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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In her 67th novel (following May's <em>The House</em>) bestselling author Steel (more than 530 million copies sold) fashions a plot around a single event: an invitation to a debutante ball in New York City. Attorney Olympia Crawford Rubinstein manages to juggle a challenging full-time job; a loving relationship with her second husband, Harry (an appeals court judge who is her former law professor); the care of their five-year-old son, Max, and her three older children from a previous marriage. Olympia's first husband, Chauncey, is a stereotypical, upper-class snob, with no job but a passion for playing polo. Harry, son of Holocaust survivors, champions liberal causes. When Olympia's teenage twin daughters, Veronica and Virginia, are invited to an exclusive "coming out" ball, everyone's lives are thrown into turmoil. Most of the book revolves around the arguments and disagreements spurred by the invitation, and Steel appears overly didactic as she tries to pump life into the simplistic setup: Olympia's Jewish mother-in-law, Afro-American law partner and gay older son are trotted out like polo ponies at auction. Steel's métier is glamour and romance; her attempt to deal with social injustice falls flat. <em>(July)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>In her sixty-seventh novel, Steel sticks to what she knows best, the lifestyles of the rich and glamorous. Here "coming out" refers to an exclusive debutante ball in New York, to which the twin daughters of attorney Olympia Crawford Rubinstein have been invited. Olympia, a blue-blooded spawn of New York's upper class, has three children from a previous marriage and a five-year-old son with her current husband, Harry. To Olympia's surprise, the invitation has caused turmoil and chaos in her household. Ex-husband Chauncey, a stereotypical polo-playing upper-class lout, is demanding that the girls attend the ball and has threatened to withhold college tuition if both girls do not attend. Olympia's current husband Harry, the son of Holocaust survivors, and a hard-working man with liberal tendencies, is violently opposed to the event, which he finds racist and elitist. In addition, the twins have their own ideas, with Veronica, a passionate liberal, refusing to attend, and Virginia already shopping for a dress. Olympia, who fondly recalls her own debut, is upset by her husband's feelings but thinks he'll come around and gently encourages her daughters to attend. The entire plot of this fairly short novel is focused on the resolution of this family dilemma, and as usual, everything works out for the best in the end. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Sailing to France aboard the majestic <em>Normandie </em>amid rumors of an impending world war, the glamorous Liane De Villiers, wife of the French ambassador, meets a handsome American steel magnate trapped in a loveless marriage. Reissue. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Despite rumors of impending war, the majestic ship <em>Normandie</em> makes its transatlantic voyage from Washington D.C., to France. Aboard is beautiful, American-born Liane De Villiers, devoted to her much-older husband, the French ambassador to the United States, and her two daughters. She meets Nick Burnham, an American steel magnate, a kind man trapped in a loveless marriage. Their passion remains unacknowledged. But when the outbreak of World War II forces Liane to flee Paris, she and Nick meet again -- and pledge a love that can no longer be denied. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>In a not terribly distant future, teen Sam Wilson catches the eye of the Homeland Security Cyber Defense Division because of his preternatural hacking instincts; he is given the classic work-for-us-or-go-to-prison-forever nonchoice. The department is reluctant to use the newfangled neuro-headset technology (which lets users interface directly with their computers and the Net through brain waves), but the advantage they give to the bad guys is too much to discount. What they don’t fully consider, though, are the implications of such unfettered access to the human consciousness. The hacking scenes are relentlessly paced, and Falkner’s stimulating mix of technobabble (“I’m going to crash the shell with a buffer overflow and get in via the rhosts file”) and metaphor (“A trapdoor in the firewall, Sam thought as he hurled a frag grenade at a murky pool of the intruder’s code”) should appeal to geeks but carry the less savvy as well. Think of this as the high-octane, adrenalized sibling of Cory Doctorow’s more lesson-laden Little Brother (2008). Grades 9-12. --Ian Chipman </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Another terrifying sci-fi page-turner from the author of <em>The Tomorrow Code</em>!  </p><p>Las Vegas is gone—destroyed in a terrorist attack. Black Hawk helicopters patrol the skies over New York City. And immersive online gaming is the most dangerous street drug around. In this dystopic near-future, technology has leapt forward once again, and neuro-headsets have replaced computer keyboards. Just slip on a headset, and it’s the Internet at the speed of thought.  </p><p>For teen hacker Sam Wilson, a headset is a must. But as he becomes familiar with the new technology, he has a terrifying realization. If anything on his computer is vulnerable to a hack, what happens when his mind is linked to the system? Could consciousness itself be hijacked? Before he realizes what’s happened, Sam’s incursion against the world’s largest telecommunications company leads him to the heart of the nation’s cyberdefense network and brings him face to face with a terrifying and unforeseen threat.  </p><p>Brian Falkner, author of <em>The Tomorrow Code</em>, has created an action-packed and thought-provoking science fiction adventure in which a brilliant young computer hacker fights to prevent the human race from being deleted.  </p><p>Fans of Cory Doctorow’s <em>Little Brother</em> and M. T. Anderson’s <em>Feed</em> will love this high-octane techno thriller. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. At the end of <em>Half a Life</em>, Naipaul's previous novel, Willie, a young Indian in late 1950s London, travels to Africa. At the beginning of his new novel, Willie is in Berlin with his bossy sister, Sarojini. It is 18 years later. Revolution has uprooted Willie's African existence. Sarojini hooks him up with a guerrilla group in India, and Willie, always ready to be molded to some cause, returns to India. The guerrillas, Willie soon learns, are "absolute maniacs." But caught up, as ever, in the energy of others, Willie stays with them for seven years. He then surrenders and is tossed into the relative comfort of jail. When an old London friend (a lawyer named Roger) gets Willie's book of short stories republished, Willie's imprisonment becomes an embarrassment to the authorities. He is now seen as a forerunner of "postcolonial writing." He returns to London, where he alternates between making love to Perdita, Roger's wife, and looking for a job. One opens up on the staff of an architecture magazine funded by a rich banker (who is also cuckolding Roger). Willie's continual betweenness—a state that makes him, to the guerrillas, a man "who looks at home everywhere"—is the core theme of this novel, and the story is merely the shadow projected by that theme. Sometimes, especially toward the end of the book, as Willie's story becomes more suburban, there is a penumbral sketchiness to the incidents. At one point, Willie, remarking on the rich London set into which he has been flung, thinks: "These people here don't understand nullity." Naipaul does—he is a modern master of the multiple ironies of resentment, the claustrophobia of the margins. In a world in which terrorism continually haunts the headlines, Naipaul's work is indispensable. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Half A Life</em> (2001) might have been better been left without this sequel, which ruffles reviewers’ feathers as only a grand old man of literature can. Though his trophy shelf holds a Nobel Prize, his past accomplishments buy him little sympathy. In fact, it’s often difficult to tell if critics are more put off by <em>Magic Seeds</em> or their appraisal of Willie Chandran as a mouthpiece for Naipaul’s politics. For an author whose greatest works have a heavy dose of autobiography, this reaction is not surprising, though it makes one wonder whether critics are reading the novel or dissecting the author. In the end, one hopes the unlikable characters, implausible plotting, and general fog of pessimism are what doom this book, not critical disappointment in Naipaul.</p><p><em>Copyright © 2004 Phillips &amp; Nelson Media, Inc.</em></p>


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The early masterpiece of V. S. Naipaul’s brilliant career, A House for Mr. Biswas is an unforgettable story inspired by Naipaul's father that has been hailed as one of the twentieth century's finest novels.In his forty-six short years, Mr. Mohun Biswas has been fighting against destiny to achieve some semblance of independence, only to face a lifetime of calamity. Shuttled from one residence to another after the drowning death of his father, for which he is inadvertently responsible, Mr. Biswas yearns for a place he can call home. But when he marries into the domineering Tulsi family on whom he indignantly becomes dependent, Mr. Biswas embarks on an arduous–and endless–struggle to weaken their hold over him and purchase a house of his own. A heartrending, dark comedy of manners, A House for Mr. Biswas masterfully evokes a man’s quest for autonomy against an emblematic post-colonial canvas.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Product Description</strong>_<br />Washington Post _columnist Dana Milbank takes a fair and balanced look at the unsettling rise of the silly Fox News host Glenn Beck.   </p><p>Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that “the tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” In America in 2010, Glenn Beck provides the very refreshment Jefferson had in mind: Whether he’s the patriot or the tyrant, he’s definitely full of manure.   </p><p>The wildly popular Fox News host with three million daily viewers perfectly captures the vitriol of our time and the fact-free state of our political culture. The secret to his success is his willingness to traffic in the fringe conspiracies and Internet hearsay that others wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole: death panels, government health insurance for dogs, FEMA concen­tration camps, an Obama security force like Hitler’s SS.   </p><p>But Beck, who is, according to a recent Gallup poll, admired by more Americans than the Pope, has nothing in his background that identifies him as an ideologue, giving rise to the speculation that his right-wing shtick is just that—the act of a brilliant showman, known for both his over-the-top daily out­rages and for weeping on the air.   </p><p>Milbank describes, with lacerating wit, just how the former shock jock without a college degree has managed to become the most recognizable leader of antigovernment conservatives and exposes him as the guy who is single-handedly giving patri­otism a bad name.  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em>   </p><p><strong>Author Dana Milbank on Beck University</strong>  </p><p>As part of his $32-million-a-year business empire, Fox News host/radio show host/March on Washington demagogue Glenn Beck has begun offering on-line classes through “Beck University.” For an annual tuition of $74.95, and hundreds of perfectly good hours wasted, you will learn why everything they teach you at other universities is, as Beck puts it, “unbelievably incomplete” – because those schools, unlike Beck University, are constrained by annoyances such as facts. </p><p>Alternatively, for much less money and pain, you can decline Beck University’s admission offer and buy this book. Consider it the Cliff’s Notes to Glenn Beck University: Everything you need to know about the most successful, and dangerous, media personality in America. I’d call it “Glenn Beck for Dummies,” but people might confuse it with Beck’s broadcasts.</p><p><strong>The Class Offerings:</strong></p><p><strong>Chemistry 101:</strong> How Beck uses menthol paste to produce the famous tears that flow from his eyes.</p><p><strong>Economics 110:</strong> Beck describes himself as a “regular schmoe” who lives in a “subdivision,” then takes a chauffer-driven sedan to his 16-room mansion on three acres in the wealthiest hamlet in America: New Canaan, Connecticut.</p><p><strong>Economics 330:</strong> Beck’s apocalyptic pronouncements on air have made him a favorite of advertisers selling gold coins and “Survival Seed Banks” that can be used in the End Times.</p><p><strong>Religion 220:</strong> Beck’s advancement of the White Horse Prophecy, an obscure Mormon philosophy dating to the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said elders of the Mormon Church will save the Constitution.</p><p><strong>Biology 111:</strong> The saga of how Glenn Beck was almost killed by his hemorrhoids.</p><p><strong>Biology 330:</strong> The science behind Beck’s killing of a frog and restoring life to a dead fish on his Fox News set.</p><p><strong>Psychology 125:</strong> How to convince millions of people that the U.S. government is operating concentration camps in Wyoming.</p><p><strong>History 114:</strong> Beck’s discovery that progressives in America are using “the same tactic” Hitler did in “rounding up Jews and exterminating them.”</p><p><strong>History 220:</strong> Advanced Revisionism. Beck, fierce foe of government spending, once said of the Wall Street bailout: “the real story is the $700 billion that you’re hearing about now is not only, I believe, necessary, it is also not nearly enough, and all of the weasels in Washington know it.”</p><p><strong>Genealogy 401:</strong> Beck’s research determines that Woodrow Wilson is Obama’s grandfather.</p><p>Enroll today. Because the End is Near.</p><h3>Review</h3><p>"[A] droll, take-no-prisoners account of the nation's most audacious conspiracy-spinner...Milbank is pitch-perfect in describing a typical Beck performance. He has watched and listened to more Beck programs than I believed possible for the human mind to absord...Milbank is also superb in describing how Beck manipulates his listeners..."<br /><em></em>-- David Oshinsky for _The Washington Post  </p><p>_<em></em>"Train-wreck fascinating...Milbank's obsessions about Beck's obsessions can be contagious." <br />-- <em></em>_San Francisco Chronicle<br />_<em></em><br />"Milbank's fast-paced chronicle of Beck World ably details the meteoric rise of a low-rent radio shock jock to national phenomenon in less than a decade." <br />_<em></em>--The Christian Science Monitor  </p><p><em></em>_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Music critic Sheffield's touching and poignant memoir of love and death will strike a chord in anyone who has used a hand-selected set of songs to try to express something that can't be put into words. A socially awkward adolescent, Sheffield finds true love as a college student in the late '80s with Renée, a "hell-raising Appalachian punk-rock girl." They're brought together by their love of music, get married and spend eight years together before Renée suddenly dies of a pulmonary embolism. Sheffield's delivery is not that of the typical actor/ reader. We come to know Rob as this geeky, lanky guy, and his reading is characteristically a little bit uncoordinated, yet it is tender and heartfelt enough to win us over. Each chapter opens with a song list from a mix tape made at the time. Listeners may wish that, as with Nick Hornby's essay collection <em>Songbook</em>, there had been an audio component that would allow the music to take us back or would introduce us to new songs that helped Sheffield press on into an uncertain but hopeful future. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Sheffield was a "shy, skinny, Irish Catholic geek from Boston" when he first met Renee. Southern born and bred, "she was warm and loud and impulsive." They had nothing in common except a love of music. Since he made music tapes for all occasions, he and Renee listened together, shared tapes, and though never formally planning to, married. On May 11, 1997, everything changed. He was in the kitchen making lunch. Suddenly, she collapsed, dying instantly of a pulmonary embolism. Devastated, he quickly realized that he couldn't listen to certain songs again, and that life as he knew it would never be the same. Fun and funny, moving and unbearably sad, Sheffield's account at its quirkiest, and because of his penchant for lists, is reminiscent of Nick Hornby's novel <em>High Fidelity</em> (1995). Anyone who loves music and appreciates the unspoken ways that music can bring people together will respond warmly to this gentle, bittersweet reflection on love won and love irrevocably lost. <em>June Sawyers</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Fans of Butcher's long-running and bestselling urban fantasy series featuring Chicago wizard PI Harry Dresden were stunned by the concluding events of the 2010 novel Changes. They'll probably want to skip ahead to the last of this collection's 11 stories, "Aftermath," set just hours after the end of that book. With Dresden's fate uncertain, it's his longtime ally, Sgt. Karrin Murphy, who must help find a kidnapped werewolf. This entry is the collection's strongest, full of powerful emotion. The rest of the book is a mixed bag, ranging from Butcher's first attempt at short fiction--"a novice effort" that "wasn't up to par for professional publication"--to more recent tales set around and between the novels. First-timers will be lost, and this uneven volume mostly makes the case that Butcher's talent is best displayed in longer form. (Nov.) (c) <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The first short story collection in the #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling series-including a brand-new Harry Dresden novella! </strong>   </p><p>Here, together for the first time, are the shorter works of #1 <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author Jim Butcher-a compendium of cases that Harry and his cadre of allies managed to close in record time. The tales range from the deadly serious to the absurdly hilarious. Also included is a new, never-before-published novella that takes place after the cliff-hanger ending of the new April 2010 hardcover, <em>Changes</em>. This is a must-have collection for every devoted Harry Dresden fan as well as a perfect introduction for readers ready to meet Chicago's only professional wizard. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Historian, leftist activist, author of the popular People's History of the United States (New Pr., 1995) and other works of history, politics, and drama, retired professor Zinn has compiled 61 previously published essays on various historical topics and illuminates here his passionate commitment to social justice and political and economic democracy. The essays are arranged in six categories: race, class, war, law, history, and "means and ends." Lucid and at times poignant, they convey Zinn's belief that a historian's judgment about what should be written reflects her or his values. Some of the riveting events covered include the social revolution of the Civil Rights Movement, Allied atrocities during World War II, the murderous suppression of the Attica, New York, prison rebellion, and the hagiographic persistence of the Christopher Columbus narrative. Recommended for academic and public libraries.?Charles L. Lumpkins, Bloomsburg Univ. Lib., Pa.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>A welcome collection of essays and occasional pieces by the dean of radical American historians. This portly tome is primarily intended for the Howard Zinn faithful, of course, of whom there are likely to be many; his People's History of the United States has sold 400,000 copies, after all. For the uninitiated, this collection offers a useful introduction to Zinn's idealistic, Marxist-anarchist view of the world, a view he has championed for many decades. Zinn began his career as a historian at Atlanta's Spelman College, then a school for African-American women; fittingly, a large part of his book is given over to first-hand reports on the civil-rights movement in the South. Rejecting too-easy black-versus-white views of the struggle, Zinn insists that class analysis be brought to bear on the study of inequality: <code></code>Once the superficiality of the physical is penetrated and seen for what it is,'' he writes, <code>the puzzle of race loses itself in whatever puzzle there is to human behavior in general. Once you begin to look, in human clash, for explanations other than race, they suddenly become visible.'' Elsewhere Zinn combs through the annals of American history to turn up examples of the evils of capitalism, discussing among other subjects the conduct of the Spanish-American War, the brutal suppression of the Filipino Revolt, the origins of the abolitionist movement, and the ironies of the war in Vietnam (he notes that in 1966 the US was paying $34 in condolence money for each Vietnamese civilian accidentally killed in air strikes--but $87 for every rubber tree thus destroyed). When not looking deep into the past, Zinn cheerfully lampoons such conservative foes as the late Allan Bloom, who</code>swoons over Plato,'' and generally has a good time arguing for an equitable, just, and division-free America. A worthy gathering for Zinn fans and fledgling historians alike. -- <em>Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In the States, Nick Hornby is best know as the author of <strong> and </strong>, two wickedly funny novels about being thirtysomething and going nowhere fast. In Britain he is revered for his status as a fanatical football writer (sorry, fanatical soccer writer), owing to <em>Fever Pitch</em>--which is both an autobiography and a footballing Bible rolled into one. Hornby pinpoints 1968 as his formative year--the year he turned 11, the year his parents separated, and the year his father first took him to watch Arsenal play. The author quickly moved "way beyond fandom" into an extreme obsession that has dominated his life, loves, and relationships. His father had initially hoped that Saturday afternoon matches would draw the two closer together, but instead Hornby became completely besotted with the game at the expense of any conversation: "Football may have provided us with a new medium through which we could communicate, but that was not to say that we used it, or what we chose to say was necessarily positive." Girlfriends also played second fiddle to one ball and 11 men. He fantasizes that even if a girlfriend "went into labor at an impossible moment" he would not be able to help out until after the final whistle. </p><p><em>Fever Pitch</em> is not a typical memoir--there are no chapters, just a series of match reports falling into three time frames (childhood, young adulthood, manhood). While watching the May 2, 1972, Reading v. Arsenal match, it became embarrassingly obvious to the then 15-year-old that his white, suburban, middle-class roots made him a wimp with no sense of identity: "Yorkshire men, Lancastrians, Scots, the Irish, blacks, the rich, the poor, even Americans and Australians have something they can sit in pubs and bars and weep about." But a boy from Maidenhead could only dream of coming from a place with "its own tube station and West Indian community and terrible, insoluble social problems." </p><p><em>Fever Pitch</em> reveals the very special intricacies of British football, which readers new to the game will find astonishing, and which Hornby presents with remarkable humor and honesty--the "unique" chants sung at matches, the cold rain-soaked terraces, giant cans of warm beer, the trains known as football specials carrying fans to and from matches in prisonlike conditions, bottles smashing on the tracks, thousands of policemen waiting in anticipation for the cargo of hooligans. The sport and one team in particular have crept into every aspect of Hornby's life--making him see the world through Arsenal-tinted spectacles. <em>--Naomi Gesinger</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Brought to print to take advantage of America's presumed fascination with the '94 World Cup (the first ever held here), Fever Pitch is a 24-year obsessional diary of English club football (soccer, to us Americans) games Hornby has witnessed and the way these games have become inextricable from his personal life. Hornby is the kind of fanatic who merely shrugs about the "tyranny" the sport exerts over his life--the mumbled excuses he must give at every missed christening or birthday party as a result of a schedule conflict. "Sometimes hurting someone," he writes, "is unavoidable." These occasions tend to bring out "disappointment and tired impatience" in his friends and family, but it is when he is exposed as a "worthless, shallow worm" that the similarly stricken reader can relate to the high costs of caring deeply about a game that means nothing to one's more well-adjusted friends. These moments are fleeting, however. The book has not been tailored for American audiences, so readers lacking a knowledge of English club football's rules, traditions, history and players will be left completely in the dark by Hornby's obscure references. Unfortunately, he has neither Roger Angell's ability to take us inside the game nor the pathos of Frederick Exley's brilliantly disturbed autobiographical trilogy. Though Hornby does show flashes of real humor, Fever Pitch features mainly pedestrian insights on life and sport, and then it's on to the next game--the equivalent, for an American reader, of a nil-nil tie. Author appearances. <br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Lucrezia Borgia is legendary as the archetypal villainess who carried out the poisoning plotted by her scheming father—Pope Alexander VI, aka Rodrigo Borgia—and by her ruthlessly ambitious brother Cesare. The facts of Lucrezia's case are sorted out from fiction by Bradford's humanizing biography, which presents Lucrezia as an intelligent noblewoman, powerless to defy her family's patriarchal order, yet an enlightened ruler in her own right as Duchess of Ferrara. Drawing on extensive archival evidence, Bradford (_Disraeli_; <em>Princess Grace</em>) explains how Lucrezia's first husband, after their marriage was annulled, vengefully tarnished her name with accusations of incest. Bradford discredits the popular belief that Lucrezia helped Cesare assassinate her second husband. Lucrezia emerges as a political realist who participated with her father and brother in a campaign to marry into the powerful Este family, winning the affections of her new husband, Alfonso d'Este, later Duke of Ferrara. Bradford portrays Lucrezia's extramarital affairs as daring and passionate romances of the heart and describes her cultivated court life and her kindness to artists and poets. Although Bradford's portrait is not immune to a fictionalizing style, especially when ascribing emotional states to its subject, as a project designed to distinguish the historical Lucrezia Borgia from the legend, Bradford's readable biography resoundingly succeeds. Maps and illus. not seen by <em>PW</em>. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Historians who have attempted to rescue Lucrezia Borgia from her legend as a poisoner who slept with both her father, Pope Alexander VI, and her brother, Cesare Borgia, have mostly described her as a pawn. Indeed, before she was twenty-one she was twice married off to men who were disposed of once their political usefulness expired. (The first had to declare himself impotent and grant her a divorce; the second was strangled in his bed.) Bradford sees Lucrezia neither as a helpless victim nor a femme fatale but as a resourceful individual—an able administrator, a genuinely religious woman, and the equal in political skill, if not in brutality, of her notorious male relatives. When the family of her third husband balked at alliance with a woman described as the "greatest whore there ever was in Rome," she used all her craft and charm to win them over—by, among other things, making her pious prospective father-in-law a gift of several nuns. <br />Copyright © 2005 </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. In 1862, Emily Dickinson wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a noted man of letters and radical activist for abolition and women's rights, asking if he would look at her poems. He did and recognized immediately their strange power. As Wineapple points out in this brilliant study, Dickinson's letter marked the blossoming of a complicated lifelong friendship. Although the two met face-to-face only twice, Higginson found Dickinson's explosive poetry seductive. Drawing on 25 years' worth of Dickinson's letters (Higginson's are lost), Wineapple contests the traditional portrait of her as isolated from the world and liking it that way. In her poems and her letters, Wineapple shows, Dickinson was the consummate flirt, a sorceress, a prestidigitator in words. Wineapple resurrects the reputation of Higginson, long viewed as stodgy in his literary tastes (he reviled Whitman) yet who recognized Dickinson's genius and saw her work as an example of the democratic art he fervently believed in. As Wineapple did previously with Hawthorne (_Hawthorne: A Life_), she elegantly delves into a life and offers rich insights into a little-known relationship between two of the late–19th century's most intriguing writers. 32 photos. <em>(Aug. 13)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Critics embraced this new angle on the life of Emily Dickinson, one of America’s best-loved poets but also one of the most difficult to understand. While the subject of the book may seem rather narrow, reviewers claimed that Wineapple’s excellent narrative and literary sensibilities keep <em>White Heat </em>from becoming overly obscure. Only the <em>Boston Globe </em>faulted Wineapple for reading too vaguely between the lines, literally, of Dickson and Wineapple’s correspondence and for rehashing older material. Overall, however, the result is a book that balances literary criticism, biography, and history, while never straying too far from the few available facts about Dickinson and her life.<br />Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</em> a fascinating and moving story of medicine and family, of how life is sustained in laboratories and in memory. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five in Baltimore, a poor African American migrant from the tobacco farms of Virginia, who died from a cruelly aggressive cancer at the age of 30 in 1951. A sample of her cancerous tissue, taken without her knowledge or consent, as was the custom then, turned out to provide one of the holy grails of mid-century biology: human cells that could survive--even thrive--in the lab. Known as HeLa cells, their stunning potency gave scientists a building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories? --_Tom Nissley  </p><p>_</p><hr /><p><strong>Amazon Exclusive: Jad Abumrad Reviews <em>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</em></strong>   </p><p><strong>Jad Abumrad is host and creator of the public radio hit <em>Radiolab</em>, now in its seventh season and reaching over a million people monthly. <em>Radiolab</em> combines cutting-edge production with a philosophical approach to big ideas in science and beyond, and an inventive method of storytelling. Abumrad has won numerous awards, including a National Headliner Award in Radio and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science Journalism Award. Read his exclusive Amazon guest review of <em>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</em>:</strong>   </p><p>Honestly, I can't imagine a better tale.</p><p>A detective story that's at once mythically large and painfully intimate.</p><p>Just the simple facts are hard to believe: that in 1951, a poor black woman named Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer, but pieces of the tumor that killed her--taken without her knowledge or consent--live on, first in one lab, then in hundreds, then thousands, then in giant factories churning out polio vaccines, then aboard rocket ships launched into space. The cells from this one tumor would spawn a multi-billion dollar industry and become a foundation of modern science--leading to breakthroughs in gene mapping, cloning and fertility and helping to discover how viruses work and how cancer develops (among a million other things). All of which is to say: the science end of this story is enough to blow one's mind right out of one's face.</p><p>But what's truly remarkable about </p><p>The book ultimately channels its journey of discovery though Henrietta's youngest daughter, Deborah, who never knew her mother, and who dreamt of one day being a scientist.</p><p>As Deborah Lacks and Skloot search for answers, we're bounced effortlessly from the tiny tobacco-farming Virginia hamlet of Henrietta's childhood to modern-day Baltimore, where Henrietta's family remains. Along the way, a series of unforgettable juxtapositions: cell culturing bumps into faith healings, cutting edge medicine collides with the dark truth that Henrietta's family can't afford the health insurance to care for diseases their mother's cells have helped to cure.</p><p>Rebecca Skloot tells the story with great sensitivity, urgency and, in the end, damn fine writing. I highly recommend this book. <em>--Jad Abumrad</em></p><hr /><p><strong>Look Inside <em>The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks</em></strong></p><p><strong>Click on thumbnails for larger images</strong></p><hr /><p>Henrietta and David Lacks, circa 1945.   Elsie Lacks, Henrietta’s older daughter, about five years before she was committed to Crownsville State Hospital, with a diagnosis of “idiocy.”   Deborah Lacks at about age four.   The home-house where Henrietta was raised, a four-room log cabin in Clover, Virginia, that once served as slave quarters. (1999)   Main Street in downtown Clover, Virginia, where Henrietta was raised, circa 1930s.</p><hr /><p>Margaret Gey and Minnie, a lab technician, in the Gey lab at Hopkins, circa 1951.   Deborah with her children, LaTonya and Alfred, and her second husband, James Pullum, in the mid-1980s.   In 2001, Deborah developed a severe case of hives after learning upsetting new information about her mother and sister.   Deborah and her cousin Gary Lacks standing in front of drying tobacco, 2001.   The Lacks family in 2009.</p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Science journalist Skloot makes a remarkable debut with this multilayered story about faith, science, journalism, and grace. It is also a tale of medical wonders and medical arrogance, racism, poverty and the bond that grows, sometimes painfully, between two very different women—Skloot and Deborah Lacks—sharing an obsession to learn about Deborah's mother, Henrietta, and her magical, immortal cells. Henrietta Lacks was a 31-year-old black mother of five in Baltimore when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. Without her knowledge, doctors treating her at Johns Hopkins took tissue samples from her cervix for research. They spawned the first viable, indeed miraculously productive, cell line—known as HeLa. These cells have aided in medical discoveries from the polio vaccine to AIDS treatments. What Skloot so poignantly portrays is the devastating impact Henrietta's death and the eventual importance of her cells had on her husband and children. Skloot's portraits of Deborah, her father and brothers are so vibrant and immediate they recall Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's <em>Random Family.</em> Writing in plain, clear prose, Skloot avoids melodrama and makes no judgments. Letting people and events speak for themselves, Skloot tells a rich, resonant tale of modern science, the wonders it can perform and how easily it can exploit society's most vulnerable people. <em>(Feb.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>For over a decade, young Danina Petroskova has known no life but that of the ballet and her mentor Madame Markova. When a deathly illness steals her from the stage, the young dancer is inconsolable, and, desperate to speed her recovery, Madame Markova agrees to hand Danina over to the talented Dr. Nikolai Obrajensky for treatment. Convalescing with the Romanovs at the Tsarskoe Selo palace, Danina learns to live in and love the world beyond the ballet. And while grateful for Nikolai's companionship, she is startled by the intense emotions growing inside her for the married doctor. Drawn to Danina, Nikolai cannot ignore the passion between them either, and the strength of their love quickly overpowers their resistance. Soon Madame Markova and Nikolai's wife remind them of their previous obligations, and as the Revolution hovers on the horizon, the two must make a decision that will change their lives forever.</p><p>As if a romance set in the twilight years of czarist Russia doesn't have enough intrinsic pathos, Danielle Steel takes great care to give her hero and heroine the bittersweet combination of incomparable virtue and external duties. When the young prima ballerina and the married doctor meet, they are drawn to the corresponding sense of integrity and duty in each other. However, when love and duty conflict, the struggle is never easy.</p><p>Maestro Steel knows where the heartstrings are, and she plays them with her reliable talents. While students of history may cringe at the simplified approach to the historical period, readers just looking for a good time have found it. With the tough-but-loving mother figure, the ill-but-lovable Prince Alexander, the borrowed ball gowns, and the emotional grand jeté, this book has everything a TV movie needs except a small, cuddly pet. Put your feet up, set aside your spoilsport logic, and enjoy this novel for what it is: a classic romance. <em>--Nancy R.E. O'Brien</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In a fable compact enough to be swallowed in a single gulp, the prolific Steel (Bittersweet) offers a granddaughter's tribute to Danina Petroskova, "Granny Dan," a Russian immigrant who left the glamorous world of the St. Petersburg Ballet and lived thereafter as a Vermont housewife. The unnamed narrator always loved her grandmother, with her elegant braided hair, roller skates and soft Russian accent. Granny Dan rarely speaks of her life in Russia before the revolution, but when she dies, at almost 90, the narrator inherits a pair of ballet shoes and a packet of love letters that tell the dramatic story of her former existence. Committed at age seven to the ballet, in her teens Danina becomes a prima ballerina who enchants the czar and czarina, becoming the royal children's boon companion. Stricken by influenza at 19, Danina's life is saved by Czarevitch Alexei's physician, Nikolai Obrajensky, with whom she falls passionately in love. This fairy tale is fully outfitted with dreamy details such as ermine-trimmed gowns, covered sleighs and royal balls in glittering palaces. The historical technicalities are glossed over: in this book the Russian czar is a nice man who let the revolution go too far because he wanted his people to express their feelings. The love story is pure melodrama, with Nikolai a princely man married to a "dreadful Englishwoman," and the couple tormented by their unquenchable passions, lofty joys and ultimate tragedy. Steel doesn't unfold the plot so much as restate the same point: that Granny Dan led an extraordinary life of romance and heartbreak; this slim confection holds few surprises in telling the Cinderella story in reverse. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Nine years after his marriage crumbles, TV producer Bill Thigpen enjoys a chance meeting with Adrian Townsend, a successful woman who yearns for a family, in a local supermarket, and together the two of them build a new life together. Reprint. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Bill Thigpen, writer producer of the No.1 daytime TV drama was so busy watching his career soar that he never noticed his marriage collapse. Now, nine years later, living alone in Hollywood, even without his wife and kids, his life and success are still reasonably sweet. Top-of-the-chart ratings, good-natured casual affairs, and special vacations with his two young sons. His life is in perfect balance, he thinks. </p><p>Adrian Townshed thought she had everything: a job she liked as a TV production assistant and a handsome husband who was a rising star in his own field. In as enviable life they'd worked hard for -- the American Dream. Until she got pregnant. Suddenly all she had was chaos. And Steven's ultimatum. Him or the baby. The question was: did he mean it? He did. </p><p>Bill Thigpen and Adrian Townshed collided in a supermarket. And the very sight of her suddenly makes him want more in his life.... a woman he really loves, a real family again. But does he need the heartache of another man's baby, another wife? Neither does. But they couldn't help it.</p><p>Danielle Steel touches the <em>Heartbeat</em> of two wonderful people as their friendship deepens into love, as they meet the obstacles that life presents with humor, humanity, and courage. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Sasha de Suvery Boardman, the 48-year-old heroine of Steel's latest romance, knew she had it all - perfect marriage, two terrific grown kids, prestigious art galleries in Paris and New York, three luxury homes - until her husband's fatal heart attack. Now brokenhearted, but still beautiful and chic, she buries herself in her gallery work, until son Xavier introduces her to bad-boy painter Liam Allison, a gorgeous, "wacky" 39-year-old who instantly "[brings] out the mother in her." So she offers him a gallery contract, thus igniting a "torrid affair" punctuated by endless arguments about their nine-year age difference, his severe allergy to all forms of authority and their incompatible "lifestyles and appearances" (including his strong aversion to wearing socks). Despite Steel's repeated assurances that Liam is actually "innocent and likable," his petulance and impulsiveness are seriously off-putting, and the tortured romance has an icky, near-incestuous quality that may make some readers cringe. Others may just be bored by the sketchy, meandering plot, the skimpy characterizations and the hyperbolic, often stunningly repetitious style ("He was just a young man who liked to have fun and still acted like a boy at times, full of mischief and fun"). Even hardcore Steel addicts may not make it all the way through this one, her 63rd. <em>(Mar. 1)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Steel's usual formula is at play here in a new love story about the difficulties of a relationship between two wildly different persons. Sasha is a high-powered gallery owner, and Liam is a feckless artist. Recently widowed, Sasha, who is nine years older than Liam, is staid, conservative, and bound by tradition. Liam is married (unhappily), manic, and a pronounced nonconformist. While Sasha has been busy building her father's Parisian art gallery into an international success, Liam has become the darling of the art world. The two meet and gradually begin an affair, but soon their strong personalities get in the way of their blossoming relationship. As well-heeled Sasha tries to keep the affair hidden from her grown children and her snooty clientele, Liam is working hard to draw Sasha out of that world and into his. Eventually, the differences become too much for them to handle, and the lovers clash, break up, and (surprise!) come together again in a dramatic, suspenseful finale. No surprises here, but Steel knows what her fans want, and this solid, meaty tale will not disappoint them; expect demand. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>The World War II love affair between lovely Frenchwoman Solange Bertrand and American GI-turned-actor Sam Walker burned too brightly and ended in tragedy, leaving their three young daughters orphaned. Megan, the youngest, adopted by a loving family, grows up to be a doctor in Appalachia. Alexandra, adopted by a wealthy family, marries a powerful man with an impeccable pedigree. Hilary, the oldest (and the only one who remembers her sisters), enters the sordid world of foster care before going out on her own to work her way up to being a New York news producer. In the pursuit of success and stability, Hilary foregoes building a personal life, especially when her efforts to locate her sisters hit a dead end. But when high-priced private investigator John Chapman is hired to reunite the three sisters, the secrets and lies that kept the women apart--and bound them together--are revealed and the love only sisters can share blossoms again. A heartwarming tale by master storyteller Danielle Steel. <em>--Alison Trinkle</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The pages of Steel's newest novel are packed with an assortment of one-dimensional characters, each one more broadly sketched than the last. Sam Walker and Arthur Patterson, American soldiers in war-torn Paris, fall in love with Solange, a proud young Frenchwoman. Having won her, Sam brings his beautiful war bride to New York, where he instantly sets Broadway agog at his acting talent, mercurial temper and restless love affairs. Tragedy strikes when he kills Solange during an argument, and later himself, orphaning their three pampered daughters. Arthur cravenly arranges adoptions for the youngest two, but nine-year-old Hilary is dealt a life of utter misery. Determined to reunite her little family, she grimly survives only to find that the man responsible for her torment has lost all traces of her sisters. Years later, John Chapman is hired by a dying, penitent Arthur to find the sisters and bring them together. As he follows their trails, Chapman becomes obsessed by his quarryone the wife of a French baron, one a doctor in Appalachia and the third a cold, ambitious network executiveand his search for a happy ending that will wipe away the awful past. The book gets off to a slow, overly sweet start, but by the midway mark Steel has given these tired characters a fresh look and a vibrant momentum all their own. Major ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Steel's usual verve is all but absent from her 52nd novel, a hasty Cinderella story that begins when heroine Marie-Ange Hawkins goes from an idyllic French childhood to a loveless upbringing in Iowa after her parents and brother are killed in a terrible accident. Only 11, she's sent off to be raised by her sole relative, cold and callous great-aunt Carole. The only bright spot in her life is her intimate friendship with Billy Parker, a solid American farmboy who loves and respects her from the time they are children; she loves him, too, but thinks of him as a brother. When Marie-Ange turns 18 and wins a scholarship to go to college, her aunt does not help, but Billy buys her a car and she is able to attend. Then a stranger turns up and informs her that she is in fact a very rich woman; her aunt sells the farm, and Marie-Ange decides to return to France. There she meets the current owner of her old home, 40-year-old widower Comte de Beauchamp charming, handsome and so very polite. They fall for one another quickly (though she knows nothing about him, as Billy points out), marry within months of their first meeting and have two children. But cracks start to show in the comte's smooth, convincing exterior: it turns out that her prince charming who never pays his bills, but doesn't mind spending her money excessively may be a murderer. She refuses to believe this, but when she finally must face the truth, can she save herself and her children? Disappointingly slight, the book rushes toward its pat ending and may frustrate even Steel's devoted fans. (On-sale: June 5)</p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Adult/High School-Entertaining fluff, perfect when the book report is due tomorrow. At age 11, Marie-Ange's idyllic, rich, sheltered life in rural France is shattered when her adoring parents are killed in a car accident. She's sent off to gruff great-aunt Carol to live on an Iowa farm, and Marie becomes Carol's "slave" and wears clothes from the Goodwill store. Her only moments of happiness are with her friend Billy at school. When Marie comes of age, she learns that she is wealthy; her aunt did not use any of her large trust fund. On a return trip to the family chateau in France she meets and falls in love with Bernard, a widower. But what are his motives? Who should Marie trust? This heart-wrenching, soap-opera romance will grab the attention of teens who want a fast read. Steel quickly and efficiently develops the characters as the action unfolds. Much of the plot would be considered predictable, but there are a few surprises.</p><p><em>Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA</em></p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>


