual liaison, she returns to the USA, and Emmi’s marriage to Bernhard is tested to its limits.
Readers of Love Virtually begged to know more: could Emmi and Leo ever get together? Once again Daniel Glattauer takes us up and down through stormy waters, and delivers a thrilling sequel. Views: 705
Following indications of the Enlightened Dragon Society, Clarity Nice notices that the wife of billionaire Dao Bin, Elsie Chu, has purchased an expensive ring, linked to her smartphone. On her own, Clarity finds the role of this luxurious vanity ring, and how knowledge on immortality will be sold with a Health phone built by Dao Bin, Chinese General Tian Yazhou, and conglomerate Owens & Owell.Rejected by socialite Shalia Owell, who has discovered Clarity's false identity as Herbaline employee Darcy Emmers, Clarity becomes agenda and damage control assistant of Elsie Chu, the wife of Singapore billionaire Dao Bin, owner of wireless and telephony company Hunan Enterprises. Disenchanted by a rocky marriage and the lack of influence she has on the business matters of her husband, including the new health phone project to sell longevity services, Elsie Chu has purchased an expensive ring sold by a luxury jeweler, labeled 'Rose Property', which has some wireless equipment built into it to protect her privacy. Convinced that she can take part in her husband's business, she instructs Clarity to spy on Dao Bin and his moneytician Lim Li, to know more about her husband's activity.Sent to the Chinese Embassy and to the Branch of a private bank in Singapore, the Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation, Clarity finds out that Chinese Military officials, led by Western Military Command Theater General Tian Yazhou, have agreed to fund part of the health phone project. Her loyalty siding with the monks of the Enlightened Dragon Society, who are protecting their dossier on immortality, Meridian 57, from Taoist Professor Chang, and from his White Tigress, Madame Wa, an expert of esoteric sexuality, Clarity stays close to Elsie Chu, to find out the storage location of rare earth metals which will be used to assemble the new health phone.Clarity becomes a confidant of Elsie Chu, who has begun instruction as a White Tigress, following the esoteric teachings of Madame Wa. But the cheeky doyenne does not trust her esoteric teacher completely, and she uses her ring in order to stay in touch with a secretive group which keeps her away from sexual esoteric practices, the Privilege Club. The secretive club is the group who issued the vanity ring of Elsie Chu, and instructs her to stay away from Madame Wa and instead carry out the filming of an adult film, 'Golden Lamp of Casa Mollino', to vent out the impulses of her outrageous libido.Enmeshed in the filming of Casa Mollino, which is used by Elsie Chu to involve prominent members of Singapore high society in the funding of her husband's health phone project, Clarity is drawn into the ploy of Elsie Chu. Alone and without any immediate support, she must face the shrewd delegate sent by General Tian Yazhou, Economic and Commercial counselor of the Chinese embassy in Singapore, Jiang Xiong, and the moneytician of Dao Bin, Lim Li, in order to protect the core of Meridian 57, uncover the identities of those behind the vanity ring of Elsie Chu, and find out Taoist knowledge on immortality assembled by Professor Chang, which will be sold with the Hunan health phone, through a joint venture between General Tian Yazhou, Dao Bin and Owens & Owell. Views: 704
Three fools on the run. A watch. And the fastest man on Earth.Thanks to a bureaucratic quibble three unwary Zimbabwean table tennis players manage to qualify to the London 2012 Olympic Games, with actually the sole intent of fleeing their country's dictatorial regime. When their plan goes awry they resort to an even crazier idea: kidnapping the biggest star of the Games and using the ransom to buy their freedom. Views: 703
A shivering of worlds.
Deep in the Chalk, something is stirring. The owls and the foxes can sense it, and Tiffany Aching feels it in her boots. An old enemy is gathering strength.
This is a time of endings and beginnings, old friends and new, a blurring of edges and a shifting of power. Now Tiffany stands between the light and the dark, the good and the bad.
As the fairy horde prepares for invasion, Tiffany must summon all the witches to stand with her. To protect the land. Her land.
