A Tale Of Revenge Vulcan was a factory planet, centuries old, Company run, ugly as sin, and unfeeling as death. Vulcan bred just two types of native—complacent or tough. . .and Sten was tough. When his family died in a mysterious "accident," Sten rebelled, harassing the Company from the metal world's endless mazelike warrens. Sten would have ended up just another burnt-out Delinquent if he hadn't rescued a mysterious stranger who turned out to be his ticket off Vulcan—and an express ride back! Views: 5
Sure, you can root for Sherlock Holmes or Charlie Chan or Hugh Drummond. But I’ll take a good old-fashioned rogue over the lot of 'em any day. Boston Blackie, A.J. Raffles, the Lone Wolf, Thubway Tham, Mr. Clackworthy, Arsene Lupin -- they all hold a curious fascination, dabbling as they do in crime and punishment! So take a walk on the seamy side of the Victorian era. (And yes, we are cheating with my dates a little bit. But we wanted to include a few latter-day rogues whose adventures are in the spirit of the Victorian rogues.) All told, it's more than 1,900 pages of great reading! Views: 5
In this short story from the thrilling anthology FaceOff, bestselling authors Ian Rankin and Peter James—along with their most famous characters, John Rebus and Roy Grace—team up for the first time ever.Detectives John Rebus and Roy Grace could not be more different. Different generations, different backgrounds, and not to mention, they work 500 miles apart.The case that eventually brings them together centers on a crime that happened when Rebus was just a teenager in the 1960s—but it took place in Roy Grace’s stomping grounds in Brighton, England, at a time when violence erupted between rival gangs known as Mods and Rockers.Now, a deathbed confession in in Edinburgh brings Rebus and Grace together to investigate a cold case with a shocking twist.For more exciting pairs, check out all eleven stories in FaceOff! Views: 5
In the summer of 1946, the most wide-open town in America is Hot Springs, Arkansas, a city of ancient, legendary corruption. While the pilgrims take the cure in the mineral-rich 142-degree water that bubbles from the earth, the brothels and casinos are the true source of the town's prosperity. It is run by an English-born gangster named Owney Maddox, who represents the New York syndicate and rules his empire like a Saxon lord while sporting an ascot and jodhpurs. But it is all about to be challenged. A newly elected county prosecutor wants to take on the big boys and save the city's soul (he also wouldn't mind being the next governor). He begins a war on the gambling interests and, knowing the war will be long and bloody, hires an ex-Marine sergeant, Earl Swagger, who won the Medal of Honor on Iwo Jima, to run it. Swagger knows how to fight with guns as well as any man in the world. But he is haunted: the savage fighting he just barely survived and the men he left behind in the Pacific still shadow his mind, leaving a terrible melancholy. There are even darker memories: a murdered father who beat him mercilessly and drove a younger brother to suicide. And he's torn by his own impending fatherhood, as his wife, Junie, nears term. It isn't that Earl Swagger is afraid of dying; more scary still, it's possible that he yearns for it. The gangsters fight back, setting up a campaign of ambush and counterambush in the brothels, casinos and alleys of the City of the Vapors. Raids erupt into full-out combat amid screaming prostitutes and fleeing johns. The body count mounts. Meanwhile, the politics behind the war are shifting: Will the prosecuting attorney stick with his raiders orsell them out to curry favor with the state's political machine? Will Owney Maddox defeat the raiders but lose a personal battle against a cunning rival from the West who foresees a Hot Springs in the Nevada desert as the future franchise city of organized crime? But most important, will Earl Swagger survive yet another hard war, not merely with his body but also with his soul intact? Packed with page-turning action, sex, sin and crime, Stephen Hunter's "Hot Springs" is at once a relentlessly violent and deeply touching story. Views: 5
Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents to ever grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. One of his enduring classics is his Mazirian the Magician (previously titled The Dying Earth), and its sequels—a fascinating, baroque tale set on a far-future Earth, under a giant red sun that is soon to go out forever. Cugel the Clever is a novel-length adventure of Cugel the trickster, the thief, the very questionable hero in this decadent, dying world. Caught by the magician whose house he was robbing, Cugel is set the task of retrieving certain rare objects as penance. Views: 5
The battle was raging, the air hot with smoke, loud with rifle fire. Then the air turned dim with an eerie mist, and for Jason Tarkenton, captain of the Confederate cavalry, the true nightmare began. Vickie Knox was today's woman dressed like yesterday's, wearing Yankee garb to play a part. But playacting ended when a Reb stepped out of the mist and took her prisoner-for real. They never should have met, never should have battled-never should have loved. But something had gone wrong with time itself, weaving together past and present like torn threads of a tattered tapestry. Something had gone wrong, and in mending such shredded silk, their love-and their lives-might be the final sacrifice. Views: 5
The Bibliomysteries series includes short tales by Anne Perry, Jeffery Deaver, Ken Bruen, and C. J. BoxAn ancient scroll draws a bookseller into a chilling mysteryMonty Danforth finds the tin buried beneath a shipment of leather-bound classics. Inside is a millennia-old vellum manuscript written in an unfamiliar but unmistakably ancient language. Danforth tries to photocopy and photograph it, but he ends up with blank images, as though the ink were made of something impervious to modern technology. As the scroll’s mystery enchants him, this hapless bookseller falls into a cutthroat conspiracy that he may never escape.Soon a dead-eyed old man and his granddaughter come calling for the scroll. Danforth refuses to sell them the manuscript, but they will not be the last to demand it. Powerful forces crave the secrets locked within this ancient document, and Danforth will survive only if he can master its power. Views: 5
When Meg Langslow is roped into being a bridesmaid for the nuptials of her mother, her brother's fiancee, and her own best friend, she is apprehensive. Getting the brides to choose their outfits and those of their bridesmaids (and not change their minds three days later), trying to capture the principals long enough to work out details, and even finding peacocks to strut around the garden during the ceremony--these are things Meg can handle. She can brush off the unfortunate oaf who is smitten with her, and take philosophically her disappointment when she learns that the only eligible man in her small Virginia town (and a delightful hunk he is) is of questionable sexual preference. But even Meg is taken aback when the unpleasant former sister-in-law of Meg's soon-to-be stepfather disappears and is later found dead.
Well, that's one way to zip up a wedding, and Andrews does a fine job of making the three celebrations more fun and more unusual than anything you've ever read in Ann Landers. Views: 4