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Danielle Steel's fifty-first bestselling novel tells the story of an extraordinary man, the woman who loved him, and a bond so powerful it could never be broken. It is about finding the courage to let someone you love fly free....The phone call came on a snowy December afternoon. Kate was certain it was Joe, the brilliant, visionary man who had been her soulmate, her driving force since the night they met, almost thirty-four years before. What she got was the one call she had never wanted, and didn't expect. As the snow continued to fall, Kate's mind drifted back, to the moment when she and Joe first met. She had been just seventeen and he was young, powerful, dazzling, and different from any man she'd ever known.It was just days before Christmas, 1940. The war is raging in Europe when Kate Jamison makes her debut in New York City. In a room filled with the scions of East Coast society and the leading political figures of the day, it is Joe Allbright who catches Kate's eye. At twenty-nine, Joe is the brilliant protege of Charles Lindbergh, and already a legend in flying circles for his record-breaking speed and state-of-the-art airplane designs. All Kate sees is a tall, strikingly handsome man who seems at once awkward and larger-than-life, like a shining star -- just out of reach. Joe, too, is caught off balance by his response to Kate, seeing in this beautiful young woman vitality and youth, the lifelong soulmate he never expected to find. As the months pass, they will meet again, forging a bond that will set the course of both their lives. Kate will go off to study at Radcliffe. Joe will skyrocket to fame in modern aviation. Joe's planes are his life, his passion. But irresistibly drawn to her, like moth to flame, he always comes back to Kate. Even after the long, dark years of World War II, when Kate was sure she had finally lost him completely, Joe returns. Never willing to stay, always needing to fly away. As planes are for him, Joe is the passion in her life.When the war is over, at twenty-four Kate wants marriage and a family. Joe wants the world, his limitless horizons, and the unique aviation empire he is building. Unwilling to wait any longer, Kate moves on with her life. But when a chance encounter brings them together again, the time has finally come to make a choice, one that will have profound consequences for them both for the rest of their lives.Against a vivid backdrop of war and thrilling innovation, Danielle Steel breathes life into history, weaving an intensely human story that spans three decades, of two intensely different people who, in spite of themselves, are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other's lives. With rare insight and emotional power, she brings to life a tale of unconditional love, sacrifice, and compromise--the joining of two remarkable halves into a single, far more powerful whole. It is a novel of extraordinary grace and compassion from a master storyteller, perhaps the best story she has told.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Miraculous? Indeed. Miraculous that Steel ekes 200 pages of book out of 50 pages of recycled plot. Quinn Thompson, a 61-year-old recent widower, has just bought the boat of his dreams—an 80-meter beauty capable of sailing around the world. Because that's all Quinn wants to do besides read his late wife Jane's old journals and poetry, which offer an outpouring of love and forgiveness for a man so obsessed with "building his empire" that he ignored his wife and family completely. Less forgiving is Quinn's daughter, Alex, who wants nothing to do with him. Sure that he is alone in the world, Quinn finds himself having regular Friday dinners with an unlikely San Francisco pair: smart but illiterate carpenter Jack Adams and lonely divorcée Maggie Hartman. Full of self-loathing, Quinn refuses to give in to his desire for Maggie; instead he decides to teach Jack to read. Readers follow the two through a 150-page rapturous description of the respect and admiration they have for each other, while Quinn attempts to forgive himself enough to allow himself to love Maggie. Steel ignores the old "show, don't tell" saw entirely here, and the slim plot and repetitive, drab writing may stymie even the most devoted of her fans. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>It is New Year’s Eve when the storm of the century hits northern California. In a quiet neighborhood in San Francisco, amid the chaos of fallen trees and damaged homes, the lives of three strangers are about to collide. For Quinn Thompson, what happens in the storm’s wake will bring down a barrier he has built around himself since his wife’s death. For neighbor Maggie Dartman, it will spark friendship at a time when she needs it most. And for Jack Adams, a carpenter who will repair Quinn’s and Maggie’ s homes, the storm brings an opportunity: to help two people and to be repaid with the greatest gift of all.  </p><p>As three lives come together and a unique friendship is forged, something extraordinary begins to happen…Maggie, still grieving a loss, slowly comes alive again–and Jack finally shares a painful secret he has hidden for years. But at the center of the friendship is Quinn. A man who has scaled heights of success in business, Quinn is now adrift, waiting as builders put the finishing touches on his newest passion, a 180-foot yacht he plans to sail around the world. Looking back at all he missed with his family while he built his empire, Quinn is consumed by guilt, focused only on escaping to the sea. But as his plans near completion, and his friendship with Maggie begins to change, Quinn faces a choice–between a safe haven and an adventure of the heart. The choice he makes will affect other lives as powerfully as his own. And it will take him on an extraordinary journey–and into a second, terrifying storm, one that will bring him danger…or deliverance.   </p><p>Danielle Steel brings us miracles big and small–the kind we are blessed with and those we give to others. With a subtle hand and a flawless touch, she has written a novel that soars with hope, and makes us laugh, cry, and care.  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>A reformed drug dealer, a desperate widow, a bigtime crook and a compassionate cop are the players in this perfunctory kidnapping yarn set in San Francisco. Peter Morgan, a privileged young man, lost everything in a personal war with drugs, including his wife and two daughters. When he is released from prison, he is determined to go straight, but hard times force him to seek out Phillip Addison, a business mogul with many shady operations on the side. Addison makes Morgan an offer he can't refuse: either recruit some fellow ex-cons to kidnap the children of recently deceased dot-com multimillionaire Allan Barnes, or his own kids will suffer. Against his will, Morgan hatches a plan. Meanwhile, Allan's widow, Fernanda, is struggling to make ends meet, since unknown to nearly everyone, Allan lost all his money in bad investments before committing suicide. The San Francisco cops, led by Insp. Det. Ted Lee, find files suggesting that Addison is plotting something, but even heavy police protection can't prevent Fernanda's youngest son, Sam, from being snatched. Lee moves into the Barnes mansion to oversee the search for the kidnappers and watch over Fernanda, but in the end Morgan plays the crucial role in saving Sam. The novel begins slowly, with lengthy introductions to all the principal characters, and never picks up speed, with Steel narrating as if from a distance, glossing over critical scenes and skimping on dialogue. Reluctant villain Morgan is a sympathetic bad guy, and Steel engineers the requisite romance between Ted and Fernanda, but this is thin fare. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Four seemingly unconnected people intersect during one completely heinous crime in Steel's latest. Peter and Carl are released from the same California prison on the same day. Morgan is a Harvard MBA convicted of drug dealing; Waters has been in prison for 24 years for murder. The two never spoke, but each knows the other. Morgan has a hard time adjusting to civilian life, and as a last resort seeks out a powerful business associate who sets him on the road to addiction, and back on the criminal path. He recruits Carl and two other men to pull off the allegedly lucrative kidnapping of Fernanda Barnes and her children. Her husband recently died, and she should be worth half a billion, but her husband actually left her broke. San Francisco detective Ted Lee is the man who pieces together the crime and tries to protect the family while hiding his interest in the noble Fernanda, to whom is he is attracted. Morgan is also attracted to Fernanda, seeing her as the embodiment of the life he could have had. This lackluster suspense novel and its plastic characters will have automatic appeal for Steel fans, but other readers may find it wanting. <em>Patty Engelmann</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Danielle Steel produces another yarn that defies the imagination in <em>Remembrance</em>. Impoverished by World War II, Principessa Serena di San Tibaldo is working as a servant in the Italian palazzo once owned by her family when the Americans liberate the country. Beautiful blonde Serena captures the attention of U.S. Army Major Bradford J. Fullerton, member of a wealthy and powerful Manhattan family. Following a whirlwind courtship and marriage, Serena and Brad return stateside to continue his military career. Life seems even more perfect with the birth of their daughter Vanessa, but then Brad is killed during the early days of the Korean conflict, leaving Serena with a young child to provide for, and no means of support. Drawing on the core of strength developed during World War II, Serena parlays her beauty into a modeling career. It is her beauty that makes Serena the object of obsession for a brilliant but unstable photographer. Steel spans two generations of women who learn to cope with the hand life has dealt them and to prevail in spite of the odds. A fast-paced ride! <em>--Alison Trinkle</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Her beloved Italian homeland shattered in the wake of World War II, exquisite Serena, Principessa di San Tibaldo, has nothing left except her name, her ancestry... and her heart which she gives completely and forever to Major Brad Fullerton. But not even Brad's ring—or his child—can protect her from the calculating wrath of the powerful Fullerton dynasty, and the woman who will become Serena's bitter enemy. Sweeping from the war-torn palazzos of Rome to the glittering avenues of Manhattan and the glamorous world of high fashion. Here is the vibrant story of one woman's triumphant yet bittersweet journey of the heart. </p>


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In her fifty-ninth bestselling novel, Danielle Steel tells an unforgettable story of survival...of how two people who lost everything find hope...and of the extraordinary acts of faith and courage that bring —and keep— families together...On a windswept summer day, as the fog rolls across the San Francisco coastline, a solitary figure walks down the beach, a dog at her side. At eleven, Pip Mackenzie's young life has already been touched by tragedy; nine months before, a terrible accident plunged her mother into inconsolable grief. But on this chilly July afternoon, Pip meets someone who fills her sad gray world with color and light. And in her innocence and in his kindness, a spark will be kindled, lives will be changed, and a journey of hope will begin.From the moment the curly-haired girl walks up to his easel on the sand, Matt Bowles senses something magical about her. Pip reminds him of his own daughter at that age, before a bitter divorce tore his family apart and swept his children halfway across the world. With her own mother, Ophélie, retreating deeper into her grief, Pip spends her summer at the shore the way lonely children do: watching the glittering waters and rushing clouds, daydreaming and remembering how things used to be. That is, until she meets artist Matt Bowles, who offers to teach the girl to draw—and can't help but notice her beautiful, lonely mother. At first, Ophélie is thrown off balance by her daughter's new companion—until she realizes how much joy he is bringing into their lives, despite the sadness she sees in his eyes. As their newfound friend works his subtle magic, mother and daughter slowly begin to heal, to laugh again, to rediscover what they have lost.When summer ends, and Ophélie and Pip must leave the beach for the city, the season of healing continues. Gathering her newfound strength, Ophélie begins a volunteer job at a city outreach program, where she works with the homeless, and can no longer ignore the blessings in her own life. But as soul-sharing phone calls and autumn beach getaways deepen Ophélie and Matt's friendship, fate strikes another blow. Out of the blue, Matt must confront unfinished business from his past. Days later, Ophélie is struck by a stunning betrayal by someone she trusts. And as these events reverberate in two already wounded hearts, something extraordinary happens. Out of the darkness that has shadowed them both comes an unexpected gift of hope.With grace and compassion, Danielle Steel explores the fragile bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, family members and lifelong friends. Her haunting, impassioned novel takes us across the complex landscape of loss—to the blessings that arise from even the darkest tragedies. At once a story of triumph and a moving elegy to those who suffer and survive, Safe Harbour is perhaps her most powerful and life-affirming novel to date.From the Hardcover edition.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Fiona Monaghan, 42, lives the high life. With six years under her belt as editor-in-chief of <em>Chic Magazine</em>, a high fashion rag, Fiona is wined and dined around the world, has closets full of fabulous clothes and throws spirited dinner parties. Marriage has never been an option for the self-possessed Fiona; her ancient English bulldog, Sir Winston, is her main companion. Then she meets staid advertising exec John Anderson, head of the new agency handling <em>Chic</em>'s account. Anderson, a handsome widower with two daughters, is utterly charmed by the phenomenal Fiona and dazzled by her lifestyle. Sparks fly and, after much inner turmoil, Fiona agrees to marry Anderson. The beginning of their relationship is rocky: Anderson's college-aged girls and housekeeper hate Fiona at first sight, and even the family dog attacks. But it's Anderson who can't handle Fiona's frenetic, glamorous life, and less than a year after their marriage he files for divorce. Devastated, Fiona quits her job and moves to Paris to write a book, finally allowing herself to be wooed again by her chastened ex-husband. Some readers will bridle at the idea that Fiona must give up her career to find happiness, but others will enjoy the usual Steel frills: plenty of gorgeous outfits, fine dining and exquisite real estate. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Steel never tires of spinning fairy tales for her fans, and this story is no exception. Fiona Monaghan, an eccentric, fiery (and vivacious, lovely, and rich) editor in chief of a New York-based high-fashion magazine is single and lovin' it (or so she tells herself). What with all the fancy parties, celebrity friends, fashion shoots, and trips to couture shows in Europe, she feels that she doesn't have the time or interest required to maintain a steady relationship. Enter John Anderson, a handsome, rich, conservative businessman, the exact opposite of the colorful Fiona. Of course, they are madly attracted to each other, but a series of obstacles interferes with their happiness. For one thing, the recently widowed John has conflicted feelings about the relationship; although he's crazy about Fiona, on some level, he feels unfaithful to his dead wife--a misery that his resentful teenage daughters compound. In addition, Fiona's crazy life--bohemian friends, flamboyant houseman, constant work, parties, and travel--adds to the problems. Steel's fans will enjoy the detailed descriptions of privileged lifestyles and the ultimate happy resolution. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>This "cottage" is actually the huge estate of fading movie star Cooper Winslow, who is so down on his luck that he must rent a part of it to make ends meet. But the two fellows who move in introduce Coop to something completely different friendship and of course in the offing there's the promise of love. <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>™In her fifty-fourth bestselling novel, Danielle Steel weaves a compelling story of fame and friendship, charmed lives and private struggles...and of three very different men whose lives converge and collide at <strong>The Cottage</strong>.  </p><p>On a sunny day in Hollywood, a gleaming Rolls-Royce convertible pulls through the gates of the magnificent estate known as <strong>The Cottage</strong>. Modeled after the “cottages” of Newport, Rhode Island, the spacious, elegant property, sitting on fourteen acres of lush Bel Air, fits its owner to a T. For the man behind the wheel of the Rolls is Hollywood’s ageless wonder, Cooper Winslow. A star of the silver screen for decades, a man whose allure to women is the stuff of legend, Coop exudes grace, charm, and old-fashioned style. But today Coop Winslow is in for a major surprise. He’s broke. And with no major roles coming his way, Coop is faced with the heartbreaking prospect of selling his beloved home of forty years, or at least renting out the gatehouse and part of the main house. A huge blow to Coop, whose debonair attitude allows him to escape reality much of the time.   </p><p>His new tenants, Mark Friedman and Jimmy O’Connor, are busy coping with problems of their own. Mark’s wife of sixteen years just walked out, and Jimmy recently lost his own wife to a devastating illness. But everything changes when Mark’s teenage son and daughter move in. Suddenly, <strong>The Cottage</strong> is transformed, with music blasting from every corner, teenagers on skateboards crashing into vintage cars, and a never-ending parade of young starlets streaming in and out to visit Coop.   </p><p>But amid all the noise and the chaos, something unexpected is happening. Three men who never would have met are becoming friends...and each man finds himself changing in surprising ways, Coop most of all. Because beneath the dazzle and flash, the impeccably tailored suits and the sheer bravado, is a man trying to keep control of his carefully ordered world—a world that is becoming more and more unpredictable with each passing day.   </p><p>First, a tabloid scandal erupts, threatening Coop’s budding romance with a wealthy debutante....A stranger approaches Coop with stunning news....A devastating accident almost claims the life of one of the housemates....And in the midst of it all, <strong>The Cottage</strong> welcomes a new houseguest with a secret of her own, who will change Coop’s life in unexpected ways. Because among the people who share his cottage and his life, Coop Winslow– loner, bachelor, movie star–may find the rarest of all opportunities: a chance to build a happiness he could never have dreamed of on his own, and to become the kind of human being he has never been.   </p><p>Against a glittering backdrop of celebrity and glamour, Danielle Steel digs deeper to tell a story of friendship and love, tragedy and second chances...of the choices and unexpected turns of fate that can shape characters and lives. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Set in the 1950s, Steel's account of a family coming to terms with a child's death spent 12 weeks on PW's bestseller list. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>In reviewing the last few Steel novels, <em>Booklist</em> has tried to make the argument that the author and her readers deserve more respect than they get. Steel does not exploit the romance genre for its racy, dark, or semipornographic underpinnings; she has taken one element of the medieval love-tale, adapted its gentle, loving, and hopeful outlook to the modern world, and produced a satisfying set of variations on her theme. <em>The Gift</em> is Steel to perfection. A small work, it tells the tale of two 16-year-olds whose meeting restores life to both. The death of Tommy's little sister wrecks a family's happiness. The unwanted pregnancy of Maribeth threatens to ruin her attempt to lift herself out of an anti-intellectual and sexist environment. But when the two meet, love, support, sensitivity, and some much-needed wisdom redeem the bleak circumstances of their lives and bring the story to its satisfying conclusion. Clich{‚}ed, sentimental? Maybe, but Steel <em>believes</em> in the goodness of her characters and here, more than ever before, shows absolute faith in a simple tale of rewarded virtue. This is the author at her best: mature, to the point, refreshed by the tale of her young lovers. Not great art, perhaps, but in its own way almost perfect. <em>Stuart Whitwell</em></p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>Sarah Anderson, a beautiful, successful thirtysomething attorney, is having a midlife crisis. She's become a workaholic, spending 60- to 70-hour weeks at the office, and she is involved in an unhappy relationship with a man she only sees on weekends, who refuses to involve her in any other aspect of his life. She lives in a dumpy apartment, which contains the same furniture she used in college, and she has no outside interests other than the sometime boyfriend and her job. Everything changes, however, when an eccentric, elderly client of Sarah's dies and leaves her a small fortune and a message: to use the money for something wonderful, to live well, and to think about something other than work. Following this advice, Sarah purchases the dilapidated old mansion the client had lived in (after finding out that it was her own grandfather who originally built it), breaks up with the cheating boyfriend, and focuses all of her attention on rehabbing the old house. As she works to restore the place, she finds contentment in her new pastime; a nice, normal boyfriend in the architect who is helping her; and familial contentment as both her mother and grandmother find happiness in the purchase of this house. A typical Steel fairy tale. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The restoration of a majestic old home provides the exhilarating backdrop for Danielle Steel s 66th bestselling novel, the story of a young woman s dream, an old man s gift, and the surprises that await us behind every closed door....  </p><p>Perched on a hill overlooking San Francisco, the house was magnificent, built in 1923 by a wealthy man for the woman he adored. For her and for this house, he would spare no expense and overlook no detail, from the endless marble floors to the glittering chandeliers. Almost a century later, with the once-grand house now in disrepair, a young woman walks through its empty rooms. Sarah Anderson, a perfectly sensible estate lawyer, is about to do something utterly out of character. An elderly client has died and left her two gifts. One is a generous inheritance. The other, a priceless message: to use his money for something wonderful, something daring. And in this old house, surrounded by crumbling grandeur, Sarah knows just what it is.  </p><p>A respected attorney and self-described workaholic, Sarah had always lived life by the book. With a steady, if sputtering, relationship and a tiny apartment that has suited her just fine, Sarah cannot explain the force that draws her to the mansion and its history to the story of a woman who once lived in the house, then mysteriously left it, to a child who grew up there, and a drama that unfolded in war-torn France...and to a history she never knew she had.   </p><p>Taking the biggest risk of her life, Sarah enlists the help of architect Jeff Parker, who shares Sarah s passion for bringing the exquisite old house back to life. As she and Jeff work to restore the home s every detail, as one relationship shatters and another begins, Sarah makes a series of powerful discoveries: about the true meaning of a dying man s last gift...about the extraordinary legacies that are passed from generation to generation...and about a future she s only just beginning to imagine.  </p><p>In a novel of daring and hope, of embracing life and taking chances, Danielle Steel brilliantly captures one woman s courageous choice to pour herself into a dream and receive its gifts in return.  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p>


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In her 53rd bestselling novel, Danielle Steel explores how a single shattering moment can change lives forever. The Kiss is at once a moving testament to the fragility of life and a breathtaking story about the power of love to heal, to free, to transform, and to make broken spirits whole.On a warm June evening, a red double-decker bus, full of pasengers, speeds down a London street. A few blocks away, a man and a woman climb into a limousine, reveling in a magical evening of dancing and champagne. As their driver pulls into an intersection, the couple shares their first, searching kiss. For a moment, etched in time, all stands still—until, in a flash of metal and glass, their limousine is struck at full speed, crushed under the bus's tremendous weight. And a long journey begins—toward healing, toward hope, toward dreams of an infinite future...Isabelle Forrester is the exquisite wife of a prominent Parisian banker who has long since shut her out of his heart. For lonely years, Isabelle has lived a life of isolation, pouring her passions into caring for her desperately ill son, Teddy, and into making their Paris home as happy as possible for her teenage daughter, Sophie. Isabelle allows herself one secret pleasure: a long-distance friendship by telephone with an American man, a Washington power broker who travels in the highest circles of politics and who, like Isabelle, is trapped in an empty marriage. To Bill Robinson, Isabelle is a godsend, a woman of extraordinary beauty and intellectual curiosity—a kindred spirit who touches him across the miles with her warmth and gentle empathy. Their relationship is a gift, a lifeline that sustains them both through the heartache of marriages they cannot leave and will not betray. Agreeing to meet for a few precious, innocent days in London, Isabelle and Bill find their friendship changing. Then, amidst the sudden crash of steel against steel, they are thrust onto a new path, a path fraught with pain but also with possibility.Now, inside the cool, sterile wards of a London hospital, Isabelle and Bill cling to life, their bodies shattered almost beyond repair. In the days and weeks that follow, they slowly, painfully traverse a road to recovery littered with challenges of the body, spirit, and heart. Together, they must find the strength not only to embrace life again but to face what they have left behind. For Isabell, a loveless marriage turns into a brutal power struggle. For Bill, a time of healing exposes wounds that cut deeper than steel and realities that will test him to his core. For both, a tangle of changing relationships and the tragedy of another loss conspire to separate them once again. And this time they could lose each other forever.In a novel that is as compelling as it is compassionate, Danielle Steel weaves a story of courage in the face of unimaginable loss. With the grace of a master storyteller, she explores the strength it takes to conquer our greatest fears, showing us how the toughest choices can yield the most unexpected rewards...and how the longest, most winding journeys can begin with a single kiss.From the Hardcover edition.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Determined to get married despite parental disapproval, young architect Michael Hillyard and artist Nancy McAllister are separated just before their wedding by a cruel deception, and each pursues a new life, until they are reunited by fate. Reissue. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>Young architect Michael Hillyard and artist Nancy McAllister are determined to get married despite his wealthy mother's disapproval. Then, minutes before their wedding, a terrifying accident and a cruel deception separate Michael and Nancy -- perhaps forever. Each pursues a new life -- Nancy in California, Michael in New York. But eventually nothing -- and no one -- can keep them apart as they keep their vow never to say good-bye. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>This is a collection of three stunning, ethereal novellas. Karen, the adolescent protagonist in "The Talisman," is doing poorly in Catholic boarding school. Every time she attempts to memorize facts, people from her past burst into her imagination: her mother, Natalia, often appears and begs Karen to understand Mark, Natalia's boyfriend; sometimes Mark arrives smelling like alcohol and tells Karen stories which require him to feel her body; always her friends, Missouri and Nicolasa, come to comfort and advise. In the title story, anecdotes about Ximena's Nicaraguan family are told through memory, conversation and descriptions of often-faceless photographs. Ximena, a middle-class woman living in Paris, wants to understand the relationship of her own comfortable French life to the tortured existence of her relatives in Samoza's Nicaragua. "Village of God and the Devil" is the story of the magic village of Deya, where ghosts are as real as memory and imagination. Written in deceptively simple and imaginative prose, <strong>Family Album</strong> is a dynamic blend of the natural and supernatural. <em>-- For great reviews of books for girls, check out </em>. -- <em>From </em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Through forty years—from Hollywood's golden days in World War II to the present—Faye Price would create first a career as a legendary actress, then a family, and finally she would realize her dream of becoming one of Hollywood's first woman directors. But nothing was more precious to Faye than her five children. In a changing world, a milieu where family values are constantly challenged from without and within, the Thayers would face the greatest challenges and harshest test a family can endure, to emerge stronger, bound forever by loyalty and love. It is only when Faye is gone that they can each assess how far they have come, and how important their family album is. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Bernard Fine is happy with his life. In his early 30s, he has just been made senior vice-president of Wolff's Department Store in his hometown of New York. He is not pleased, therefore, when he is sent to California to open up a posh new Wolff's in San Francisco. His luck changes, though, when he falls in love with an enchanting five-year-old named Jane, and with her mother, Liz O'Reilly. Jane adores strong, sensitive Bernie and all three are blissfully happy until tragedy strikes the Fine family. In short, this is a story about the power of love and the unity of family to surmount grief and misfortune. The narrative moves slowly in parts and the dialogue is somewhat trite, but the characters are likeable and the story entertaining. Sure to be in demand by Steel fans. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections.Maria A. Perez-Stable, Western Michigan University Libraries, Kalamazoo<br />Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Steel is one of the best." -- <em>Los Angeles Times</em> -- <em>Review</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Peter Haskell, the debonair star of <em>Five Days in Paris</em>, has it all: a beautiful wife, three children, and a dreamy job. He's a magnate at one of the world's largest pharmaceutical conglomerates, Viotec, on the brink of revolutionizing cancer treatment. "It would be Peter's one major contribution to the human race," says the narrator--and if he can get it on the fast track toward approval by the Food and Drug Administration, he can mitigate the hell of chemotherapy for patients worldwide. Heady stuff, but it's nothing compared to what Peter finds in Paris at his favorite hotel, the Ritz, which he likens to heaven. "The brocades on the wall were a warm peach ... the fireplace apricot marble and the window and bedcoverings were in the same matching silks and satins." All Peter needs now is a beauty to match such decor, and he finds her in lovely Olivia Thatcher, the neglected wife of Anderson Thatcher, a powerful senator. Peter and Olivia meet at the Ritz, fall head over heels at Place Vendome, and have a 120-hour affair in the city of love. Back home, they find they cannot live without each other--a secret that, once revealed, could wreak havoc. Swirling with lust, politics, love, and epicurean appetites for the best life has to offer, <em>Five Days in Paris</em> has all the essentials of a classic Steel entertainment. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>FIVE DAYS IN PARIS Danielle Steel. Dell, $6.50 ISBN 0-44022284-2. Steel's 36th novel, an 18-week PW bestseller, is a tale of l'amour fou between two Americans in Paris who are married to other people. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Coming of age during the turbulent 1960s, Tana Roberts dreams of having a successful career and is willing to sacrifice everything to achieve her goal, only to discover that she can have a life that includes a career, love, and peace of mind. Reissue. </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>The 1960s. Kennedy. Martin Luther King. Civil rights. Viet Nam. TanaRoberts comes of age in this turbulent decade, and begins a journey that willlead her from New York to the South during the heat of racial unrest. Athoroughly modern young woman, she yearns for a career and is willing tosacrifice everything to get it. And it's only much later that Tana discoversthat she can have it all. Career. Love. And peace of mind. As she comes ofage, at last, and comes full circle.  </p>


