A terrifying new collection of short stories from the master of zombie fiction, Max Brooks, bestselling author of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide and Recorded Attacks. Views: 813
Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key-holders. One sunny day, Alice enters the apartment and finds two of the band members shot dead. As the double-murder sends waves of shock through their lives, this group of friends begins to unravel, and dangerous secrets are revealed one by one. When Alice begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, the tension breaks out as it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks.
Jane Smiley applies her distinctive rendering of time, place, and the enigmatic intricacies of personal relationships to the twists and turns of suspense. The result is a brilliant literary thriller that will keep readers guessing up to its final, shocking conclusion.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 813
The key to a modern murder lies in the sands of history.
Examining a badly decomposed corpse is de rigueur for forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. But puzzling damage on the body of a shooting victim, an Orthodox Jewish man, suggests this is no ordinary Montreal murder. When a stranger slips Tempe a photograph of a skeleton unearthed at an archaeological site, Tempe uncovers chilling ties between the dead man and secrets long buried in the dust of Israel. Traveling there with Detective Andrew Ryan, Tempe plunges into an international mystery as old as Jesus, and centered on the controversial discovery of Christ's tomb. Has a mastermind lured her into an elaborate hoax? If not, Tempe may be on the brink of rewriting two thousand years of history -- if she can survive the foes dead set on burying her. Views: 812
Carl Sagan, writer & scientist, returns from the frontier to tell us about how the world works. In his delightfully down-to-earth style, he explores & explains a mind-boggling future of intelligent robots, extraterrestrial life & its consquences, & other provocative, fascinating quandries of the future we want to see today. Views: 811
From the author of The Stars Look Down and The Citadel, and the creator of Dr Finlay's Casebook
A J Cronin was commissioned by The American Weekly to write a Christmas story for the December 21st issue in 1958. His vision for the story is described in his letter of acceptance:
“It came to me very strongly that to achieve the highest and most profoundly touching results I should go back to the first Christmas of all and create a vivid reconstruction of the effects of the birth of the Child upon certain characters, notably the wife of the innkeeper where no room was found for Mary and Joseph. The title of the story would be The Innkeper’s Wife, for she, as I imagine her, is the central human character—a good and tender-hearted woman, childless herself, and bullied by an assertive and miserly husband.”
Here now is the alternative story of Christmas, narrated with great skill, by the author of The Citadel, Hatter’s Castle and The Stars Look Down** Views: 811
*'Masterful' Sunday Times
_____*
Ancient Rome. 70 B.C.
A city rippling with power - and with no shortage of men who would wield it...
When Tiro, the confidential secretary of a Roman senator, opens the door to a terrified stranger on a cold November morning, he sets in motion a chain of events which will eventually propel his master into one of the most famous courtroom dramas in history.
The stranger is a Sicilian, a victim of the island's corrupt Roman governor, Verres. The senator is Cicero, a brilliant young lawyer and spellbinding orator, determined to attain imperium - supreme power in the state.
Compellingly written in Tiro's voice, Imperium takes us into the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, and the quest of one man - clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable, and above all Roman - to reach the top.
_____
A stunning novel of power and ambition from Robert Harris, the number one bestselling author of Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel and Pompeii. Views: 811
They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong. Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich -- very fast. And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam . . . while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips -- and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn't be better. Because they've just found the perfect victim. . . Views: 811
“Among the most indelible American novelists of the last hundred years. . . . [Harrison] remains at the height of his powers.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times on *The River Swimmer*
New York Times best-selling author Jim Harrison is one of America’s most beloved writers, and of all his creations, Brown Dog, a bawdy, reckless, down-on-his-luck Michigan Indian, has earned cult status with readers in the more than two decades since his first appearance. For the first time, Brown Dog gathers all the Brown Dog novellas, including one never-published one, into one volume—the ideal introduction (or reintroduction) to Harrison’s irresistible Everyman.
In these novellas, BD rescues the preserved body of an Indian from Lake Superior’s cold waters; overindulges in food, drink, and women while just scraping by in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; wanders Los Angeles in search of an ersatz Native activist who stole his bearskin; adopts two Native children; and flees the authorities, then returns across the Canadian border aboard an Indian rock band’s tour bus. The collection culminates with He Dog, never before published, which finds BD marginally employed and still looking for love (or sometimes just a few beers and a roll in the hay), as he goes on a road trip from Michigan to Montana and back, arriving home to the prospect of family stability and, perhaps, a chance at redemption.
Brown Dog underscores Harrison’s place as one of America’s most irrepressible writers, and one of the finest practitioners of the novella form.
**Praise for Jim Harrison’s Brown Dog:
“There is broad comedy in the writing, but also tenderness, and never a moment when the reader isn’t rooting for Brown Dog to get it right. . . . We would all be the poorer if deprived of Jim Harrison’s first-rate stories.”—The New York Times Book Review on The Summer He Didn’t Die
“Brown Dog, an old friend to fans of Harrison, . . . boasts the rare ability to reject the frills and artificial complexities of modern life and keep to the basics. . . . Like reading a book describing dear friends.”—Miami Herald on The Farmer’s Daughter
“A 21st-century version of Huck Finn.”—The Charleston Gazette on The Farmer’s Daughter** Views: 808
Philip K. Dick's searing metaphysical comedy of death and salvation is a tour de force of panoramic menace and unfettered slapstick, in which the departed give business advice, shop for their next incarnation, and run the continual risk of dying yet again.
