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The Death You Deserve: A Novel (Rawhead Series #1)
by David BowkerFor struggling author Billy Dye, ghost writing the memoirs of Manchester gangster Malcolm Priest seems like a great way to make a quick buck, but when Priest tires of the wry writer he hires a vicious hitman to take him out. When the assassin--named Rawhead--turns out to be a schoolfriend he hasn't seen in years, Billy's life is spared and the killer vows to protect him. As the tension mounts and the bodies pile up, Billy discovers that his friend is a terrifying psychopath who will stop at nothing to defend him. And when Rawhead takes an interest in Billy's career, no one--not even in the publishing world--is safe.Violent, fast-paced and hilarious, the novel builds to a stunning climax that will jolt the most jaded suspense reader and leave them breathless.
Dark Reservations: A Mystery
by John FortunatoWinner of the Tony Hillerman PrizeIn John Fortunato's Dark Reservations, Bureau of Indian Affairs Special Agent Joe Evers still mourns the death of his wife and, after a bungled investigation, faces a forced early retirement. What he needs is a new career, not another case. But when Congressman Arlen Edgerton's bullet-riddled Lincoln turns up on the Navajo reservation---twenty years after he had disappeared during a corruption probe---Joe must resurrect his failing career to solve the mysterious cold case.Partnering with Navajo Tribal Officer Randall Bluehorse, his investigation antagonizes potential suspects, including a wealthy art collector, a former president of the Navajo Nation, a powerful U.S. senator, and Edgerton's widow, who is now the front-runner in the New Mexico governor's race. An unexpected romance further complicates both the investigation and Joe's troubled relationship with his daughter, forcing him to confront his emotional demons while on the trail of a ruthless killer.Joe uncovers a murderous conspiracy that leads him from ancient Anasazi burial grounds on the Navajo Nation to backroom deals in Washington, D.C. Along the way, he delves into the dangerous world of black market trade in Native American artifacts. Can he unravel the mystery and bring the true criminal to justice, or will he become another silenced victim?
The Discreet Hero: A Novel
by Mario Vargas LlosaWINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATUREA tale of two cities—Piura and Lima—rocked by scandal, and the disintegrating bonds of loyalty between the generationsNobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa's novel, The Discreet Hero, follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail; and Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against the two lazy sons who want him dead. Felícito and Ismael are, each in his own way, quiet, discreet rebels: honorable men trying to seize control of their destinies in a social and political climate where all can seem set in stone, predetermined. They are hardly vigilantes, but each is determined to live according to his own personal ideals and desires—which means forcibly rising above the pettiness of their surroundings. The Discreet Hero is also a chance to revisit some of our favorite players from previous Vargas Llosa novels: Sergeant Lituma, Don Rigoberto, Doña Lucrecia, and Fonchito are all here in a prosperous Peru. Vargas Llosa sketches Piura and Lima vividly—and the cities become not merely physical spaces but realms of the imagination populated by his vivid characters.A novel whose humor and pathos shine through in Edith Grossman's masterly translation, The Discreet Hero is another remarkable achievement from the finest Latin American novelist at work today.
The American People, Volume 1: Search for My Heart, A Novel (The American People Series #1)
by Larry KramerThe long-awaited new novel by America's master playwright and activist—a radical reimagining of our history and our hopes and fearsForty years in the making, The American People embodies Larry Kramer's vision of his beloved and accursed homeland. As the founder of ACT UP and the author of Faggots and The Normal Heart, Kramer has decisively affected American lives and letters. Here, as only he can, he tells the heartbreaking and heroic story of one nation under a plague, contaminated by greed, hate, and disease yet host to transcendent acts of courage and kindness.In this magisterial novel's sweeping first volume, which runs up to the 1950s, we meet prehistoric monkeys who spread a peculiar virus, a Native American shaman whose sexual explorations mutate into occult visions, and early English settlers who live as loving same-sex couples only to fall victim to the forces of bigotry. George Washington and Alexander Hamilton revel in unexpected intimacies, and John Wilkes Booth's motives for assassinating Abraham Lincoln are thoroughly revised. In the twentieth century, the nightmare of history deepens as a religious sect conspires with eugenicists, McCarthyites, and Ivy Leaguers to exterminate homosexuals, and the AIDS virus begins to spread. Against all this, Kramer sets the tender story of a middle-class family outside Washington, D.C., trying to get along in the darkest of times.The American People is a work of ribald satire, prophetic anger, and dazzling imagination. It is an encyclopedic indictment written with outrageous love.