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Bestselling novelist Danielle Steel takes us on a harrowing journey into the heart of America's hidden shame in a novel that explores the power of forgiveness, the dark side of childhood, and one woman's unbreakable spirit. From her secret perch at the top of the stairs, Gabriella Harrison watches the guests arrive at her parents' lavish Manhattan townhouse. At seven, she knows she is an intruder in her parents' party, in her parents' life. But she can't resist the magic. Later, she waits for the click, click, click of her mother's high heels, the angry words, and the pain that will follow. Gabriella already knows to hide her bruises, certain she is to blame for her mother's rage--and her father's failure to protect her. Her world is a confusing blend of terror, betrayal, and pain. Her parents' aristocratic world is no safeguard against the abuse that knows no boundaries, respects no person, no economic lines. Gabriella knows that, try as she might, there is no safe place for her to hide. Even as a child, her only escape is through the stories she writes. Only writing can dull the pain of her lonely world. And when her parents' marriage collapses, Gabriella is given her first reprieve, as her father disappears, and then her mother abandons her to a convent. There, Gabriella's battered body and soul begin to mend. Amid the quiet safety and hushed rituals of the nuns, Gabriella grows into womanhood in a safe, peaceful world. Then a young priest comes into her life. Father Joe Connors never questioned his vocation until Gabriella entered the confessional and shared her soul. Confession leads to friendship. And friendship grows dangerously into love. Like Gabriella, Joe is haunted by the pain of his childhood, consumed by guilt over a family tragedy, for which he blames himself. With Gabriella, Joe takes the first steps toward healing. But their relationship leads to tragedy as Joe must choose between the priesthood and Gabriella, and life in the real world where he fears he does not belong, and cannot cope. Exiled and disgraced, and nearly destroyed, Gabriella struggles to survive on her own in New York. There she seeks healing and escape through her writing again, this time as an adult, and her life as a writer begins. But just when she thinks she is beyond hurt, Gabriella is once again betrayed by someone she trusts. Brought to the edge of despair, physically attacked beyond recognition and belief, haunted by abuse in her present and her past, she nonetheless manages to find hope again, and the courage to face the past. On a pilgrimage destined to bring her face-to-face with those who sought to destroy her in her early life, she finds forgiveness, freedom from guilt, and healing from abuse. When Gabriella faces what was done to her, and why, she herself is free at last. With profound insight, Danielle Steel has created a vivid portrait of an abused child's broken world, and the courage necessary to face it and free herself from the past. A work of daring and compassion, a tale of healing that will shock and touch and move you to your very soul, it exposes the terror of child abuse, and opens the doors on a subject that affects us all. The Long Road Homeis more than riveting fiction. It is an inspiration to us all. A work of courage, hope, and love.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Evidently, Danielle Steel has been kidnapped by a mad scientist who clamped her into some gizmo that fused her brain with that of Douglas Adams, author of <em>The Klone and I: A High-Tech Love Story</em>, boasts her typical trappings--a divorced heroine, a cruel man, a sexy man with big money, and lots of shopping with brand-name tags conspicuously attached--the book is also the wackiest bit of self-indulgent sci-fi since </p><p><em>The Klone and I</em> starts out normally enough: after a 13-year marriage, Stephanie, 41, gets dumped for a busty young bimbo. "She was gorgeous. And I felt nauseous," Stephanie reflects--though she admits that things hadn't been going well, what with hubby living off her trust fund and their having sex every six months or so. Realistically, their farewell hug goes like this: "My nose ran on his tie, while ever so cautiously he held me, kind of like a bank robber with sticks of dynamite taped all over his body."</p><p>Then, one day, on an impulsive trip to the Left Bank of Paris, Steph steps into one of those cool old French elevators with Peter, a hunk in a button-down Oxford shirt and tasteful khakis. Romance! Ritzy places! In fact, he takes her to the Ritz! Alas, Peter must Louvre her and leave her for a business trip out West. </p><p>So Peter sends Paul to keep her company. Paul is a dead ringer for Peter, because he's a kind of clone created by Peter and his clever biotech company. He's called a "klone" to distinguish him from a conventional clone, which is a mere replica of its original--this "klone" may be a physical copy of Peter, but inside he's had a major id upgrade. As always with Steel, the clue is in the character's clothes: from his high-heel gator boots to his zippered zebra jumpsuit, the decidedly non-buttoned-down Paul dresses like a psychedelic kaleidoscope. But when Paul drops that leopard-satin G-string, watch out! It's quadruple flips in <em>flagrante delicto</em>, with our heroine (and, the next morning, her chiropractor) coming out on top. Though Paul deplorably guzzles Chateau d'Yquem by the case and crashes Peter's Jaguar into snow banks, he's actually even more brilliantly empathic with Stephanie's kids than stuffy Peter is.</p><p>What's a mother to do? Is Steph robbing Peter to play with Paul? How will the ménage à trois affect marriage plans? Does Steel know that her comic tone (though not her subject) actually slightly echoes that of Betty MacDonald's classic comedy memoir <em>--Tim Appelo</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The subtitle, "A High Tech Love Story," need not frighten Steel's loyal fans. More fanciful than technologically snappy, this novel (her 42nd, after The Long Road Home) grafts one scientific wrinkle onto the usual romance. Stunned when her feckless husband declares that their companionable but passionless marriage is over (then sues her for alimony and child support), 41-year-old Stephanie spends the next year improving both her body and her self-respect. During a trip to Paris, she attracts a suitor; Peter Baker is a fellow New Yorker?and everything Stephanie's been hoping for. After a chaste but exhilarating evening together, Stephanie is sure that she'll never see him again, but he tracks her down in the Hamptons and they fall in love. An executive at a company specializing in bionics, Peter has been working on a secret invention. When he travels to California on business, his creation, Paul Klone, turns up at Stephanie's door. Paul is a physical replica of Peter, but the resemblance ends there. Whereas Peter favors Oxford shirts and khakis, Paul is a fan of Versace's most outlandish creations. Although she has been pleased with Peter's lovemaking, Paul's triple back flips during sex leave Stephanie singing the body electric. When Peter becomes jealous of Paul, things get sticky. Although the SF element is minimal (approximately one part Ray Bradbury to 35 parts Steel), Steel's speculative whimsy spices her romantic concoction to produce a light but charming read. <br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Married legal team Liz and Jack Sutherland have a successful family law practice and a house on Hope Street near San Francisco, where they live with their five happy children (one with special needs). Liz and her children's lives are changed forever when Jack is murdered on Christmas Day. In the year following the murder, Liz struggles to come to terms with the loss of her husband, both personally and professionally, and is dealt another devastating blow when her eldest son has a near-fatal accident. Divorced doctor Bill Webster saves her son and becomes close to Liz, much to the chagrin of her daughters, who accuse her of betraying their dead father. Can Liz move on with her life and be happy again without betraying Jack? The House on Hope Street is the latest short novel by best-selling author Steel and is loaded with the elements her millions of devoted fans expectDcrisis, romance, breakup, and reconciliation. This is a tearjerker with an unbelievable amount of crisis for a story that takes place over one year, which makes for great escapist reading. Recommended for all public libraries.<br /><em>-DSamantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY </em><br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>A wife and mother puts the pieces back together after her husband is murdered.Liz and Jack Sutherland are successful divorce lawyers who live in Marin County, California, with their five children. On Christmas morning, the enraged husband of a client shoots Jack dead. In her typical singsong style, Steel (_Granny Dan_, 1999, etc.) takes Liz and her kids into the unthinkable horror of losing the person they love most in the world and then leads them pretty quickly out. Liz is helped through the following year by her best friend Victoria, her secretary Jean, and her housekeeper Carole. Nonetheless, in true soap-opera fashion, she shoulders most of the burden herself. Although she's grown to dislike dealing with people's nasty divorces, she stoically takes on a double caseload. She helps all her kids--especially her youngest child Jamie, a learning-delayed boy whose brain was damaged at birth--deal with the death of their father. When it comes time for the Special Olympics, an annual occasion for Jamie, Liz takes over Jack's job as trainer, coaching Jamie to his first winning medals ever. After an agonizing nine months of learning to sleep alone, Liz meets Dr. Bill Webster, the trauma doctor who helps her teenaged son Peter recover from a diving accident that left him with a head injury. Though Bill has always avoided long-term commitment, he can't help but be impressed by Liz's grit and her love for her family. Her daughter's resistance to him temporarily scares Bill off, but another Christmas finds him ready to take on carpooling with the manliest of them.This time out, Steel makes an intelligent choice of subject matter--and only occasionally threatens to treacle it to death. -- <em>Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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As a partner at one of New York's most prestigious law firms, Alexandra Parker barely manages to juggle husband, career, and the three-year-old child she gave birth to at forty.  But Alex feels blessed with her life and happy marriage--until lightning strikes her.  Suddenly a routine medical check-up turns her world upside down when tests reveal shattering news.Sam Parker is a star venture capitalist, a Wall Street whiz kid, and is as proud of his longtime marriage to Alex as he is of his successful career.  As a major player in New York's financial world, Sam is used to being in control--until he is caught off guard by Alex's illness.  Terrified of losing his wife and family, and haunted by ghosts from his past, Sam is unable to provide any kind of emotional support to Alex.Unable to cope with her needs, Sam takes his distance from her, and almost overnight she and Sam become strangers.  As lightning strikes them yet again, Sam's promising career suddenly explodes in disaster, and his very life and identity are challenged.  With their entire future hanging in the balance, Alex must decide what she feels for Sam, if life will ever be the same for them again, or if she must move on without him.What happens to people when every aspect of their lives and well-being is threatened?  In Lightning, Danielle Steel tells the story of a family thrust into uncertainty and explores whether the bonds of love and marriage can withstand life's most unexpected bolts of lightning.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>It's amazing to think that <em>Journey</em> is Danielle Steel's 50th novel. What's even more amazing is the high standard she has maintained throughout all her books: when an author is this prolific, there is usually a falling off in inspiration, but Steel seems able to add new elements to each book that keep the level of invention fresh. <em>Journey</em> uses elements familiar from earlier Steel bestsellers, but manages a totally novel spin on the private problems of a very public marriage.</p><p>Madeleine and Jack Hunter are one of Washington's glittering couples. Jack is the head of a TV network, while Maddy is an award-winning anchorwoman. All around, people regard them as a golden couple: he advising the president on media issues, she at the top of the tree in her profession. Needless to say, the relationship we are shown behind the closed doors of their lavish Georgetown home is far more troubled than the public could ever know. As Maddy enjoys more and more career success, Jack's resentment and desire for control grow daily, and her life becomes hell in this fracturing marriage. Steel manages, as always, to convey character in concise paragraphs: </p><blockquote><p>The diamond studs and her eight-carat engagement ring were her prize possessions. Not bad for a kid from a trailer park in Chattanooga, she often admitted to him, and he called her "poor white trash" when he wanted to really tease her. It was obvious that he thought calling her that was funny...</p></blockquote><p>When Maddy joins the president's wife in the latter's newly formed commission on violence against women, the grim stories she hears from other terrified wives start her on a journey which will help her break the cycle of fear she is living through. Steel makes this situation resonate with a strong emotional impact, and the dark marriage is painted with the kind of skill we have come to expect from her. When Bill Alexander, a high-flying scholar and diplomat, enters the narrative and realizes what is happening in Maddy's marriage, the story is taken to a powerful new level, with their growing affection treated intelligently and sympathetically. <em>--Barry Forshaw</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Marital abuse in its most insidious form is the focus of Steel's (The House on Hope Street, etc.) dependable page-turner, her 50th novel. To the outside world, Washington, D.C., television coanchor Maddy Hunter appears to have an enviable life. Married to her boss, former football star-cum-media mogul Jack Hunter, she's got brains, beauty, a prestigious job, a glamorous marriage and all the trappings of success. Yet MaddyAwhose current husband saved her from a physically abusive former spouseAis trapped in another relationship that's as devastating and destructive as her first. Jack doesn't hit Maddy, but he subjects her to mind games, put-downs and constant undermining; it's obvious psychological abuse to observers, though not to Maddy. Using Maddy's participation in a commission on violence against women chaired by the nation's First Lady, Steel explicates the various forms of spousal abuse, and although the text occasionally gets preachy, the desperate plight of women who remain in destructive situations is clearly delineated. Meanwhile, Maddy warily builds a friendship with Bill Alexander, a fellow committee member and former ambassador to Colombia whose wife was killed by kidnappers. Maddy's experience interacting with women like herself and the appearance of a daughter she gave up for adoption as an unwed teenager (and whom Jack forbids her to see) both have an impact. Still, it takes a life-threatening event to convince her finally to change her life and accept the gift of a good man's love. Steel has her formula down pat, and she executes her story with her usual smooth pacing. <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In the 1962 rock ballad, Johnny Angel isn't an angel, but an angelic young dreamboat. In Steel's book, the titular hero is both-as well as class valedictorian, a football/track star, a faithful boyfriend and a college scholarship winner who holds down two jobs to help out his family; on top of it all, he has "great teeth." Killed in a car crash after his senior prom, 17-year-old Johnny Peterson is sent back to earth as an angel. His mission: to fix certain troubles left unresolved at the time of his death involving his girlfriend, Becky, her impoverished mother and his dysfunctional family. The plot may strike TV viewers as little more than a warmed-over Touched by an Angel rerun, but the theme-the healing power of love-is classic Steel. Unfortunately, the story is flawed by clunky characterizations. The sticking point isn't that Steel reveals her characters' problems through authorial proclamation rather than action and dialogue-that bluntness is simply her style-but that she explains those problems repeatedly. The first time readers learn that Johnny's dad drinks himself into a stupor every night from guilt over causing the accident that traumatized Johnny's brother, Bobby, into muteness, it is necessary information. The second repeat can be justified as emphasis. But multiple further repetitions are downright tedious. Still, Steele's heartfelt depiction of the central relationship between Johnny and his mother is touching, and few readers will get through the revelation of Johnny's final gift with dry eyes.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>With this brief foray into the world of a family devastated by the death of their teenage son, Steel moves away from the contemporary romance stories she is famous for, although her fans likely won't complain. Handsome, tall, polite, college-bound, hardworking, and the backbone of his fragile family, Johnny Peterson also is a star athlete and class valedictorian. All in all, his future is looking pretty bright when a terrible accident on prom night kills him and shatters the already tenuous relationships of his parents and siblings. Of course, Johnny, being the great guy that he is, returns as a vision/ghost/angel and begins to repair the damaged lives of his family and friends. Before we know it, his mute and semi-autistic brother is speaking, his father has laid off the booze, his girlfriend gets a scholarship to attend college, and his heartbroken mother gains the fortitude to let go of her grief and embrace life once more. Despite its sad story line, Steel ties it all together with a neat and somewhat happy ending. Librarians should stock up; this one will be hot this summer. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Birthdays are a time for reflection, especially for Sarah, Duchess of Whitfield, who is awaiting the arrival of her far-flung family. Years earlier, reeling from her pending divorce, Sarah Thompson is force-marched through Europe on the grand tour by her concerned parents. Disinterested in the sons, grandsons, and nephews paraded before her by well-meaning acquaintances, Sarah chances upon William Whitfield, the Duke of Whitfield, 14th in line for succession to the English throne. Disarmed by his wit and intrigued by his intellect, Sarah allows William to become her companion in London, warning him they can only be friends. Undeterred, William dismisses Sarah's protestations that her divorce makes her unsuitable to be his duchess and finally convinces Sarah to marry him. While honeymooning in France, Sarah and William happen upon Chateau de la Meuze. Enchanted, the Whitfields buy and set about restoring the estate. But World War II looms, threatening their idyllic existence. Following the birth of their first child, Phillip, William joins the RAF when England declares war on Germany. Reluctantly, he leaves Sarah and Phillip at the chateau. German troops, led by the courtly commandant Joachim von Mannheim, take possession of the chateau to establish a hospital, removing Sarah and Phillip to the caretaker's cottage.</p><p>When the war ends, William, after being imprisoned for three years and barely surviving the torture that deprived him of the use of his legs, returns to his family. The Whitfields pick up threads of lives strained, but not broken, by war. Soon, they are approached by others who lost everything during the war except a few secreted heirlooms. But jewelry can't put food on the table, and the Whitfields begin purchasing jewelry to provide neighbors with much-needed cash. When William jokingly suggests opening a Paris store, a legacy is born: Whitfield's, Jewelers to the Crown. Over the next decades, which bring three more children, two more branches of Whitfields, and the death of her husband, Sarah is molded into a force to be reckoned with, capable of handling her willful children and a highly successful international business with equal aplomb. Steel paints a portrait of a family, imperfect as they may be, and the powerful matriarch who reminds them of the bond that transcends titles, money, and borders. <em>--Alison Trinkle</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In the Steel collectionoeuvre, which means works of art, is awk with following jewel metaphor , Jewels is merely a semiprecious gem. Set in the WW II era, the novel depicts the travails of its to elim dangler heroine, Sarah, Duchess of Whitfield. The beautiful debutante daughter of a wealthy American family, Sarah has endured the disgrace attending her divorce of her caddish first husband. Eventually she marries the charming and very rich Duke of Whitfield, who buys her a chateau in France. The rest of the novel follows the self-satisfied course of their usually happy since he's in prison camp at one point union. WW II offers Steel a chance to pump drama into this bland narrative, but she misses it. Sarah spends the war comfortably ensconced on the grounds of her chateau, looked out for by a solicitious German commander so polite she doesn't guess he has fallen in love with her. Meekly, he leaves the moment Sarah learns her husband, the duke, ? has survived a Nazi prison camp. After she nurses William back to health, their idyllic marriage placidly resumes. They are rich and envied. They eat well, dress well, live well, have or else mention first child above? children and open a jewelry store for amusement. The narrative's greatest conflict comes in the final chapters, when widowed Sarah has to deal with her unruly offspring. Costume jewelry has more sparkle than this uninspired tale. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections. <br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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Danielle Steel's forty-seventh bestselling novel is very much about the tides of our times, changes and responsibilities in the workplace pull two people in different directions, sweeping them into new lives and changed worlds----.Irresistible ForcesFor fourteen years, Steve and Meredith Whitman have sustained a marriage of passion and friendship - despite the demands of two all-consuming careers.  Meredith, an investment banker, has achieved partnership in one of Wall Street's top firms.  Steve A gifted physician, chose an urban trauma ward over the big money he could have earned elsewhere.  The only thing missing in their lives is children.  Steve longs for them.  But Meredith keeps putting off motherhood, saying she isn't ready and doesn't have time.  Not yet.  Especially now that she has been offered an extraordinary opportunity, a chance to reach for the brass ring - in San Francisco, three thousand miles away.  Meredith is thrilled and surprised when Steve urges her to accept a top position at an exciting young high-tech company.  Traditionally, men's careers forces families to move to new cities, compelling their wives to abandon friends, home, and lives to follow.  But Steve is more than willing to uproot himself. Saying he'll join her as he can find a new job himself, they can begin their family at last.Neither Steve nor Meredith had reckoned on the frustrations of a bi-coastal marriage, as Steve's job keeps him in New York for months longer than planned.  Weekends together, their lifeline, fall prey to their hectic schedules.  Alone in San Francisco, Meredith is spending long hours at the office with her boss, charismatic entrepreneur Callan Dow.  Steve working late shifts at the hospital, grabbing an occasional dinner with a new colleague, a doctor raising a daughter on her own.  Almost unnoticed, Steve and Meredith have begun living separate lives in increasingly separate worlds.  And despite the best of intentions, irresistible forces begin to tear their lives and hearts apart.With unerring insight, Danielle Steel explores what happens when lives that fit together like delicately balanced puzzles are shifted, changed, and drift apart.  Only time can tell who and what they will become as life sweeps them onward and deposits them on new, sometimes frightening, and often exciting shores.  Who survives, is at the core of Irresistible Forces.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Supreme spinner of romantic yarns, Steel (_Amazing Grace_, etc.), in her lamentable latest fable of female courage, fortune, fame and fashion, features Oscar-winning actress Carole Barber, who, at age 50 and trying to write a novel, travels to Paris, scene of a tragic love affair 15 years before. On her first night in the City of Light, she's badly injured during a terrorist attack, after which she is left with no memory and no choice but to rebuild her life with a new perspective on her career, family and personal relationships. Steel flirts with themes of motherhood, second chances and writing, never settling on any one for long as Carole discovers the importance of pursuing her own desires while being generous to others and of keeping the men she wants in her life close but not too close. The best part is Carole's rehabilitation; as she reacquaints herself with family and friends, Carole the patient shows the patience author Steel lacks to probe beneath the surface. Though the message is murky at best, Steel delivers a sympathetic heroine and a scene or two that makes the heartstrings quiver. <em>(Feb.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A five-handkerchief Danielle Steel heartbreaker.” —Barnes &amp; Noble  </p><p>“Faithful readers will be catapulted by Steel’s staccato pacing and straightforward prose.” —_Booklist<br />_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>When you've got three attractive men in a Steel novel, each determined to stay single, you can expect romance, love and marriage vows around the corner, as well as the usual mix of glamour, fashion and wealth. Charles Sumner Harrington, born to affluence, has no family and, following several botched engagements, is, at 46, a perfectionist who will probably never meet the woman of his dreams. Adam Weiss, a Harvard Law–trained hotshot, was burned by a nasty divorce; at 41, he is a sworn bachelor who parties with the pretty, young and clueless. Gray Hawk, a New York artist living hand-to-mouth at 50, was adopted at birth by globe-trotting, drug-taking rock stars; he's drawn exclusively to women whose middle name is "victim." The three friends take their annual summer Mediterranean booze cruise on Charles's luxurious yacht, and in the hubbub there and back in New York, each ends up crossing paths with a woman who turns his life upside down. After the initial bliss, there are confrontations, challenges and threats to promising relationships. Despite relentlessly reiterating her characters' Freudian backstories, Steel delivers the inevitable happy endings in the usual nontoxic, satisfying manner. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Steel's latest novel traces the lives and loves of three confirmed bachelors who are forced to face their worst commitment fears when each, in turn, somehow manages to fall in love. The three 40-something best friends, Charlie Harrington, an independently wealthy philanthropist; Adam Weiss, a celebrity lawyer and voracious playboy; and Gray Hawk, a handsome and talented New York artist, have formed a tight relationship, united in their "love 'em and leave 'em" approach to women and dating. All three have been scarred by some relationship in the past and have taken to living commitment-free lives, cruising the high seas on Harrington's yacht, partying until dawn, and dating scores of women. That is until, one by one, they find themselves falling deeply in love with (surprise!) women they wouldn't even have considered dating casually. A breezy read, this contains some of the usual Steel plot mechanisms (Will the handsome, wealthy bachelor successfully woo the beautiful but no-frills social worker?) and happy endings that will keep her fans reading and waiting for more. Librarians may need duplicate copies. <em>Kathleen Hughes</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Despite some redundancies and dimensionless supporting characters, Steel's 31st novel is a potent blend of romance and intrigue. When Marielle Delauney marries New York steel magnate Malcolm Patterson in 1939, she does not tell him of her tragic past--neither the drowning accident that claimed her first child, nor the subsequent beating by her husband Charles that caused her to miscarry, nor the two years she spent recovering in a sanitorium. But what does the enigmatic Malcolm already know? When they have their own child, Teddy, Malcolm, to all appearances, is an adoring father. The still-vulnerable Marielle begins to gain self-confidence, even though she endures daily confrontations with a hostile and even sinister household staff. Then the day after Marielle has a chance meeting with Charles, who drunkenly makes vague threats against Teddy, the four-year-old is snatched from his room, the nanny and nurse chloroformed and gagged. The FBI is summoned, Marielle's past is exposed by a frenzied media and Charles is arrested. But where is Teddy? The author of Mixed Blessings keeps her secrets well, and--the annoying reprises of critical scenes aside--presents a strong portrait of a tormented young woman moving toward stability. 1,000,000 first printing; Literary Guild &amp; Doubleday Book Club main selections; major ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>Like Belva Plain in Whispers (p. 326), Steel soft-pedals gauzy romance in a fairly tightly plotted story--set mainly in 1930's Manhattan and about a lady wildly unlucky in love who's forced to deal with crime--in this case, kidnapping. Like Plain's battered wife, Marielle once loved unwisely. Charles Delauney (fiery green eyes) and Marielle (her eyes were <code></code>deep blue sapphires'') had met in 1926 in Paris, then went on to make a gloriously happy marriage--until that moment when tragedy overtook their small son in a drowning accident, as well as their unborn child as the pregnant Marielle attempted a rescue. Suffering from Charles's accusations and blame, Marielle ended up spending some years in a sanitarium. Now, back again in Manhattan, Marielle is the protected, secure wife of rich businessman Malcolm Patterson, a smooth gent who does a good bit of business with Nazi Germany, and her joy in an otherwise restricted life is four-year- old Teddy. It is the sight of Teddy that sends expatriate Charles (who returns from the Spanish Civil War and meets Marielle in the park) into a wild rage--and when, horribly, Teddy is kidnapped, into the slammer as a suspect. Throughout Marielle's ordeal--with terrible reminders of the Lindbergh case--FBI agent John Taylor offers a strong shoulder (and more); a feisty newspaper woman turns up important clues; a mobster named Louis the Lover turns up a heart of gold; and the rosy respectability of Malcolm's circle takes on a new hue. There will be a trial, a last-minute rescue, and, at the close, Steel trots out a nice man for Marielle. As for Teddy, not to worry. Okay, worry a little.... The smashing duds and digs are still there--plus the subject's predictable pull. (First printing of 1,000,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for October) -- <em>Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With the emotional panache that pleases her devotees, Steel (Kaleidoscope) portrays Zoya Ossupov, a courageous young woman of Imperial Russia who experiences both ecstasy and trauma. Daughter of a count who is a cousin of Tsar Nicholas, Zoya enjoys a privileged, cloistered existence. Zoya, whose name means "life," is on intimate terms with the tsar's family. All of them, of course, are endangered by the Revolution. The insurgents slaughter the tsar and his kin, and cause the deaths of Zoya's parents and brother, forcing her to flee to Paris with her aged but indomitable grandmother. Suffering in unaccustomed poverty, they are sustained by Zoya's wages as a dancer with the Ballet Russe. Romance brightens her life following a chance encounter with an affluent New Yorker, Capt. Clayton Andrews. Enchanted by Zoya, Andrews eventually brings her to Manhattan as his bride, never imagining the tragedies that will befall them both. Steel evokes the final days of Imperial Russia with characteristic bravura. As always, she offers a carefully calculated mix of picturesque locales, remarkable events and appealing characters. Literary Guild and BOMC dual main selections. <br />Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>$19.95. f Most of Steel's readers have favorites among her stories and while this one may not be destined to be the choice of many, libraries will have difficulty keeping it in stock because of Steel's reputation. Within weeks of her last visit to the family of her distant cousin Tsar Nicholas II, Zoya and her grandmother flee the Russian Revolution in 1917, taking with them two final royal gifts, a small dog and the measles. The harsh winter in Paris before Zoya meets the handsome American captain she marries is difficult. She loses all but her two children in the stock market crash, but finds work as a fashion coordinator. Throughout, history and romance often seem to bump into each other as they stumble over coincidence. This is not one of Steel's better sagas, and her fans will be disappointed. Literary Guild Dual Main Selection.Andrea Lee Shuey, Dallas P.L.<br />Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Household name Steel (_Going Home_) falls short of her best in her latest. Victoria Dawson has always felt like an outcast. When her little sister Grace is born, father Jim tells Victoria she was the tester cake, and they finally got it right with the beautiful Gracie. Victoria grows up in her sister's shadow, and though she loves Gracie dearly, she's anxious to leave home. The pain doesn't stop there, though. Her father calls her first job at a prestigious private school in Manhattan pathetic, and Victoria begins a battle with her weight and her belief that she is unlovable (even though men pursue her). The premise of the story is sound, but it doesn't ring true: the parents are two-dimensional, cruel monsters and Victoria seems to have everything: fantastic job, amazing apartment, perfect best friends. It's hard to believe that her parents would still wield such power. Steel barely grazes the surface of an important topic, but it's not reality that has positioned her at the top of bestseller lists. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In this heartfelt and incisive new novel, Danielle Steel celebrates the virtues of unconventional beauty while exploring deeply resonant issues of weight, self-image, sisterhood, and family.   </p><p>    A chubby little girl with blond hair, blue eyes, and ordinary looks, Victoria Dawson has always felt out of place in her family, especially in body-conscious L.A. Her father, Jim, is tall and slender, and her mother, Christina, is a fine-boned, dark-haired beauty. Both are self-centered, outspoken, and disappointed by their daughter’s looks. When Victoria is six, she sees a photograph of Queen Victoria, and her father has always said she looks just like her. After the birth of Victoria’s perfect younger sister, Gracie, her father liked to refer to his firstborn as “our tester cake.” With Gracie, everyone agreed that Jim and Christina got it right.  </p><p>    While her parents and sister can eat anything and not gain an ounce, Victoria must watch everything she eats, as well as endure her father’s belittling comments about her body and see her academic achievements go unacknowledged. Ice cream and oversized helpings of all the wrong foods give her comfort, but only briefly. The one thing she knows is that she has to get away from home, and after college in Chicago, she moves to New York City.   </p><p>Landing her dream job as a high school teacher, Victoria loves working with her students and wages war on her weight at the gym. Despite tension with her parents, Victoria remains close to her sister. And though they couldn’t be more different in looks, they love each other unconditionally. But regardless of her accomplishments, Victoria’s parents know just what to say to bring her down. She will always be her father’s “big girl,” and her mother’s constant disapproval is equally unkind.  </p><p>When Grace announces her engagement to a man who is an exact replica of their narcissistic father, Victoria worries about her sister’s future happiness, and with no man of her own, she feels like a failure once again. As the wedding draws near, a chance encounter, an act of stunning betrayal, and a family confrontation lead to a turning point.   </p><p>Behind Victoria is a lifetime of hurt and neglect she has tried to forget, and even ice cream can no longer dull the pain. Ahead is a challenge and a risk: to accept herself as she is, celebrate it, and claim the victories she has fought so hard for and deserves. Big girl or not, she is terrific and discovers that herself.  </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Set immediately after Frank Herbert's <em>Dune Messiah</em> (1969), this satisfying tale from Herbert's son and Anderson (_Paul of Dune_) follows Jessica, the mother of galactic emperor Paul Atreides, as she returns to the desert planet Dune for her son's funeral. Paul's suicide after his mistress's childbed death leaves his sister, the insane and brutal Alia, as regent for his twin children. Alia releases Princess Irulan, Paul's wife and biographer, from house arrest on the condition that she present Paul as a god, even as Bronso of Ix circulates contrasting writings focusing on Paul's humanity. Alia, Jessica, Bronso and Irulan can describe aspects of Paul, but no single narrative can capture him. Fans of the original Dune series will love seeing familiar characters, and the narrative voice smoothly evokes the elder Herbert's style. <em>(Aug.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>Praise for <em>The Winds of Dune</em>:  </p><p>"Fill[s] in the gaps between the late Frank Herbert's classic <em>Dune</em> and its sequels <em>_</em>Dune Messiah_ and <em>Children of Dune. . . .  </em>This sequel to <em>_</em>Paul of Dune_ is an important addition to the Dune chronology and will be in demand by Herbert fans.”<br />--_Library Journal_ (starred review)  </p><p>"Delivers solid action and will certainly satisfy."<br />_--Booklist<br />_<br />“This satisfying tale from Herbert’s son and Anderson follows Jessica, the mother of galactic emperor Paul Atreides. . . .  Fans of the original Dune series will love seeing familiar characters, and the narrative voice smoothly evokes the elder Herbert’s style.”<br />--Publishers Weekly  </p><p>"Unquestionably, Herbert &amp; Anderson can spin a great yarn; while technically producing a vivid, mystifying universe, filled with characters that are both endearing, and loathsome. I recommend this one highly, but be warned, if this is the first Dune book you are reading, get ready to hit the bookstore, because I promise you, it will not be the last!"<br />_--BookSpotCentral  </p><p><em>"</em><em>_The Winds of Dune</em> is filled with the same psychological complexities that were a hallmark of Frank Herbert’s books. It twists and turns on matters of trust, loyalty and the meaning of honor. Familiar characters are brought back to life with poignant clarity and the suspense and tension never let up. Even knowing what comes next in <em>_</em>Children of Dune, _I was hooked by this tale and enjoyed it immensely. It is a worthy addition to the <em>_</em>Dune_ saga."<br />_--IN Denver Times  </p><p><em>Praise for the bestselling novel, </em>Paul of Dune:  </p><p>_“This vital link between the first two books of the Dune saga begins immediately after the close of <em>Dune. . . .  </em>This is good reading. . . .  Standing well enough on its own for Dune novices, it goes without saying that it’s must reading for established fans.”<br />--_Booklist  </p><p>_“Drawing on Frank Herbert’s massive body of notes, the coauthors of the new Dune series continue their expansion and illumination of the unexplored pieces of one of the genre’s most significant and powerful stories. A priority purchase for libraries of all sizes. Highly recommended.”<br /><em>--Library Journal</em> (starred review)</p><p>Praise for <em>Dune</em>, the timeless classic that began the epic story:  </p><p>“One of the monuments of modern science fiction.”<br />--_The Chicago Tribune__  </p><p>_“I know nothing comparable to it except <em>The Lord of the Rings</em>.”<br />--Sir Arthur C. Clarke_  </p><p>_“A portrayal of an alien society more complete and deeply detailed than any other author in the field has managed . . . a story absorbing equally for its action and philosophical vistas. . . . An astonishing science fiction phenomenon.”<br />--_The Washington Post__  </p><p>_“Powerful, convincing, and most ingenious.”<br />--Robert A. Heinlein_  </p><p>_“Herbert’s creation of this universe, with its intricate development and analysis of ecology, religion, politics, and philosophy, remains one of the supreme and seminal achievements in science fiction.”<br />--_Louisville__ Times_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Church once again does a brilliant job of portraying the dysfunctional, paranoid society of modern North Korea in his third novel to feature Inspector O of the ministry of public security (after 2007's <em>Hidden Moon</em>). When a foreigner O has been assigned to watch turns out to be working for Israeli intelligence, O and his supervisor, Pak, come under the scrutiny of a rival security service. To complicate matters, Pak asks the inspector to investigate the murder of a North Korean diplomat's wife in Pakistan, but O is restricted to merely collecting facts about the dead woman. O's efforts to actually solve the crime lead to dangerous encounters with his country's special weapons program. While the espionage elements compel, the book's main strength, as with its predecessors, derives from the small details that enable the reader to imagine life in North Korea—and from O's struggles to maintain his principles and integrity. <em>(Dec.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> It is brutal winter in North Korea, the first winter after the death of Beloved Leader. His son and successor is grieving, and the country’s survival is threatened by famine and infrastructure collapse. Even in Pyongyang, government employees are hungry and cold. Word of mouth from the countryside and their own experiences cause Inspector O and Chief Inspector Pak to fear that the nation has “fallen apart.” But even as the country lurches toward collapse, foreigners interested in guided missiles stream into North Korea. O is sent to Geneva, ostensibly to ensure that the head of a diplomatic delegation doesn’t defect. There, Swiss, Israeli, and North Korean agents alternately charm and menace him, and O doesn’t even know what his superiors really want of him. The sketch of the most secretive country in the world is as spare and elegant as a Japanese painting. The machinations and motivations of the unseen politicians who pull O’s strings can’t be fathomed. Pak, O’s politically astute superior, often speaks in what sound like Zen koans. O is left to rely on himself and the wisdom of his animist-woodworker grandfather for guidance. Bamboo and Blood, the third in this outstanding series, invites readers to take a step through the looking glass. Thoughtful crime fans will love what they find. --Thomas Gaughan </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The lack of a strong central plot undercuts the third forensic thriller by bestseller Bass, the team of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of Tennessee's world-renowned Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson (after 2007's <em>Flesh and Bone</em>). Two cases occupy Dr. Bass's fictional alter ego, Dr. Bill Brockton—the death of Mary Latham, a 47-year-old Knoxville native, whose charred remains were found in a burned-out car, and a disreputable Georgia crematorium that simply dumped bodies on its grounds. These probes soon take a backseat to a cat-and-mouse game with the doctor's arch nemesis, Garland Hamilton, who tried to frame him for murder in <em>Flesh and Bone</em>. When Hamilton escapes from incarceration before going to trial, Brockton must keep looking over his shoulder. While a smattering of Bass's trademark authentic forensic detail lifts this main narrative thread, a more focused look at a single case might have made the novel a better read. <em>(Feb.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"[A] fine thriller...this third installment is the best of a steadily improving series, but it’s doubtful we’ve seen the finest moments yet." -- <em>Booklist</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Vorhaus's amusing thriller about the misadventures of a con man in Los Angeles hums along for a while through gags and gaffes and witty dialogue, but never gels as a whole. Radar Hoverlander, a longtime grifter whose tool box of cons is deep and wide, is looking for the California Roll, the holy grail of cons that will set him for life. He thinks he's found it in the form of the Merlin Game, a complicated pyramid scheme. Then Radar runs into Allie Quinn, a sexy, slick fellow grifter who lures him into a con of her own. Vorhaus, author of <em>The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even if You're Not</em> and the Killer Poker series (_Killer Poker Online_, etc.), has put more effort into generating laughs than developing the plot. Like a lot of comic novels, this one suffers from extended expository passages in which the narrator falls in love with his own voice at the expense of the action. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Master of the snuke and its bafflegab and the scourge of every mook, con artist Radar Hoverlander wonders if he’s met his match in Allie Quinn. She’s dazzling and highly intelligent and seems to be setting him up for a con. She also leads a brittle, beautiful Australian cop and a bent FBI agent to him, and everyone but Radar has multiple agendas. Radar simply wants to avoid prison or being killed and to work toward the grand snuke, the California Roll, the last payday he’ll ever need. The California Roll is grand entertainment. Radar, Allie, the law-enforcement odd couple, and hapless grifter Vic Mirplo are all cleverly developed. Double and triple crosses abound in the careening plot, and Vorhaus, who writes primarily about poker, really seems to understand the bedrock mendacity of the grift. It’s in the blood, like peanut allergy, he writes. The writing is tight and wonderfully glib, and Vorhaus slyly, shrewdly hints that he’s snuking the reader. No caper-novel fan should miss this one. --Thomas Gaughan </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Shan's dystopic thriller, the first in a trilogy already published in the U.K., is an excellent, twisting foray into a world of deceit, murder, and mystery. Capac Raimi arrives in an unnamed city, a place ruled by a man known as the Cardinal, and quickly realizes that he has no memory of his life elsewhere. When the Cardinal kills Capac's uncle and offers Capac a job based on a dream and Capac's Incan name, the young man's life takes a turn for the fantastical. While training to serve the Cardinal, Capac embarks on a strange, gripping search for clues to both the disappearances of his friends and his own past. The dialogue is realistic, the characters and settings are vivid, and the plotting is tight, complemented perfectly by a bleak, desolate tone. Any fan of postapocalyptic fiction will find it absolutely riveting. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Popular YA author Darren Shan's first adult novel is a combination of horror and near-future thriller set in “The City,” which is the center of Capac Raimi's world. Moving into the city to work with his small-time gangster uncle, Capac soon finds himself at the service of the Cardinal, the leader of all the criminal gangs and the ruler of the city. Capac enjoys his new life except for a few small details, including the enigmatic blind and mute monks who have a way of appearing at significant moments in Capac's life, and the fact that he can't really remember any of his life before he came to the City. Then he meets and immediately falls in love with a young woman who is determined to dig out the Cardinal's secrets. Fast-paced and exciting, Procession of the Dead is a gritty, creepy, and completely successful story with an ending that leaves openings for future series entries. Suggest to readers who enjoyed Miéville's The City and the City (2009) for its slightly fantastical setting combined with a thrilling story. --Jessica Moyer </p>


