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Murder on the Mesa

In a dry patch of West Texas, Twister and Chuckaluck go to war for water At first, Twister Malone and Chuckaluck Thompson think it must be a mirage. If real, the willow trees they see on the horizon mean that water is nearby, and in this dusty stretch of the Southwest, water is rarer than gold. They rub the grit from their eyes, yet the sight remains. There really is water up ahead—and death just around the corner. As the two friends ride toward the trees, they hear the sound of rushing water. Someone has opened a sluicegate, allowing all the precious liquid to drain into the dirt. When Twister and Chuckaluck close the gate and the roaring stops, a woman screams, "Don't let him get away! He was going to kill me!" Chuckaluck fires wildly, but the scoundrel has escaped, setting the wandering cowpokes on the trail of a mystery so dark and twisted it might be beyond their powers to solve. Murder on the Mesa is the 4th book in the...
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Ultimate Punishment

A gripping examination of the case for and against capital punishment by a respected criminal lawyer and celebrated novelist. In the words of Harvard Law Professor, Laurence H. Tribe--"Ultimate Punishment is the ultimate statement about the death penalty: to read it is to understand why law alone cannot make us whole." As a respected criminal lawyer, Scott Turow has been involved with the death penalty for more than a decade, including successfully representing two different men convicted in death-penalty prosecutions. In this vivid account of how his views on the death penalty have evolved, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his recent service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan’s unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office. Telling the powerful stories behind the statistics, as he moves from the Governor’s Mansion to Illinois’s state-of-the art “super-max†prison and the execution chamber, Ultimate Punishment has all the drama and intellectual substance of Turow’s bestselling fiction.
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Monkey Wrench

[mfm, post-apocalyptic, military/spec ops] When you have evil to overthrow, you need to call in…the Drunk Monkeys. Stacia Rooney is worried her older brother is being brainwashed for a suicide mission by the Church of the Rising Sunset. When she has a run-in with the Drunk Monkeys, they unfortunately agree with her assessment. Quack and Lima think it might already be too late to help Stacia’s brother escape whatever evil project Reverend Silo has cooked up, but they need her help to get more information. They suspect it’s part of a larger plan to spread the deadly Kite virus across the United States and speed up the apocalypse. Whatever’s going on, Quack and Lima know two things for certain. One, Stacia belongs with them. And two, they are going to throw an explosive monkey wrench into Reverend Silo’s plans. The question is, will the world come crumbling down around them when two of them are exposed to Kite?
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Ship's Company, the Entire Collection

Mr. Jobson awoke with a Sundayish feeling, probably due to the fact that it was Bank Holiday. He had been aware, in a dim fashion, of the rising of Mrs. Jobson some time before, and in a semi-conscious condition had taken over a large slice of unoccupied territory. He stretched himself and yawned, and then, by an effort of will, threw off the clothes and springing out of bed reached for his trousers. He was an orderly man, and had hung them every night for over twenty years on the brass knob on his side of the bed. He had hung them there the night before, and now they had absconded with a pair of red braces just entering their teens. Instead, on a chair at the foot of the bed was a collection of garments that made him shudder. With trembling fingers he turned over a black tailcoat, a white waistcoat, and a pair of light check trousers. A white shirt, a collar, and tie kept them company, and, greatest outrage of all, a tall silk hat stood on its own band-box beside the chair. Mr. Jobson, fingering his bristly chin, stood: regarding the collection with a wan smile.
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This Perfect Day

By the author of Rosemary’s Baby, a horrifying journey into a future only Ira Levin could imagine Considered one of the great dystopian novels—alongside Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange and Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World—Ira Levin’s frightening glimpse into the future continues to fascinate readers even forty years after publication. The story is set in a seemingly perfect global society. Uniformity is the defining feature; there is only one language and all ethnic groups have been eugenically merged into one race called “The Family.” The world is ruled by a central computer called UniComp that has been programmed to keep every single human on the surface of the earth in check. People are continually drugged by means of regular injections so that they will remain satisfied and cooperative. They are told where to live, when to eat, whom to marry, when to reproduce. Even the basic facts of nature are subject to the UniComp’s will—men do not grow facial hair, women do not develop breasts, and it only rains at night.         With a vision as frightening as any in the history of the science fiction genre, This Perfect Day is one of Ira Levin’s most haunting novels. 
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Charity Girl

When Fate and a chivalrous impulse combine to saddle Viscount Desford with a friendless homeless waif named Cherry Steane, to whom else should he turn in such a scrape but his old childhood playmate, Henrietta Silverdale? For all they refused to oblige their parents by marrying, they have always been the best of friends. But as Desford pursues Cherry's lickpenny grandfather and reprobate father around unfashionable watering places and the seedier fringes of society, Hetta is forced to wonder whether he might not, at last, have fallen in love. Without the timely intervention of his scapegrace brother Simon, and Hetta's worthy suitor Gary Nethercott, Desford is in danger of making a rare mess of his affairs. Charity Girl is a wonderful romantic novel by the queen of the Regency romance, one of the most popular historical novelists of all time.
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Absence of Mallets