A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, and Their Remarkable Families
by Michael HolroydPLEASE NOTE: THIS EBOOK DOES NOT CONTAIN PHOTOS INCLUDED IN THE PRINT EDITION.Deemed "a prodigy among biographers" by The New York Times Book Review, Michael Holroyd transformed biography into an art. Now he turns his keen observation, humane insight, and epic scope on an ensemble cast, a remarkable dynasty that presided over the golden age of theater.Ellen Terry was an ethereal beauty, the child bride of a Pre-Raphaelite painter who made her the face of the age. George Bernard Shaw was so besotted by her gifts that he could not bear to meet her, lest the spell she cast from the stage be broken. Henry Irving was an ambitious, harsh-voiced merchant's clerk, but once he painted his face and spoke the lines of Shakespeare, his stammer fell away to reveal a magnetic presence. He would become one of the greatest actor-managers in the history of the theater. Together, Terry and Irving created a powerhouse of the arts in London's Lyceum Theatre, with Bram Stoker—who would go on to write Dracula—as manager. Celebrities whose scandalous private lives commanded global attention, they took America by stormin wildly popular national tours.Their all-consuming professional lives left little room for their brilliant but troubled children. Henry's boys followed their father into the theater but could not escape the shadow of his fame. Ellen's feminist daughter, Edy, founded an avant-garde theater and a largely lesbian community at her mother's country home. But it was Edy's son, the revolutionary theatrical designer Edward Gordon Craig, who possessed the most remarkable gifts and the most perplexing inability to realize them. A now forgotten modernist visionary, he collaborated with the Russian director Stanislavski on a production of Hamlet that forever changed the way theater was staged. Maddeningly self-absorbed, he inherited his mother's potent charm and fathered thirteen children by eight women, including a daughter with the dancer Isadora Duncan.An epic story spanning a century of cultural change, A Strange Eventful History finds space for the intimate moments of daily existence as well as the bewitching fantasies played out by its subjects. Bursting with charismatic life, it is an incisive portrait of two families who defied the strictures of their time. It will be swiftly recognized as a classic.Please note: This ebook edition does not contain photos and illustrations that appeared in the print edition.
The Brothers Vonnegut: Science and Fiction in the House of Magic
by Ginger StrandWorlds collide in this true story of weather control in the Cold War era and the making of Kurt VonnegutIn the mid-1950s, Kurt Vonnegut takes a job in the PR department at General Electric in Schenectady, where his older brother, Bernard, is a leading scientist in its research lab--or "House of Magic." Kurt has ambitions as a novelist, and Bernard is working on a series of cutting-edge weather-control experiments meant to make deserts bloom and farmers flourish.While Kurt writes zippy press releases, Bernard builds silver-iodide generators and attacks clouds with dry ice. His experiments attract the attention of the government; weather proved a decisive factor in World War II, and if the military can control the clouds, fog, and snow, they can fly more bombing missions. Maybe weather will even be the "New Super Weapon." But when the army takes charge of his cloud-seeding project (dubbed Project Cirrus), Bernard begins to have misgivings about the harmful uses of his inventions, not to mention the evidence that they are causing alarming changes in the atmosphere.In a fascinating cultural history, Ginger Strand chronicles the intersection of these brothers' lives at a time when the possibilities of science seemed infinite. As the Cold War looms, Bernard's struggle for integrity plays out in Kurt's evolving writing style. The Brothers Vonnegut reveals how science's ability to influence the natural world also influenced one of our most inventive novelists.
Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers
by Eleanor Henderson and Anna SolomonThirty acclaimed writers share their personal birth stories—the extraordinary, the ordinary, the terrifying, the sublime, the profaneIt's an elemental, almost animalistic urge—the expectant mother's hunger for birth narratives. Bookstores are filled with month-by-month pregnancy manuals, but the shelves are virtually empty of artful, entertaining, unvarnished accounts of labor and delivery—the stories that new mothers need most. Here is a book that transcends the limits of how-to guides and honors the act of childbirth in the twenty-first century. Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon have gathered true birth stories by women who have made self-expression their business, including Cheryl Strayed, Julia Glass, Lauren Groff, Dani Shapiro, and many other luminaries. In Labor Day, you'll read about women determined to give birth naturally and others begging for epidurals; women who pushed for hours and women whose labors were over practically before they'd started; women giving birth to twins and to ten-pound babies. These women give birth in the hospital, at home, in bathtubs, and, yes, even in the car. Some revel in labor, some fear labor, some feel defeated by labor, some are fulfilled by it—and all are amazed by it. You will laugh, weep, squirm, perhaps groan in recognition, and undoubtedly gasp with surprise. And then you'll call every mother or mother-to-be that you know and say "You MUST read Labor Day."Contributors: Nuar AlsadirAmy BrillSusan BurtonSarah Shun-lien BynumLan Samantha ChangPhoebe DamroschClaire DedererJennifer GilmoreJulia GlassArielle GreenbergLauren GroffEleanor HendersonCristina HenriquezAmy HerzogAnn HoodSarah JefferisHeidi JulavitsMary Beth KeaneMarie Myung-Ok LeeEdan LepuckiHeidi PitlorJoanna RakoffJane RoperDanzy SennaDani ShapiroAnna SolomonCheryl Strayed Sarah A. StrickleyRachel Jamison WebsterGina Zucker
Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary
by Henry HitchingsBy the early eighteenth century, France and Italy had impressive lexicons, but there was no authoritative dictionary of English. Sensing the deficit, and impelled by a mixture of national pride and commercial expedience, the prodigious polymath Samuel Johnson embraced the task, turning over the garret of his London home to the creation of his own giant dictionary. Johnson imagined that he could complete the job in three years. But the complexity of English meant that his estimate was wildly inadequate. Only after he had expended nearly a decade of his prime on the task did the dictionary finally appear - magisterial yet quirky, dogmatic but generous of spirit, and steeped in the richness of English literature. It would come to be seen as the most important British cultural monument of the eighteenth century, and its influence fanned out across Europe and throughout Britain's colonies - including, crucially, America.Brilliantly entertaining and enlightening, Defining the World is the story of Johnson's heroic endeavor, 250 years after the first publication of the Dictionary. In alphabetically sequenced chapters, Henry Hitchings describes Johnson's adventure - his ambition and vision, his moments of despair, the mistakes he made along the way, and his ultimate triumph.
Shadow of the Raven: A Mystery (Frank Flynn Mystery Series #1)
by David SundstrandFrancisco Flynn is an officer in Land Management in the Mojave Desert, and he wouldn't have it any other way. The son of an Irish immigrant railroad man and a half-Mexican, half-Paiute mother, he lives in the caboose that his father brought up to a hilltop when the railroad stopped running there. Frank loves the desert and the animals that live there. He loathes the wealthy hunters who hire Indians to lead them to where they can shoot Bighorn rams and take their heads to hang as trophies on the walls of their fancy studies.Over the years, Frank has come upon dead bodies---the remains of people who got lost and ran out of water, their corpses drying into mummies in the desert heat. But now he finds a dead man who has only recently lost his life, and it looks very much like he's been murdered. His shoes are gone, he's shirtless, and there is no canteen anywhere in sight. A day or so later, Frank hears word of a trio of bikers who have blown into town looking for a missing comrade. They pick fights in the local bar and don't hesitate to kill when it suits them. Frank is certain that the dead man he found is connected to them, and that many people could be endangered, including the woman reporter he has learned to love. Frank will do anything to rid "his" desert of the bikers who are spreading danger and hate, including putting his own life on the line. With Shadow of the Raven, David Sundstrand adds a shining new voice to Southwestern crime fiction.