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 7 Up–When sneaky teenaged Grubbs Grady finds himself mysteriously dumped on his aunt's doorstep, he can't help but steal back home to figure out what's going on. Unfortunately, when he arrives, his parents and sister have been horrifically killed in true Shan form: their bodies ripped to shreds by an evil demon named Lord Loss and his vile henchmen. Grubbs somehow manages to escape the fiends and goes to live with his Uncle Dervish, a peculiar dandy who lives in a creepy country mansion whose secrets may hold the key to the murders. Chock-full of family curses, werewolf lore, and stomach-turning gore, <em>Lord Loss</em> is exactly the kind of horror that Cirque Du Freak (Little, Brown) fans will love. Characterizations may take a backseat to fast pacing, but this first installment in a new series is still guaranteed to gross out anyone aged 12 to 20._–Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Gr. 9-12. Older fans of Shan's gory, gripping Cirque du Freak series will welcome this first book in the Demonata series, which features a similar horrific spin, dark humor, and graphic detail. Grubitsch Grady ("Grubbs" for short) walks into his parents' bedroom to find his mother, father, and older sister torn to pieces by Lord Loss, a powerful demon that feeds on human pain and suffering. Grubbs is attacked by Lord Loss' familiars, marvelously creepy hybrid creatures, and to his great astonishment, he manages to escape. Not surprisingly, he ends up in a mental institution, completely derailed by the horror he has seen and experienced. Eventually, he is taken in by his uncle Dervish, discovers a cousin he never knew, and, alas, learns that lycanthropy runs in the family. The plot rolls along at high speed, but Shan is still quite adept when it comes to capturing Grubbs' roller-coaster emotions--loss and grief and, later, trust. A sneak peek at the second book in the series, <em>Demon Thief,</em> shows Shan continuing in the same vein but with different characters. <em>Debbie Carton</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Lights. Camera. Slawter! Grubbs Grady and his half-brother Bill-E are thrilled to join their uncle Dervish as onset consultants for the newest movie by cult horror producer David A Haym. Shot in a deserted town renamed Slawter, the demon-themed movie is to be Haym's masterpiece. But as strange incidents disrupt the set, Grubbs begins to wonder whether more than filming is afoot. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Darren Shan says: I always wanted to be a writer - I've loved telling stories since I was a child. One day, on a whim, I decided to try a book for children. The result was Cirque Du Freak. Much to my surprise, it took off, and I became a de facto children's author! Since then I've used my ill-gotten gains to buy lots of comic-strip art and travel the world. When I'm not working or traveling, I like watching movies. I've even been known to read the odd book or two. Darren is currently at work on his fourth book in The Demonata series. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>_"Locked inside Dervish's study. Breath coming quickly, raggedly. Trembling wildly. I still feel sick and dizzy, but maybe that's fear. I force myself to breathe normally, evenly. When I'm in control, I study my reflection, looking for telltale signs. Am I turning into a werewolf? I don't know..."<br />_<br />Grubbs Grady has so far escaped the family curse, but when he begins to experience alarming symptoms at the onset of the full moon, he is scared that the jaws of fate are opening and about to swallow him whole.   </p><p>He has cheated death, defeated demons, moved on with his life. But Grubbs is torn between the world of magic and his wolfen genes. Can he fight the beast inside or will he fall victim to his tainted blood? </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>"I was born in London in 1972 and moved to Ireland when I was 6 years old, where I've lived ever since. I always wanted to be a writer - I've loved telling stories since I was a child. I started out writing books for adults, and managed to get a couple published. One day, on a whim, I decided to try a book for children. The result was <em>Cirque Du Freak</em>. Much to my surprise, it took off, and I became a de facto children's author! Since then I've used my ill-gotten gains to buy lots of comic-strip art and travel the world. When I'm not working or traveling, I like watching movies. I've even been known to read the odd book or two."  </p><p>Darren is currently working on his sixth novel in the bone-chilling <em>Demonata</em> series, coming in May 2008. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>One boy's life ripped to shreds before his eyes...  </p><p>One wrathful demon master hell-bent on revenge...  </p><p>An army of grisly Demonata on the rampage...  </p><p>It's the end of the world as we know it.  </p><p>The sixth novel in the chilling Demonata series by Darren Shan, author of the <em>New York Times </em>bestselling Cirque Du Freak series, will terrify readers long after the last page. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>"I was born in London in 1972 and moved to Ireland when I was 6 years old, where I've lived ever since. I always wanted to be a writer - I've loved telling stories since I was a child. I started out writing books for adults, and managed to get a couple published. One day, on a whim, I decided to try a book for children. The result was <em>Cirque Du Freak</em>. Much to my surprise, it took off, and I became a de facto children's author! Since then I've used my ill-gotten gains to buy lots of comic-strip art and travel the world. When I'm not working or traveling, I like watching movies. I've even been known to read the odd book or two."  </p><p>Darren is working on his seventh novel in the bone-chilling <em>Demonata</em> series, coming in November 2008. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>[Barber’s] a suburban girl who’s frightened that she’s going to get cut out of everything good that happens in the city. That, to me, is a big story in popular culture. It’s the story of pretty much every rock ‘n’ roll band. (Nick Hornby, author of the screenplay adaptation of <em>An Education</em> ) </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>The inspiration for the award-winning motion picture: "Candid, unsentimental and extremely funny. I read it in one glorious go, laughing and crying throughout."—Zoë Heller</strong> When Lynn Barber was sixteen, a stranger in a maroon sports car pulled up beside her as she was on her way home from school and offered her a ride. It was the beginning of a long journey from innocence to precocious experience—an affair with an older man that would change her life. Barber’s seducer left her with a taste for luxury hotels and posh restaurants and trips abroad, expensive habits that she managed to support in later life as a successful London journalist whose barbed interviews at once terrorized and fascinated her smart-set subjects.   </p><p>A poignant, shockingly candid account of the stages in a literary life—from promiscuity at Oxford to a stint at <em>Penthouse</em> to a complex marriage that endured—_An Education_ is a classic of English memoir. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>"The implications of the boys' power to manipulate the past unfold cleverly…, feeding into the Machiavellian political intrigue for a pulse-pounding climax….Card's many fans will be thrilled by this return to his literary roots.” --_Kirkus_  </p><ul> <li>     "Fast paced and thoroughly engrossing, the 650-plus pages fly by, challenging readers to care about and grasp sophisticated, confusing, and captivating ideas." --_Booklist_, starred review   </li></ul><p>"Card entwines two stories in this fascinatingly complex series opener....The result is an amalgamation of adventure, politics, and time travel that invokes issues of class and the right to control one's own life. Yet despite its complexity, the book is never less than page-turning. While Card delves deeply into his story's knotted twists and turns, readers should have no trouble following the philosophical and scientific mysteries, which the characters are parsing right along with them. An epic in the best sense." --_PW_, starred review </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>A powerful secret. A dangerous path. </p><p>Rigg is well trained at keeping secrets. Only his father knows the truth about Rigg's strange talent for seeing the paths of people's pasts. But when his father dies, Rigg is stunned to learn just how many secrets Father had kept from <em>him</em>--secrets about Rigg's own past, his identity, and his destiny. And when Rigg discovers that he has the power not only to see the past, but also to change it, his future suddenly becomes anything but certain. </p><p>Rigg’s birthright sets him on a path that leaves him caught between two factions, one that wants him crowned and one that wants him dead. He will be forced to question everything he thinks he knows, choose who to trust, and push the limits of his talent…or forfeit control of his destiny. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>_The apocalypse came and the world burned. But it wasn't the end, and out of the destruction, new life has emerged. Bec is back to face the Demonata. After centuries of imprisonment, she's more powerful than ever, but the demons no longer stand alone.   </p><p>Something has crawled out of the darkness with her. Lord Loss is no longer humanity's greatest threat... _</p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>"I was born in London in 1972 and moved to Ireland when I was 6 years old, where I've lived ever since. I always wanted to be a writer - I've loved telling stories since I was a child. I started out writing books for adults, and managed to get a couple published. One day, on a whim, I decided to try a book for children. The result was <em>Cirque Du Freak</em>. Much to my surprise, it took off, and I became a de facto children's author! Since then I've used my ill-gotten gains to buy lots of comic-strip art and travel the world. When I'm not working or traveling, I like watching movies. I've even been known to read the odd book or two."  </p><p>Darren is working on his eighth novel in the bone-chilling <em>Demonata</em> series, coming in May 2009. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Anyone who loves the humorous but hair-raising horror in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series will devour British author Darren Shan's first novel with equal zeal. Some books are born with a surrounding buzz; this one even has Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling's stamp of approval: "Fast-paced and compelling, full of satisfying macabre touches," she writes. Warner Brothers will be making it into a movie, and the rest of the series is already in the works. Given all that, you'd expect a tour de force! Really, though, <em>Cirque Du Freak</em> is a thrill ride that will keep even the most reluctant readers turning pages, but will never take its place in the literary canon.</p><p>Darren Shan, author and narrator, sets the book up as a true story, warning readers: "Real life's nasty. It's cruel.... Evil often wins." Indeed, evil begins to win when Darren and his buddies find a flier for "Cirque Du Freak," a traveling freak show promising performances by the snake-boy, the wolf-man, and Larten Crepsley and his giant spider, Madame Octa. Darren and his friend Steve wouldn't miss it for the world.</p><p>So, Saturday night they sneak out to the old theater, tall and dark, with broken windows. "Every act you see tonight is real," croaks Mr. Tall. "Each performer is unique. And none are harmless." That's for sure. (A werewolf bites off the hand of someone in the audience, for instance.) Things grow very serious for the two boys when Steve not only recognizes Mr. Crepsley as a famous vampire, but professes his true desire to join him! To make matters worse, the spider-obsessed Darren goes back to the old theater to steal Madame Octa so he can teach her tricks in his room. (He does, with mixed results.) The plot further coagulates as Darren is faced with some terrible decisions about what to do to save his bloodthirsty friend Steve.</p><p>Readers may be too enthralled to notice some clumsy editing (the aforementioned bitten-off hand is later referred to as an arm, Darren stops dead in his tracks when he's already stopped, etc.). They may also not notice that the boys constantly use adult-sounding expressions like "his breath stank to the high heavens," though the book is clearly set in the 21st century. If this book gets under your kids' skin (and it probably will), they're in luck--we haven't heard the last of the Saga of Darren Shan. (Ages 10 and older, not for the faint of heart) <em>--Karin Snelson</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>With strong sales overseas and a movie deal in the works, book one in The Saga of Darren Shan series is poised to capture a wide audience of series horror readers. After a rather slow buildup, a boy with the same name as the author sneaks out with best friend Steve to an illicit freak show, and his life becomes entangled with a vampire spider-wrangler, Mr. Crepsley. "This is a true story," writes Shan. "In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins." The scenario is compelling, and the author mines the exploitative history of early 20th-century sideshows to create an artfully macabre "Cirque du Freak." But Darren's actions are often undermotivated: "I can't explain why Madam Octa [the spider] meant so much to me, or why I was placing my life in such danger to have her. Looking back, I'm no longer sure what drove me on." Also his intermittent attraction to and repulsion by the vampire is never fully explored. His behavior may be explained in the sequel, The Vampire's Assistant (due in Sept.), but the open ending leaves so many loose ends that readers may leave more frustrated than intrigued, especially since the characters' wooden dialogue drains them of personality ("I'm upset," says Steve. "It hurt, what Mr. Crepsley said, and you ignoring me at school... If you break up our friendship, I don't know what I'll do"). Readers interested in boys becoming vampires would be better served by M.T. Anderson's Thirsty and those fascinated with freaks by Iain Lawrence's Ghost Boy. Ages 10-up. <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>What if you were an unwilling vampire? You needed to drink human blood to stay alive, but you weren't some horror-flick villain; you were <em>you</em>, born human--a nice person, even. Thus is the dilemma of the young narrator-protagonist, Darren Shan, in this tremendously suspenseful, oft-sickening sequel to __. In the first book, Darren becomes a vampire's assistant to save the life of his friend Steve. In order to do so, he has to fake his death, get buried alive, and head out--half-human, homeless, and friendless--into the world. <em>The Vampire's Assistant</em> chronicles his new lonely life as a half-vampire, pumped with the cursed blood of his vampire guardian, Mr. Crepsley. Darren has much to learn about his freshly supernatural state. He doesn't grow fangs, for instance, like he thought he might. And he can't change shape or fly. Garlic just gives vampires bad breath... And they eat bagels. Some of the hardest lessons of all come when he joins the traveling freak show Cirque Du Freak, the show that got him and Steve in trouble in the first place. Readers won't be disappointed by this fast-paced, gory, but strangely amiable sequel. In fact, the plot is much better paced than the first and the dialogue far more natural. Deadly pythons, a snake boy, Cormac Limbs (bite off his finger and it grows back!), and an entire cast of dreadfully creepy characters offer excitement beyond expectation. Along the way, we come to really like Darren, who will do absolutely anything for a friend. British author Darren Shan promises more adventures in 2002. (Ages 10 and older) <em>--Karin Snelson</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In The Vampire's Assistant, the second installment of the series begun with Cirque du Freak by Darren Shan, the hero returns to the old-fashioned freak show where, thanks to Mr. Crespley, he became a "half-vampire." Darren once again struggles against the urge to feed upon the human blood his health requires. </p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Vampires Mia and Kurt become involved in a deadly mission to harness the power of immortality. Mia Disantini is a vampire whose greatest desire is to walk in the sun again. She is enslaved by her charismatic master, Ethan, and plunged into an ancient, unenlightened Immortyl culture. As Mia struggles for the freedom to live as she chooses, she is trained as Ethan's Bird of Prey. Soon she becomes the pawn of their powerful, enigmatic elder, Brovik, in his deadly games of deception and intrigue against his rival, Gaius, concerning their forbidden science experiments. When Mia is cast out by Ethan she joins forces with Kurt, and together the lovers steal fire from the gods and deliver it to Genpath Laboratories. The company CEO Lee Brooks deceives and imprisons the pair. While held captive, Mia calls upon the aid of Dr. Joe Ansari. The couple is hunted for their crime and time is running out. Will Mia and Kurt escape with their lives and succeed in their mission before their Immortyl enemies harness the power of immortality for evil purposes? </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“Like Orson Scott Card's <em>Ender's Game</em>, this sequel to <em>The Forge of God</em> explores the issues of morality and justice, using children as its vehicle. Bear's treatment differs, however, in that his characters have already lost their innocence and face their destiny with open eyes. As a stylist, Bear writes with a heady brilliance that communicates a sense of immediacy and credibility.” </p><p>--_Library Journal_ on <em>Anvil of Stars</em></p><p>__ </p><p>“One of the outstanding sf novels of the current year is also the best book so far from an author whose versatility is continually growing.  Literate hard-science or alien invasion novels are no longer rare, but a book such as this, which effectively blends these concepts and is also compellingly written, is a joy to behold.”     </p><p>_--ALA Booklist <em>on</em> The Forge of God_</p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><em>The Forge of God</em> described the destruction of Earth itself by self-replicating robots, Von Neumann machines designed to use the planet's mass to create more robotic creatures and spread throughout the Galaxy. Only a few humans have survived, aided by a mysterious alien race known only as “The Benefactors”, who arrived at Earth too late.</p><p>Now the small group of human survivors is determined to track down the criminal race who launched the planet killers. Humanity is given a starship by The Benefactors, and driven only by revenge they set out to find the unknown beings who are responsible for the destruction of Earth, and many other worlds.</p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>An unusual 'invasion' by intelligent smaller beings who are changing the structure and definition of 'humanity' are at the heart of Bear's classic story which has been newly reprinted in paper for new audiences. Blood Music is one of his finest works and its appearance in this new edition assures that new audiences will relish his talents. -- <em>Midwest Book Review</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In the tradition of the greatest cyberpunk novels, Blood Music explores the imminent destruction of mankind and the fear of mass destruction by technological advancements. Blood Music follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void of nuclear fear. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just quite how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Something very strange has turned up in Tom Lasker's wheat field: a ten-thousand-year-old sailboat made of an unknown substance. And then there's the Roundhouse, apparently a doorway to another world, sitting squarely on Sioux reservation land. How did they get there, and what do they signify for the people embroiled in their discovery? This is sci-fi on a grand scale by the author of </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Early in the next century, outside a North Dakota town, farmer Tom Lasker digs up a boat on his land. Not only is the vessel crafted from an unknown element, but Lasker's farm is on land that has been dry for 10,000 years. A search for further artifacts unearths a building of the same material and age that turns out to be an interdimensional transportation device. The building sits on land owned by the Sioux, who want to use it to regain their old way of life on another world; meanwhile, the U.S. government, fearful of change, wants to destroy the building. Right up to the climax, McDevitt (Engines of God) tells his complex and suspenseful story with meticulous attention to detail, deft characterizations and graceful prose. That climax, though, is another matter, featuring out-of-the-blue heroic intervention in a conflict between the feds and the Indians by, among others, astronaut Walter Schirra, cosmologist Stephen Hawking and SF writers Ursula K. LeGuin, Carl Sagan and Gregory Benford. "If the government wants to kill anyone else, it'll have to start with us," announces Stephen Jay Gould. That absurdity aside, this is the big-vision, large-scale novel McDevitt's readers have been waiting for. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><em>Eternity Road</em> is set 1,000 years from now, when the world as we know it has been dead for eight centuries, destroyed by a plague that killed most of humanity. Technological artifacts remain, but the knowledge of what they are and how to use them has been lost by a society that has degenerated into a series of city-states. Legend has it that the Roadmakers left a store of knowledge in a place called Haven, but when an expedition from Memphis sets out to find it, only one person returns. The lone, dishonored survivor eventually kills himself, but his son is determined to try again ... </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>After a cataclysmic viral plague wiped out humanity sometime in the 21st century, the next civilization arose in isolated pockets. In the Mississippi Valley, Illyrians built their town on what had been the Roadmakers' Memphis. Some believed in the mythical Haven on the eastern ocean where books and other technological wonders had been saved. When all but one member of an expedition dies trying to find Haven, the leader's son joins a second party on the long overland trek east. Unfortunately, the book raises more questions than it answers about the knowledge that was lost, leaving the reader unsatisfied. From the author of Ancient Shores (HarperCollins, 1996); a possible candidate to sf collections.<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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SUMMARY:
'No individual British victory after Trafalgar was more decisive in challenging the course of a major war than was the Battle of Britain ...In his carefully argued, clearly explained and impressively documented book ...Richard Overy is at pains to dispose of the myths and expose the real history of what he does not doubt was a great British victory ...the best historical analysis in readable form which has yet appeared on this prime subject' Noble Frankland, The Times Literary Supplement


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>Simon Winchester, struck by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire, set out across the globe to visit the far-flung islands that are all that remain of what once made Britain great. He traveled 100,000 miles back and forth, from Antarctica to the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean to the Far East, to capture a last glint of imperial glory. </p><p>His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling, often funny reading and tell a story most of us had thought was over: a tale of the last outposts in Britain's imperial career and those who keep the flag flying. </p><p>With a new introduction, this updated edition tells us what has happened to these extraordinary places while the author's been away. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p>Simon Winchester was a geologist at Oxford and worked in Africa and on offshore oil rigs before becoming a full-time globe-trotting foreign correspondent and writer. He currently lives on a small farm in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, an apartment in New York's West Village and in the Western Isles of Scotland. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Book Description</strong><br />In this uproarious and clever debut, it’s time to give the Devil his due.  </p><p>Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul... He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever.</p><p>To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a “traveling circus” to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men?</p><p>With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire (an unfortunate side effect of Johannes’s early experiments with necromancy), to be the carnival’s barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn.</p><p>Johannes may have the moral conscience of anthrax, but are his tricks sinful enough to beat the Devil at his own game? You’ll never guess, and that’s a promise!</p><p>Brilliantly written and wickedly funny, <em>Johannes Cabal the Necromancer</em> combines the chills and thrills of old-fashioned gothic tales like <em>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow</em>, the mischievous humor of <em>Wicked</em>, and the sophisticated charms of <em>Jonathan Strange &amp; Mr. Norrell</em> and spins the Faustian legend into a fresh, irreverent, and irresistible new adventure.</p><hr /><p><strong>A Q&amp;A with Jonathan L. Howard</strong>  </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> You’ve been working on <em>Johannes Cabal</em> in its various iterations for many years now, how did it feel spending so much time with such nefarious characters? </p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> It’s something of a cliché to say that villains are more interesting than heroes, nor is it even very true, so I shan’t be trotting that particular phrase out. I would suggest that it is the inner life of the character that makes them interesting, and that is true of the virtuous as much as the vile. Cabal does some rather horrible things, it is true, but he never does them purely to give himself the opportunity to curl his waxed moustache—he’s clean-shaven, for one thing—and declaim his wickedness. He always has a reason, and it’s usually a good one. I find fictional villains who are evil because they are evil unengaging. Cabal, on the other hand, has motivations and drives that most can sympathise with, even if the actions he commits based on those drives can be loathsome. For him, the ends always justify the means, and damn the consequences. </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> The carnival in your book is used as a device for collecting souls; was there a real life inspiration for the carnival? Do you find there to be something generally sinister about carnivals?</p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> There’s no real life inspiration for the carnival, really, but plenty in fiction. The obvious inspiration was Bradbury’s <em>Something Wicked</em>’s Cooger &amp; Dark’s Carnival wasn’t the first threatening carnival in fiction, and it certainly wasn’t the last, but it is probably the best. It was the persnickety question of where such a carnival might come from and how anybody would end up as a proprietor that inspired my novel. </p><p>As for how sinister they are, that is to an extent a fictional conceit on my part too. You have to bear in mind that carnivals like that are unknown in the United Kingdom, and I haven’t heard of the traditional British travelling fair being transported by train either. The Cabal stories take place in a slightly blurry world where things come together because they aesthetically appeal to me, and not because they’re historically accurate; a magical realism of sorts. I wanted an American-style carnival travelling by train, and that’s what I got. That said, there are plenty of permanent fairgrounds around the country, and they tended to have a slightly creepy air about them. The real Ghost Trains in Blackpool and Porthcawl, for example, inspired the exterior of the Ghost Train in the novel. </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> In addition to writing you work as a video game designer, how does that work compare to the experience of writing fiction? Are there any surprising similarities? </p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> There are definite similarities, but I wouldn’t say that they are surprising. The games I’ve worked on tend to have definite narratives, so it’s exactly the same process of inspiration, development, pacing, and polishing. The main difference is that a novel can have significant sequences in which physically little happens, which is considered heretical in games. In fairness, there’s good reason for that—the player wants to be involved, and there isn’t a great deal of opportunity for that in a scene consisting of two people talking over a cup of tea. That’s not to say it hasn’t been attempted, and pretty successfully. I remember a game a few years ago based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. It hit all its target, being very atmospheric, true to its source, even thought provoking, and all without </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> Have you always been a fan or horror and supernatural lore? When did this sort of thing first capture your imagination? </p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> Yes, I’ve always enjoyed the grotesque and the macabre, right from an early age. I recall that I somehow saw Dana Andrews being chased around the woods by a fireball in <em>Out of the Unknown</em> episodes before being sent to bed, and any number of slightly disturbing imports like <em>The Tinderbox</em> and </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> What sort of research did you do for the book? Was there anything you came across in the process that really surprised you?</p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> I actually did very little research for it; it was mostly lurking in my mind already. I can remember little necessary for day to day living, but if you ask me the birth name of Dr. Crippen’s wife, I can tell you off the top of my head. I needed a bit of nomenclature for something or other in the running of a carnival, which a librarian friend found for me, but that was the only real piece of research for it. Even things like the Grand Conjuration to summon a demon—which is an authentic ritual, you may be horrified to hear—was in a book I already had. I have a large collection of books on assorted esoterica to the extent that my wife, a bibliophile herself, rolls her eyes and says, “Not more bloody books?” whenever I come home with a bookshop bag and a sheepish expression. </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> There is a lot of paperwork in your version of Hell. Did you hold an especially bureaucratic job somewhere before working as a game designer?</p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> No, I’m very happy to say. I remember as a child considering the inevitability of growing up and wondering what the worst thing about it would be. It all looked pretty good from that perspective: money, going to bed when you liked, being able to go into any certificate film, and so on. Finally, I spotted a bad point, and that bad point was having to fill in forms. And I was right. There’s just something about completing a form that fills me with dread in its consideration, and depression during its commission. Which reminds me; I have two to fill in this week. Oh, joy. </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> Johannes is a bit of an anti-hero and his motivations are somewhat mysterious. Do you think that he’s misunderstood by those around him? </p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> He’s definitely misunderstood, although if he were understood, it still wouldn’t make him popular. The fact that he’s labeled a necromancer gives him a public relations problem, as the vast majority of them are power hungry lunatics. Cabal’s ultimate aim is to defeat death, and to have the ability to bring people back just as they were when they were alive, physically, mentally, and spiritually. No lurking demonic possessions, no uncouth brain gobbling. His researches in that direction, however, have not been conducted in the most advantageous light. </p><p><strong>Question:</strong> What’s next for you? </p><p><strong>Jonathan L. Howard:</strong> I handed in the submission draft of the second Cabal novel <em>Johannes Cabal the Detective</em> just the other week, so that will be going through the editorial process shortly. I also have to decide what the next Cabal novel after that will be; I have a couple of ideas so it’s a case of weighing pros and cons before making a decision. I have a couple of non-Cabal novels, one of which is completed but needs a second draft, and the other is about 80% done. I’d like to get them polished, and then see if we can get them into print. </p><p>(Photo © Emma L.B.K. Smith) </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>When Johannes Cabal, a haughty sorcerer, finds that the absence of a soul is an impediment to his occult studies, he strikes a bargain with Satan in British author Howard's darkly funny debut: in one year's time he'll deliver the bartered souls of 100 unfortunates so that he might repossess his own. Cabal and his vampire brother, Horst, mount a traveling carnival to scour the countryside for men and women desperate enough to consign their souls to an infernal eternity for whatever will relieve their misery of the moment. Cabal proves marginally competent but maximally amusing in his dealings with a competing necromancer, an asylum of escaped lunatics and a staff of slowly decomposing carnies conjured from the dead. Howard capably synthesizes two classic themes of macabre fiction—the pact with the devil and the dark carnival—but the book's episodic structure and unconvincing ending betray it as a freshman effort. Still, Howard's ear for witty banter and his skill at rendering black comedy bode well for the future. <em>(July)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Brenner, a Berlin-based journalist, focuses on 10 former child survivors, women in their late 70s, who went through the Theresienstadt concentration camp during the Holocaust. She notes that 12,000 children entered the camp from 1942 to 1944, but only a few hundred survived to war's end, and a handful of women of Room 28 in the camp's Girls' Home, now scattered around the world, reunited for the first time in 1991. The insights of the survivors and stories of the camp's victims are unforgettable and full of poignant humanity, conveyed through letters, photos, diaries and remembrances. Forced into exile and almost certain death under the Nazi regime, the children confronted hunger, cold, terror and the soul's endurance as many of the girls of Room 28 were slowly eliminated; the small band of survivors is committed to keeping their memory alive. Well-detailed and inspiring, Brenner's book, especially her heartfelt epilogue, pays glowing tribute to these heroic survivors. B&amp;w photos. <em>(Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"This beautiful evocation of heartwarming friendship in the darkest of times is unforgettable."<br />—Elie Wiesel  </p><p>"The insights of the survivors and stories of the camp's victims are unforgettable and full of poignant humanity, conveyed through letters, photos, diaries, and remembrances. . . . Well detailed and inspiring, Brenner's book, especially her heartfelt epilogue, pays glowing tribute to these heroic survivors." <br />—_Publishers Weekly_   </p><p>“Brenner chronicles the remarkable artistic experiments undertaken by the girls, especially their enthusiastic production of the children’s opera Brundibár. An inspiring story of courage rendered through impressive personal and historical detail.”<br />—_Kirkus Reviews_  </p><p>"The story of this children's home in Theresienstadt takes us to the limit of the bearable, to the place where compassion, fear, and the temptation to simply turn away all lie in wait. To resist that temptation--isn't that what the historical record must achieve?<br />—_DIE ZEIT  </p><p>_"This handful of girls wanted their memories of their dead friends and their time in Theresienstadt not to be forgotten. They wanted to make the story of their survival, and the love and friendship that their caretakers showerd them, unforgettable. Together with the author, they have succeeded. In Hannelore Brenner, these women have found someone who listened to them, who read their albums of poetry, their diaries, and their chronicles, and who has written a wonderful book."<br />—_PRAGER ZEITUNG  </p><p>"_Brenner has gathered together these stories with great sensitivity. She makes the past spring to life and gracefully places the personal memories of these girls into a historical context, while at the same time offering solid research and background information regarding life in Theresienstadt and the political situation of the time."<br />—_SÄCHSISCHE ZEITUNG_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> In addition to their individual quality, the 16 stories in this rollicking collection amply demonstrate Hugo-winner Swanwick's impressive versatility. Characters vary from feuding prospectors on a heat-scoured Venus in Tin Marsh to clients of The Bordello in Faerie. On one end of the mood spectrum are the three elegantly wry adventures of Darger and Surplus, roguish postapocalypse con artists; on the other is the gentle Triceratops Summer, told in a matter-of-fact, laconic style that at first seems to show wonderful things becoming commonplace and then reveals that the familiar can still be wonderful. Swanwick (_The Iron Dragon's Daughter_) pulls apart overused situations to see what makes them tick and then constructs fresh, surprising plots from the pieces. The locked-room mystery may seem hopelessly stale, but not when it's A Small Room in Koboldtown, where voodoo beings and sleazy politics abound. Readers tired of conventional fantasy and SF will find this collection of intriguing characters and lovingly told stories deeply refreshing. <em>(Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Rounding up all Swanwick's stories to date about unusually nondescript human Darger and genetically modified dog Surplus, a previously unpublished novella, and three Hugo-winning pieces, this generous volume opens with "Hello, Said the Stick," in which a soldier en route to battle picks up a talking stick that turns out to be unwontedly dangerous. The new publication, "The Skysailor's Tale," is an adventure on board a British airship claiming new lands for Queen Titania that is framed as a father telling his son about some of his strange doings when a lad. The Darger and Surplus capers, occuring after the age of computers in a suspiciously nineteenth-century-ish though far-future Europe, are satisfying tales of plotting and heists involving a great team, indeed. The closer, "Urdumheim," is the brilliantly imagined story of King Nimrod and the time when the world was new, people didn't die, and there was only one language. Swanwick's stories are possessed of sufficient depth and generic variety to satisfy quite a range of genre tastes. Schroeder, Regina </p>


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Animal FarmBurmese DaysA Clergyman's DaughterComing Up for AirKeep the Aspidistra FlyingNineteen Eighty-FourDescribed by Anthony Burgess as 'the best-loved of all twentieth-century British writers', George Orwell still has as much power to move, amuse and provoke today.His best-known novels, Animal Farm, describing a revolution that goes horribly wrong, and Nineteen Eighty-Four, portraying a world where human freedom has been crushed, are two of the most famous, well-quoted and influential political satires ever written. The other novels in this volume also tell stories of people at odds with repressive institutions: the corrupt imperialism of Burmese Days, disaffection with materialistic society in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the perils of modern suburban living in Coming Up for Air and surviving on the streets in A Clergyman's Daughter.All the novels brought together here display Orwell's humour, his understanding of human nature and his great compassion.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In his illuminating book, <em>The Moral Animal</em>, Wright introduced evolutionary psychology and examined the ways that the morality of individuals might be hard-wired by nature rather than influenced by culture. With this book, he expands upon that work, turning now to explore how religion came to define larger and larger groups of people as part of the circle of moral consideration. Using a naïve and antiquated approach to the sociology and anthropology of religion, Wright expends far too great an effort covering well-trod territory concerning the development of religions from primitive hunter-gatherer stages to monotheism. He finds in this evolution of religion, however, that the great monotheistic (he calls them Abrahamic, a term not favored by many religion scholars) religions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism—all contain a code for the salvation of the world. Using game theory, he encourages individuals in these three faiths to embrace a non–zero-sum relationship to other religions, seeing their fortunes as positively correlated and interdependent and then acting with tolerance toward other religions. Regrettably, Wright's lively writing unveils little that is genuinely new or insightful about religion. <em>(June)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Straddling popular science, ancient history, and theology, this ambitious work sets out to resolve not only the clash of civilizations between the Judeo-Christian West and the Muslim world but also the clash between science and religion. Tracking the continual transformation of faith from the Stone Age to the Information Age, Wright, a self-described materialist, best known for his work on evolutionary psychology, free trade, and game theory, postulates that religious world views are becoming more open, compassionate, and synthesized. Occasionally, his prescriptions can seem obvious—for instance, that members of the different Abrahamic faiths should think of their religions as “having been involved, all along, in the same undertaking.” But his core argument, that religion is getting “better” with each passing aeon, is enthralling. <br />Copyright ©2008_ Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. In this critical but affectionate portrait of Iranian politics and culture, Majd, the Western-educated grandson of an ayatollah, delves into the very core of Iranian society, closely examining social mores and Farsi phrases to identify the Persian sensibility, which, Majd determines, cherishes privacy, praise and poetry. Nothing is too small or too sweeping for Majd to consider, and although he announces his allegiance to the former president Khatami, he remains scrupulously even-handed in assessing his successor Ahmadinejad, shedding light on the Iranian president's obsession with the Holocaust and penchant for windbreakers and why the two are (surprisingly) intertwined. The author's brisk, conversational prose is appealing; his book reads as if he is chatting with a smart friend, while strolling around Tehran, engaged in <em>ta'arouf</em> (an exaggerated form of self-deprecation key to understanding Persian society). Although Majd seems to gloss too quickly over realities that don't engage his interest—women's voices are only intermittently included—this failing scarcely mars this remarkable ride through what is often uncharted territory. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>Praise for _The Ayatollah Begs to Differ<br />_<br />“In this delightful book, Hooman Majd, a gifted storyteller, takes us on a tour of his own private Persia, which is also the Iran of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The results are illuminating, humorous, sobering, and ultimately reassuring.” <br />—Jon Lee Anderson, author of <em>The Fall of Baghdad</em>  </p><p>“Hooman Majd is a stylish and engaging guide through the by-ways of Iranian life. Leading us from seminary to opium den to the presidential compound, his wry sense of humor makes this book a pleasure to read.” —Gary Sick, Ph.D., senior research scholar at Columbia University and member of the National Security Council staff under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan  </p><p>“A witty, timely perspective on the nation posing the greatest challenge to our next President.”<br />—Bill White, mayor of Houston and U.S. secretary of energy under President Clinton </p>


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In the sleepy English village of Midwich, a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious. A day later the object is gone and everyone awakens unharmed – except that all the women in the village are discovered to be pregnant.

The resultant children of Midwich do not belong to their parents: all are blonde, all are golden eyed. They grow up too fast and their minds exhibit frightening abilities that give them control over others and brings them into conflict with the villagers just as a chilling realisation dawns on the world outside . . .

The Midwich Cuckoos is the classic tale of aliens in our midst, exploring how we respond when confronted by those who are innately superior to us in every conceivable way.


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“One of the greatest short novels in American literature, and a key text in my own understanding of what that literature can do.”<br />–<strong>MICHAEL CHABON</strong>  </p><p>“Lovecraft’s fiction is one of the cornerstones of modern horror.”<br />–<strong>CLIVE BARKER</strong></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Introduction by China Miéville  </p><p>Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish visions, H. P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and dignity of his own pioneering fiction in 1931 with his quintessential work of supernatural horror, At the Mountains of Madness. The deliberately told and increasingly chilling recollection of an Antarctic expedition’s uncanny discoveries–and their encounter with untold menace in the ruins of a lost civilization–is a milestone of macabre literature.   </p><p>This exclusive new edition, presents Lovecraft’s masterpiece in fully restored form, and includes his acclaimed scholarly essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” This is essential reading for every devotee of classic terror. </p>


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THE EPIC PREQUEL TO DUNE"DUNE: HOUSE ATREIDES is a terrific prequel, but it is also a first-rate adventure on its own. Frank Herbert would surely be delighted and proud of this continuation of his vision."—Dean KoontzFrank Herbert's Dune chronicles became an enduring classic and the most popular science fiction series of all time. Working from recently discovered files left by his father, Brian Herbert and best-selling novelist Kevin J. Anderson bring us Dune: House Atreides, the prequel, which captures all the complexity and grand themes of the original work while weaving a new tapestry of great passion and momentous destiny into a saga that expands the tale written by Frank Herbert more than thirty years ago. Complex, brilliant, and prophetic, Frank Herbert's award-winning Dune chronicles captured the imaginations of millions of readers worldwide—and transformed their perception of what the future could be. By his death in 1986, Frank Herbert had completed six novels in the Dune series. But much of his vision—vast, sprawling, and multilayered—remained unwritten. Now, working from recently discovered files left by his father, Brian Herbert and bestselling novelist Kevin J. Anderson collaborate on a new novel, the first volume in the prequel to Dune—where we step onto planet Arrakis...decades before Dune's hero, Paul Atreides, walks its sands. —Beginning nearly four decades before Dune, House Atreides introduces pivotal characters, alliances, base treacheries, and bright hopes that form the foundation of Dune. On the planet Arrakis, an aging tyrant sits on the Golden Lion Throne and rules all of the known universe, while his son grows dangerously impatient for the crown. A quasi-religious order of black-robed women move their secret breeding program one momentous step closer to creating a god-child they call the Kwisatz Haderach. And a minor family among the nobility, House Atreides, chooses a course of honor that will bring it to destruction at the hands of its mortal enemy, House Harkonnen—or take it to new heights of power.Here is the rich and complex world that Frank Herbert created in his classic series, in the time leading up to the momentous events of Dune. As Emperor Elrood's son Shaddam plots a subtle regicide, young Leto Atreides leaves his lush, water-rich planet for a year's education on the mechanized world of Ix; a planetologist named Pardot Kynes is dispatched by the Emperor to the desert planet Arrakis, or Dune, to discover the secrets of the addictive spice known as melange; and the eight-year-old slave Duncan Idaho is hunted by his cruel masters in a terrifying game from which he vows escape and vengeance. But none can envision the fate in store for them: one that will make them renegades—and shapers of history. Covering the decade when Shaddam wins his throne, the teenager Leo Atreides becomes unexpectedly the rule of House Atreides, and Pardot Kynes uncovers one of the planet Dune's greatest secrets, House Atreides stands next to Dune in its power and scope. While this new novel solves some of Dune's most baffling mysteries, it presents new puzzles springing from the sands where one day Paul Muad'Dib Atreides will walk. But now, in the years before Paul's birth, an unforgettable new epic begins. Fans of the Dune chronicles will relish the opportunity to return to the rich and exotic universe created by Frank Herbert, while new readers will be introduced to an incomparable imagination—a future where the fate of the entire cosmos is at stake. The Story Behind Dune: House Atreidesby Brian HerbertWhen my father first sat down with me to go over one of my manuscripts, he told me that he couldn't teach me how to write; instead, he would teach me what he called "the care and feeding of editors": how to make manuscripts look presentable so that they wouldn't be tossed into a slush pile, unread. He then proceeded to teach me how to write. I remember many instances when we would brainstorm ideas and dissect my own novel manuscripts. He taught me how to develop worlds, to create characters, to invent action...and to describe all of it. We collaborated on the novel Man of Two Worlds, Frank Herbert's last published work, and even talked about working together on a new Dune novel, but we'd set no date, had established no specific details or direction.That novel was not to be. When my father died in 1986, he left several projects unfinished. For years there were rumors that I would write another novel set in my father's Dune universe, a sequel to the sixth book in the series, Chapterhouse: Dune. Prominent writers approached me with offers of collaboration, but in tossing ideas around with them I couldn't visualize the project coming to fruition. They were excellent writers, but in combination with them I didn't feel the necessary synergy for such a monumental task. Along with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and a handful of other works, Dune stood as one of the greatest creative achievements of all time, and arguably the greatest example of science fiction world-building in the history of literature. For the sake of my father's legacy, I could not select the wrong person.It wasn't until I began conversation with Kevin J. Anderson, a critically acclaimed and internationally best-selling author, that I found someone whose enthusiasm and passion for the Dune universe match my own. Much of Kevin's writing had been influenced heavily by the work of Frank Herbert. I read everything I could get my hands on that Kevin had written, and did more checking on him. It soon became clear that he was a brilliant writer and that his reputation was sterling. We hit it off immediately, both on a personal and professional level; new story ideas fairly exploded from our minds and together, we found the energy to tackle such a massive project.Frank Herbert had left behind literally thousands of pages of notes, ideas, and sketches. Of all the possible Dune stories we could tell, Kevin and I chose to concentrate on an immediate prequel, to go back to the heart of Dune's readership, the core characters and situations that had made this the best-selling science fiction novel of all time: The love story of Duke Leto and Lady Jessica; their first battle with Baron Harkonnen; the quest of the planetologist Kynes, sent to the desert world of Dune to investigate the precious spice and the sandworms and the Fremen...and the power-hungry Crown Prince Shaddam, who would do anything to secure the Imperial throne.The Dune universe is a vast canvas, with ample opportunity for many stories, but we have chosen to start here, featuring the characters with whom all Dune fans are familiar. Dune: House Atreides is a personal story that means a great deal to us; we hope booksellers and readers alike will feel the same way. Signed,Brian Herbert


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Duke Leto Atreides is now the skilful and much-loved ruler of Caladan, served by loyal Duncan Idaho. To his court come Gurney Halleck, despised slave of the Harkonnens - and Jessica, the exquisite, perfectly trained concubine chosen by the Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit to be the mother of Leto's daughter. Meanwhile, on Dune - planet Arrakis - House Harkonnen ruthlessly harvests the precious, mind-enhancing drug called spice. And Baron Vladimir is slowly being consumed by a loathesome disease. Rabban Harkonnen - House Atreides' most implacable enemy - prepares to take over his uncle's empire.


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The sequel to Dune: House Atreides and Dune: House Harkonnen chronicles the origins of the rivalry between Duke Leto and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the actions that transformed Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck into heroes, the birth of Paul Atreides, and the creation of the tyrannical Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino. Reprint.


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In this first installment of his epic Haitian trilogy, Madison Smartt Bell brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery, the uprising successfully transformed Haiti from a European colony to the world's first Black republic. From the center of this horrific maelstrom, the heroic figure of Toussaint Louverture-a loyal, literate slave and both a devout Catholic and Vodouisant-emerges as the man who will take the merciless fires of violence and vengeance and forge a revolutionary war fueled by liberty and equality. Bell assembles a kaleidoscopic portrait of this seminal movement through a tableau of characters that encompass black, white, male, female, rich, poor, free and enslaved. Pulsing with brilliant detail, All Soul's Rising provides a visceral sense of the pain, terror, confusion, and triumph of revolution.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Simon Winchester, a British newspaper reporter for 30 years and the author of 13 books (including __), has turned his attention to the Balkans, an area he visited years ago on a road trip from Vienna to Istanbul--a journey he retraced in the spring of 1999. <em>The Fracture Zone</em> describes both of those trips, concentrating on the history and character of the region more than the recent war and its aftermath. Winchester has spent most of his career as a foreign correspondent, but his more recent occupations as historian and a writer for <em>Condé Nast Traveler</em> are in evidence here. Winchester's angle on the Balkans is unique and well written: those who have been bewildered at best and bored at worst by the Balkan conflict may find that <em>The Fracture Zone</em> captures their interest better than hundreds of news accounts of war atrocities. "Why is there, and seemingly always has been, this dire inevitability about the Balkans being so fractious and unsettled a corner of the world?" Winchester wonders aloud. That eternal question continues to plague world statesmen and, though not fully answered here, affords the opportunity for an interesting exploration. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>As NATO planes began to atttack Belgrade last March, British journalist Winchester (The Professor and the Madman) visited the Kosovar refugee camps in Macedonia, where he was shocked by the "Bruegel-scene of mass misery" that confronted him: international aid workers had not yet organized proper food and sanitation for the thousands of people crammed into a muddy field surrounded by Macedonian police. The sight provoked Winchester to visit as much of the Balkans as he could, in hope of grasping the complexities that had led to the debacle. Starting out from Vienna, he continued into Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, where he found that nationalist citizens still refer to the Muslim Kosovars as "Turks." Although he sets his travels against the history of the BalkansAfrom the battles of the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires through the Croatian massacre of Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and homosexuals during WWII to the recent war in KosovoAhis conclusions are too pat to make his analysis significant. Taking a fatalistic attitude, he views the region's problems as little more than the fruit of "classic Balkan hatreds, ancient and modern." Still, Winchester's extensive interviews make his book notable. Almost every page contains the reflections of ordinary citizens, who reveal to Winchester their hatreds, their troubles and their hopes, lending richness and authenticity to his account. His unsentimental descriptions of the area's destroyed mosques, burned houses and virulent graffiti serve as a poignant reminder that the effects of war last long after the planes are gone. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“The River Kings’ Road is the intriguingly twisted tale of treachery and magic behind a brutal massacre and the impacts this unspeakable act has on the two survivors, on those who perpetrated it, on those who investigated it, and on those who tried to turn it to even more evil ends. It’s also a tale that examines unsparingly the issue of to what degree the ends justify the means . . . or not.”</p><p>—L. E. Modesitt, Jr., New York Times bestselling author of <em>The Saga of Recluce</em> series  </p><p>“The River Kings’ Road drew me in with the characters, all of whom felt real and reacted realistically for the setting. . . . The heroes are heroic because of the choices they make on their journey, choices that would test the very best . . . and worst . . . in all of us. . . . It’s a story where the simplest choice could have drastic consequences, and where the lowliest of peasants can change the fate of a kingdom.”</p><p>—Joshua Palmatier, author of <em>The Vacant Throne</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>A thrilling new voice in fantasy makes an unforgettable debut with this "intriguingly twisted tale of treachery and magic" (_New York Times _bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr.). Liane Merciel’s <em>The River Kings’ Road </em>takes us to a world of bitter enmity between kingdoms, divided loyalties between comrades, and an insidious magic that destroys everything it touches. . . . </strong></p><p><em>The wounded maidservant thrust the knotted blankets at him; instinctively, Brys stepped forward and caught the bundle before it fell. Then he glimpsed what lay inside and nearly dropped it himself. </em></p><p><em>There was a baby in the blankets. A baby with a tear-swollen face red and round as a midsummer plum. A baby he knew, even without seeing the lacquered medallion tucked into the swaddling—a medallion far too heavy, on a chain far too cold for an infant who had not yet seen a year. </em></p><p>A fragile period of peace between the eternally warring kingdoms of Oakharn and Langmyr is shattered when a surprise massacre fueled by bloodmagic ravages the Langmyrne border village of Willowfield, killing its inhabitants—including a visiting Oakharne lord and his family—and leaving behind a scene so grisly that even the carrion eaters avoid its desecrated earth. But the dead lord’s infant heir has survived the carnage—a discovery that entwines the destinies of <strong>Brys Tarnell</strong>, a mercenary who rescues the helpless and ailing babe, and who enlists a Langmyr peasant, a young mother herself, to nourish and nurture the child of her enemies as they travel a dark, perilous road . . . <strong>Odosse</strong>, the peasant woman whose only weapons are wit, courage, and her fierce maternal love—and who risks everything she holds dear to protect her new charge . . . <strong>Sir Kelland</strong>, a divinely blessed Knight of the Sun, called upon to unmask the architects behind the slaughter and avert war between ancestral enemies . . . <strong>Bitharn</strong>, Kelland’s companion on his journey, who conceals her lifelong love for the Knight behind her flawless archery skills—and whose feelings may ultimately be Kelland’s undoing . . . and <strong>Leferic</strong>, an Oakharne Lord’s bitter youngest son, whose dark ambitions fuel the most horrific acts of violence. As one infant’s life hangs in the balance, so too does the fate of thousands, while deep in the forest, a Maimed Witch practices an evil bloodmagic that could doom them all. . . . </p>


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SUMMARY:
Do you dare step through the red door?
Spencer Grant had no idea what drew him to the bar with the red door. He thought he would just sit down, have a slow beer or two, and talk to a stranger. He couldn't know that it would lead to a narrow escape from a bungalow targeted by a SWAT team. Or that it would leave him a wanted man. Now he is on the run from mysterious and ruthless men. He is in love with a woman he knows next to nothing about. And he is hiding from a past he can't fully remember. On his trail is a shadowy security agency that answers to no one--including the U.S. government--and a man who considers himself a compassionate Angel of Death. But worst of all, Spencer Grant is on a collision course with inner demons he thought he'd buried years ago--inner demons that could destroy him if his enemies don't first.