From the Trade Paperback edition Views: 808
Taro Takeda had missed out on a university place by one percentage point and had been unsuccessful in every job interview that had required a tie or a skill. All that was left for him was an offer from the Tokyo crime boss, Tokin Mikoto. Could it be an opportunity to find a place in a city that had turned its back on him? Or was he destined to be just another lost nobody, a weed in the jungle?Inspired by a JA Konrath challenge to write, edit, create a cover, and publish a short story in eight hours or less. A Career Move - A crash-landed alien tries to find his career path but isn't having much luck...3072 word short story (teen+ appropriate)Capture At The Hive - The Evil Queen Mother has finally captured General Megatron, Defender of the Galaxy. 421 word flash fiction story (safe for children) Views: 807
After being told he was adopted on his 18th birthday Patrick Waverly sets out to find his birth parents. He boards a plane, strikes up a conversation with a passenger next to him. What happens next will change his life forever.After being told he was adopted on his 18th birthday Patrick Waverly sets out to find his birth parents. He boards a plane, strikes up a conversation with a passenger next to him. What happens next will change his life forever. Join him on his Journey and you won't be disappointed. Views: 807
Brilliant and magnetic as are these two studies by Ambrose Bierce, and especially significant as coming from one who was a boy soldier in the Civil War, they merely reflect one side of his original and many-faceted genius. Poet, critic, satirist, fun-maker, incomparable writer of fables and masterly prose sketches, a seer of startling insight, a reasoner mercilessly logical, with the delicate wit and keenness of an Irving or an Addison, the dramatic quality of a Hugo,—all of these, and still in the prime of his powers; yet so restricted has been his output and so little exploited that only the judicious few have been impressed. Although an American, he formed his bent years ago in London, where he was associated with the younger Hood on Fun. There he laid the foundation for that reputation which he today enjoys: the distinction of being the last of the scholarly satirists. With that training he came to San Francisco, where, in an environment equally as genial, his talent grew and mellowed through the years. Then he was summoned to New York to assist a newspaper fight against a great railroad, since the conclusion of which brilliant campaign eastern journalism and magazine work have claimed his attention. Views: 806
Michael was in a hurry. He was scrambling up the ladder at Drake & Sweeney, a giant D. C. law firm with eight hundred lawyers. The money was good and getting better; a partnership was three years away. He was a rising star with no time to waste, no time to stop, no time to toss a few coins into the cups of panhandlers. No time for a conscience. But a violent encounter with a homeless man stopped him cold. Michael survived; his assailant did not. Who was this man? Michael did some digging, and learned that he was a mentally ill veteran who'd been in and out of shelters for many years. Then Michael dug a little deeper, and found a dirty secret, and the secret involved Drake & Sweeney. The fast track derailed; the ladder collapsed. Michael bolted the firm and took a top-secret file with him. He landed in the streets, an advocate for the homeless, a street lawyer. And a thief. Views: 805
From Publishers WeeklyBeagle's novella, set in the world of 1991's The Innkeeper's Song, is an intimate take on the relatively common fantasy conceit of a powerful band of recluses. Following an encounter with three assassins, the wanderer Soukyan decides it is time to return to the monastery from which he had long ago escaped and take revenge on those who sent the killers. Beagle hints that Soukyan's world stretches far and wide but mostly focuses on a small area where various organizations have institutionalized murder and torture. Thoughtful, well-rounded characters make an intriguing contrast to scenes of bloody brutality. Readers familiar with The Innkeeper's Song will love this tie-in, while newcomers will both enjoy the tight focus and find plenty of incentive to seek out related works that further explore this complex, fully realized setting. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistBeagle returns to the world of his acclaimed The Innkeeper’s Song (1993) with this novel of Soukyan, the wandering fugitive from the Hunters. When their latest attack takes an unusual shape, it arouses Soukyan’s curiosity to the point of returning to the weird and sinister monastery where she was raised. Her disguise is quickly penetrated, and a gaggle of mad monks prepares to sacrifice her to the Hunter’s Tree, where Hunters grow like peapods. This is the secret of the monastery, an inexhaustible supply of assassins. Soukyan’s death is to revive the dying tree, but instead she brings it to a fiery end before fleeing. The quality of Beagle’s prose, characterization, and world building (without the aid of maps or glossaries) is as superlative as ever, and he manages to compress a full-fledged story into an amazingly small space. Masterpieces, let all take note, do not have to be lifted with both hands. --Roland Green Views: 804
Ray Atlee is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He's forty-three, newly single, and still enduring the aftershocks of a surprise divorce. He has a younger brother, Forrest, who redefines the notion of a family's black sheep. And he has a father, a very sick old man who lives alone in the ancestral home in Clanton, Mississippi. He is known to all as Judge Atlee, a beloved and powerful official who has towered over local law and politics for forty years. No longer on the bench, the Judge has withdrawn to the Atlee mansion and become a recluse. With the end in sight, Judge Atlee issues a summons for both sons to return home to Clanton, to discuss the details of his estate. It is typed by the Judge himself, on his handsome old stationery, and gives the date and time for Ray and Forrest to appear in his study. Ray reluctantly heads south, to his hometown, to the place where he grew up, which he prefers now to avoid. But the family meeting does not take place. The Judge dies too soon, and in doing so leaves behind a shocking secret known only to Ray. And perhaps someone else. Views: 804