Paper Lantern: Love Stories
by Stuart DybekA new collection of short stories by a master of the form with a common focus on the turmoils of romantic loveReady!Aim!On command the firing squad aims at the man backed against a full-length mirror. The mirror once hung in a bedroom, but now it's cracked and propped against a dumpster in an alley. The condemned man has refused the customary last cigarette but accepted as a hood the black slip that was carelessly tossed over a corner of the mirror's frame. The slip still smells faintly of a familiar fragrance.So begins "Tosca," the first in this vivid collection of Stuart Dybek's love stories. Operatically dramatic and intimately lyrical, grittily urban and impressionistically natural, the varied fictions in Paper Lantern all focus on the turmoil of love as only Dybek can portray it. An execution triggers the recollection of a theatrical romance; then a social worker falls for his own client; and lovers part as giddily, perhaps as hopelessly, as a kid trying to hang on to a boisterous kite. A flaming laboratory evokes a steamy midnight drive across terrain both familiar and strange, and an eerily ringing phone becomes the telltale signature of a dark betrayal. Each story is marked with contagious desire, spontaneous revelation, and, ultimately, resigned courage. As one woman whispers when she sets a notebook filled with her sketches drifting out to sea, "Someone will find you." Some of Dybek's characters recur in these stories, while others appear only briefly. Throughout, they—and we—are confronted with vaguely familiar scents and images, reminiscent of love but strangely disconcerting, so that we might wonder whether we are looking in a mirror or down the barrel of a gun. "After the ragged discharge," Dybek writes, "when the smoke has cleared, who will be left standing and who will be shattered into shards?" Paper Lantern brims with the intoxicating elixirs known to every love-struck, lovelorn heart, and it marks the magnificent return of one of America's most important fiction writers at the height of his powers.
Sleep My Darlings: The True Story of a Mother Who Killed Her Children in Cold Blood
by Diane FanningSLEEP MY DARLINGS Diane FanningOn January 28, 2011, the Tampa Police Department received a phone call from a woman who was worried about her daughter, Julie Schenecker. A devoted Army wife and mother of two, Julie had sent her mother an email that could be described as "suicidal." When authorities arrived at the Schenecker home, they encountered a horrific scene… Sixteen-year-old Calyx and thirteen-year-old Beau Schenecker were found dead—both of them shot, then covered with blankets. Upon questioning, Julie admitted that she was "tired of the kids talking back" and just "wanted it to be over." Had her manic depression driven her to the point of insanity? Or was hers a case of cold, calculated violence and manipulation? This is the shocking true story of motherhood, mental illness, and two charges of murder in the first degree.
First Generations: Women in Colonial America
by Carol BerkinIndian, European, and African women of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America were defenders of their native land, pioneers on the frontier, willing immigrants, and courageous slaves. They were also - as traditional scholarship tends to omit - as important as men in shaping American culture and history. This remarkable work is a gripping portrait that gives early-American women their proper place in history.
I'd Like To Call for Help, but I Don't Know the Number: The Search for Spirituality in Everyday Life
by Abraham J. TwerskiDo you have to be religious to be spiritual? Can you have a spiritual life and not believe in God? These and other profound questions are explored by Dr. Twerski in I'd Like To Call For Help But I Don't Know the Number: The Search for the Spirituality in Everyday Life. He shows us how to open ourselves up to the deeper aspects of our lives that are often obscured by concerns about success and material wealth.True spiritual discovery, Dr. Twerski suggests, involves more than overcoming selfishness or dependency; it also requires a journey of self-improvement, character development, and respect for others. Inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous groups he encountered in his clinical practice, Dr. Twerski outlines a twelve-step program for spiritual growth through self-awareness, service, and self-management. He illustrates his program throughout with true success stories he has witnessed over the years. "Abe Twerski provides us with an understanding of our spiritual side . . . It's like a conversation with a warm and trusted friend." - Betty Ford
Murder in Paradise
by Lisa PulitzerOn January 15, 2000, the bruised body of thirty-four-year-old Lois McMillan, a Connecticut artist vacationing in the British Virgin Islands, was discovered draped across the rocks of an inlet where she had apparently drowned in the Caribbean waves. Local authorities on the little paradise of Tortola quickly confirmed that it was no accident. The police immediately found their suspects-four young, rich American tourists. Within twenty-four hours, the men were arrested for murder and went from a life of carefree luxury to cold jail cells.Each had an alibi. None of them had a motive. And there was no direct evidence linking any of them to Lois's death. Did authorities even have the right men? Was it a rush to judgment-a desperate attempt to save Tortola's reputation for peace and safety-or were these men hiding a terrible crime. A twisting tale of swift island justice that was just beginning. So was the intricate puzzle of the lives of the four men in question, and the truth of what really happened during Lois McMillen's tragic final hours.