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SUMMARY:
There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night.

At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay....

Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.


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SUMMARY:
Christopher Snow is different from all the other residents of Moonlight Bay, different from anyone you've ever met. For Christopher Snow has made his peace with a very rare genetic disorder that leaves him dangerously vulnerable to light. His life is filled with the fascinating rituals of one who must embrace the dark. He knows the night as no one else can -- its mystery, its beauty, its terrors, and the eerie silken rhythms that seduce one into believing anything -- even freedom -- is possible.

Until the night Christopher Snow witnesses a series of disturbing incidents that sweep him into a violent mystery only he can solve, a mystery that will force him to rise above all fears and confront the many-layered secrets of Moonlight Bay and its strange inhabitants. A place, like all places, that looks a lot different after dark.


If you think you've got it tough, meet Christopher Snow, the hero of Dean Koontz's novel Fear Nothing. Not only did his parents die under mysterious circumstances, but he's also being stalked by shadowy characters who want Snow to stop trying to find out how they died--or else they'll bump off his remaining loved ones (his supersmart, beer-lapping dog Orson; his best surfing buddy Bobby; and his late-night deejay girlfriend Sasha). And as if being on the lam in his own hometown, Moonlight Bay, California, isn't bad enough, Snow has to outrun his pursuers without leaving town. He has XP--xeroderma pigmentosum--a rare genetic affliction that forces him to avoid light. Cumulative exposure to sun, fluorescent lights, and the like will give him cancer eventually, and he doesn't dare leave the place where he's skillfully "done the mambo with melanoma" for all of his 28 years. Koontz makes the night-town of Moonlight Bay come alive in this sometimes pulse-pounding, sometimes funny, but mostly rather lyrical thriller. Fans of Koontz's legendary 1986 novel Watchers will love this book's similar theme: our hero and a loveable super-dog deal with a genetic engineering laboratory run amok. Horror fans will savor the evil mutant rhesus "millennium monkeys" who hunt Snow, the few scenes of eloquent gore, and the plight of certain mutating townsfolk who are, as they put it, "becoming" something very creepy. 

Koontz gives Snow and Bobby a lingo that does for surfer talk what Austin Powers did for the Swinging '60s, and his metaphors are almost as madcap as Tom Robbins's: "As the chains of the swinging light fixture torqued, the links twisted against one another with enough friction to cause an eerie ringing, as if lizard-eyed altar boys in blood-soaked cassocks and surplices were ringing the unmelodious bells of a satanic mass." Sometimes Koontz's style goes over the top and wipes out, surfer-style, but for the most part, Fear Nothing will have readers bellowing "Cowabunga!" 


YA-Christopher Snow understands the night. He, like the owl, is nocturnal, living on the mysterious darker edge of society. Snow is afflicted with xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare and often-fatal genetic disease that makes ultraviolet rays-even those from lamps and televisions-deadly. His condition makes him a pariah in the isolated small town of Moonlight Bay where the ignorant and insensitive fear what they do not know. As the action begins, Snow's father dies, leaving him with only a handful of offbeat but fiercely loyal friends to turn to for understanding. At the morgue, Snow accidentally witnesses his father's body being replaced with the mutilated corpse of a vagrant. Before he can find out what is behind this scandal, he receives a frantic summons from a friend who is brutally murdered before she can finish explaining a strange story about monkeys and a secret project at the government compound at the edge of town. What begins as a disturbing puzzle quickly becomes a sinister conspiracy as Snow uncovers evidence of uncanny intelligence in many of the local animals and inhumanely vicious tendencies in some of the human residents of the Bay. They are "becoming" he learns, but becoming what? Chilling chase scenes steadily increase the breakneck pace as Snow, assisted by his remarkable dog, is pursued through the night by unseen forces. Despite some clunky and unnecessary surfer slang, fans will go wild for this well-plotted thriller.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Robin Deffendall, Prince William Public Library System, VA


Bantam brags that it is launching the biggest Koontz campaign ever with this thriller, whose protagonist lives by night (he has a genetic order that makes him highly sensitive to light) until he witnesses a murder.

  
length: (cm)17.8    　　　            　　　　　            　　　　　 width:(cm)10.7


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<h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 8–10—Alice has never been part of the in-crowd at school. She hangs with the artsies, as well as her best friend, a boy named Jewel whom she has known since grade school. Then one day something weird happens—a popular football player named Simon starts noticing her. Jewel starts noticing her too. In the course of one week, both boys kiss her and she likes both kisses equally. Initially, she dates Simon, and, as a result, her friendship with Jewel is shattered, and she must make a decision about what's really important to her. The story is upbeat, but the pacing is slow, and the plot is a bit obvious. However, the mood of reflection is sustained throughout, the characters are fully fleshed out, and high school life is accurately portrayed.—_Jennifer-Lynn Draper, Children's Literature Consultant, Aurora, ON, Canada_ <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><em>“Gallagher’s debut—like Alice—shines.”—</em>VOYA  </p><p>Alice and Jewel have been best friends since grade school. Together, they don’t need anyone else, and together they blend into the background of high school. Invisible. To Alice, Jewel is the opposite of invisible. Jewel is her best friend who goes to indie concerts and art shows with her. Jewel scoffs at school dances with her. Alice is so comfortable around Jewel that she can talk to him about almost anything.  </p><p>But she can’t tell him that she likes the cool, popular Simon. Simon asks her to the school dance the same day that Jewel kisses her for the first time. Still, she can’t say no to Simon. He seems like the easy choice, the one she’s attracted to, the one she’s ready for. But will it mean losing Jewel?  </p><p>In a bright debut novel set against the lively backdrop of Seattle, Alice must learn the difference between love and a crush and what it means to be yourself when you’re not sure who that is yet. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Jackson matches effortless Southern storytelling with a keen eye for character and heart-stopping circumstances. Laurel, a high-end quilt maker, sees the ghost of a little girl in her bedroom one night. When it leads her to the backyard and a dead girl in the swimming pool, the life Laurel had hoped to build in her gated Florida neighborhood with her video-game designer husband, David, and their tween daughter, Shelby, starts to fall apart. Though the police clear the drowning as accidental, it soon appears that Shelby and her friend Bet may have been involved. Bet, who lives in DeLop, Laurel's impoverished hometown, was staying over the night of the drowning and plays an increasingly important role as the truth behind the drowning comes to light. Meanwhile, Laurel's sister, Thalia, whose unconventional ways are anathema to Laurel's staid existence, comes to stay with the family and helps sort things out. Subplots abound: Laurel thinks David is having an affair, and Thalia reveals some ugly family secrets involving the death of their uncle. What makes this novel shine are its revelations about the dark side of Southern society and Thalia and Laurel's finely honed relationship, which shows just how much thicker blood is than water. <em>(Mar.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"...a great tale [that] builds to an exciting and violent ending, one that surprises and yet seems to fit."<br />-_USA Today_  </p><p>"... buoyant and moving ....beautifully balanced between magical and realist fiction... closer in tone and voice to Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones' or Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe trilogy."<br />-_Atlanta Journal Constitution_  </p><p>"A ghost story, family psychodrama, and murder mystery all in one. Jackson's latest is a wild, smartly calibrated achievement. A-."<br />-_Entertainment Weekly_  </p><p>"Jackson matches effortless Southern storytelling with a keen eye for character and heart-stopping circumstances."<br />-_Publisher's Weekly_  </p><p>"Joshilyn Jackson has done it again... her skillful unraveling of family secrets and betrayal left me breathless. You must read this book!"<br />-Sara Gruen, <em>New York Times</em> bestselling author of WATER FOR ELEPHANTS </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Following up his cosmic <em>Evolution</em>. The book is nothing less than a novelization of human evolution, a mega-Michener treatment of 65 million years starring a host of smart, furry primates representing <em>Homo sapiens</em>'s ancestry. Each stage of our ancestry is represented by a character of progressively increasing intelligence, empathy, and brain size, who must survive predation and other perils long enough to keep the natural-selection ball rolling. While Baxter carefully follows some widely accepted theories of evolution--punctuated equilibrium, for instance--he also strays from the known in postulating air whales and sentient, tool-wielding dinosaurs. And why not? There's nothing in the fossil record to contradict his musings about those things, or about the first instances of mammalian altruism and deception, which he also lets us observe. From little Purga, a shrewlike mammal scurrying under the feet of ankylosaurs, all the way through Ultimate, the last human descendant, Baxter adds drama and a strong story arc to our past and future. But he spends too much time on details of the various prehumans' lives, which can become repetitive: fight, mate, die, ad infinitum. And readers eager for a science-fictional adventure will only find satisfaction in the posthuman chapters at the end. Despite these flaws, <em>Evolution</em> grips the attention with an epoch-spanning tale of the random changes that rule our genetic heritage. Recommended. <em>--Therese Littleton</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Taking a page from SF saga writers like Kim Stanley Robinson and Brian Stableford, British author Baxter (the Manifold trilogy) portrays humanity's origins, growth and ultimate disappearance in a loose-knit series of brutal vignettes spanning millions of years of evolution. Beginning with the gritty slice-of-life tale of a small, ratlike proto-primate called Purga (short for species Purgatorius), the story travels from the end of the Cretaceous through the millennia as primates slowly evolve into creatures more and more recognizably human, learning to make and use tools, developing language and the ability to feel empathy-the trait that Baxter selects as definitive of true humanity. Resonating with that theme, the vignettes are linked by a thin near-future frame about scientists meeting in the midst of ecological and political chaos to find a way to save humanity from itself through the "globalization of empathy." More concerned with technical detail than character or plot, the book rises above its fragmented narrative and frequently repetitive violence to reach a grim and stoic grandeur, which (despite a tendency toward preachiness) clearly has humanity's best interests at heart. Here is a rigorously constructed hard SF novel where the question is not whether humanity will reach the stars but how it will survive its own worst tendencies.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>It’s been said that for any event, there are an infinite number of possible out­comes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow, and therefore all possibilities that could happen do happen across alternate realities. In these divergent realms, known history is bent, like white light through a shattered prism—broken into a boundless spectrum of what-might-have-beens. But in those myriad universes, what might have been . . . is what actually occurred. </p><p><strong>THE EMBRACE OF COLD ARCHITECTS.</strong> “Mister Worf—fire.” With thosewords, William T. Riker defeated the Borg—and destroyed Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Now, a heartsore Captain Riker must carry on the legacy of thecommanding officer and friend whose death he ordered. But crises face himat every turn, from Cardassian aggression to the return of Data’s creator,Noonien Soong. But it is Data’s creation of a daughter, Lal, that may prove to beeveryone’s undoing. . . . </p><p><strong>THE TEARS OF ERIDANUS.</strong> Commander Hikaru Sulu of the <em>Kumari</em>—finest ship of the Interstellar Guard, the military arm of the Interstellar Union that includes Andor, Earth, and Tellar—is sent to rescue an observation team on a primitive desert planet. The world has many names—40 Eridani A-II, Minshara, T’Khasi, Vulcan—and its savage natives have taken the team hostage, including Sulu’s daughter, Demora. Even as Captain Sulu negotiates with the fierce T’Pau, Demora meets the elderly S’oval, and with him the only hope for the planet’s future. . . . </p><p><strong>HONOR IN THE NIGHT.</strong> Former Federation president Nilz Baris has died. After losing Sherman’s Planet to the Klingons thanks to poisoned quadrotriticale, the agriculture undersecretary parlayed that defeat into years of political battles with the Klingon Empire, and eventually the Federation’s highest office. Now, the Federation News Service wants the story of his life, a quest that digs up many secrets—including the mystery of why his final words were “Arne Darvin.” </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>DAVID R. GEORGE III</strong> wrote the Crucible trilogy for Star Trek's 40th anniversary as well as <em>Olympus Descending</em> for Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Three. He previously visited DS9 in the novels <em>The 34th Rule</em>, set during the timeframe of the series, and in <em>Twilight</em>, set after the finale. His other Star Trek contributions include a first season Voyager episode, "Prime Factors," and one of the_ Lost Era _books, <em>Serpents Among the Ruins,</em> which hit the <em>New York Times</em> bestseller list in Fall, 2003. Currently he is writing a novella for <em>Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light</em>, coming in December, 2010, from Gallery Books.</p><p>In his almost nonexistent spare time, David enjoys trying his hand at new experiences, from skydiving to auditioning--with his lovely wife, Karen--for "The New Newlywed Game", from hiking a glacier in Alaska to belly dancing in Tunisia, from ocean kayaking in Mexico to having dinner at an actual captain's table somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Recently, he performed his first wedding ceremony--which he and Karen also wrote--marrying their friends Jen and Ryan Van Riper. David believes that the world is a wide, wondrous place, with exciting adventures waiting around just about every corner.</p><p>He remains free on his own recognizance.  </p><p><strong>STEVE MOLLMANN</strong> is studying for a Ph.D. in English at an unknown university at an unknown location in the United States. He is not being coy; at the time this was written, he simply had no idea where he would be by the time you read this. He obtained his M.A. in English at the University of Connecticut, and hopes to pursue a career as a scholar, specializing in British literature, especially its intersection with science and technology. Also in that gap of time, he will have gotten married to his then-fiancÉe, Hayley. He has met Michael Schuster on more than one occasion.  </p><p><strong>MICHAEL SCHUSTER</strong> lives in a picturesque Austrian mountain valley, with half a continent and one entire ocean between him and Steve Mollmann. A bank employee by day, he likes to come up with new (or at least relatively unused) ideas that can be turned into stories with loving care and the occasional nudge. With Steve, he is the co-author of two short stories in the anthology <em>Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Sky's the Limit</em>. Their first novel, <em>The Tears of Eridanus</em>, will be released as part of the collection <em>Star Trek: Myriad Universes: Shattered Light </em>this December. Currently, the two are hard at work building their own universe-sized sandbox to play in. More information about them (including annotations for <em>The Future Begins</em>) can be found at http://www.exploringtheuniverse.net/. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>This enduringly popular tale of love and revenge in the post-Napoleonic era follows Edmond Dantes as he prepares to captain his own ship and marry his beloved Mercedes. But on his wedding day, he is betrayed by spiteful enemies and arrested on trumped-up charges. Condemned to lifelong imprisonment, he befriends Faria, a priest and fellow inmate with an escape plan. When Faria dies, Edmond escapes alone. Free at last, and incredibly wealthy, Edmond enters society posing as the Count of Monte Cristo to reclaim his lost love and enact a terrible vengeance on his accusers. </p><h3>Language Notes</h3><p>Text: English (translation)<br />Original Language: French </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Robert Fagles's translation is a jaw-droppingly beautiful rendering of Homer's <em>Odyssey</em>, the most accessible and enthralling epic of classical Greece. Fagles captures the rapid and direct language of the original Greek, while telling the story of Odysseus in lyrics that ring with a clear, energetic voice. The story itself has never seemed more dynamic, the action more compelling, nor the descriptions so brilliant in detail. It is often said that every age demands its own translation of the classics. Fagles's work is a triumph because he has not merely provided a contemporary version of Homer's classic poem, but has located the right language for the timeless character of this great tale. Fagles brings the <em>Odyssey</em> so near, one wonders if the Hollywood adaption can be far behind. This is a terrific book. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Robert Fagles's 1990 translation of The Iliad was highly praised; here, he moves to The Odyssey. As in the previous work, he adroitly mixes contemporary language with the driving rhythms of the original. The first line reads: "Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns/ driven time and again off course once he had plundered/ the hallowed heights of Troy." Hellenic scholar Bernard Knox contributes extensive introductory commentary, providing both historical and literary perspective. Notes, a pronouncing glossary, genealogies, a bibliography and maps of Homer's world are included.<br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror.” –From, <strong>Small Gods</strong>  </p><p>“A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.”<br />–From, <strong>The Fifth Elephant</strong></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>For more than two decades, Terry Pratchett has been regaling readers with tales of Discworld--a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants, which are standing on the back of a giant turtle, flying through space. It is a world populated by ineffectual wizards and sharp-as-tacks witches, by tired policemen and devious dictators, by reformed thieves and vampires who have sworn to drink no blood. It is a world that is vastly different from our own . . . except when it isn't. </p><p>Now, in <em>The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld</em>, various nuggets of Pratchett's witty commentary and sagacious observations have been compiled by Pratchett expert Stephen Briggs, a man who, they say, knows even more about Discworld than Terry Pratchett. </p><p>Within these pages, you'll find musings on: </p><ul> <li><p><em>Interior decorating:</em> "It's a fact known throughout the universes that no matter how carefully the colors are chosen, institutional decor ends up as either vomit green, unmentionable brown, nicotine yellow, or surgical appliance pink. By some little-understood process of sympathetic resonance, corridors painted in those colors always smell slightly of boiled cabbage--even if no cabbage is ever cooked in the vicinity." (_Equal Rites_)</p> </li> <li><p><em>Travel:</em> "Any seasoned traveler soon learns to avoid anything wished on them as a 'regional speciality,' because all the term means is that the dish is so unpleasant the people living everywhere else will bite off their own legs rather than eat it. But hosts still press it upon distant guests anyway: 'Go on, have the dog's head stuffed with macerated cabbage and pork noses--it's a regional speciality.'" (_The Last Continent_)</p> </li> <li><p><em>Young men:</em> "And then there was the young male walk. At least women swung only their hips. Young men swung everything, from the shoulders down. You have to try to occupy a lot of space. It makes you look bigger, like a tomcat fluffing his tail. The boys tried to walk big in self-defense against all those other big boys out there. I'm bad, I'm fierce, I'm cool, I'd like a pint of shandy and me mam wants me home by nine." (_Monstrous Regiment_)</p> </li> <li><p><em>Class:</em> "'Old money' meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds that had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that; a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of." (_Making Money_)</p> </li> <li><ol> <li><ol> <li>     and more! Culled from all the Discworld novels, <em>The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld</em> confirms Pratchett's place in the pantheon of great satirists and proves why the <em>Chicago Tribune</em> has praised his Discworld as "entertaining and gloriously funny . . . an accomplishment nothing short of magical."  </li></ol> </li></ol> </li></ul>


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<h3>Review</h3><p>“One of the most interesting and critically underrated novelists we have … <strong>The Folklore of Discworld</strong> — co-authored with the eminent folklorist Jacqueline Simpson — emphasizes his irreverence and drollery.”<br />— <em>The Times</em>  </p><p>“Pratchett is, like Mark Twain or Jonathan Swift, not just a great writer but also an original thinker … funny, exciting, lighthearted and, like all the best comedy, very serious.”<br />— <em>Guardian</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Terry Pratchett joins up with a leading folklorist to reveal the legends, myths and customs of Discworld, together with helpful hints from Planet Earth.  </p><p>Most of us grew up having always known when to touch wood or cross our fingers, and what happens when a princess kisses a frog or a boy pulls a sword from a stone, yet sadly some of these things are beginning to be forgotten. Legends, myths, and fairy tales: our world is made up of the stories we told ourselves about where we came from and how we got here. It is the same on Discworld, except that beings, which on Earth are creatures of the imagination — like vampires, trolls, witches and, possibly, gods — are real, alive and, in some cases kicking, on the Disc.  </p><p>In <strong>The Folklore of Discworld</strong>, Terry Pratchett teams up with leading British folklorist Jacqueline Simpson to take an irreverent yet illuminating look at the living myths and folklore that are reflected, celebrated and affectionately libelled in the uniquely imaginative universe of Discworld. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The Company builds planets. </p><p>Kin Arad is a high-ranking official of the Company. After twenty-one decades of living, and with the help of memory surgery, she is at the top of her profession. Discovering two of her employees have placed a fossilized plesiosaur in the wrong stratum, not to mention the fact it is holding a placard which reads 'End Nuclear Testing Now', doesn't dismay the woman who built a mountain range in the shape of her initials during her own high-spirited youth. </p><p>But then come a discovery of something which did intrigue Kin Arad. A flat earth was something new... </p><h3>From the Publisher</h3><p>First published in 1981, <em>Strata</em> is an early exploration of the idea that was to become the best-selling <em>Discworld</em> series. </p>


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Dom Salabos had a lot of advantages.As heir to a huge fortune he had an excellent robot servant (with Man-Friday subcircuitry), a planet (the First Syrian Bank) as a godfather, a security chief who even ran checks on himself, and on Dom's home world even death was not always fatal.Why then, in an age when prediction was a science, was his future in doubt?


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<p>While other books merely show how to run existing exploits, <i>Hacking: The Art of Exploitation</i> broke ground as the first book to explain how hacking and software exploits work and how readers could develop and implement their own. In the extensively updated and expanded second edition, author Jon Erickson again uses practical examples to illustrate the most common computer security issues in three related fields: programming, networking and cryptography. Includes a live CD, which provides a Linux programming environment and all of its benefits without the hassle of installing a new operating system.</p>


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<p><i>IPv6 Essentials</i>, Second Edition provides a succinct, in-depth tour of all the new features and functions in IPv6. It guides you through everything you need to know to get started, including how to configure IPv6 on hosts and routers and which applications currently support IPv6. Aimed at system and network administrators, engineers, network designers, and IT managers, this book will help you understand, plan for, design, and integrate IPv6 into your current IPv4 infrastructure.</p>


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A perfectly typed bomb threat makes its way to the Philadelphia Police Department--the calling card of a political assassin on the loose. It couldn't happen at a worse time, since a rogue cop has brought corruption into the force. The police can't trust their own people as seconds tick away toward an explosion that could rock the nation.


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A brutal crime...A group of urban terrorists...An investigation of dirty cops...  The leads in these supposedly unconnected cases have become tangled in some very ugly--and dangerous--knots. Now Special Operations detective Matt Payne and his colleagues find themselves fearing not only for their jobs， but also for their very lives...


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In <em>The Fighting Agents</em>, W.E.B. Griffin retells the story (previously told in <em>Behind the Lines</em>) of Wendell Fertig, a U.S. Army officer who promoted himself to general and led a ragtag guerrilla force against the Japanese after the fall of the Philippines in 1943. This time, however, Griffin focuses his attention on the OSS, which, among other things, was tasked with resupplying Fertig and reinforcing his efforts to undermine the Japanese war machine. In this fourth volume of a bestselling series featuring the American intelligence service during World War II, James Whittaker, a rakish, romantic army air corps captain who happens to be a close family friend of OSS chief Wild Bill Donovan, is assigned to sneak into the Philippines by submarine and bring gold, arms, and war materiel to the renegade general. </p><p>Simultaneously, another OSS team tries to carry out a critical mission: getting a German atomic scientist out of Budapest and into allied hands before Hitler's armies can perfect and unleash the weapon that could win the war for the Axis powers. And in Cairo, a quiet, unassuming pilot named Darmstadter is drafted by the OSS for another highly unlikely mission. Griffin spices up his realistically drawn scenes of military operations, weapons, and training with a somewhat improbable love story focusing on Whittaker and a female OSS operative, but one suspects it's merely a ruse to draw in distaff readers. Still, the action ranges from Washington to California, Egypt to London, and all points in between, and Griffin's knowledge of military hearts, minds, and missions has won him a devoted following through five separate series of novels of men (and some women) in battle. <em>--Jane Adams</em></p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Stephen Lang narrates this fourth installment of Griffin's "Men at War" series, which began with The Last Heroes. In this episode, the action concerns the extraction of an important German atomic scientist out of Hungary and the establishment of direct contact with the American guerrilla leader in the Philippines, (self-proclaimed) Brigadier-General Wendell Fertig. Griffin's ability to weave fictional and historical characters never ceases to amaze, and this novel is populated with the usual assortment of colorful and exciting Griffin stalwarts. Lang continues his credible narrative performance of "Soldier Spies" in this work; he is comfortable and confident reading the narrative and brings out the hardened characters of the cast. For all action/adventure collections.DMichael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll., Lynchburg <br />Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Having wrapped up World War II with 1999's __, bestselling military author W.E.B. Griffin now deploys his Marines in Korea with <em>Under Fire</em>, the ninth volume in his </p><p>Readers who crave nonstop battle action and excitement may find it hard to stick with <em>Under Fire</em>, as Griffin takes the time to detail the background leading up to one of America's least-remembered modern wars. Griffin writes for the true armed forces aficionado, filling his prose with realistic descriptions of procedure, gear, and materials, an alphabet's worth of acronyms, and an ex- soldier's ear for military dialogue. Look for more sharp, authentic writing in this series' next installment. <em>--Benjamin Reese</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>After eight books in the popular WWII Corps series, Griffin's latest kicks off on the Korean peninsula, where forces from the Communist North have just stormed over the 38th Parallel. Within a few weeks, the old team is back together, most under the steady command of Brig. Gen. Fleming Pickering, whom President Truman recalls from the helm of Trans Global Airways to assume the CIA's top Asian post. As the U.S. Army flounders to contain the North, Pickering struggles to restore Washington's faith in Comdr. Douglas MacArthur and his daring proposal to invade at Inchon. Meanwhile, as Capt. Ken McCoy and Master Gunner Ernie Zimmerman skulk behind enemy lines, seizing a crucial island in preparation for the invasion, a new calamity breaks out: Pickering's son, daredevil pilot Malcolm ("Pick"), gets shot down over a North Korean rice paddy. This new entry in the series moves more slowly than previous ones, as Griffin who served in the army in Korea sets up the historical elements of the conflict and positions all his characters. But once he gets going, he writes with even assurance and a keen eye for military camaraderie and nuance, offering galvanizing drama and a respectful yet irreverent treatment of military procedure and attitudes, not to mention plenty of Scotch. As the book ends with U.S. forces digging in for battle and Pick still missing the dean of the American war adventure has left himself room for plenty of action ahead. National television and ad campaign. </p><p>Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Megaseller Griffin (Honor Bound; Brotherhood of War; Men at War) musters another solid entry in his series chronicling the history of the U.S. Marines, now engaged in the Korean War. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, nicknamed El Supremo by his subordinates, is taken by surprise when the North Korean Army surges south across the 38th parallel. After early losses, he rallies his troops and stems the tide, but not for long. Intertwining stories of literally an army of characters reveal how MacArthur and his sycophantic staff overlook the entire Red Chinese Army, which is massed behind the Yalu River and about to enter the war. Brig. Gen. Fleming Pickering attempts to mediate the ongoing battles between feisty, give-'em-hell Harry Truman and the haughty MacArthur, while worrying about his pilot son, Malcolm "Pick" Pickering, who has been shot down behind enemy lines. The introduction of the Sikorsky H-19A helicopter into the war by Maj. Kenneth "Killer" McCoy and sidekick Master Gunner Ernie Zimmerman details the invention of tactics that will become commonplace in Vietnam. Readers looking for guts and glory military action will be disappointed, as barely a shot is fired in anger, but fans of Griffin's work understand that the pleasures are in the construction of a complex, big-picture history of war down to its smallest details: "There were two men in the rear seat, both of them wearing fur-collared zippered leather jackets officially known as Jacket, Flyers, Intermediate Type G-1." Veterans of the series will enjoy finding old comrades caught up in fresh adventures, while new-guy readers can easily enter here and pick up the ongoing story.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Griffin is the author of five series, including Honor Bound, Brotherhood of War, The Corps, Badge of Honor, and Men at War--33 books for those readers who are still counting. In this latest book in The Corps, Griffin sets the action in Korea in 1950 during the war. The plot involves a disagreement between General Douglas MacArthur and Major Kenneth McCoy on just where the Chinese are waiting to engage U.S. troops. Another protagonist, General Fleming Pickering, is kept busy mediating the growing quarrel between MacArthur and President Truman. Pickering's son, a marine pilot, is missing after being shot down behind enemy lines. There are lots of other characters, all keen on destroying the bad guys. Like his other novels, this one is filled with military jargon and tough talk. The setting is worldwide: locales include South Korea, a neuropsychiatric ward in a San Diego naval hospital, Tokyo, Wake Island, the Sea of Japan, and the White House. There also are lots of top-secret memos and military abbreviations but not much suspense. In Griffin's novels, the good guys always win. However, the author has a knack for smoothly combining fact with fiction, giving his work a realistic veneer. <em>George Cohen</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Bestselling author W.E.B. Griffin, whose novels about various branches of the military have won him battalions of fans, returns to the Brotherhood of War series with this crackling yarn. A detachment of Special Forces hotshots teams up with presidential counselor Sandy Felter to put a stop to Che Guevara's attempts to "liberate" the Congo from President Joseph Mobutu's anticommunist government. </p><p>Under Felter's direction, the Green Berets dispatch a special detachment to the Congo. Their mission is to convince Mobutu of the wisdom of the American plan to discredit and humiliate Che and his Cuban troops, rather than martyr him, and thus bring an end to his plan to export Castro-style communism to Africa and South America. Repelling the Simba insurgents with help from forces led by South African mercenary Mike Hoare, Mobutu accepts the plan, along with the Green Beret's covert assistance, war materiel, and a fighting force manned by many of the characters who peopled <em>The Aviators</em>, Griffin's last Brotherhood adventure. Yes, fans, the good guys are back--especially flying ace Jack Portet, (a pilot drafted into the army right out of Leopoldville, where he was helping his father run a regional airline), George Washington "Father" Lunsford, and Master Sergeant "Doubting" Thomas. And a lot of them are black, a talented crew of African American airmen and specialists pressed into the Special Forces not just because they're brave and able but because they can pass as Congolese soldiers and thereby keep the American presence under wraps. </p><p>As a matter of historical fact Guevara failed badly in the Congo, and after retreating to Cuba, tried the same gambit in Bolivia, where he eventually died under fire and gained the martyrdom the U.S. tried so hard to prevent. But <em>Special Ops</em> offers a close-up look at a little-known piece of military history in a gloriously testosterone-pumped epic, seasoned with a touch of sex and romance. That may seem incongruous, given Griffin's clipped, terse writing style, which is punctuated with plenty of military dispatches and a few gratuitous growls at the internecine rivalry among American intelligence agencies. It's even more incongruous when the general's daughter gets the flying ace, and her father's highly placed friends not only get Portet an officer's stripes but fly her to the Congo to stand by her man. But none of that will stop Griffin's delighted readers from snapping up his latest chronicle of men at war. <em>--Jane Adams</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Newly initiated readers of Griffin (The Fighting Agents) will find the latest in the Brotherhood of War series strongly reminiscent of modern American military classics From Here to Eternity and The Winds of War. Longtime Griffin faithful, eager since 1988's The Aviators for the next BOW installment, will deem this '60s action drama well worth the wait. Fresh from disobeying orders on a rescue mission to the Congo in November 1964 (and receiving two medals for his heroic efforts), former airline pilotDnow Green Beret Sgt.DJack Portet is promoted to lieutenant and assigned to Top Secret Special Operations under Col. Sanford T. Felter, adviser to the president. CIA sources report that Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is going to the Congo to establish a major Communist foothold in Africa, before moving on to South America. LBJ, with counsel from Felter, decides that it would be better politics to humiliate Guevara in the Congo than to elevate him to martyr status by killing him. To that end, Portet, Felton and Maj. George Washington "Father" Lunsford persuade Joseph Mobutu, president of the Republic of the Congo, to allow a crack unit of African-American Green Berets, all fluent in Swahili, to carry out the assignment. The Special Ops manage to chase Che out of Africa only to see him try to gain power in Bolivia. His writing enriched by new, fully developed characters, Griffin also reprises BOW favorites Craig Lowell, Robert Bellmon, Geoff Craig and William "Doubting" Thomas as he renders an intricately layered, epic novel of the fascinating machinations of international politics and the life and passions of the men who make it happen. Given Griffin's track record with military adventureDhe launched the Lieutenants of the Brotherhood in 1982Dthe audience for this rouser is ready and waiting. (Jan.) <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>Second volume in the Men at War saga, begun with The Last Heroes (1997), a paperback originally published (in 1985) under the pseudonym Alex Baldwin. Griffin has written several popular WWII series, featuring the Marine Corps, the Navy, and now the shadow warriors of the OSS, led by <code></code>Wild Bill'' Donovan. The first in this new saga turned on a cache of uranium ore in the Belgian Congo. This time, along with other jobs, the OSS must drop agents into the Belgian Congo and smuggle out ore to use in making atomic bombs. Secrecy is all, since the Germans also may well be devising their own atomic weapons. Shrewd, sharp, rousing entertainment. -- <em>Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>The <em>New York Times</em> bestselling series continues with the second <em>Men at War</em> novel by W.E.B. Griffin.  </p><p>Washington D.C., 1942. With the help of Charles A. Lindbergh, ace OSS pilot Richard Canidy sets up an air maneuver that will drop agents into the Belgian Congo to smuggle out uranium ore essential to the arms race. But this time, Canidy is not in the saddle; he's the backup pilot. And though he's not used to waiting for something to go wrong, he knows that it will...   </p><p>"Shrewd, sharp, rousing entertainment!"--_Kirkus Reviews_  </p><p>"A storyteller in the grand tradition."--Tom Clancy </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> Is Griffin our Homer or Tacitus? Those military experts wrote about real soldiers—and what the world needs now is a real-life Charley Castillo, Griffin's smart and efficient Department of Homeland Security agent, who works directly for the president on cases calling for more than routine skills. Introduced in <em>By Order of the President</em> (2004), Castillo is an excellent alternative to the usual crew who make it to the headlines. Told in Griffin's trademark clean and compelling prose, studded with convincing insider details, Castillo's second outing starts with an American diplomat's murder in Argentina, the kidnapping of his wife, and threats to murder her children unless she reveals the whereabouts of her brother, a U.N. diplomat involved in the food-for-Iraqi-oil scandal. Castillo and his team of tough and shrewd experts are just the kind of believable people we want in these situations. And if it takes a novelist like Griffin, who has honed his skills and weapons in five previous series, to bring them to life, at least their real counterparts will have some fictional role models to live up to. <em>(Jan.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Griffin's second novel in his Presidential Agent series is the best-selling author's thirty-sixth book. Delta Force Major Charley Castillo is the protagonist-hero; he works with the Department of Homeland Security. He is asked by the president to go to Buenos Aires, where the wife of the deputy chief has been kidnapped and her husband has been murdered, shot twice in the head as she was forced to watch. Terrorists threaten to kill her children if she doesn't tell them how to find her brother, who, it seems, may have knowledge about the UN-Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. The twists and turns here include the handling of a large amount of money--$16 million, to be exact--that a variety of people would like to get hold of, and the storyline is peppered with forged passports, special agents, and never-ending cell-phone calls. The convoluted plot will appeal to thriller readers, especially Griffin's many fans, and although some of the dialogue is hackneyed, fans of the genre and author won't care. The important thing is the fast pacing and the relevance of the story to today's events and headlines. <em>George Cohen</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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The breathtaking vision and incomparable storytelling of Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson's Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, a prequel to Frank Herbert's classic Dune, propelled it to the ranks of speculative fiction's classics in its own right. Now, with all the color, scope, and fascination of the prior novel, comes Dune: The Machine Crusade.. More than two decades have passed since the events chronicled in The Butlerian Jihad. The crusade against thinking robots has ground on for years, but the forces led by Serena Butler and Irbis Ginjo have made only slight gains; the human worlds grow weary of war, of the bloody, inconclusive swing from victory to defeat. The fearsome cymeks, led by Agamemnon, hatch new plots to regain their lost power from Omnius--as their numbers dwindle and time begins to run out. The fighters of Ginaz, led by Jool Noret, forge themselves into an elite warrior class, a weapon against the machine-dominated worlds. Aurelius Venport and Norma Cenva are on the verge of the most important discovery in human history-a way to "fold" space and travel instantaneously to any place in the galaxy. And on the faraway, nearly worthless planet of Arrakis, Selim Wormrider and his band of outlaws take the first steps to making themselves the feared fighters who will change the course of history: the Fremen.Here is the unrivaled imaginative power that has put Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson on bestseller lists everywhere and earned them the high regard of readers around the globe. The fantastic saga of Dune continues in Dune: The Machine Crusade.