Contractor Shannon Hammer steels her nerve to pin down a killer in the latest Fixer-Upper Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Premeditated Mortar. . . .Shannon could not be happier that her hunky thriller-writing boyfriend, Mac, has moved in, and it is a good thing they are living together because they are both busier than ever. Mac is hosting writing retreats at his now vacant lighthouse mansion, while Shannon and her crew build Homefront, a quaint Victorian village of tiny homes for veterans in need. Mac’s latest guests are proving to be a handful though, and Shannon has heard some grumbling from the luminaries of Lighthouse Cove about her latest passion project. But nothing can throw a wrench in their plans except a malicious murder.When one of Shannon’s new friends is found brutally bludgeoned with a mallet near the lighthouse on Mac’s property, the couple hammers out a suspect list and searches for a motive. As they...
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The Unicorn Hunt: The Fifth Book of the House of Niccolo

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolo series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire. Scotland, 1468: a nation at the edge of Europe, a civilization on the threshold of the Modern Age. Merchants, musicians, politicians, and pageantry fill the court of King James III. In its midst, Nicholas seeks to avenge his bride's claim that she carries the bastard of his archenemy, Simon St. Pol. When she flees before Nicholas can determine whether or not the rumored child is his own—or exists at all—Nicholas gives chase. So begins the deadly game of cat and mouse that will lead him from the infested cisterns of Cairo to the misted canals of Venice at carnival. Breathlessly paced, sparkling with wit. The Unicorn Hunt confirms Dorothy Dunnett as the genre's finest practitioner. From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Valorous, a Tame Quantum Novel

A slightly TAMER version of Valorous—all the romance, all the heat, just a little less erotic. He's a sexual dominant. She's sworn off sex. There's no way they can make a relationship work—or can they? After crashing into her destiny, Natalie discovers destiny can be a double-edged sword when it includes the biggest movie star in the world... Can Flynn and Natalie's new love survive the incessant scrutiny, among other challenges they face? From Hollywood to Las Vegas, Flynn and Natalie's whirlwind love affair has it all—romance, passion, steamy hot sex, relentless paparazzi and a murder that could be their undoing. Flynn is a dirty-talking hero who puts it all on the line for the woman he loves, who leaves no desire unfulfilled, who will do anything it takes to protect what's his... Virtuous, Valorous and Victorious are a trilogy, with cliffhanger endings in Virtuous and Valorous. Books 4-7 in the...
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The Silver Coin

Ms. Kane writes like no other, says Romantic Times of Andrea Kane's breath-catching, dramatic mixture of romance and danger. Now, in this dazzling sequel to The Gold Coin, she continues her suspenseful tale of two beautiful cousins, so alike even their own family mistakes them, so enmeshed in a web of deceit that their very lives are at risk.... All her life, Breanna Colby has lived on the precipice of fear, her only joy the recent reunion with her beloved cousin Anastasia. With her violent father now locked away in jail, the repressed young woman can emerge from her cocoon and pursue all the joys she's been denied. But she finds -- to her terror -- that not all the shadows have lifted, and an evil from the past stalks both her and Anastasia. When authorities are unable to help with this assassin lurking in the darkness, the Colbys turn to the brilliant, unconventional Royce Chadwick, England's foremost expert on finding people who don't want to be found. Hard, detached Royce has always been a loner who operates by his own set of rules. He has little patience for weakness. Delicate Breanna Colby is an eye-opener to him, for beneath her fragile exterior ties a core of steel. As the two face overwhelming danger side by side, Royce discovers a woman he never dreamed existed -- one who, despite his cynicism, he is losing his heart to. But their future together can never be -- not unless Royce kills the assassin before the assassin kills them.
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Stand By -- London Calling!

"My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him." — Neil GaimanAn unholy love! That's what young Erlys Janway found herself in the throes of as she awaits word from her brother, Pell Barneyfield, as to whether they are truly blood-related. If he can come up with the proof they're not related — and then make it to Foleysburg, where MacWhorter's traveling circus is camped — then Erlys won't be compelled to marry Golden-Tongue, the circus barker. But first Pell'll have to traverse Old Twistibus, a road so crooked they gave it a name. In the meantime, Angus MacWhorter, kindly owner of the circus, is offered $1000 for a $10 diorama of a hanged fish with a crown. What's with that? Only the answer to all of the riddles of this classic 1953 tale, the last Keeler published...
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In Strange Company: A Story of Chili and the Southern Seas

Guy Newell Boothby was a prolific Australian novelist and writer, noted for sensational fiction in variety magazines around the end of the nineteenth century.
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The Wireless Officer

Percy Westerman was a 20th century British writer best known for kids books, most of which are adventure stories involving naval or military themes.
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The Cave of Knowledge

Episode 4. The city of Snub Nubbin begins to function and Larco returns to scientific research. The Wizard makes a decision to educate Larco before he enters the unknown.The city of Snub Nubbin begins to function and Larco returns to scientific research. The Wizard makes a decision to educate Larco before he enters the unknown.
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The Complete Crime Stories

Seventeen gripping tales from one of the toughest authors in the history of crime fiction They call him Lucky—but he has never had a lucky day in his life. A nineteen-year-old hobo just starting to ride the rails, he is hiding in the coal car when the railroad detective comes through. They get into a scuffle, and Lucky’s hand finds a railroad spike. Before he knows it, he has smashed the investigator’s head and shoved him out of the car. If he hurries, if he’s lucky, he will get back to Los Angeles in time to establish an alibi, burn his clothes, and avoid the electric chair. But as Lucky will discover, the deadliest threat is lurking within his own mind. “Dead Man” is just one of the outstanding stories included in this volume. The author of some of the most hard-boiled prose ever written, James M. Cain understood fear in all its forms—and knew better than anyone the terror of a killer on the run.
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