After six novels, five story collections and two books of non-fiction, and countless international prizes, A.L. Kennedy certainly has the authority to talk about the craft of writing books - it's just a wonder she's found the time. These are missives from the authorial front line - urgent and vivid, full of the excitement, fury and frustration of trying to make thousands of words into a publishable book. At the core of On Writing is the hugely popular blog that Kennedy writes for the Guardian - and we follow her during a three-year period when she finished one collection of stories and started another, and wrote a novel in between. Readers and aspiring writers will have almost everything they need to know about the complexities of researching, writing and publishing fiction, but they will be receiving this wisdom conversationally, from one of the funniest and most alert of our contemporary authors.Alongside the blogs are... Views: 27
One night to remember with the perfect cowboy...Or one step toward the perfect revenge?Nothing in Hannah Ryder's plot included a hot fling with a drop-dead-sexy cowboy. Especially when her cowboy turns out to be Brock McNeill—a potential enemy with ties to the man Hannah wants to destroy. When an accident claims Brock's memory, Hannah is caught in an intricate web of scandal, falling dangerously for the one man she shouldn't trust...Don't miss a single story in The McNeill Magnates series!The Magnate's Mail-Order BrideThe Magnate's Marriage MergerHis Accidental HeirLittle Secrets: His Pregnant SecretaryClaiming His Secret HeirFor the Sake of His HeirThe Forbidden BrotherWild Wyoming NightsOne Night Scandal Views: 27
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, with Ray Liotta and Chris Evans He was smart, merciless, and deadly. And it took someone just as tough to bring him down.A mob contract killer known as “The Iceman” for hiding a body in an ice-cream truck freezer, Richard Kuklinski boasted a personal body count of more than a hundred victims. Using guns, knives, poison, ice picks, tire irons, baseball bats, and bombs, the family man from New Jersey killed for fun, for money, to cover up his own crimes, and to satisfy his inner rage. Law enforcement officials knew all about Kuklinski and had a list of his victims, but couldn’t get near him—until undercover agent Dominick Polifrone posed as a mobster and began a deadly game of cat and mouse.In this harrowing true-crime account, Anthony Bruno delves into the mind of a cold-blooded killer, chronicling the Iceman’s grisly crimes and probing the bizarre dynamics of Agent Polifrone’s dangerous liaison with him. For as Polifrone carefully built up a case against Kuklinksi, he knew he was running out of time—because the Iceman was planning to kill him too.“Bruno puts his writing talents to white-knuckle use with a tight focus on a killer with no human feelings.”—*Kirkus Reviews “Excellent . . . [re-creates] the tension and stress Polifrone experienced in fulfilling his risky undercover assignment.”—*Publishers WeeklyFrom the Trade Paperback edition.From Publishers WeeklyRichard Kuklinsky, son of a brutal, alcoholic father who came home only infrequently and a mother who vented her resentment on her children, grew up to be an efficient mass murderer. By the time of his trial in 1988 at age 53 he had killed upwards of 100 men by shooting, stabbing, choking or poisoning them. Kuklinsky, a New Jersey family man with two daughters and a son, was finally brought to justice through the efforts of Special Agent Dominick Polifrone of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, working with the New Jersey Attorney General's Office and the New Jersey State Police. The "Ice Man" will not be eligible for parole until he is 111 years old. Bruno ( Bad Blood ) has done an excellent job of re-creating the tension and stress Polifrone experienced in fulfilling his risky undercover assignment. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsSmoothly written bio of a lone-wolf executioner for the mob. In his first nonfiction book, mystery author Bruno (Bad Moon, 1992, etc.) puts his writing talents to white-knuckle use with a tight focus on a killer with no human feelings except toward his wife and three sons. Kuklinski--who'd used derringers, shotguns, baseball bats, tire irons, knives, ice picks, and his bare hands to kill--had been dubbed The Ice Man'' by the New Jersey Police after it was discovered that the body of one of his victims had been stashed for two years in an ice-cream truck owned by a friend of the killer's known asMr. Softee.'' A genius at assassination when he wasn't serving kids popsicles, Mr. Softee had schooled the Ice Man in the use of cyanide, a car- bomb invention called the ``seat of death,'' and other exotic methods of murder. Cyanide proved to be Kuklinski's first love: It was quiet and discreet--you could walk by your victim, spray his face with the poison while pretending to sneeze, and he'd be dying even as he crumpled to the sidewalk. Bruno details how Dominick Polifrone, a cop who grew up with the wiseguys in Hackensack, goes undercover and gets in with the cagey Kuklinski. The hit man wants cyanide and a rich Jewish kid to sell coke to, and Polifrone wants to record Kuklinski proposing murders. As cop and killer play cat and mouse, and the bartering goes bad, the danger of Polifrone being shot at any moment is torqued tighter and tighter by Bruno. Finally, Kuklinski is caught and tried: It's determined that he's committed approximately one hundred murders, including that of Roy DeMeo, a killer so dangerous that he intimidated even John Gotti. A fast-paced, suspenseful re-creation of how a vicious killer was run to ground. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Views: 27