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Fifty-six hard years after the events of The Machine Crusade, after the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. The human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight. Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets. The war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin. In the greatest battle of science fiction history, human and machine face off one last time, and on the desert planet of Arrakis, the legendary Fremen of Dune become the feared fighting force to be discovered by Paul Maud'Dib in Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong>Uneasy Peace. Worlds In Flux. Tests Of Faith.</strong></p><p>The Final Episode Was Only The Beginning.</p><p>The Dominion War is over...or is it? Three months after the Allied victory against the invaders from the Gamma Quadrant, a surprise attack awakens the fear of renewed hostilities. At the same time, a senseless murder sets a space station commander on a path that will test the limits of her faith...while a strange discovery within the plasma storms of the Badlands propels an old soldier toward a rendezvous with destiny. Elsewhere, amidst the ruins of an ancient civilization, a young man is about to embark on a dangerous quest to fill the hole in his life -- one left by the loss of his father. </p><p>So begins the unprecedented, authorized continuation of <em>Star Trek: Deep Space Nine®,</em> springing from the seven-year television odyssey of Captain Benjamin Sisko and his crew aboard a Federation starbase at the edge of the final frontier. Following the serial format and evolving character arcs that were the hallmarks of the TV series, the new <em>Deep Space Nine</em> novels pick up where the show left off, daring to imagine what happened after the final episode.</p><p>Now the first five tales of that critically acclaimed storyline are collected in one massive volume. Originally published as the two-part <em>Avatar, Abyss, Demons of Air and Darkness,</em> and the novella "Horn and Ivory," <em>Twist of Faith</em> revisits the aftermath of the Dominion War, the pivotal planet Bajor, its mysterious connection to the timeless Prophets of the wormhole, as well as the familiar faces, new friends, and uncertain allies whose fates intertwine at the crossroads of the galaxy. With an introduction by New York Times bestselling author David R. George III <em>(Mission: Gamma -- Twilight; The Lost Era: Serpents Among the Ruins;</em> the <em>Crucible</em> trilogy), <em>Twist of Faith</em> takes the <em>Deep Space Nine</em> saga to a new level...exploring what was left behind, and what awaits beyond. </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>S. D. Perry</strong> is a novelist living in Portland, Oregon.  She is currently lives with her husband, Myk, her two children Cyrus and Myk Jr, and their two dogs. She mostly writes tie-in novels based on works in the fantasy/science-fiction/horror genre, including <em>Resident Evil, Star Trek, Aliens</em> and <em>Predator</em>. She has also written a handful of short stories and movie novelizations. Her favorite <em>Star Trek</em> series is the original series, with her favorite characters being "The Big Three" - Kirk, Spock and McCoy.</p><p><strong>Keith R.A. DeCandido</strong> was born and raised in New York City to a family of librarians. He has written over two dozen novels, as well as short stories, nonfiction, eBooks, and comic books, most of them in various media universes, among them <em>Star Trek, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Marvel Comics, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity, Resident Evil, Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, Farscape, Xena,</em> and <em>Doctor Who</em>. His original novel <em>Dragon Precinct</em> was published in 2004, and he's also edited several anthologies, among them the award-nominated <em>Imaginings</em> and two <em>Star Trek</em> anthologies. Keith is also a musician, having played percussion for the bands the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players, the Boogie Knights, and the Randy Bandits, as well as several solo acts. In what he laughingly calls his spare time, Keith follows the New York Yankees and practices <em>kenshikai</em> karate. He still lives in New York City with his girlfriend and two insane cats. </p>


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p><strong> Thomas E. Rick's news-breaking follow up to the #1 <em>New York Times</em>&lt; bestseller <em>Fiasco</em> </strong>  </p><p>Now updated to fully document the inside story of the Iraq war since late 2005, <em>The Gamble</em> is the definitive account of the insurgency within the U.S. military that led to a radical shift in America's strategy. Based on unprecedented real-time access to the military's entire chain of command, Ricks examines the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that "the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened."   </p><h3>About the Author</h3><p><strong>Thomas E. Ricks</strong> is <em>The Washington Post</em>'s special military correspondent and a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national reporting. He is the author if <em>Fiasco, Making the Corps,</em> and <em>A Soldier's Story</em>. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The tension between India's centuries-old spiritual traditions and contemporary religious militancy drives this memorable, melancholy family saga by two-time Canadian Giller Prize–winner Vassanji (who won for <em>The Book of Secrets</em> and <em>The In-Between World of Vikram Lall</em>). Karsan Dargawalla is destined from boyhood to succeed his father and his father's father as avatar of Pirbaag, a 13th-century Sufi shrine. As the novel unfolds in fits and starts, Karsan rejects his spiritual inheritance and decamps for Harvard in 1970, against his chagrined father's wishes. The three decades of stubborn self-exile that follow represent a sorrowful generational rift between father and son that ends when Karsan returns home after his ascetic father's death, announced at the book's opening. Though Sufism is a Muslim tradition, Karsan's father considered himself neither and both Muslim and Hindu, and we, says Karsan at one point, are respected for that. Yet Karsan finds the shrine destroyed by a mob of Hindu hard-liners, while his younger brother, Mansoor, militantly calls himself a Muslim and may be involved in Islamist terrorist activities. Frequent shifts in time and perspective (including flashes of the shrine's early history) heighten Vassanji's evocative depiction of India's ongoing postcolonial tumult, mournfully personalized by the fate of the fractured family at the novel's heart. <em>(Aug.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>This resplendent novel traces the path of Karsan Dargawalla, who is brought up, as generations of his forefathers have been, to be the "gaadi-varas, the successor and avatar" of a seven-hundred-year-old Sufi shrine in Gujarat, a mausoleum of Muslim origin but for centuries open to all religions. Karsan, rebelling against "the iron bonds of history," leaves for Boston and Canada, though he ultimately returns to India to "research, recall, and write about" his abandoned heritage. Vassanji eloquently details the sufferings of Karsan’s family as the price of his individual freedom, but suggests that this abandonment was necessary, and that tradition, in the face of India’s "ancient animosities," must be engaged with critically and in the context of the wider world. <br />Copyright © 2007 </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The sands of time have not diminished the impact Dune has had on the evolution of SF, and this new prequel by Frank Herbert's son and bestseller Anderson, following 2001's Dune: House Corrino (the concluding volume of their "House" trilogy), offers the kind of intricate plotting and philosophical musings that would make the elder Herbert proud. Reaching back into the beginnings of Arrakis, the authors show us Selim, a boy cast out by his tribe who discovers how to ride the fearsome giant sandworms. Selim tastes and learns the visionary power of the magical spice, melange, and how the future of Arrakis hinges on who controls it. At the same time, on planets far removed from the desolate dunes of Arrakis, others are involved in a Great Revolt. Free League World humans, led by Tercero Xavier Harkonnen and Serena Butler of Salusa Secundus, battle Omnius, a computer "evermind" intent on extending its dominion. The ominous Omnius seeks to conquer all planets not yet incorporated into his Synchronized Worlds system with the help of servile robotic extensions and colleagues, including Erasmus, a Thinking Machine "Hannibal Lecter" whose whimsical Mr. Spock-ish meditations enliven the proceedings immeasurably. Throughout, key revelations regarding the Zensunni Wanderers and their fight for freedom and other historical Dune elements lend an air of discovery to this fast-paced tale.<br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Ten thousand years before the fall of the Imperial House Corrino, two grand interplanetary organizations ruled the known universe: the Synchronized Worlds, presided over by thinking machines led by the evermind called Omnius, and the League of Nobles, beleaguered survivors of the machines' revolt against the Old Empire. In this era, a few individuals determined to overturn the rule of the machines sought every opportunity to gain insights into ways to defeat the human race's most intractable enemy. Herbert and Anderson (Dune: House Atreides; Dune: House Harkonnen; Dune: House Corrino) continue their prehistory of Frank Herbert's "Dune" series with a new trilogy opener set in the distant past of Herbert's galactic saga. The authors reveal the origins of the Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit, as well as the root of the ancient feud between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen. This compelling saga of men and women struggling for their freedom is required reading for Dune fans and an essential purchase for libraries. <br />Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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In Grunts, renowned historian John C. McManus demonstrates that, from the invasion beaches of the Second World War to the deserts of the Middle East, the foot soldier has been the most indispensible-and most overlooked-factor in wartime victory.  Advances in weaponry have threatened to render the infantryman obsolete for centuries. Even today, precision-guided munitions, nuclear bombs, aerial drones, computers, and satellites have made victory in modern warfare seem like a simple matter of superior hardware, negating the need for ground soldiers. In truth, even as technology advanced at a dizzying pace throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, ground soldiers, especially infantry "grunts," did almost all of the fighting and dying in America's wars.  Examining ten critical battles, McManus covers six decades of warfare-from the 1944 fight on the island of Guam to today's counterinsurgency combat in Iraq-in which the skills and courage of American troops proved the crucial difference between victory and defeat. Penetrating the flowery rhetoric of headlines and standard battle narratives, McManus exposes the shocking brutal realities of modern ground combat.  Based on years of archival research and personal interviews with veterans, this powerful history reveals the ugly face of war in a way that few books have. Grunts demonstrates the vital, and too often forgotten, importance of the human element in protecting the American nation, and advances a passionate plea for fundamental change in our understanding of war.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>'One of the most charismatic and flamboyant cyclists in recent history' - "Daily Telegraph". Laurent Fignon is one of the giants of modern cycling. Twice-winner of the Tour de France in the early eighties, Fignon became the star for a new generation. In 1989 he took part in one of the most fiercely-contested Tours of all time. Over the course of 3,285 kilometres he lost out to his American arch-rival, Greg LeMond, by an agonising eight seconds on the final Parisian time trial. Fignon does not mince his words. In this forthright and unflinching account the former champion spares neither friends nor opponents, nor even his own image. In doing so he gives cycling fans a tantalising glimpse of what really went on behind the scenes of this epic sport - the friendships, the rivalries, the betrayals, the scheming, the parties, the girls, and, of course, the performance-enhancing drugs. Laurent Fignon lived cycling at its peak. He enjoyed a truly exceptional career, winning over eighty titles from 1982 to 1993. The highs were matched by lows of serious injury, periods of self-doubt, and accusations of cheating. Fignon's story bestrides a golden age in cycling: a time before the scandals and the shadow of doping, a time when cyclists were afraid of nothing. </p>


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Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story-it becomes an experience to remember forever. The Notebook is such a book. It is a celebration of how passion can be ageless and timeless, a tale that moves us to laughter and tears and makes us believe in true love all over again... At thirty-one, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal North Carolina after World War II, is haunted by images of the girl he lost more than a decade earlier. At twenty-nine, socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart. Thus begins the story of a love so enduring and deep it can turn tragedy into triumph, and may even have the power to create a miracle...


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<h3>From</h3><p>Steering his narrative through an unsentimentalized and deglorified depiction of the American Revolution, Paulsen’s latest work of historical fiction provides a stark glimpse of just how awful the war really was for those who suffered through it. Though his parents are city folk trying to hack out a life on the frontier in Pennsylvania, 13-year-old Samuel is entirely at home in the woodland wilderness that surrounds their little settlement. Soon after word arrives of the uprising in Concord and Lexington, Samuel returns home from a jaunt in the forest to find his home burned down, the neighbors slaughtered, and his parents missing. Samuel tracks his captured parents through the countryside to British-held New York, encountering scalping bands of Iroquois, pillaging squads of mercenary Hessians, and a few hardy, helpful rebels along the way. Paulsen alternates chapters of Samuel’s story with historical notes that illuminate the sobering realities of the Revolution and add some context not found in most history books. Paulsen’s rewarding and fast-paced novel offers an honest assessment of heroism writ both small and large. Grades 6-9. --Ian Chipman </p><h3>Review</h3><p>Starred review, <em>Kirkus Reviews</em>, January 1, 2010: "A superb reflection on the nature of war."  </p><p><em>From the Hardcover edition.</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Fast pacing and skillful narrative misdirection make this supernatural thriller one of Saul's (The Homing) best?and one of his few not to focus on children in peril. Richard Kraven, the novel's heavy, is as nasty as they come: he eviscerates his victims before they die, in the misguided hope of learning the mystery of life. He also seems to be extending his murder spree after his execution in the electric chair. At least that's what reporter Anne Jeffers tries to prove to the incredulous Seattle police as the killings strike ever closer to her home and family, apparently in retaliation for her help in putting Kraven behind bars. Saul ratchets up the suspense by intercutting chapters told from the points of view of Anne, detective Mark Blakemoor and a serial murderer who thinks of himself as "The Experimenter." He complicates matters by introducing another murderer and by raising suspicions about Anne's husband, Glen, who suffered a heart attack at the moment Kraven died and now experiences blackouts that coincide with the killings. Saul depends on remarkably unobservant cops and a contrived occult explanation to tie all the subplots together, but he sustains the mystery of the killer's identity and motives throughout. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection; major ad/promo; simultaneous Random House AudioBook; simultaneous release of The Homing in mass market paper. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA?Sufficient detail is provided to enable participation in this horror puzzle. The last person convicted-murderer Richard Kraven asks to see before dying is Ann Jeffers, the newspaper woman who had kept his name and crimes in the public consciousness for five years. "Today won't end it...I'm sorry I won't be here to see you suffer when you finally realize you were wrong about me," he says. Brutal murders, perhaps copycat, perhaps at the hands of an accomplice, resume. At first, Ann accepts the changes in her husband following his heart attack. Gradually, they both begin to question what is happening. Soon readers will be more concerned with how things transpire than with who is responsible. Teens seeking a deliberately told tale that promises to raise them to the edge of their seats should find satisfaction in this story.?Barbara Hawkins, Oakton High School, Fairfax, VA<br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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Germany, 1660: When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and the women burned at the stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau. When more children disappear and an orphan boy is found dead—marked by the same tattoo—the mounting hysteria threatens to erupt into chaos. 

Before the unrest forces him to torture and execute the very woman who aided in the birth of his children, Jakob must unravel the truth. With the help of his clever daughter, Magdelena, and Simon, the university-educated son of the town’s physician, Jakob discovers that a devil is indeed loose in Schongau. But it may be too late to prevent bloodshed. 

A brilliantly detailed, fast-paced historical thriller, The Hangman’s Daughter is the first novel from German television screenwriter Oliver Pötzsch, a descendent of the Kuisls, a famous Bavarian executioner clan.


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There was a time when the world was sweeter....when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.... Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High. Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love. Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy, almost ethereal daughter of the town's Baptist minister....Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart-and the joy and pain of living. The inspiration for this novel came from Nicholas Sparks's sister: her life and her courage. From the internationally bestselling author Nicholas Sparks, comes his most moving story yet....


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Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah reach out to each other...soon they are falling in love. But what neither realizes is that they are also bound together by a shocking secret, one that will force them to reexamine everything they believe in-including their love.


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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes a tender story of hope and joy, of sacrifice and forgiveness-a moving reminder that love is possible at any age, at any time, and often comes when we least expect it. At forty-five, Adrienne Willis must rethink her entire life when her husband abandons her for a younger woman. Reeling with heartache and in search of a respite, she flees to the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina, to tend to a friend's inn for the weekend. But when a major storm starts moving in, it appears that Adrienne's perfect getaway will be ruined-until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives. At fifty-four, Paul has just sold his medical practice and come to Rodanthe to escape his own shattered past. Now, with the storm closing in, two wounded people will turn to each other for comfort-and in one weekend set in motion feelings that will resonate throughout the rest of their lives.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Product Description</strong>  </p><p>Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church. The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them.</p><p><strong>Go Behind the Scenes of the Motion Picture <em>The Last Song</em> (Touchstone Pictures, 2010)</strong><br />Starring Myley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth<br />(Click on each image below to see a larger view)   </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p><em>#1 bestselling author Nicholas Sparks's new novel is at once a compelling family drama and a heartrending tale of young love.</em></p><p>Seventeen year old Veronica "Ronnie" Miller's life was turned upside-down when her parents divorced and her father moved from New York City to Wilmington, North Carolina. Three years later, she remains angry and alientated from her parents, especially her father...until her mother decides it would be in everyone's best interest if she spent the summer in Wilmington with him. Ronnie's father, a former concert pianist and teacher, is living a quiet life in the beach town, immersed in creating a work of art that will become the centerpiece of a local church.</p><p>The tale that unfolds is an unforgettable story of love on many levels--first love, love between parents and children -- that demonstrates, as only a Nicholas Sparks novel can, the many ways that love can break our hearts...and heal them. </p>


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When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family. But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her . . . a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo's empathic and stubborn support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards . . . and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Lorimer Black may suffer from a serious sleep disorder and an obsession with the labyrinths of the British class system, but <em>Armadillo</em>'s peculiar protagonist <em>is</em> the star insurance adjuster of London's Fortress Sure PLC, unaffectionately known as the Fort. At the very start of William Boyd's <em>noir</em>-ish seventh novel, however, things take a decided swerve for the worse. On a bleak January morning one of his cases has apparently chosen to kill himself rather than talk: "Mr. Dupree was simultaneously the first dead person he had encountered in his life, his first suicide and his first hanged man and Lorimer found this congruence of firsts deceptively troubling."</p><p>Soon our hero, who himself has a lot to hide, finds himself threatened by a dodgy type whose loss he has adjusted way down and embroiled with the beautiful married actress Flavia Malinverno. "People who've lost something, they call on you to adjust it, make the loss less hard to bear? As if their lives are broken in some way and they call on you to fix it," Flavia dippily wonders. Lorimer also has his car torched and instantly goes from an object of affection to one of deep suspicion at the Fort. Then there is another case, the small matter of the rock star who may or may not be faking the Devil he says is sitting on his left shoulder. </p><p>Needless to say, Lorimer is "becoming fed up with this role of fall guy for other people's woes." Boyd adds a deep layer of psychological heft and a lighter level of humor to this thinking-person's thriller by exploring Lorimer's manifold personal and social fears. This is a man who desperately collects ancient helmets even though he knows they offer only "the illusion of protection." Another of <em>Armadillo</em>'s many pleasures: its dose of delicious argot. Should Lorimer "oil" the apparent perpetrator of the Fedora Palace arson before he's oiled himself? Or perhaps he just needs to "put the frighteners" on him. Boyd definitely puts the frighteners on his readers more than once in this cinematically seedy and dazzling literary display. <em>--Kerry Fried</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The ever inventive Boyd?whose highly praised first novel, A Good Man in Africa, was followed by others set in Africa and America, sets this latest work in contemporary London, which he observes with the close attention of someone seeing it for the first time. In fact, his protagonist, Lorimer Black, is not exactly a native: his ancestry derives from an obscure Central European Gypsy clan who made it to London after the war. Lorimer is the only truly Anglicized one among them, from his name to his careful sense of what to wear and say on every occasion. He is a loss adjuster at a big insurance company, whose day begins unsettlingly with the suicide of an insured client he was about to visit. Then a new hotel building, mysteriously overinsured, burns down, and his boss, the overbearing and cheerfully philosophical Mr. Hogg, seems to want Lorimer to investigate. A dreadful new colleague comes into his life and tries to make Lorimer his best friend; Lorimer falls hard for a mysterious actress glimpsed in one of his company's TV commercials; his car is vandalized, and he is attacked in the street; his elderly father dies suddenly; and Hogg turns nasty and fires him. Throughout all this, poor Lorimer, stricken with a severe sleep disorder, tries to get some rest at a sleep clinic where he seeks what he calls "lucid dreams," which?unlike his waking life?he can control. Boyd's comic writing is zesty and brilliantly on-target about contemporary Londoners, high and low, and Lorimer's adventures have enough of an alarming edge to keep a reader constantly, and delightedly, off balance. The only flaw in an otherwise sparkling performance is an odd and unlikely journal Lorimer keeps, which is designed to fill the gaps in his previous life, but which never sounds like anything other than the author's voice. Editor, Vicky Wilson; agent: Georges Borchardt. <br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>U.S. Marine Logan Thibault carries a picture of a woman he'snever met because it brings him good luck. But when he sets out to find the woman, he is met with unexpected circumstances surrounding his new love and his shrouded past. Though not Sparkss most original tale, the story flows well and narrator John Bedford Lloyd delivers a solid performance. Lloyds deep bass tone is perfectly suited for Thibault, a manly man if ever there was one. Lloyds supporting characters are rich and interesting in their own right, some speaking in comical Southern drawls, others with a raw reality. The final result is quite touching without much over-the-top sentimentality on Lloyds part. <em>A Grand Central hardcover. (Sept.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>In his 14th book, bestselling author Nicholas Sparks tells the unforgettable story of a man whose brushes with death lead him to the love of his life.   </p><p>Is there really such thing as a lucky charm? The hero of Nicholas Sparks's new novel believes he's found one in the form of a photograph of a smiling woman he's never met, but who he comes to believe holds the key to his destiny. The chain of events that leads to him possessing the photograph and finding the woman pictured in it is the stuff of love stories only a master such as Sparks can write. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Sparks's 1996 debut novel, The Notebook, was a fast and easy read that sold millions upon millions of copies. Other bestselling love stories followed (Message in a Bottle; A Walk to Remember; The Guardian), but Sparks's fans have from the very beginning eagerly anticipated a sequel to the romantic tale of Allie and Noah Calhoun. The wait is now over. Attorney Wilson Lewis has been married to Noah and Allie's daughter, Jane, for 30 years. Wilson and Jane have raised three children and lived a satisfying and prosperous life in the bucolic town of New Bern, N.C. After forgetting his anniversary, Wilson realizes that the passion and romance have gone out of his marriage and fears his wife no longer loves him. Being a methodical man, he decides to embark on a yearlong program to renew his romantic ties to his wife, seeking out the advice of Noah, who now spends his days in a retirement home feeding a swan he is sure is the reincarnation of his beloved Allie. In the midst of Wilson's machinations, his daughter Anna announces she is getting married. The upcoming wedding provides Wilson with the opportunity to bring his elaborate plan to fruition. Sparks tells his sweet story competently, without sinking too deeply into the mire of sentiment; a gasp-inducing twist comes at the very end. Satisfied female readers will close the covers with a sigh and a wish that a little of the earnest, too-good-to-be-true Wilson might rub off on their own bedmates.<br />Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Sparks returns to characters from <em>The Notebook</em> (1996) and writes about Allie and Noah Calhoun's oldest daughter, Jane, and her husband, Wilson. As their thirtieth anniversary approaches, Wilson realizes that he loves Jane now more than ever and worries that his neglect (he completely forgot their twenty-ninth anniversary) may have finally driven her away. Wilson plans on showing Jane how much he loves her, but then their oldest daughter, Anna, announces that she and her boyfriend are getting married and asks if they can plan a small utilitarian wedding on her parents' anniversary. Jane agrees to share the date and convinces Anna to have a formal wedding; something that Jane missed. Jane is surprised by Wilson's willingness to work and ability to come up with truly miraculous arrangements. This sort of involvement is out of character for Wilson, a workaholic estate attorney in New Bern, North Carolina, but he really is determined to change, and Sparks is at his romantic best in this tender love story about a flawed hero trying to right his wrongs. <em>Patty Engelmann</em><br /><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**A beautiful new hardcover package for the "exciting and gripping" (*Kirkus Reviews*) *New York Times* bestselling science fiction classic.**



 The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. The remnants of the Old Empire have been consumed by the violent matriarchal cult known as the Honored Matres. Only one faction remains a viable threat to their total conquest-the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's power.



 Under the leadership of Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, the Bene Gesserit have colonized a green world on the planet Chapterhouse, and are turning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile. And once they've mastered breeding sandworms, the Sisterhood will control the production of the greatest commodity in the known galaxy-the spice Melange. But their true weapon remains a man who has lived countless lifetimes-a man who served under the God Emperor Paul Muad'Dib.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>My eyes tend to glaze over when I encounter YAPBAQPs (Yet Another Popular Book About Quantum Physics). But this volume captured my attention, and imagination. Told in the same way as <strong>Alice in Wonderland</strong> (with many of the original passages re-tooled to their new purpose) and a hint of <strong>Flatland</strong>, Gilmore guides us through the principles of Quantum mechanics in a truly lively and fun way. I suspect it may even be a good read for teens or extremely bright children. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>It (..) includes characters like the uncertain accountant and the state agent who shows Alice how items can be two places at once. -- <em>The Vancouver Sun</em></p>


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This book is the first English language translation of the famous Tibetan death text, The Great Liberation upon Hearing in the Intermediate State. Also known as the Bardo Thodol which means "liberation by hearing on the after death plane" (Bardo: after death plane, Thodol or Thotrol: liberation by hearing), it was originally written in the Tibetan language and is meant to be a guide for those who have died as they transition from their former life to a new destination.


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<h3>Product Description</h3><p>The only Apple-certified book on Mac OS X v10.6, this revised best-seller will take you deep inside the latest big-cat operating system—covering everything from installation to automation, customizing the operating system, supporting applications, setting up peripherals, and more. Whether you[HTML_REMOVED]re a support technician or simply an ardent Mac user, you[HTML_REMOVED]ll quickly learn and master the new features in Mac OS X 10.6, including native support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Following the learning objectives of the Apple Certified Support Professional exam, this self-paced book is a perfect guide for Apple’s training and a first-rate primer for computer support personnel who need to troubleshoot and optimize Mac OS X as part of their jobs. Chapter review sections and quizzes summarize and reinforce acquired knowledge.  </p><p>The Apple Training Series serves as both a self-paced learning tool and the official curriculum for the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server certification programs.  </p><h3>From the Back Cover</h3><p>The only Apple-certified book on Mac OS X v10.6, this revised best-seller will take you deep inside the latest big-cat operating system—covering everything from installation to automation, customizing the operating system, supporting applications, setting up peripherals, and more. Whether you[HTML_REMOVED]re a support technician or simply an ardent Mac user, you[HTML_REMOVED]ll quickly learn and master the new features in Mac OS X 10.6, including native support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Following the learning objectives of the Apple Certified Support Professional exam, this self-paced book is a perfect guide for Apple’s training and a first-rate primer for computer support personnel who need to troubleshoot and optimize Mac OS X as part of their jobs. Chapter review sections and quizzes summarize and reinforce acquired knowledge.  </p><p>The Apple Training Series serves as both a self-paced learning tool and the official curriculum for the Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server certification programs.  </p>


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<h3>Review</h3>
<p>Secrecy and a deft touch are the hallmarks of every successful burglar. Or so thinks Bernie Rhodenbarr before he gets a shocking proposal from his dentist. Sitting back in the chair, vulnerable thanks to a dental instrument in his mouth, he discovers that Dr. Sheldrake needs a burglar. "Like you, Bernie", the good dentist says. So much for leading a secret life of crime. Bernie, smart guy that he is, turns the dentist down flat. So why is Bernie picking the locks on the posh apartment of Crystal Sheldrake, the dentist's ex-wife? Because he's a burglar. Plus, Crystal has a cache of jewels worth any burglar's time. Trouble is, Crystal comes home early - and she's not alone. Bernie quickly hides in a closet, which Crystal promptly and inconveniently locks. As time goes by, Crystal rids herself of her companion and Bernie manages to pick his way out of the closet -- only to discover Crystal dead on the floor and the jewels gone. Bernie must sleuth his way out of a real mess. The Burglar in the Closet is a terrific read! -- <em>Midwest Book Review</em>
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>It's hard to ignore someone with his hands in your mouth. Bernie Rhodenbarr's all ears when Dr. Sheldrake, his dentist, starts complaining about his detestable, soon-to-be-ex wife, and happens to mention the valuable diamonds she keeps lying around the apartment. Since Bernie's been known to supplement his income as a bookstore owner with the not-so-occasional bout of high-rise burglary, a couple of nights later he's in the Sheldrake apartment with larceny on his mind -- and has to duck into a closet when the lady of the house makes an unexpected entrance. Unfortunately he's still there when an unseen assailant does Mrs. Sheldrake in . . . and then vanishes with the jewels. 
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<p>Bernie's got to come out of the closet some time. But when he does, he'll be facing a rap for a murder he didn't commit -- and for a burglary he certainly attempted -- unless he can hunt down the killer who left him hanging. 
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Bookseller and New-Yorker-to-the-bone, Bernie Rhodenbarr rarely ventures out of Manhattan, but he's excited about the romantic getaway he has planned for himself and current lady love Lettice at the Cuttleford House, a remote upstate b&b. Unfortunately, Lettice has a prior engagement—she's getting married . . . and not to Bernie—so he decides to take best buddy Carolyn instead. A restful respite from the big city's bustle would be too good to waste. Besides, there's a very valuable first edition shelved in the Cuttleford's library that Bernie's just itching to get his hands on. Did we neglect to mention that Bernie's a burglar?   But first he's got to get around a very dead body on the library floor. The plot's thickened by an isolating snowstorm, downed phone lines, the surprise arrival of Lettice and her reprehensible new hubby, and a steadily increasing corpse count. And it's Bernie who'll have to figure out whodunit . . . or die.


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Lawrence Block is such a gifted writer that even a native New Yorker will be fooled into thinking that the Paddington Hotel, described in the opening pages of <em>Burglar in the Rye</em>, is a real institution. Block's descriptions of this enclave of artists, writers, and rock musicians is thoroughly convincing--although in actuality, the Paddington is a combination of the real-life Chelsea Hotel and Block's outrageous imagination.</p><p>This is Bernie Rhodenbarr's ninth heist. Bernie is a gentleman burglar who runs a used bookstore in between criminal acts, steals mostly from the rich, and only hurts people when it becomes <em>absolutely</em> necessary.</p><p>The Paddington is where Bernie goes to liberate the letters of a reclusive writer named Gulliver Fairborn from a literary agent. Fairborn's resemblance to J.D. Salinger and, of course, the fact that the woman who hired Bernie to steal the letters had an affair with Fairborn when she was a teenager, no doubt lend the book its title. But by the time Bernie gets to the Paddington, the agent has been shot, the letters already liberated--and a cop in the lobby recognizes our favorite burglar from a previous encounter. </p><p>Now all Bernie has to do is find out who else wanted those letters badly enough to kill for them. In typical Rhodenbarr tradition, the plot is less interesting than the trappings: the books Bernie reads, the fascinating objects he picks up along the way. The reader also learns about some mind-expanding facts, such as the existence of a tiny South American fish that swims up a man's urine stream and lodges in his private parts! Or did Block make that up, too?</p><p>Other Bernie picks include: <strong>, and </strong>. <em>--Dick Adler</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Block's addictive series about bookseller/burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian, etc.) continues as our hero invades the hotel suite of an aged literary agent in search of a cache of letters, by a respected and reclusive writer, that are wanted by people both legitimate and not. As he usually does, Bernie finds a corpse on the other side of the locked door he so neatly opens, and he is immediately suspected of murder by his nemesis, sticky-fingered Ray Kirschmann of the NYPD. More murder ensues before Bernie, with the help of his lesbian buddy Carolyn, can get a handle on the proceedings. But when he does, and has gathered all the principals into a room for the inevitable explanatory/accusatory windup ("I suppose you're wondering why I summoned you all here," he gets to say, to his and the reader's delight, time and again), he hits on a solution that fingers a most unlikely suspect, satisfies all the claimants to the letters and leaves him (and Ray) richer. Block's effortless mastery of his material, his relaxed ease, are as pleasurable as always, and he has some splendid fun with an author not unlike J.D. Salinger. This is the prolific Block's only new novel of the year, and it's a steal at any price. (July) <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Bernie Rhodenbarr, burglar with a heart of gold, returns for this 10th installment in a reliable <em>Burglar on the Prowl</em>, Bernie is recruited by an old friend to burgle the home of a crooked plastic surgeon, removing some off-the-books cash from a wall safe. A simple enough job, but Bernie complicates matters by going "on the prowl" one restless evening―-randomly cruising for an easy job. While he's pawing through a woman's empty apartment, she returns home; Bernie hides hastily, only to overhear an act of violence that draws him into a hunt for the perpetrator and a deepening role in the victim's life.</p><p>Lawrence Block's prose is merely serviceable, but his plotting and storytelling are first-rate. He constructs a complex puzzle, yet weaves in each new development so seamlessly that you almost don't see it happen. Like its Bernie predecessors, <em>The Burglar on the Prowl</em> is droll and charming, and at times you can feel Block trying a bit too hard with the charm. However, a few truly horrific bad guys and some ugly violence keep the sweetness from cloying. And it's impossible not to like Bernie, a gentleman criminal with few peers in contemporary fiction. <em>--Nicholas H. Allison</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>You'd think that Block, with more than 50 books to his credit, would run out of ideas, but as this 10th in his Burglar series shows (after 1999's <em>The Burglar in the Rye</em>), he's as fresh, witty and inventive as ever. The author builds his plot on stupefying coincidences, but not to worry—everything eventually meshes. A friend asks Bernie Rhodenbarr, confirmed New Yorker, used-book dealer and gentleman burglar, to rob a mob-connected plastic surgeon who stole the friend's mistress. He agrees, and cases the doctor's house in Riverdale, the Bronx. But Bernie is restive and, uncharacteristically (because he plans carefully), he breaks into a Manhattan apartment on a whim and almost gets caught, hiding under the bed while a woman is date-raped. Next day a customer is shot near his bookstore, a mysterious émigré couple is murdered, a former Latvian war criminal is reported in New York and Bernie's apartment is ransacked. These crimes seem unrelated in such a large city, but Bernie finds a common thread. In the end, Bernie assembles 22 people (including lawmen) in the surgeon's living room and, Charlie Chan style, explains each participant's role and, where appropriate, crime. Lesser hands would not bring off this breathtaking performance, but in Block's it's seamless and hilarious. Quirky characters like Bernie's pals Carolyn Kaiser, the dog groomer, and cop Ray Kirschmann; an insider's love of New York; and a slew of wonderful puns add to the fun.<br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3>
<p>Those who long for another new exploit of the immortal Bernie Rhodenbarr, Greenwich Village bookseller by profession and burglar by avocation, should be warned that their wait must be extended. For this is a reissue, after 17 years, of what was originally the third in the series. It's therefore likely to be a new pleasure to Rhodenbarr fans won over by his recent rebirth (The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart) and to fans of Block's Matt Scudder novels. In it, Bernie has just opened Barnegat Books, has just got to know his deeply endearing friend, the lesbian dog groomer Carolyn, and is pressed into service to steal a rare book, allegedly a lost anti-Semitic work of Rudyard Kipling. As usual, he finds himself saddled with a dead body and a maze of twisted motives. And also as usual, Block's stylish narrative flow, humor and pitch-perfect feeling for New York life make getting to the end much more fun than the ultimate solution of the mystery. Until then, it's unalloyed pleasure?and, yes, we're ready for another new one. <br />
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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<h3>From Library Journal</h3>
<p>Block seems to relish the chance to write about the other side of the law when he's not detailing the straight-and-narrow exploits of investigator Matthew Scudder (e.g., A Long Line of Dead Men, Morrow, 1994). Here, the literature-loving burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr (e.g., The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart, Dutton, 1995) is framed for murder after pilfering a Kipling manuscript.<br />
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>If the only side of Lawrence Block you know is the dark and gloomy Matt Scudder books, such as the <em>noir</em> classic __, then you might be surprised to hear that he's also one of the most delightfully droll writers in the mystery business.</p><p>"I hurried uptown and changed into chinos and a short-sleeved shirt that would have been an Alligator except that the embroidered device on the breast was not that reptile but a bird in flight. I guess it was supposed to be a swallow, either winging its way back to Capistrano or not quite making a summer, because the brand name was Swallowtail. It had never quite caught on and I can understand why." That's Bernie Rhodenbarr, used book dealer and gentleman burglar, making a literary fashion statement in this latest return to print of one of Block's best books about him.</p><p>As with the other entries in this admirable series--__, <strong>, </strong>, <strong>, </strong>, <strong>, </strong>--Block manages to be very amusing, moderately suspenseful, and impressively erudite all at the same time. The plot is a complicated tangle of double-cross and deceit surrounding the theft of a valuable painting and two murders. Mondrian isn't the only artist being framed here: Bernie has to use all of his skills--as burglar, lover, and art expert--to prove his (relative) innocence. <em>--Dick Adler</em></p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>It's not that used bookstore owner and part-time burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr believes the less legal of his two professions is particularly ethical. (It is, however, a rush, and he is very good at it.) He just thinks it's unfair to face a prison term for his legitimate activities. After appraising the worth of a rich man's library -- conveniently leaving his fingerprints everywhere in the process -- Bernie finds he's the cops' prime suspect when his client is murdered.</p><p>Someone has framed Bernie Rhodenbarr better than they do it at the Whitney. And if he wants to get out of this corner he's been masterfully painted into, he'll have to get to the bottom of a rather artful -- if multiply murderous -- scam.</p>


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<h3>From Library Journal</h3>
<p>In this classic Bernie Rhodenbarr mystery, long out of print, sneaky thief Bernie turns up a 1913 V-nickel that gets his Spinoza-reading fence, Abel, murdered.<br />
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. 
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<h3>Product Description</h3>
<p>Bookselling burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr doesn't generally get philosophical about his criminal career. He's good at it, it's addictively exciting—and it pays a whole lot better than pushing old tomes. He steals therefore he is, period. 
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<p>He might well ponder, however, the deeper meaning of events at the luxurious Chelsea brownstone of Herb and Wanda Colcannon, which is apparently burgled <em>three times</em> on the night Bernie breaks in: once before his visit and once after. Fortunately he still manages to lift some fair jewelry and an extremely valuable coin. Unfortunately burglar or burglars number three leave Herb unconscious and Wanda dead . . . and the cops think Rhodenbarr dunnit. 
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<p>There's no time to get all existential about it—especially after the coin vanishes and the fence fencing it meets with a most severe end. But Bernie <em>is</em> going to have to do some deep thinking to find a way out of this homicidal conundrum. 
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Bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr's in love—with an exotic Eastern European beauty who shares his obsession with Humphrey Bogart movies. He's in heaven, munching popcorn with his new amour every night at a Bogart Film Festival—until their Casablanca-esque idyll is cut short by his other secret passion: burglary.   When he's hired to pilfer a portfolio of valuable documents from a Park Avenue apartment, Bernie can hardly refuse. But the occupant's early return forces Bernie to flee empty-handed—and he soon finds himself implicated in a murder. Before you can say "who stole the strawberries?" he's hunting for a killer, up to his neck in the outrageous intrigues of a tiny Balkan nation . . . and menaced by more sinister fat men and unsavory toadies than the great Bogie himself butted heads with in pursuit of that darn bird!