There will be a reckoning… Views: 703
Susan had never hung up a stocking . She'd never put a tooth under her pillow in the serious expectation that a dentally inclined fairy would turn up. It wasn't that her parents didn't believe in such things. They didn't need to believe in them. They know they existed. They just wished they didn't. There are those who believe and those who don't. Through the ages, superstition has had its uses. Nowhere more so than in the Discworld where it's helped to maintain the status quo. Anything that undermines superstition has to be viewed with some caution. There may be consequences, particularly on the last night of the year when the time is turning. When those consequences turn out to be the end of the world, you need to be prepared. You might even want more standing between you and oblivion than a mere slip of a girl - even if she has looked Death in the face on numerous occasions. . . Views: 702
The seventh book in the hugely popular Elemental Assassin series by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Estep—Gin Blanco is back and ready for action.I used to murder people for money, but lately it’s become more of a survival technique. Once an assassin, always an assassin. So much for being plain old Gin Blanco. With every lowlife in Ashland gunning for me, I don’t need another problem, but a new one has come to town anyway. Salina might seem like a sweet Southern belle, but she’s really a dangerous enemy whose water elemental magic can go head-to-head with my own Ice and Stone power. Salina also has an intimate history with my lover, Owen Grayson, and now that she’s back, she thinks he’s hers for the taking. Salina’s playing a mysterious game that involves a shady local casino owner with a surprising connection to Owen. But they call me the Spider for a reason. I’m going to untangle her deadly scheme, even if it leaves my love affair hanging by a thread. Views: 702
A political murder mystery set against a backdrop of intrigue and intolerance. Chicago, 1960, with the Presidential candidacy at stake; Cornell Eastman becomes entangled in deception and assassination. The political maneuvering and treachery could well cost he and his family a chance at the White House.A political murder mystery set against a backdrop of intrigue and intolerance. Chicago, 1960, with the Presidential candidacy at stake; Cornell Eastman becomes entangled in deception and assassination. The political maneuvering and treachery could well cost he and his family a chance at the White House. The suspicious death of his closest confidant and aide takes Eastman on an unwanted and devastating journey. Views: 699
What’s more important? Achieving personal goals within our own tiny worldview to keep work and family moving forward? Or forsaking those things to achieve a higher calling that might benefit a globe full of complete strangers? Norman Jensen embarks on a tumultuous journey that attempts to juggle both of these conflicting odds, facing adventure, regret, and death along the way.How hard should we strive to fulfill the mission of a dead stranger? Somewhat hard? With minimal effort? Not at all? What if that mission is to provide a cure for a deadly epidemic? Somewhat hard? With maximum effort? Until it basically kills us?Norman Jensen is sent to fight at the front lines of World War I during the waning days of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, when a fellow soldier, Maxie McWalter, shows him the discovery of the ages, a cure for influenza. Maxie doesn’t offer him a pill or a vial of medicine to try for himself, but a cluster of strangely organic objects wrapped in a leaf. Norman is reluctant to try it at first, but he’s standing in an environment where he’s got nothing else to lose, so he takes the combination. His headache immediately goes away, and he’s convinced that Maxie has made an awesome discovery. Maxie’s plan when he gets out of the Army is to sell his “cure” to a pharmaceutical company and stop the flu epidemic in his tracks. Then he dies, right before Norman’s eyes.Norman has no idea what to do with these ingredients, or even what they are, but because he’s tried the cure, he knows that it works, so he’s dead set on getting the formula out to the public on Maxie’s behalf. But when he finally gets out of the Army and returns to France to collect the package he left safely behind, he realizes that the ingredients are decaying, and if he doesn’t identify them soon, the rest of the world may lose out on the most important medicinal discovery of the 20th century.He immediately goes to work retracing Maxie’s tracks, doing all that he can to identify the mysterious ingredients used in combination to cure the flu (not just treat or prevent it). But work and family must still go on, and he soon discovers that some priorities can greatly jeopardize those other priorities made of equal and opposite force. And it all becomes more challenging, if not impossible, when Norman realizes that the clock on his own life is always ticking, and the cloaked phantom responsible for taking him out of this life must keep to a strict schedule, no matter how much he does or does not accomplish. Views: 699
Lexi Reed was unstoppable, or so she thought. As the PR manager of international rock band, Power Station and living in New York, she was a long way from her old life in Melbourne, Australia. Having captured the heart and married one of the sexiest men alive (Power Station's guitarist, Alex Stone) Lexi was living beyond any fantasy she could have ever imagined. Having finally allowed the walls from her past to fall, Lexi had not only learnt to trust again but had given herself completely to Alex, her one true love.Lexi's happiness was short lived when heartache and trauma threw everything she knew into turmoil. Her world came crashing down around her, and now Lexi is struggling to regain her sense of self. Unable to regroup and heal under the scrutiny of the media and her well-intentioned loved ones, she can't seem to find the road back to the old "Lexi."Alex is devastated. His beautiful, intelligent and once confident wife is now distant and guarded, the product of the brutality... Views: 699
A new comedy from the USA Today bestselling duo!MacA good cop can always spot trouble. That's why my senses started pinging the moment I met the hottie next door. The neighborhood may never be the same. First she confuses me for a male stripper and tries to remove my uniform. (The guys on the force will never let me live that down.) And then there's the breaking and entering.I don't know what to do with her. My libido has a few ideas of its own, though. Bad, bad ideas.MegHey, I it's not my fault that Hot Cop's nightstick gets excited every time we see each other. And I can't help that someone broke into his apartment. Fine—that last thing was totally my fault. And I intend to make amends. So when he needs a date for his sister's wedding, I'm there. This is right up my alley. I'm an actor. By the time it's over, his entire family will believe we're a couple. Even him.Warning: may cause... Views: 698
In 2014 a massive terrorist attack in London kills 80,000. Ten years later we join T14, the money no object, red tape defying counter terrorist organisation tasked with ensuring that this never happens again. Recruiting from the police, SAS and other agencies, T14 uses the latest technology and a no nonsense approach to fighting terrorism and related crime. A pacy thriller.In 2014 a massive terrorist attack in London kills 80,000. Ten years later we join T14, the money no object, red tape defying counter terrorist organisation tasked with ensuring that this never happens again. Recruiting from the police, SAS and other agencies, T14 uses the latest technology and a no nonsense approach to fighting terrorism and related crime.One of their agents is pulled from an undercover operation when Agent 4 goes missing. Agent 4 is a man with a computer implant in his brain that allows him to access digital information. Somebody has interfered with his implant and his memory and he ends up in America with no idea what he's been doing or how he got there. Could it be one of his own colleagues who did this to him? Either way, Arthur swears to kill whoever sabotaged his mind.Meanwhile some foreign power is intent on infiltrating or destroying the UK's top research institutes working on brain computer technology. T14 have to cope with internal espionage, assassinations and an ever worsening political crisis in this fast-paced crime thriller which mixes international intrigue, action, mystery and futuristic technology. Views: 698