From the night-black depths of a coalmine to the sun-struck peaks of the Appalachian Mountains, from a riveting murder mystery to a poignant meditation on the meaning of love and family, the latest novel in the critically acclaimed series strikes out for new territory: the sorrow and outrage that spring from a real-life chapter in West Virginia history.Royce Dillard doesn't remember much about the day his parents-and one hundred and twenty-three other souls-died in the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster. He was only two years old when he was ripped from his mother's arms. But now Dillard, who lives off the grid with only a passel of dogs for company, is fighting for his life one more time: He's on trial for murder. Prosecutor Bell Elkins faces her toughest challenge yet in this haunting story of vengeance, greed and the fierce struggle for social justice. Richly imagined, vividly written and deeply felt, Last Ragged Breath is set in West Virginia, but it really... Views: 27
A fun, fresh frolic of a novel starring a spoiled but lovable Texas heiress out to reclaim her fortune Pippa Walker's wedding was to be huge--Texas huge--complete with twelve bridesmaids under contract from Pippa's mother to stay lean and long-haired, gondolas flown in from Venice, A- and B- guest lists. But when Pippa finds out her handsome husband-to-be isn't what she thought, she bolts from her own wedding, shocking society and getting herself disinherited. The only way she can get a piece of the family fortune back is to earn a degree from a school. Any school. It's a tough assignment for a girl who dropped out of SMU after pledging Kappa Kappa Gamma and shopping at Neiman's for a year. But Pippa is nothing if not up for a challenge. Attracting one hilarious misadventure after another, she tries to earn her sheepskin at: driving school, matchmaking school, even a circus academy. It's only when she hits rock-bottom--The Mountbatten... Views: 27
Father in training!For Jake Hallam and Amy Jones it was love at first sight. Amy recognized it—the trouble was, Jake refused to! Only, he couldn't refuse to acknowledge that, after a night of tender lovemaking, Amy was expecting his baby.Jake was horrified...yet fascinated. He couldn't stay away from Amy—or ignore the growing life he'd helped create. But he was a confirmed bachelor wedded to his work. Could he learn to be a husband and father before the baby arrived? Views: 27
Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away is a deeply poignant memoir set in a post-Katrina Mississippi. Alice is returning to assess the damage to her beloved Mississippi coastline and the once-immaculate home that she'd carefully cultivated for her husband, Dr. Liam Rivers, and their three children. Liam is the town hospital's highly respected Chief of Medicine, for whom Alice willingly left behind her writing life in New York and vestiges of her modeling career in Paris, to become a wife and full-time mother. In the wake of this natural disaster, the tenuous balance of her marriage is lost as Liam's mental health spirals. When Liam violently attacks her at knifepoint, Alice is saved only by their three-year-old son. The author flees with her children and what ensues is an epic battle—emotional, psychological, spiritual and legal—for redemption, preservation of self and the welfare of her children. It's a battle that continues even as life goes on, finally coming... Views: 26
Startling and scandalous, this is an intimate insider's story of Osama bin Laden's retinue in the ten years after 9/11, a family in flight and at war.From September 11, 2001 to May 2, 2011, Osama Bin Laden evaded intelligence services and special forces units, drones and hunter killer squads. The Exile tells the extraordinary inside story of that decade through the eyes of those who witnessed it: bin Laden's four wives and many children, his deputies and military strategists, his spiritual advisor, the CIA, Pakistan's ISI, and many others who have never before told their stories.Investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy gained unique access to Osama bin Laden's inner circle, and they recount the flight of Al Qaeda's forces and bin Laden's innocent family members, the gradual formation of ISIS by bin Laden's lieutenants, and bin Laden's rising paranoia and eroding control over his organization. They also reveal that the... Views: 26
Ray Robertson is an irrepressible voice, with brass balls, and a heart of gold. I Was There the Night He Died is a hilarious, moving, insightful, and timely piece of modern realism, delightfully void of literary pretension. Here, at last, is a novel that rocks and rolls."—Jonathan Evison, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving"So," she says. Who died tonight?"Sam Samson, meet Samantha. Sam's a novelist: his dad has Alzheimer's, his mother died of stroke, his wife was killed seventeen months ago in a car crash. Samantha, eighteen, is a cutter. She lives across the street from Sam's parents' house. Marijuana and loneliness spark an unlikely friendship, which Sam finds hard to navigate, especially as his dad's condition worsens and the money for his care suddenly vanishes. Yet somehow, between a record player and a park bench, through late-night conversations about the deaths of Sam's musical heroes, and ultimately... Views: 26
Possessing a unique method of killing, the master criminal has a way to eliminate the entire British government. He won’t do it if the price is right. Views: 26