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Bernie Rhodenbarr is actually trying to earn an honest living. It's been an entire year since he's entered anyone's abode illegally to help himself to their valuables. But now an unscrupulous landlord's threat to increase Bernie's rent by 1,000% is driving the bookseller and reformed burglar back to a life of crime -- though, in all fairness, it's a very short trip. And when the cops wrongly accuse him of stealing a priceless collection of baseball cards, Bernie's stuck with a worthless alibi since he was busy burgling a different apartment at the time . . . one that happened to contain a dead body locked inside a bathroom.   So Bernie has a dilemma. He can trade a burglary charge for a murder rap. Or he can shuffle all the cards himself and try to find the joker in the deck -- someone, perhaps, who believes that homicide is the real Great American Pastime.


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Bernie Rhodenbarr is a personable chap, a good neighbor, a passable poker player. His chosen profession, however, might not sit well with some. Bernie is a burglar, a good one, effortlessly lifting valuables from the not-so-well-protected abodes of well-to-do New Yorkers like a modern-day Robin Hood. (The poor, as Bernie would be the first to tell you, alas, have nothing worth stealing.) He's not perfect, however; he occasionally makes mistakes. Like accepting a paid assignment from a total stranger to retrieve a particular item from a rich man's apartment. Like still being there when the cops arrive. Like having a freshly slain corpse lying in the next room, and no proof that Bernie isn't the killer. Now he's really got his hands full, having to locate the true perpetrator while somehow eluding the police -- a dirty job indeed, but if Bernie doesn't do it, who will?


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In this first of five volumes of autobiography, poet Maya Angelou recounts a youth filled with disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and finally hard-won independence. Sent at a young age to live with her grandmother in Arkansas, Angelou learned a great deal from this exceptional woman and the tightly knit black community there. These very lessons carried her throughout the hardships she endured later in life, including a tragic occurrence while visiting her mother in St. Louis and her formative years spent in California--where an unwanted pregnancy changed her life forever. Marvelously told, with Angelou's "gift for language and observation," this "remarkable autobiography by an equally remarkable black woman from Arkansas captures, indelibly, a world of which most Americans are shamefully ignorant." </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Grade 10 Up. Two slender volumes that present critical information about popular classic titles. Bloom's introduction is followed by a short biographical sketch of each author and then a detailed thematic and structural analysis that summarizes the novel in question, chapter by chapter. Excerpts from critical essays constitute the major portion of each book. Some of the essays on The Sun center around character analysis, especially of the main female character, Brett Ashley. Other entries include comparisons to other works of literature including F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and discussions of the symbolism, morality, and the work's historical context. Hemingway's own interpretation of the book and a letter from Fitzgerald to Hemingway about its flaws are excerpted. In the second book, the writings explore Angelou's use of language, her narrative technique, unique qualities of Caged Bird, comparisons with other works, and opposition to it. Motherhood, racial pride and self-hatred, rape, and honesty are among the issues explored. While similar material may be found in many other places, these series titles will be useful resources.?Lois McCulley, Wichita Falls High School, TX<br />Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>This is an pedestrian study from the noted and popular religion scholar, in which Armstrong takes a historical approach to myth, tracing its evolution through a series of periods, from the Paleolithic to the postmyth Great Western Transformation. Each period developed myths reflecting its major concerns: images of hunting and the huntress dominated the myths of the Paleolithic, while the myths of Persephone and Demeter, Isis and Osiris developed in the agricultural Neolithic period. By the Axial Age (200 B.C. through A.D. 1500), myths became internalized, so that they no longer needed to be acted out. Reason, says Armstrong, largely supplanted myth in the Post-Axial Period, which she sees as a source of cultural and spiritual impoverishment; she even appears, simplistically, to attribute genocide to the loss of "the sense of sacredness" myth offers. Armstrong goes on to relate that in the 20th century, a number of writers, such as Eliot, Joyce, Mann and Rushdie, recovered the power of myth for contemporary culture. Although the book offers no new perspectives or information on the history of myth, it does provide a functional survey of mythology's history. But a more engaging choice would be Kenneth Davis's <em>Don't Know Much About Mythology </em>(Reviews, Sept. 5). <em>(Nov.)</em> <br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>In this essay, superpopular religion historian Armstrong (_Islam: A Short History_, 2000) fastens the attributes of myth to the major chronological categories of human history. At each transition from the Paleolithic to scientific eras, she argues that a mythical conception of natural forces has drifted ever further from interpretation in pragmatic and logical terms, such that myth in modern times is a beleaguered species of fiction. To Armstrong this state reflects a profound misunderstanding of what myth is and does. Defining it as an art form that, on the assumption of the existence of an invisible realm of reality, protects one against the despair arising from the limitations of the tactile world (death in particular), Armstrong relates how mythology has historically been reformulated. She traces a theogony, illustrating it with examples from Chinese, Middle Eastern, Egyptian, and Greek cultures, as sky worship phased into anthropomorphic gods and then into ethical systems such as those of Confucius or Jesus. Written with great explanatory clarity, Armstrong's review of mythology is an efficient, fascinating experience. <em>Gilbert Taylor</em><br><em>Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved</em></p>

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A bullet speaks louder than words . . . when Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller and LAPD Detective Harry Bosch team up in the new novel by Michael Connelly. Lincoln lawyer Mickey Haller and LAPD Detective Harry Bosch team up in this new novel by Michael Connelly. Things are finally looking up for defence attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next. Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realise their only choice is to work together.


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<h3>From</h3><p><em>Starred Review</em> Connelly may be our most versatile crime writer. His Harry Bosch series has taken the hard-boiled cop novel to a new level of complexity, both in its portrayal of the hero’s inner life and in Connelly’s ability to intertwine landscape and meaning. His Mickey Haller novels, on the other hand, starring the maverick lawyer who uses his Lincoln Town Car as an office, are testaments to the sublime architecture of plot. With the crime novel now commonly rubbing elbows with literary fiction, it sometimes seems that pure story has become a forgotten stepchild. In his Haller novels, Connelly reminds us how satisfying it can be to follow the path of a well-constructed plot. So it is here, in the third Haller novel, which finds the antiestablishment attorney accepting an unlikely offer: a one-time gig as a prosecutor, retrying a case in which a killer’s 24-year-old conviction has been overturned on the basis of DNA. Taking second chair will be Haller’s ex-wife, the formidable Maggie, with Harry Bosch (identified in The Brass Verdict, 2008, as Haller’s half brother) serving as special investigator. The table is set for a straightforward legal thriller, albeit one starring three superbly multidimensional characters. And, yet, Connelly bobs and weaves around all our expectations. There is suspense, of course, and there are plenty of surprises, both in the courtroom and outside of it, but this is a plot that won’t be pigeonholed. Reading this book is like watching a master craftsman, slowly and carefully, brick by brick, build something that holds together exquisitely, form and function in perfect alignment. --Bill Ott </p><h3>Product Description</h3><p>Longtime defense attorney Mickey Haller is recruited to change stripes and prosecute the high-profile retrial of a brutal child murder. After 24 years in prison, convicted killer Jason Jessup has been exonerated by new DNA evidence. Haller is convinced Jessup is guilty, and he takes the case on the condition that he gets to choose his investigator, LAPD Detective Harry Bosch.  </p><p>Together, Bosch and Haller set off on a case fraught with political and personal danger. Opposing them is Jessup, now out on bail, a defense attorney who excels at manipulating the media, and a runaway eyewitness reluctant to testify after so many years.  </p><p>With the odds and the evidence against them, Bosch and Haller must nail a sadistic killer once and for all. If Bosch is sure of anything, it is that Jason Jessup plans to kill again. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Connelly, a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times , transcends the standard L.A. police procedural with this original and eminently authentic first novel. Hieronymus (Harry) Bosch--former hero cop bumped from the L.A. homicide desk to the lowly Beverly Hills squad--gets the call on a drug death at Mulholland Dam. Harry recognizes the corpse as that of a fellow soldier in Vietnam; both were "tunnel rats" who searched for Viet Cong in the network of burrows beneath Vietnamese villages. Investigation connects his old pal to an unsolved bank job--the vault was tunneled into from the storm drains below--and Harry takes his information to the FBI. The Bureau alerts the LAPD, which reactivates internal affairs surveillance (the previous IAD episode is explained throughout the narrative), only to have the FBI backtrack and request Harry as liaison on the case. Paired with beautiful FBI agent Eleanor Wish, Harry makes sense of the Vietnam connection to the bank job--a discovery that puts them both in danger from deadly ex-Marines and a powerful insider from either the LAPD or the FBI itself. Police higher-ups are somewhat cliched, but Connelly avoids L.A. stereotypes and delivers this front-page story with military precision. <br />Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA-- Harry Bosch likes order, contends that there are no coincidences, and keeps meticulous records in his <code>murder book.'' When the body of a former</code>tunnel rat'' from Vietnam is found in a drainpipe, Harry is the detective on duty and is called to the scene. His identification of the body begins an investigation that leads to more murder, bank robbery, heroin, diamonds, and betrayal. Connelly's descriptions of autopsies, murder scenes, and police procedure are vivid and realistic. The use of acronyms and police jargon puts readers in the middle of the action. A real page turner with gutty realism and an unusual twist.<br /><em>- Debbie Hyman, R. E. Lee High School, Springfield, VA</em><br />Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In this fiendishly plotted combination of courtroom drama and police procedural, Connelly's LAPD detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch, introduced in the Edgar-winning The Black Echo , is up against the law as well as his superiors. The widow of Norman Church, a serial killer identified as the Dollmaker, whom Bosch shot to death four years earlier, is suing Bosch on the grounds that he violated her husband's civil rights. Strong but not conclusive evidence linked Church to the serial murders and the case was closed, although Bosch was demoted for not following proper procedures. Here, just before the trial targeting Bosch as a reckless cowboy who shot the wrong man gets underway, the body of perhaps another Dollmaker victim is unearthed from the concrete floor of a burnt-out pool hall. Is the real Dollmaker still alive, or is a copycat killer on the loose? Connelly deftly parcels out clues and possibilities while juggling subtle and detailed courtroom scenes with no-nonsense police investigations that turn up new evidence about the original case. A Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times , he adroitly laces the plot with twists and turns based on details drawn from Bosch's previous adventures. The results of this care show on every page, all to the reader's benefit. <br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>Harry Bosch, hero of the Edgar Award-winning The Black Echo ( LJ 1/92), is in hot water: the family of a serial killer whom Bosch shot during an arrest accuses him of killing the wrong man.<br />Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>LAPD Homicide detective Bosch is back from an involuntary administrative leave just in time for the bodies to start turning up. When he finds hints of an mob hit but can't interest the organized crime unit in the murder, Bosch has to take the investigation into his own hands in a this hard-boiled tale full of sharp turns. Fans of Michael Connelly's excellent, </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>From the opening bars, when the body of Tony Aliso is pulled from the trunk of his Rolls Royce Silver Cloud on Mulholland Drive, to the final grace note on a Hawaiian beach, Connelly has crafted a jazzy, funky, roller coaster of a book. The return of maverick L.A. homicide detective Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch (from 1995's The Last Coyote) is cause for rejoicing. The Aliso murder quickly embroils Bosch and his new team (Kizmin Rider, a young black female officer on the rise in the department; veteran Jerry Edgar; and their boss, Lieutenant Grace Billets) in a Byzantine tangle of Las Vegas mob money, Hollywood filmmaking and police politics. The plot rushes headlong into deadends and deadfalls, repeatedly reorients and tears off in a new direction. Never known for tact, the single-minded Bosch is soon hotfooting through an acronymic snakepit: the LAPD's OCID (Organized Crime Investigation Division); the IAD (Internal Affairs Division); the LVPD's OCU (Las Vegas Police Department's Organized Crime Unit); the FBI. Not only does each organization claim a piece of the action, but each also wants a piece of Bosch. Connelly has it all working together here: skillful dialogue, solid plotting, nuances of race and status and a pace that will leave readers gasping to keep up. Connelly's early promise (The Black Echo earned him the 1993 Edgar for best first novel) has been borne out nicely by succeeding novels. Trunk Music is his best yet. $400,000 ad/promo; author tour. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Jack McEvoy is a Denver crime reporter with the stickiest assignment of his career. His twin brother, homicide detective Sean McEvoy, was found dead in his car from a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head--an Edgar Allen Poe quote smeared on the windshield. Jack is going to write the story. The problem is that Jack doesn't believe that his brother killed himself, and the more information he uncovers, the more it looks like Sean's death was the work of a serial killer. Jack's research turns up similar cases in cities across the country, and within days, he's sucked into an intense FBI investigation of an Internet pedophile who may also be a cop killer nicknamed the Poet. It's only a matter of time before the Poet kills again, and as Jack and the FBI team struggle to stay ahead of him, the killer moves in, dangerously close.</p><p>In a break from his Harry Bosch novels--including <strong> and </strong>--Edgar-winning novelist Michael Connelly creates a new hero who is a lot greener but no less believable. <em>The Poet</em> will keep readers holding their breath until the very end: the characters are multilayered, the plot compelling, and the denouement a true surprise. Connelly fans will not be disappointed. <em>--Mara Friedman</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In a departure from his crime novels featuring LAPD's Harry Bosch, Connelly (The Last Coyote) sets Denver journalist Jack McEvoy on an intricate case where age-old evils come to flower within Internet technology. Jack's twin brother, Sean, a Denver homicide detective obsessed with the mutilation murder of a young woman, is discovered in his car, dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot, with a cryptic note written on the windshield. Jack's investigation uncovers a series of cop suicides across the country, all of which have in common both the cops' deep concerns over recent cases and their last messages, which have been taken, he quickly determines, from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. As his information reopens cases in Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, New Mexico and Florida, Jack joins up with a team from the FBI's Behavioral Science Section, which includes sharp, attractive agent Rachel Walling. Connections between the dead cops, the cases they were working on and the FBI profile of a pedophile whom readers know as William Gladden occur at breakneck speed, as Jack and the team race to stay ahead of the media. Edgar-winning Connelly keeps a surprise up his sleeve until the very end of this authoritatively orchestrated thriller, when Jack finds himself in California, caught at the center of an intricate web woven from advanced computer technology and more elemental drives. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Best-selling author Michael Connelly, whose character-driven literary mysteries have earned him a wide following, breaks from the gate in the over-crowded field of legal thrillers and leaves every other contender from Grisham to Turow in the dust with this tightly plotted, brilliantly paced, impossible-to-put-down novel. </p><p>Criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller's father was a legendary lawyer whose clients included gangster Mickey Cohen (in a nice twist, Cohen's gun, given to Dad then bequeathed to his son, plays a key role in the plot). But Dad also passed on an important piece of advice that's especially relevant when Mickey takes the case of a wealthy Los Angeles realtor accused of attempted murder: "The scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you [screw] up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life." </p><p>Louis Roulet, Mickey's "franchise client" (so-called becaue he's able and willing to pay whatever his defense costs) seems to be the one his father warned him against, as well as being a few rungs higher on the socio-economic ladder than the drug dealers, homeboys, and motorcycle thugs who comprise Mickey's regular case load. But as the holes in Roulet's story tear Mickey's theory of the case to shreds, his thoughts turn more to Jesus Menendez, a former client convicted of a similar crime who's now languishing in San Quentin. Connelly tellingly delineates the code of legal ethics Mickey lives by: "It didn't matter...whether the defendant 'did it' or not. What mattered was the evidence against him--the proof--and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt." But by the time his client goes to trial, Mickey's feeling a few very reasonable doubts of his own. </p><p>While Mickey's courtroom pyrotechnics dazzle, his behind-the-scenes machinations and manipulations are even more incendiary in this taut, gripping novel, which showcases all of Connelly's literary gifts. There's not an excess sentence or padded paragraph in it--what there is, happily, is a character who, like Harry Bosch, deserves a franchise series of his own. <em>--Jane Adams</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p><em>Starred Review.</em> Veteran bestseller Connelly enters the crowded legal thriller field with flash and panache. Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller regularly represents lowlifes, but he's no slickster trolling for loopholes in the ethics laws. He's haunted by how he mishandled the case of (probably innocent) Jesus Menendez, and, though twice divorced, he's on good terms with his ex-wives; one of them manages his office, and the other, an ambitious assistant DA, occasionally tumbles back into bed with him. When Mickey signs on to defend young real estate agent Louis Roulet against charges of assault, he can't help seeing dollar signs: Roulet's imperious mother will spend any amount to prove her beloved son's innocence. But probing the details of the case, Mickey and private investigator Raul Levin dig up a far darker picture of Roulet's personality and his past. Levin's murder and a new connection to the Menendez case make Mickey wonder if he's in over his head, and his defense of Roulet becomes a question of morality as well as a test of his own survival. After Connelly spends the book's first half involving the reader in Mickey's complex world, he thrusts his hero in the middle of two high-stakes duels, against the state and his own client, for heart-stopping twists and topflight storytelling. <em>(Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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From #1 bestseller Michael Connelly's first career as a prizewinning crime reporter--the gripping, true stories that inspired and informed his novels. Before he became a novelist, Michael Connelly was a crime reporter, covering the detectives who worked the homicide beat in Florida and Los Angeles. In vivid, hard-hitting articles, Connelly leads the reader past the yellow police tape as he follows the investigators, the victims, their families and friends--and, of course, the killers--to tell the real stories of murder and its aftermath. Connelly's firsthand observations would lend inspiration to his novels, from The Black Echo, which was drawn from a real-life bank heist, to Trunk Music, based on an unsolved case of a man found in the trunk of his Rolls Royce. And the vital details of his best-known characters, both heroes and villains, would be drawn from the cops and killers he reported on: from loner detective Harry Bosch to the manipulative serial killer the Poet. Stranger than fiction and every bit as gripping, these pieces show once again that Michael Connelly is not only a master of his craft, but also one of the great American writers in any form.


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In his fourth outing, LAPD Homicide Detective Harry Bosch (The Concrete Blonde, et al.) confronts deep family, police and political secrets as he probes an unsolved murder of decades earlier. Smart, tough, laconic and, under all that, compassionate, Harry lives by a code according to which "Everybody counts or nobody counts... whether [the victim is] a prostitute or the mayor's wife." He begins this case in a departmental shrink's office, after having been suspended for attacking his commanding officer; his girlfriend has left him, and he's living in a house that's been condemned after an earthquake. In the enforced freedom from his job, he reopens the 30-year-old unsolved murder of an L.A. call girl?his mother. Skirting illegality along the way to the resolution, he unearths a lot of buried secrets and pain?not least to his own 11-year-old self. Nobody here is pure (a couple of people are truly nasty), but all the characters are believable, as are even the quirkier plot turns. Edgar-winner Connelly smoothly mixes Harry's detecting forays with his therapy sessions to dramatize how, sometimes, the biggest mystery is the self. BOMC alternate. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Library Journal</h3><p>After being put on involuntary stress leave for attacking his boss, LAPD detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch tackles the 30-plus-year-old murder case of a Hollywood prostitute?his mother. Bummed out by the failure of his latest romance as well, Harry faces a deeper, psychological crisis: his life's "mission" may end if he solves the case. Harry continues, nonetheless, soon discovering that the police and politically powerful others purposely glossed over his mother's murder. With prose that cuts to the quick, a masterfully interwoven plot, and gripping suspense, Connelly renders a fitting sequel to The Black Echo (LJ 1/92).<br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Book Description</strong><br />Forced out of the Los Angeles Times amid the latest budget cuts, newspaperman Jack McEvoy decides to go out with a bang, using his final days at the paper to write the definitive murder story of his career. </p><p>He focuses on Alonzo Winslow, a 16-year-old drug dealer in jail after confessing to a brutal murder. But as he delves into the story, Jack realizes that Winslow's so-called confession is bogus. The kid might actually be innocent. </p><p>Jack is soon running with his biggest story since The Poet made his career years ago. He is tracking a killer who operates completely below police radar--and with perfect knowledge of any move against him. Including Jack's. </p><hr /><p><strong>Michael Connelly and Janet Evanovich: Author One-to-One</strong><br />In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together blockbuster authors Michael Connelly and Janet Evanovich and asked them to interview each other. Find out what two of the top authors of their genres have to say about their characters, writing process, and more. Janet Evanovich is the bestselling author of the <em>How I Write: Secrets of a Bestselling Author</em>. Read on to see Janet Evanovich's questions for Michael Connelly, or </p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: So dude,... Okay, you're back in Florida. Do you ever get to the beach? And when and if you get to the beach...is Harry Bosch with you? And what kind of beachwear are you guys sporting? Flip-flops? Crocs? Speedo? Board shorts?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: I go to the beach often on weekends. Board shorts are required and I wear flip-flops with the built in bottle opener. Comes in handy. In Florida we rarely have waves, unless there is a hurricane in the Gulf. So I have taken up paddle-boarding, which essentially involves a big surfboard that you stand on and paddle. Still a balancing act, but easier than surfing, and you don't need waves.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: What will a bookstore look like in 2020? Will we all be downloading?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: Good question. Since it is only eleven years from now, I think there will still be a solid population of "old school" readers who need the book in their hands. The question is, will they get it at a bookstore or will we have a Kindle 9.0 device that manufactures a book for you at home, complete with photo of author in a bomber jacket.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: If everybody is downloading in 2020 what the heck will we be signing on book tour? Body parts? Kindle cases?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: I signed two Kindles yesterday. One person asked me to leave room for signatures from you and Dennis Lehane. So next time you're in Seattle she'll be in your line.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: Do you eat when you write? Beer nuts? M&amp;Ms? Just coffee? What keeps you from falling out of the chair in a narcoleptic stupor?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: Have you ever seen what eating Cheetos can do to a keyboard? I have to say I am addicted to Coke. I always have a glass of it nearby. I eat a lot of candy, too. Keeps me going. Smarties are a great writing tool. I often need to raid my daughter's stash and then there is trouble on the home front.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: Are you a messy guy or a neat guy? Do you keep clutter on your desk? In your head? Are there soda cans and crumpled fast food wrappers rolling around on the floor of your car?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: I keep a clean car but a desk that gets progressively messier as I write a book. When I am finished with the book, I clean up the desk—and eat all the stray Smarties found under the paperwork. The clean desk then promotes the start of the next book.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: The new book, </p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: They let me do what I want. I like writing about Harry Bosch and he's pretty popular, but usually when I write a standalone it widens the audience a bit.</p><p><strong>Evanovich</strong>: Want to meet me in a bar in Ft. Myers? Is that halfway?</p><p><strong>Connelly</strong>: Name the place. </p><hr /><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Bestseller Connelly comments on the plight of print journalism in a nail-biting thriller featuring reporter Jack McEvoy, last seen in 2004's <em>The Narrows</em>. When Jack is laid off from the <em>L.A. Times</em> with 14 days' notice to tie up loose ends, he decides to go out with a bang. What starts as a story about the wrongful arrest of a young gangbanger for the brutal rape and murder of an exotic dancer turns out to be just the tip of an iceberg that takes McEvoy from the Nevada desert to a futuristic data-hosting facility in Arizona. FBI agent Rachel Walling, with whom he worked on a serial killer case in 1996's <em>The Poet</em>, soon joins the hunt, but as the pair uncover more about the killer and his unsettling predilections, they realize that they too are being hunted. With every switch between McEvoy's voice and the villain's, Connelly ratchets up the tension. This magnificent effort is a reminder of why Connelly is one of today's top crime authors. <em>8-city author tour. (May)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Bestseller Connelly's compelling 12th Harry Bosch novel (after 2005's <em>The Closers</em>) offers some new wrinkles on a familiar theme—the aging detective haunted by the one who got away. In Bosch's case, the elusive quarry is the man who abducted a 22-year-old equestrian, Marie Gesto, in 1993. Having returned to active duty as a member of the LAPD Open-Unsolved Unit, Bosch repeatedly pulls the file to see if he can discover something new and give some small solace to the victim's parents. When a chance police stop of a suspicious vehicle nets serial killer Raynard Waits, who's carrying body parts in his van, Bosch assesses the murderer's claim that he was responsible for killing Gesto, too. The weary and cynical detective soon suspects that Waits is trying to barter information for a reduced sentence of life imprisonment. Political motivations connected with the upcoming DA election also cloud the investigation. Smooth prose and plausible characters—even the secondary figures—elevate this several notches above the standard cop vs. serial-killer thriller. <em>Author tour. (Oct.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Harry Bosch has been around since the Edgar Award?winning <em>The Black Echo </em>(1992), and critics agree that neither he nor the police-procedural series has lost of any of their original luster. Instead, they're both getting better with age. As in previous installments, both character and plot drive <em>Echo Park</em>: Harry's passion for the case and his guilt at having not found the killer before more murders occurred create a flawed, convincing hero. Michael Connelly's sharp eye for Los Angeles, from Sunset Boulevard to Beachwood Canyon and Echo Park, also kept critics turning the pages. Overall, _Echo Park <em>"is a richly imagined and finely crafted piece that grabs the reader on Page One and locks him but a half-step behind Bosch on every page that follows" (</em>Denver Post_). </p><p><em>Copyright © 2004 Phillips &amp; Nelson Media, Inc.</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>LAPD detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch, protagonist of the highly praised mystery The Black Echo , returns in a procedural thriller set in and around the drug-trafficking underworlds of inner-city Los Angeles and the wastelands of Mexico. When Bosch arrives at a sleazy hotel room where a fellow officer has committed suicide, he senses that something is awry. Noncommittal superior officers, a diffident widow and tales linking the dead man to a newly created street drug called "black ice" (heroin, crack and PCP rolled into one) send Bosch down a winding trail of forensic impossibilities, brutally violent drug traffickers and an ultimately shocking case of mistaken identity. Award-winning Connelly's second fictional effort is strong and sure. His pacing could be better--too often he conveys the same information twice--but his plot and characters more than make up for a slow start. This novel establishes him as a writer with a superior talent for storytelling. <br />Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From Kirkus Reviews</h3><p>Second tense, tightly wound tangle of a case for Hieronymous Bosch (The Black Echo, 1991). This time out, the LAPD homicide cop, who's been exiled to Hollywood Division for his bumptious behavior, sniffs out the bloody trail of the designer drug <code></code>black ice.'' Connelly (who covers crime for the Los Angeles Times) again flexes his knowledge of cop ways--and of cop-novel clich‚s. Cast from the hoary mold of the maverick cop, Bosch pushes his way onto the story's core case--the apparent suicide of a narc--despite warnings by top brass to lay off. Meanwhile, Bosch's boss, a prototypical pencil-pushing bureaucrat hoping to close out a majority of Hollywood's murder cases by New Year's Day, a week hence, assigns the detective a pile of open cases belonging to a useless drunk, Lou Porter. One of the cases, the slaying of an unidentified Hispanic, seems to tie in to the death of the narc, which Bosch begins to read as murder stemming from the narc's dirty involvement in black ice. When Porter is murdered shortly after Bosch speaks to him, and then the detective's love affair with an ambitious pathologist crashes, Bosch decides to head for Mexico, where clues to all three murders point. There, the well-oiled, ten- gear narrative really picks up speed as Bosch duels with corrupt cops; attends the bullfights; breaks into a fly-breeding lab that's the distribution center for Mexico's black-ice kingpin; and takes part in a raid on the kingpin's ranch that concludes with Bosch waving his jacket like a matador's cape at a killer bull on the rampage. But the kingpin escapes, leading to a not wholly unexpected twist--and to a touching assignation with the dead narc's widow. Expertly told, and involving enough--but lacking the sheer artistry and heart-clutching thrills of, say, David Lindsay's comparable Stuart Haydon series (Body of Evidence, etc.). -- <em>Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.</em></p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Cassie Black is an ex-con who needs to make one more score in order to fulfill the dream that sustained her in prison. Cassie Black has never looked back. She walked away from her life as a criminal after one disastrous night that left the man closest to her dead and her life in a shambles. Now she's thriving at a job selling Porsches to Hollywood hotshots. Through everything - even her darkest moments - she has been able to keep going by holding on to one perfect thing, her greatest secret, dearer to her than life itself. When that secret is threatened, Cassie tosses her new life away like a bad hand of cards and goes back in a sprint to her old line of work. Her trade was robbing casino gamblers, and she was the very best. Now it's the only way she can make enough money fast to maybe make everything right. Quickly she lines up a mark, a man who has been winning steadily for a week at high-stakes baccarat. The job goes smoothly until she opens his briefcase ... And discovers a world of trouble she never dreamed of. Her superstitious friend who lined up the job says it's the bad-luck void moon having its malignant way. Cassie knows it's worse. She's crossed paths again with her life's nemesis, the man who destroyed everything six years before. He's Jack Karch, a private investigator by day who does bloody work for casino owners by night. Walking back into his sights is the worst thing that's ever happened to Cassie. Getting out alive will take all her skill and luck and faith in that one good thing ...</p>


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<div><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Award-winning former crime reporter Connelly (The Black Echo; City of Bones) hits all the right notes with this latest in his Edgar-winning mystery series featuring L.A. detective Harry Bosch. Even though this marks the ninth outing for Harry, the principled, incorruptible investigator shows little sign of slowing in his unrelenting pursuit of justice for all. Disillusioned by his constant battle with police hypocrisy and bureaucracy, Harry quits the department after 28 years on the job. Like so many ex-cops before him, he finds retirement boring: "I was staying up late, staring at the walls and drinking too much red wine." He decides to take advantage of his newly minted private-eye license and get back to work. The case he chooses-one that he had been briefly involved in four years before-is the puzzling unsolved murder of 24-year-old Angella Benton. Angella's death is linked to the theft of $2 million from a film company foolishly employing real cash as a prop on an action-movie set. Harry patiently follows the bloody trail from Angella's violated body through the Hollywood heist to the disappearance of an FBI computer expert and the shooting of two LAPD cops. His investigation eventually leads him to the elite terrorist hunters of the new Department of Homeland Security. Few will follow every twist and turn of the labyrinthine plot, but no matter. The fun comes in watching Harry slowly and brilliantly separate the seemingly impossibly knotted strands and then knit them back into whole cloth. This exciting procedural is as good as any in the series, and Connelly's concluding coda has a kicker about Harry's private life that will draw gasps of astonishment from longtime readers.<br>Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Adult/High School-After more than 25 years with the L.A. Police Department, recently retired Harry Bosch decides to finish the murder investigation of Angella Benton, a case he had been quickly pulled off more than four years earlier. Gaining additional background information from a former colleague, now a quadriplegic as a result of having been shot during the investigation, Harry begins contacting any and all of the people who could have facts pertaining to the crime. He believes that the murder is tied to a film scene and $2 million in cash, and that the entire caper was ingeniously set up well in advance. With dogged determination, he risks his life more than once to prove his theory correct. Connelly expertly weaves the many complex story parts together, resulting in an action-packed ending. As in real life, all aspects of the case must be researched thoroughly, and the bulk of the novel involves the time-consuming, labor-intensive effort that goes into finding answers. Several subplots-including ones involving jazz, Harry's ex-wife, and another murder-help to round out characters, inject other interests, and relieve the intensity of solving the murder. Young adults who read true crime and forensics, or who are interested in police procedures, will surely pick this one up.<br><em>Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA</em><br>Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p>

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<div><h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Since his first appearance in 1992's Edgar-winning __, Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch has joined </p><p>In <em>City of Bones</em>, Connelly's eighth Bosch title, Bosch and his well-dressed partner, Jerry Edgar, are working to identify a child's skeleton, buried for 20 years in the forest off Hollywood's Wonderland Drive, and to bring the killer to belated justice. For Bosch this is more than just another homicide, as the mystery child, beaten and abandoned, comes to represent much of what he sees as evil in his city. Add in a tragic love affair with a fellow cop, complications from overzealous media, and the growing feeling that he's fighting a losing battle about which no one cares, and the usually stoic Bosch is pushed to his limits. This isn't the strongest plot Connelly has concocted for Bosch, but it leads to an ending the whole series has been building toward. The conclusion may not shock longtime fans, but it will leave them wondering where the series will go from here. <em>--Benjamin Reese</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Harry Bosch is at the top of his form which is great news for Connelly fans who might have been wondering how much life the dour, haunted LAPD veteran had left in him. His latest adventure is as dark and angst-ridden as any of Bosch's past outings, but it also crackles with energy especially in the details of police procedure and internal politics that animate virtually every page. What other crime writer could make such dramatic use of the fact that the front door of a house trailer swings out rather than in, creating problems for a two-man team of detectives? Who else would create to such credible narrative effect an egotistic celebrity coroner who jeopardizes an investigation because she lets a TV camera crew from Court TV follow her around, or an overage female rookie cop so in love with danger that she commits an unthinkable act? When the bones of an abused 12-year-old boy who disappeared in 1980 turn up in the woods above Hollywood (near a street named Wonderland, where former governor Jerry Brown used to live), the case stirs up Bosch's memories of his own troubled childhood. Also, as his captain so aptly points out, Harry is the LAPD's prime "shit magnet," an investigator who attracts muck and trouble wherever he goes. So it's no great surprise when the investigation takes a couple of nasty turns, right up through the last chapter. Connelly is such a careful, quiet writer that he can slow down the story to sketch in some relatively minor characters a retired doctor, a couple who lived through their foster children without missing a beat. (One-day laydown Apr. 16)Forecast: Connelly doesn't need much help in hitting the charts, but Little, Brown is going all out anyway, with a massive television, radio and print ad campaign, transit ads in New York and a 10-city author tour. Expect blockbuster sales and blockbuster satisfaction. <br>Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. </p>

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SUMMARY:
Gabriel Allon hasn't been back to Vienna since his wife and child died there in a terrorist bombing. But when his mentor in the Israeli intelligence agency dispatches him to the Austrian capitol to investigate a murderous explosion at the Wartime Claims and Inquiry Office, his presence alerts the attention of police officials who have reasons to stand in the way of his investigation. When a concentration camp survivor is killed who could link the father of Austria's next chancellor to Nazi atrocities and an ongoing coverup by the Catholic Church, Allon discovers another connection to the conspiracy, this one closer to his own past than he could ever have imagined. This is the third of Silva's thrillers featuring Allon, the art restorer who's also a spy (The Confessor and The English Assassin are the first two). In an endnote, the author calls them a "completed cycle dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust." Allon is such a compelling hero that one hopes Silva, a skilled craftsman and a terrific story-teller, will bring him back in another series. --Jane Adams


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

**The extraordinary new Gabriel Allon novel from the “gold standard” (*The Dallas Morning News*) of thriller writers**.



 Over the course of ten previous novels, Daniel Silva has established himself as one of the world’s finest writers of international intrigue and espionage— “a worthy successor to such legends as Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré” (*Chicago Sun-Times*)—and Gabriel Allon as “one of the most intriguing heroes of any thriller series” (*The Philadelphia Inquirer*).



 Now the death of a journalist leads Allon to Russia, where he finds that, in terms of spycraft, even he has something to learn. He’s playing by Moscow rules now.



 This is not the grim, gray Moscow of Soviet times but a new Moscow, awash in oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. A Moscow where power resides once more behind the walls of the Kremlin and where critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. A Moscow where a new generation of Stalinists is plotting to reclaim an empire lost and to challenge the global dominance of its old enemy, the United States.



 One such man is Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who built a global investment empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Hidden within that empire, however, is a more lucrative and deadly business: Kharkov is an arms dealer—and he is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al- Qaeda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11—and the clock is ticking fast.



 Filled with rich prose and breathtaking turns of plot, *Moscow Rules* is at once superior entertainment and a searing cautionary tale about the new threats rising to the East—and Silva’s finest novel yet.


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Few recent thriller writers have excited the kind of critical praise that Daniel Silva has, with his novels featuring art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon. Now Allon is back in Venice, when a terrible explosion in Rome leads to a disturbing personal revelation: the existence of a dossier in the hands of terrorists that strips away his secrets, lays bare his history. Hastily recalled home to Israel, drawn once more into the heart of a service he had once forsaken, Gabriel Allon finds himself stalking an elusive master terrorist across a landscape drenched in generations of blood, along a trail that keeps turning in upon itself, until, finally, he can no longer be certain who is stalking whom. And when at last the inevitable showdown comes, it's not Gabriel alone who is threatened with destruction-for it is not his history alone that has been laid bare. A knife-edged thriller of astonishing intricacy and feeling, filled with exhilarating prose, this is Daniel Silva's finest novel yet.


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Gabriel Allon, Daniel Silva's protagonist in an interesting series about a Mossad spy who doubles as an art restorer, returns in a fascinating tale of Vatican complicity in the Holocaust. Author Silva, a political journalist turned espionage writer, has done his homework on some recently unearthed documents and written a fast-paced novel that will reawaken the discussion regarding whether the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities against Jews in occupied countries during World War II, and if so, why. Allon remains an enigmatic figure whose desire for revenge against the Leopard, the assassin who killed his wife and child, compels him to put down his paints and brushes and take arms against Israel's past and present enemies. The Confessor is a solidly plotted, well-crafted story that will appeal to fans of Allen Furst, John le Carré, and other standouts in the international espionage genre. --Jane Adams


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

*The Unlikely Spy*, Daniel Silva's extraordinary debut novel, was  applauded by critics as it rocketed onto national bestseller lists.  Now Silva has outdone himself, with a taut, lightning-paced thriller  rooted assuredly in fact: Switzerland's shameful WWII record of  profiteering and collaboration with Nazi Germany.    

When art restorer and occasional Israeli agent Gabriel Allon is  sent to Zurich, Switzerland, to restore the painting of a reclusive  millionaire banker, he arrives to find his would-be employer murdered  at the foot of his Raphael. A secret collection of priceless,  illicitly gained Impressionist masterpieces is missing. Gabriel's  handlers step out of the shadows to admit the truth-the collector had  been silenced-and Gabriel is put back in the high-stakes spy game,  battling wits with the rogue assassin he helped to train.    Tense, taut, expertly crafted, and brimming with unexpected  reversals, *The English Assassin* is Daniel Silva at his  storytelling best.


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Fans of Daniel Silva's well-received earlier novels, especially The Marching Season, will welcome his newest novel of espionage, revenge, and Middle Eastern politics. Gabriel Allon is an art restorer who's persuaded out of retirement by Ari Shamron, the crafty Israeli spymaster bent on a deadly mission: killing a Palestinian agent named Tariq before he can carry out his plan to assassinate an old comrade-in-arms, the treacherous peacemaker Yasir Arafat. Tariq's role in the murder of Gabriel's wife and son draws both Gabriel and Sarah Halevy, the beautiful French model whose affair with Gabriel led to the assassination of his family. Still in love with Gabriel, Sarah allows herself to be set up with a cover and infiltrated into Tariq's inner circle. But before Gabriel can rescue her and fulfill his mission, Tariq turns the tables to get his old adversary as well as Arafat in his own sights. A particularly resonant scene in which Tariq and Arafat confront each other and discuss their former friendship, as well as the change in tactics that has brought Tariq to the ultimate betrayal, reveals Silva's deep comprehension of Palestinian rivalries. He puts a clever little fillip on the ending that adds to the brio of this strongly paced thriller. Silva creates complex, fascinating characters in Gabe, Ari, and Tariq, and more than fulfills the promise of his earlier books. --Jane Adams


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Allon is recovering from his grueling showdown with a Palestinian master terrorist, when terrorism comes to find him once again. An al-Qaeda suspect is killed in London, and photographs are found on his computer-photographs that lead Israeli intelligence to suspect that al-Qaeda is planning one of its most audacious attacks ever. To Allon, there is something terribly familiar about the information, something horrifyingly close--but even he does not realize how close. Urgently, he throws himself into the hunt, but there may simply not be enough of anything: enough time, enough facts, enough luck. An extraordinary enemy walks among them . . . and he's just getting started. Filled with remarkable characters and breathtaking double and triple turns of plot, The Messenger solidifies Silva's reputation as his generations' finest writer of international thrillers.


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EDITORIAL REVIEW:

He has been called his generation's finest writer of international intrigue, one of America's most gifted spy novelists ever, and the successor to Graham Greene and John le CarrŽ. But with his follow-up to the 2006 electrifying number one bestseller *The Messenger*, Daniel Silva has written his most compelling and entertaining novel to date.    

When last we encountered Gabriel Allon, the master art restorer and sometime officer of Israeli intelligence, he had just prevailed in his blood-soaked duel with Saudi terrorist financier Zizi al-Bakari. Now Gabriel is summoned once more by his masters to undertake what appears to be a routine assignment: travel to Amsterdam to purge the archives of a murdered Dutch terrorism analyst who also happened to be an asset of Israeli intelligence. But once in Amsterdam, Gabriel soon discovers a conspiracy of terror festering in the city's Islamic underground, a plot that is about to explode on the other side of the English Channel, in the middle of London.     

The target of this plot is Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James's, who is to be brutally kidnapped. Gabriel arrives seconds too late to save her. And by revealing his face to the plot's masterminds, his fate is sealed as well. Drawn once more into the service of American intelligence, Gabriel hurls himself into a desperate search for the missing woman as the clock ticks steadily toward the hour of her execution. It will take him from Amsterdam to Germany to the very end of Denmark. It will thrust him into an unlikely alliance with a man who has lost everything because of his devotion to Islam. It will cause him to question the morality of the tactics of his trade. And it might very well cost him his life.    

Filled with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot, and a final mind-bending sequence that will leave readers breathless, *The Secret Servant* is not only a work of supreme entertainment, but also an exploration of some of the most daunting issues of our times: the war on terrorism, the weapons the West uses to wage it, and the time bomb now ticking in the heart of Western Europe.


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<p class="description">SUMMARY: Gabriel Allon returns in the spellbinding new novel from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author. Two families, one terrible secret, and a painting to die for... It has been six months since Gabriel's showdown with Ivan Kharkov. Now, having severed his ties with the Office, Gabriel has retreated to the Cornish coast with only one thing in mind: healing his wife, Chiara, after her encounter with evil. But an unspeakable act of violence once again draws Gabriel into a world of danger when an art restorer is brutally murdered and the newly discovered Rembrandt on which he is working taken. Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to trace the painting and those responsible for the crimes; but, as he investigates, he discovers there are terrible secrets connected to the painting, and terrible men behind them. Before he is done, he will have undertaken a journey through some of the twentieth century's darkest history-and come face-to-face with some of the same darkness within himself.</p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>In this debut novel, veteran journalist Silva mines the reliable territory of World War II espionage to produce a gripping, historically detailed thriller. In early 1944 the Allies were preparing their invasion of Normandy; critical to the invasion's success was an elaborate set of deceptions--from phony radio signals to bogus airfields and barracks--intended to keep Hitler in the dark about when and where the Allied troops would arrive. Catherine Blake is the beautiful, ruthless spy who could bring the whole charade crashing down; Alfred Vicary is the brilliant but bumbling professor Churchill has tapped to protect the operation. Along with a teeming cast of other characters, real and fictional, they bring the chase to a furious and satisfying climax. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Will Nazi spies escape from Britain with Allied plans for the imminent invasion of Normandy? As history tells us, obviously not?so the challenge for veteran journalist and CNN producer Silva in his first novel is to brew up enough intrigue and tension to make readers forget the obvious. While Silva employs multiple characters and settings, his key players are an English counterintelligence officer and a beautiful Nazi spy. Alfred Vicary is an academic recruited to work for MI5. The intelligence reports he fabricates and sends to Germany are designed to persuade the Nazis that their utterly compromised spy network, the Abwehr, is still fully operational. MI5 learns, however, that the Abwehr has been keeping a few sleeper operatives under deep cover throughout the war. Now they pose a serious threat to the invasion plans. One of these operatives is Catherine Blake, a ruthless assassin and spy. Her assignment is to become romantically involved with Peter Jordan, an American engineer working on a top-secret D-Day project. Will Vicary be able to stop her? Silva's characters are strong; but, despite occasional bursts of high suspense and a body count to remember, his overall pacing is uneven, and most readers won't forget that D-Day succeeded. The final plot twist, moreover, while unpredictable, seems more logical than shocking. Silva's debut will find an audience among devoted readers of WWII thrillers, and deservedly so, but he's not yet on a par with such masters of the genre as Ken Follett, Robert Harris and Jack Higgins. 150,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; BOMC alternate selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection; simultaneous BDD audio; foreign rights to 16 countries; author tour. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<p class="description">SUMMARY:<br>Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. Born in Richland, Washington, in 1951, Orson Scott Card grew up in California, Arizona, and Utah. He lived in Brazil for two years as an unpaid missionary for the Mormon Church and received degrees from Brigham Young University (1975) and the University of Utah (1981). The author of numerous books, Card was the first writer to receive both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel two years in a row, first for "Ender's Game" and then for the sequel "Speaker for the Dead." He lives with his wife and children in North Carolina. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? And what if Ender is merely the brilliant result of genetic experiments? The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. An increasingly popular and relevant novel that risks and achieves and delivers more than most anything else within the science fiction genre, "Ender's Game" is a contemporary classic--a work, as Gene Wolf has written, that "will still be finding new readers when 99 percent of the books published this year are completely forgotten." "'Intense' is the word for "Ender's Game.""--"The New York Times" "An affecting novel full of surprises that seem inevitable once they are explained. The key, of course, is Ender Wiggin himself. Mr. Card never makes the mistake of patronizing or sentimentalizing his hero. Alternately likable and insufferable, his is a convincing little Napoleon in short pants."--Gerald Jonas, "The New York Times Book Review" "A gripping tale of adventure in space and a scathing indictment of the military mind."--"Library Journal" "This twenty-five-year-old science fiction classic [is] unlike many hardcore SF titles [in that it] is particularly appropriate for a younger audience, for its protagonist, Ender Wiggin, is just six years old at the novel's beginning and still a pre-teen at its end. Ender's parents have received a special dispensation to have a third child in spite of strict population control laws. [Ender's] brilliant older siblings, Peter and Valentine, have each showed great promise, but each falls just short of having 'the right stuff.' The International Fleet (I.F.) believes that Ender may be the commander they need to lead great armies against invasion by alien 'buggers.' When Ender does exhibit the desired combination of compassion and cruelty, the I.F. takes him to the distant Battle School, where brilliant children are trained in military strategy and tactics. The centerpiece of their education is a simulated battle game at which Ender quickly excels, eventually becoming the youngest commander in history. Life at Battle School, especially [its many] battle games, is richly described. Ender is portrayed as just a pawn in the larger game being played by the I.F., and readers will alternately sympathize with his exploitation and cheer when he is able to make friends in spite of the tremendous forces working to isolate and dehumanize him . . . For the most part, this novel will deservedly reach a new generation."--Norah Piehl, "Children's Literature" "Card has taken the venerable SF concepts of a superman and interstellar war against aliens, and, with superb characterization, pacing, and language, combined them into a seamless story of compelling power. This is Card at the height of his very considerable powers--a major SF novel by any reasonable standards."--"Booklist"</p>


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<div><p class="description">EDITORIAL REVIEW:</p>
<p class="description">On the first day of May, one hundred teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as "The Long Walk." If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying.</p></div>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>As in her earlier novels, Shreve (Eden Close) affectingly explores themes of love and loss with piercing clarity, once again capturing the fragile emotions of those in pain. Here, however, she moves from her customary domestic, contemporary milieu to WWII Europe?to the Belgian village of Delahaut, where young Claire Daussois and her husband, Henri, are members of an underground resistance movement. When a British plane goes down outside the town in December 1943, the plucky 10-year-old Jean Benoit finds a survivor, Ted Brice, hides him in his father's barn and then summons the aid of Mme. Daussois. As she has done with other refugees, Claire shelters the 22-year-old captain in her attic. When it becomes necessary for Henri to go into hiding, Claire and Ted embark on a brief affair, a passionate liaison made more poignant by its simultaneous inevitability and futility. With deceptive simplicity and superb control, Shreve evokes the impersonal horrors of wartime and its heartbreaking personal tragedies?often combining those elements to almost overwhelming effect, as when Jean witnesses the execution of several townspeople as reprisal for their resistance activities. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>YA?In December 1943, an American fighter plane is downed near a small village in Belgium. The pilot, Lt. Ted Brice, is rescued by a member of the local resistance movement. As he is hidden in the small attic at the home of Claire Daussois, he becomes acutely aware of the danger to himself as well as his hostess and her husband. A bond develops between Claire and Ted during his 20-day stay that changes both of their lives forever. Through this fast-paced novel, YAs will gain insight into the unthinkable horrors of World War II-German retribution, village collaborators, and local resistance workers. Shreve describes the landscape and the local residents in such detail that readers will quickly become involved in the lives of the characters.?Roberta Lisker, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA<br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From</h3><p>It was to have been the triumphant swan song for a revered Italian film director—the premiere in Rome of his long-awaited movie version of Dante’s Inferno. But before the lights go down, chaos reigns: a man is dead, the film’s star has disappeared, and a priceless relic, Dante’s death mask, has been stolen. The trail leads to San Francisco, where Rome police detective Nic Costa, along with partner Gianni Peroni and their boss, Leo Falcone, are part of a team charged with ensuring the safety of other relics that will be part of an exhibit at Golden Gate Park set to open in tandem with the rescheduled premiere. But, of course, Hewson’s three maverick detectives want to get involved in the murder investigation itself, technically the province of their institutional rivals, the Carabiniere, and soon enough they are end-running around not only their Italian counterparts but also the San Francisco police. Hewson is a master at convoluted, many-tentacled plots that weave their way through history and back to the present, but this time he doubles the stakes: we start with Dante and the iconography of his Inferno and wind up reliving the plot of Hitchcock’s Vertigo. That’s a lot ground to cover in one novel—perhaps too much—but from scene to scene, Hewson never loses the reader’s attention, and for fans of this outstanding series, the latest chapter in the interlocked lives of Costa and friends, while overstuffed, is as delicious as ever. --Bill Ott </p><h3>Review</h3><p>"The return of Nic Costa is a true cause for celebration! A literate, page-turning tale that finds our hero—one of the most appealing in crime fiction—zipping between two of the most iconic cities in the world: Rome and San Francisco. Hewson is a daunting talent—a writer who is a master stylist, who respects his audience's intelligence, and who effortlessly keeps the thrills coming a mile a minute."–Jeffery Deaver, <em>New York Times </em>bestselling author  </p><p>"One of my all-time favorite fictional detectives is David Hewson's Nic Costa, and Dante's Numbers brings Nic for the first time to American shores. From the opening scene of murder and mayhem at a movie premiere to the final, mind-blowing surprise, <strong>Dante's Numbers</strong> is an elegant, clever, and terrifying tale of intrigue and murder involving Dante's first circle of Hell and Hitchcock's classic film Vertigo. An outstanding novel."—Douglas Preston, author of_ The Monster of Florence and Blasphemy_.  </p><p>"David Hewson is one of the finest thriller writers working today. A born stylist. <strong> Dante's Numbers</strong> is politically wise, multi-dimensional, and psychologically intuitive. Action braids suspense on nearly every page, creating a reader's delight from beginning to end. A superb effort by a master storyteller. The rest of the world already knows how good David is. Now, it's time America find out." —Steve Berry  </p><p>"<strong> Dante's Numbers</strong> is action-packed suspense at its smartest and most gripping. Transplanting Nic Costa and his fellow Italian detectives to the dizzying world of Hitchock's 'Vertigo' is a master stroke from a brilliant author. It's impossible not to be swept up in the memorable, compelling world that is David Hewson's specialty."–David Morrell  </p><p>"Easily the best in a really terrific series."—Lee Child  </p><p>“Hewson is a master at convoluted, manytentacled plots that weave their way through history and back to the present.” —_Booklist  </p><p>_“[In] Hewson’s fine seventh crime novel to feature Nic Costa…. A convoluted plot, eccentric characters and numerous sinister connections to Hitchcock’s <em>Vertigo</em> all contribute to the suspense.” —_Publishers Weekly<br />_</p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Sometimes it seems like every standup comedian worth his or her salt just <em>has</em> to do the book thing, and you might feel that yet another warmed-over stage routine is the last thing you need taking up valuable bookshelf space. Jon Stewart's book will come as an extremely pleasant surprise. He eschews the standard standup patter and instead gives us 18 short comic essays in a variety of styles that recall the prose work of Woody Allen, only with a few more references to genitals. Stewart proves himself a remarkably nimble humorist with a sharp eye for parody, whether he's writing "A Very Hanson Christmas" or "Adolf Hitler: The Larry King Interview." </p><blockquote><p>HITLER: ...Larry, look, I was a bad guy. No question. I hate that Hitler. The yelling, the finger pointing, I don't know ... I was a very angry guy.</p><p>KING: And this ... new Hitler?</p><p>HITLER: I get up at seven, have half a melon, do the jumble in the morning paper and then let the day take me where it will.... Me!! The inventor of the Blitzkrieg... When you stop having to control everything it's very freeing. </p></blockquote><p>Stewart is not afraid to flirt with bad taste, in fact, some of the pieces in this collection do for "flirting with bad taste" what Bill Clinton did for "not having sexual relations." But it's wonderful to see an edgy comedian taking on the traditionally cozy genre of the humorous essay, creating work that combines the wit of Robert Benchley with the energy and attitude of the best modern standup. <em>Naked Pictures of Famous People</em> proves that Jon Stewart is as comfortable, and accomplished, in front of a word processor as he is in front of an audience. <em>--Simon Leake</em></p><h3>Review</h3><p>"Brutally witty... On a par with Woody Allen's Without Feathers and Steve Martin's Cruel Shoes..." -- <em>Entertainment Weekly</em>  </p><p>"Terrific night table reading for lovers of intelligent satire... smart... refreshingly offensive... unapologetically un-PC... a gift for just about anyone." -- <em>Austin Chronicle</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p><strong>Amazon.com Exclusive: Questions for Lauren Kate</strong></p><p><strong>Amazon.com:</strong> Luce and Daniel's story is very romantic. What inspired you to write a love story between a human and an angel? <br /><strong>Lauren Kate:</strong> I’ve been writing love stories for as long as I’ve been writing. To me, the most complicated romances make the most interesting narratives, so I’m always looking for new obstacles to throw in my lovers’ paths. When I was getting my masters degree in fiction, I was studying biblical narratives and came across a line in Genesis (6:1-4), which describes a group of angels who fell in love with mortal women. Putting this reference together with a mention in Isaiah and another in Palsm 82, biblical scholars conclude that these angels were actually cast out of Heaven for their lust. Which means--you could say--that these angels chose love over Heaven. I found this to be an endlessly interesting set up for an incredibly complicated romance. I started thinking about what kind of mortal girl it would take to attract an angel’s attention. And what it would be like for her to find herself in this position. What kind of baggage would an angel have? What would her very over-protective parents think? From there, this whole world unfurled in my head with fallen angels, demons, reincarnation, and the war between good and evil all battling for a piece of the action.</p><p><strong>Amazon.com:</strong> We've been wondering about the "mechanics" of Luce and Daniel's story (for lack of a better word). Does Daniel age? Or does he stay seventeen forever (while Luce grows older)? And with that said, what does he do while Luce is growing up in each of her lives? What was he doing before he met Luce in this life?<br /><strong>Kate:</strong> What’s important about angels is not their bodies but their souls. In their purest forms, they’re actually genderless, but for my story to work--for the angels to come down to earth and interact with mortals--they all assume human bodies and attach themselves to human genders. Daniel is eternal and will live on forever, but the body Luce sees him in (gorgeous as it is) is really just a shell for the soul that she loves. There’s not the feeling of a ticking clock in the background as there might be with, say, a vampire story. Right now I’m writing <em>Passion</em>, the prequel where we’ll see Luce and Daniel in a dozen other lifetimes, so I’m exploring a lot of these mechanics (a great word for it, by the way) between the angel’s bodies and souls.  </p><p>The way Daniel occupies himself in between Luces varies from life to life. His soul is least at rest just after she’s died, before she’s incarnated into another life--when she is “in between.” During her lives, even when he isn’t with her, he is always aware of her age, what she’s going through, how she’s doing. He has a sort of internal Lucinda clock. Sometimes he meets her as a child, sometimes he tries to stay away from her as long as possible, to give her as much of a life outside of him as he can. In the years leading up to the life where they meet at Sword and Cross, Daniel was living on Skid Row in Los Angeles. </p><p><strong>Amazon.com:</strong> <em>Fallen</em> and <em>Torment</em> talk a lot about the history of Heaven and Hell, the different classes of Angels, and the rules of human-angel interaction. Obviously these themes are explored heavily in religious texts, but were there other sources that informed your story? <br /><strong>Kate:</strong>It’s interesting because there is actually very little in the Bible about angels--a few mentions in the Old Testament, a few more in the new. And the mentions that we do have are often vague or contradictory. Most of what we think of when we think of angels today comes from secular or cultural contexts. Seventy-five percent of it might have come from   </p><p>I got so engrossed in all of the research I did for <em>Fallen</em> that I had a hard time knowing when to stop reading and when to start writing. I had to realize that it was okay for me to pick and choose things from various accounts, to look past contradictions, and to come up with my own angel mythology. That’s what Milton did, after all!</p><p><strong>Amazon.com:</strong> What is Cam's deal? We're not convinced that he's totally evil--in <em>Fallen</em>, he seemed to be trying to protect Luce by keeping her away from Daniel, and in <em>Torment</em> he and Daniel reach a mysterious truce, again to protect Luce. Will we be seeing more of him in book 3?<br /><strong>Kate:</strong>Speaking of Milton, isn’t it fascinating that Satan is the most interesting character in <em>Fallen</em> and in <em>Torment</em> with Daniel and Cam’s truce. The idea that good and evil rely on each other is as old as the oldest dualistic religion, Zoroastrianism (on whose shoulders both Judaism and Christianity stood).   </p><p>So yes, there is more to Cam than pure evil! (Especially since his character--the charming side of his character anyway--was based loosely on my husband.) We’ll see a lot of him in <em>Passion</em> and will even begin to understand how he got where he is today. </p><p><strong>Amazon.com:</strong> Can you tell us a little bit about book 3? Will we find out more about Luce and Daniel's past lives?<br /><strong>Kate:</strong><em>Passion</em> is going to be the craziest, coolest book I’ve ever written! I’m halfway through the first draft right now and it is so rewarding to finally get to delve into Luce and Daniel’s past lives together. The history these two share is the stuff of epics, and I am learning so many new things about them as I write. For any reader out there feeling tortured by the teasing hints of so many thrilling past lives: <em>Passion</em> is your book! Everything--well, almost everything--will be illuminated. </p><hr /><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>Gr 9 Up–This sequel to Fallen (Delacorte, 2009) continues they complex tale as Luce tries to uncover the truth and break the cycle of falling in love, dying young, and being reincarnated. Daniel, her lover through the ages and a fallen angel, institutes a truce with Demons to protect her from the Outcasts, who would do her harm. For her safety, Daniel hides her at a boarding school for the Nephilim, children of human and fallen angels, and cautions her to remain on campus and learn all she can. Unfortunately a little knowledge can be dangerous and Luce's naive attempts to manipulate her powers constantly put her and others in danger. Some of the rescues employ a deus ex machina as is the case when Arriane inexplicably arrives in Vegas and saves the day. At times the story plods along, with a full chapter devoted to a fencing lesson. Daniel regularly returns to check on Luce and there's lots of swooning, passionate kissing, and playing at being in love, though it often ends with bickering. Interest is piqued with the hint of a love triangle, and the suspense is ratcheted up in the heart-pounding final battle scene. In the end, readers won't be much closer to unraveling Luce's mystery and will need to stay tuned for the next installment. It's unlikely this title will garner new fans for the series, but those already hooked on the epic romance won't want to miss it._Patricia N. McClune, Conestoga Valley High School, Lancaster, PA_<br />© Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Carcaterra's controversial memoir of growing up in NYC's Hell's Kitchen and as an inmate at a sadistic detention center was a PW bestseller for eight weeks. <br />Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>From</h3><p>A book with a punch equal to its publicity hype! Journalist Carcaterra tells with gripping force of his days growing up in the tough New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen in the 1960s (the names have been changed to protect the innocent <em>and</em> the guilty). He and his three closest buddies engaged in petty crime until the day their tricks got out of hand and escalated into a major offense, for which they were sent to a juvenile home in upstate New York. They were tormented during their months there, not by other young inmates but by their adult guards, who brutalized them relentlessly in a program of horror and torture that included rape. Once out, once grown up, one of the boys became a lawyer, and through a bizarre twist of events worthy of being turned into a movie (in fact, the movie rights have been sold, with Barry Levinson lined up as director), he, Carcaterra, and the other two friends expose the horrible wrongs they suffered in that detention home. Both difficult to read and difficult to put down, this book will garner lots of attention, and as a result, readership demand will be high. <em>Brad Hooper</em></p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>In a meaty tribute to mystery sub-genres, Straub ( Ghost Story ) serves up a coming-of-age tale, a country-manor murder mystery and a twisted knot of governmental corruption and cover-up. Ten-year-old Tom Pasmore, a rich resident of the Caribbean island of Mill Walk, is hit by a car and, in a near-death experience, sees visions of himself in the future. During his long recuperation, Tom reads mystery stories brought to him by Lamont von Heilitz, an eccentric neighbor, once a famous detective. Action resumes when Tom, now aged 17 and possessed of sharpened deductive skills, gives the police an anonymous tip to help them solve the murder of a government official's sister. Tom's tip backfires, motivating him to join Lamont in trying to solve a murder that took place 20 years earlier in the Wisconsin resort town where Mill Walk's privileged citizens spend their summers. That layered, complex case reveals a long history of corruption, leads to more murders, to realization of the meaning of Tom's early visions and his discovery of his true identity. While evocative of place and time (the early '60s) and peopled with memorable characters, the story tries to fit into too many subgenres to succeed completely at any one. $200,000 ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p><h3>Review</h3><p>“A dark, labyrinthian tale of murder and family relationships. . . . Mesmerizing.” —_Chicago Sun-Times_  </p><p>“Sensational. . . . A terrific page-turner, superbly plotted, unforgettable characters.” —_Kansas City Star_  </p><p>“Intriguing, immensely readable. . . . Engages the mind.” —_Washington Post Book World_  </p><p>“The near perfect mystery. . . . Has everything a classic whodunit should. . . . Full of intricate, engrossing, flesh-and-blood suspects and heroes. . . . Unexpected curves and potholes. . . . The title says it all.” —_Milwaukee Sentinel_  </p><p>“Murder, mayhem, mystery. . . . A complex and satisfying tale. . . . Compelling characters. . . . A pulse-pounding climax.” —_Cleveland Plain Dealer_  </p><p>“A tightly woven-tale, crisply rendered, populated with well-drawn characters.” —_San Francisco Chronicle_  </p><p>“Marvelous. . . . Enormously satisfying. . . . Unashamedly designed to fascinate.” —_Sacramento Bee_  </p><p>“The best of Peter Straub’s writing.” —_Houston Chronicle_   </p><p>“The characters are outstanding. . . . They are the story, enshrouded by a nightmare that never lifts. Peter Straub takes bold risks and he succeeds.” —_San Jose Mercury News_  </p><p>“Enomously entertaining and scary. . . . Rich, complex, dark, and tough to put down.” —_New York Daily News_</p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. In this tour de force from bestseller Straub (_In the Night Room_), four high school friends in 1966 Madison, Wis.—Hootie Bly, Dilly Olson, Jason Boatman, and Lee Truax—fall under the spell of charismatic wandering guru Spencer Mallon. During an occult ceremony in which Mallon attempts to break through to a higher reality, something goes horribly awry leaving one participant dead. Decades later, Lee's writer husband interviews the quartet to find out what happened. In Roshomon-like fashion, each relates a slightly different account of the trauma they experienced. Straub masterfully shows how the disappointments, downturns, and failed promise of the four friends' lives may have stemmed from this youthful experience, and suggests, by extension, that the malignant evil they helped unleash into the world has tainted all hope ever since. Brilliant in its orchestration and provocative in its speculations, this novel ranks as one of the finest tales of modern horror. <em>(Feb.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Six book critics venture into a new novel by a best-selling horror writer. The writer is said to have magical abilities to blend horror conventions with literary fiction to keep the pages turning. He is even said to have touched Stephen King! Four of the critics come away convinced that a transcendent supernatural event has occurred, which may have something to do with the nature of evil. But two are horribly scarred by the event--unbearably bored, convinced they have just read a rejected script from Lost. Whose version of events is true? We may never know. All critics agree on is that the only possible way to describe such a plot structure is to reference Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon--so readers may just have to investigate for themselves. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. In <em>Black House</em>, Straub and Stephen King wrote of "slippage," whereby the borders between reality and fantasy blur. This entire brilliant novel is an act of slippage. In this sequel to last year's <em>lost boy lost girl</em>, and further chapter in the ongoing adventures of Straub protagonist Tim Underhill (_Koko_, etc.), the most intellectually adventurous of dark fantasy authors takes the apparent slippage of the prequel—in which Underhill's experience of a slain nephew's survival at the hands of a serial killer was indicated to be compensatory imagining by Underhill—several steps into the impressively weird. Underhill, an author, here encounters not the mere survival of a dead relation but the existence of a character he's creating in his journals. Dark fantasy cognescenti will remember that King employed a somewhat similar device in <em>The Dark Half</em>, but Straub's approach is distinctly his own, directed at mining the ambiguous relationship between nature and art, fact and fiction, the real and the ideal. The character Underhill has brought into being is Willy Bryce Patrick, a children's book author soon to be married to coldhearted financier Mitchell Faber, at least until Willy discovers that Faber had her first family murdered. Willy, whom Tim meets during a bookstore reading of his latest novel, <em>lost boy lost girl</em>, believes she is real (as does the reader for the book's first third), and learns otherwise only through Tim's painful, patient revelations. The two fall in deeply in love, but their passion seems doomed—not only is Willy's existence tenuous, but the pair are being pursued with murderous intent by Faber and his goons, as the former is in fact one form of the serial killer of <em>lost boy lost girl</em>, Joseph Kalendar; moreover, a terrible angel is insisting that only when Underhill makes an ultimate sacrifice, righting a wrong he did to Kalendar in <em>lost boy lost girl</em>, will matters resolve. Moving briskly while ranging from high humor to the blackest dread, this is an original, astonishingly smart and expertly entertaining meditation on imagination and its powers; one of the very finest works of Straub's long career, it's a sure bet for future award nominations. <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From</h3><p>Though most famous for his collaborations with Stephen King, Straub transcends the conventions of horror fiction. <em>In the Night Room</em> provides more than a good scare; it deals with themes like the nature of reality and the consequences of artistic creation. Despite his cerebral bent, Straub never sacrifices the entertainment value of his story—though one reviewer found its twists hard to follow. The novel, a sequel to his acclaimed <em>lost boy lost girl </em>(<strong></strong> Jan/Feb 2004), offers a combination of gripping plot, well-drawn characters, and philosophical depth. Critics hail <em>In the Night Room</em> as a rewarding read for horror junkies and deep thinkers alike.</p><p><em>Copyright © 2004 Phillips &amp; Nelson Media, Inc.</em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Peter Straub is a fine sorcerer of horror whose bag of tricks includes stories of pure, unadulterated horror (<strong> and </strong>), as well as more subtle tales of psychological suspense (<strong> and </strong>). Now Straub conjures up <em>Magic Terror</em>, a collection of seven deeply disturbing tales that display his entire range.</p><p>"Bunny Is Good Bread" is without a doubt the most haunted tale of all, a harrowing account of a childhood from hell. The scary hero Fee was so traumatized as a 5-year-old by abuse from his father that he disconnects himself from the real world and lives as if in a film. Why? "If you forgot you were in a movie, your own feelings would tear you into bloody rags." Ever since the day Fee watches his mother die a horrible death, he's been tormented: "He was one-half dead himself; half of him belonged to his dead mother." </p><p>Fee is not the only character to be struck by a dark epiphany, a life-changing moment. In the lyrical "Porkpie Hat," a famous jazz musician recounts the ghoulish Halloween encounter that charted the course of his destiny, and in the twisted fairy tale "Ashputtle," a fantasy-inclined "princess" seeks retribution for a traumatic incident many years before.</p><p>In Straub's world, horror appears in different disguises--the dark mask of child abuse and the bloodied cloak of war ("The Ghost Village"). Regardless of how it shows itself, the effects will haunt long after lights out. <em>--Naomi Gesinger</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>The war-numbed soldier who asks, "Just suppose...,that you were forced to confront extreme experience directly, without any mediation?" speaks for all of the spiritually traumatized souls who navigate the harrowingly rendered hells of these seven tales of suspense and horror. Straub (Mr. X) effortlessly plumbs the hearts and minds of a range of well-developed charactersAincluding a reflective assassin for hire, a five-year-old victim of domestic violence, an aging black jazz musician and a pompous Wall Street financial adviserAto locate epiphanic moments when their lives careened "out of the ordinary" and into the path of deforming private tragedy. In "Ashputtle," an implied murderess blames her crimes on an emotionally deprived childhood in which she imagines herself a modern Cinderella victimized by her cruel stepsisters. "Bunny Is Good Bread," an unnerving portrait of the psychopath as a young boy, follows young Fee Bandolier as he maladjusts to an unbearably gothic home situation in which his father has beaten his mother into a coma. "Porkpie Hat" is related as an alcoholic saxophonist's confession of a childhood brush with witchcraft, murder and miscegenation that continues to inform his blues-haunted music. In several of the talesAmost notably "The Haunted Village," which links to the novel Koko (1988) and stories from his previous collection, Houses Without Doors (1990)AStraub skillfully evokes the supernatural to suggest the dislocating effect of intense psychological upset. Mixing stark realism with black comedy, and reverberating with echoes of Conrad, Melville and the Brothers Grimm, these excursions to the dark side of life set a high standard for the literature of contemporary magic terror. (July) <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Peter Straub's <em>Mr. X</em> is an enthralling, complex tale of a decent young man troubled since childhood by barely understood flashes of precognition and an awareness of a shadowy "other." </p><p>Ned Dunstan returns home to Edgerton, Illinois, a raffish and atmospheric Mississippi River city, as his mother, Star Dunstan, lies dying. Impelled to trace his tangled paternal lineage after Star's death, Ned finds himself caught up in a web of murder and other heinous crimes, not only in the present but also in a past that his elderly great aunts Nettie, May, and Joy would prefer remained undisturbed. The aunts, whose remarkable gifts include teleportation and telekinesis, frustrate his search for knowledge, partly to protect their own secrets and also to shield Ned from the mysterious and omnipresent force that seems to dodge his every step. He is aided in his efforts to discover the mysteries of his birth by a doppleganger who may or may not be his twin, and also by a lovely young woman, Laurie Hatch. She is the estranged wife of Stewart Hatch, an Edgerton scion whose own history is inexorably linked with Ned's and with the entire Dunstan family.</p><p>The secondary characters, from the elderly aunts to a lawyer named Creech who is the essence of the small-town "fixer," are deftly drawn. <em>--Jane Adams</em></p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Since the publication of Koko in 1988, Straub has specialized in macabre mysteries dense with the details of small-town life and cast with ordinary people who find that the extraordinary crimes they investigate raise doubts about their own moral integrity. In this bravura new outing, he returns to his horror roots, lacing an ingenious whodunit with an intoxicating shot of the supernatural. From childhood, Ned Dunstan has experienced precognitive visions, a recurring dream of being tethered to a shadow and "the sense that something crucially significant, something without which I could never be whole, was missing." Summoned home to Edgerton, Ill., by a premonition of his mother's death on the eve of his 35th birthday, Ned finds himself implicated in a tangle of felonies and murders, all of which point to someone strenuously manipulating events to frame him. Digging into local history, he finds reason to believe that the mysterious father he never knew, or possibly a malignant doppelg?nger, are pulling the strings. Meanwhile, Mr. X, a homicidal misanthrope who reads H.P. Lovecraft's otherworldly horror fiction as gospel, cuts a swath of supernatural destruction across the country, en route to a showdown with his son, the "shadow-self" whom he must annihilate. Discerning readers will recognize this surprise-filled tale of tortuous family relationships as a modern variation on Lovecraft's classic shocker "The Dunwich Horror." But Straub turns his pulp model inside out, transforming its vast cosmic mystery into an ingrown odyssey of self-discovery and a probing study of human nature. His evocative prose, a seamless splice of clipped hard-boiled banter and poetic reflection, contributes to the thick atmosphere of apprehension that makes this one of the most invigorating horror reads of the year. BOMC main selection. (Aug.) FYI: This spring, Subterranean Press published a chapbook, Peter and PTR: Two Discarded Prefaces and an Introduction, that includes framing material that Straub wrote for, and then cut from, Mr. X. <br />Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


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<h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Starred Review. Anyone concerned about the future of horror will find plenty of reassurance in this outstanding reprint anthology showcasing short fiction by today's best writers in the genre. Straub (_The Throat_) skillfully varies tempo and style, mixing stories of psychological terror with more traditional ghostly tales. Thomas Tessier puts a fresh spin on the empty old house theme in the memorable In Praise of Folly, in which the lonely protagonist pursues his fascination with bizarre structures to the Adirondacks. Tessier subtly raises chills even as the tale proceeds to its inevitable and dark conclusion. Another winner is Dan Chaon's The Bees, a powerful account of a man haunted by mistakes of the past. Ramsey Campbell's terrifying The Voice of the Beach echoes Algernon Blackwood's classic The Willows, with its account of two friends' fateful encounter with a remote beach that may be an entry point to another dimension. Aimed at a general audience, this volume also includes works by Stephen King, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link and Joe Hill. <em>(Nov.)</em> <br />Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. </p><h3>From School Library Journal</h3><p>With an introduction by the much honored Straub (_Ghost Story_), this collection can be dubbed New Wave horror, considering that most of its 24 stories were published fairly recently and it includes contributions by celebrity horror writers. The tales mostly eschew buckets of blood, instead employing mood and suggestion in the manner of Edgar Allan Poe. "Little Red's Tango," Straub's lengthy quasigospel of a record-collecting obsessive, complete with beatitudes and a seductive demon, ably represents the editor's definition of New Wave horror. All the stories honor Poe, like the moody, contagious delusions of Stephen King's "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet." The genre can be literary, as exemplified by Tia V. Travis's vengeful "The Kiss," Thomas Tessier's surprising "In Praise of Folly," and, probably the most demonstrably Poe-like, Ramsey Campbell's "The Voice of the Beach," featuring a neurasthenic narrator, suffocating suggestibility, and nearly palpable imagery. Brian Evenson's creepy "Body" and Dan Chaon's touching "The Bees" culminate in the horror of bad deeds catching up. The other stories included are without exception excellent. Recommended for all libraries.—Jonathan Pearce, California State Univ.<br /><em>Stanislaus, Stockton </em></p>


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<h3>Amazon.com Review</h3><p>Straub's recent series of books, while excellent, have been dense and rather cerebral as horror books go. This one, while employing many of the same devices about family secrets and mysteries half-buried in the past, has an action storyline with a viscerally satisfying villain and a strong female protagonist. The premise is that the history of a famous fantasy novel not only concerns some eccentric authors, but collides with a wily killer on a rampage. The settings--in seedy motel rooms, New England houses, a bizarre private club and an over-the-hill literary retreat--are especially fun. </p><h3>From Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Continuing his shift away from occult horror toward terrors inspired by the ragged social fabric of American life, Straub (The Throat) turns in another violent yet richly nuanced thriller. As in much of his work (Mystery; Koko), the past impinges on the present through secrets kept, then revealed. Here, the secrets are both familial and literary. Four women in upscale Westerholm, Conn., have disappeared from blood-spattered bedrooms. Meanwhile, Westerholm resident Nora Chancel, who's newly menopausal, broods about a stalking wolf while her husband, publisher Davey Chancel, a decade her junior, obsesses about the novel trilogy (begun in 1939) written by Chancel House's most popular writer, Hugo Driver. When yet another woman disappears, Nora learns that Davey once had an affair with her. Then the woman shows up, only to accuse Nora of kidnapping and torturing her, leading to Nora's arrest. But also at the police station is Dick Dart, scion of an old local family, who is being questioned about the killings. Dart steals a cop's gun, grabs Nora as his hostage and, he believes, potential future accomplice?and the woman's real agony begins. Dart, a serial killer who has always loved "cutting things up. Loved it," rapes Nora and takes her on a grisly spree of terror. In time, Nora manages to escape, but in a surprising yet, with hindsight, seemingly inevitable turn of events, she again finds herself in mortal danger. Dart is a memorable villain, funny, bold and charming (and as difficult to kill as Rasputin). Nora proves his equal, however, gutsy and clever, and as the two clash, the secrets that Straub intimates early on reveal themselves. These secrets manifest neither easily nor predictably, however, for, as is said of characters in a Driver novel, Straub's own characters are "colorful and involved, full of danger, heroism and betrayal"?as is this supple, exciting book. Major ad/promo. <br />Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>