People in Glass Houses: A Novel
by Shirley HazzardOnly those who keep their wit and affections about them will survive the mass conditioning of the Organization, where confusion solemnly rules and conformity is king. As in our world itself, humanity prevails in the courage, love, and laughter of singular spirits--of men and women for whom life is an adventure no Organization can quell, and whose souls remain their own.
Pagan Light: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty in Capri
by Jamie JamesA New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice"Pagan Light is mesmerizing. Every detail is compelling. I felt I was reading a family history of a family far more interesting than mine." --Edmund White, author of Our Young ManA rich, intimate embrace of Capri, which was a magnet for artistic renegades and a place of erotic refugeIsolated and arrestingly beautiful, the island of Capri has been a refuge for renegade artists and writers fleeing the strictures of conventional society from the time of Augustus, who bought the island in 29 BC after defeating Antony and Cleopatra, to the early twentieth century, when the poet and novelist Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen was in exile there after being charged with corrupting minors, to the 1960s, when Truman Capote spent time on the island. We also meet the Marquis de Sade, Goethe, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Compton Mackenzie, Rilke, Lenin, and Gorky, among other astonishingly vivid characters. Grounded in a deep intimacy with Capri and full of captivating anecdotes, Jamie James’s Pagan Light tells how a tiny island served as a wildly permissive haven for people—queer, criminal, sick, marginalized, and simply crazy—who had nowhere else to go.
Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman: A Mystery (Lady Montfort Mystery Series #1)
by Tessa ArlenLady Montfort has been planning her annual summer costume ball for months, and with scrupulous care. Pulling together the food, flowers and a thousand other details for one of the most significant social occasions of the year is her happily accepted responsibility. But when her husband's degenerate nephew is found murdered, it's more than the ball that is ruined. In fact, Lady Montfort fears that the official police enquiry, driven by petty snobbery and class prejudice, is pointing towards her son as a potential suspect.Taking matters into her own hands, the rather over-imaginative countess enlists the help of her pragmatic housekeeper, Mrs. Jackson, to investigate the case, track down the women that vanished the night of the murder, and clear her son's name. As the two women search for a runaway housemaid and a headstrong young woman, they unearth the hidden lives of Lady Montfort's close friends, servants and family and discover the identity of a murderer hiding in plain sight.In this enchanting debut sure to appeal to fans of Downton Abbey, Tessa Arlen draws readers into a world exclusively enjoyed by the rich, privileged classes and suffered by the men and women who serve them. Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman is an elegant mystery filled with intriguing characters and fascinating descriptions of Edwardian life—a superb treat for those who love British novels.
Dead Woman Walking: A Novel
by Sharon BoltonIn Dead Woman Walking, from master of suspense Sharon Bolton, the sole survivor of a hot-air balloon crash witnesses a murder as the balloon is falling.Just before dawn in the hills near the Scottish border, a man murders a young woman. At the same time, a hot-air balloon crashes out of the sky. There’s just one survivor. She’s seen the killer’s face – but he’s also seen hers. And he won’t rest until he’s eliminated the only witness to his crime. Alone, scared, trusting no one, she’s running to where she feels safe – but it could be the most dangerous place of all...
Living Out Loud: Sports, Cancer, and the Things Worth Fighting For
by Brian Curtis Craig Sager IINew York Times BestsellerA moving and inspiring memoir from the beloved sports broadcaster Craig Sager on his battle with leukemia and how he maintained a positive outlook on life in face of incredible circumstances.“Time is something that cannot be bought, it cannot be wagered with God, and it is not in endless supply. Time is simply how you live your life.” —Craig SagerThanks to an eccentric wardrobe filled with brightly colored suits and a love of sports that knows no bounds, Craig Sager is one of the most beloved and recognizable broadcasters on television. So when the sports world learned that he was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) there was an outpouring of love and support from everyone who was inspired by his colorful life and his fearless decision to continue doing the job he loved—despite being told that he would have only three-to-six months to live. Sager has undergone three stem cell transplants—with his son as the donor for two of them—and more than twenty chemotherapy cycles since his diagnosis.In Living Out Loud, Craig Sager shares incredible stories from his remarkable career and chronicles his heroic battle. Whether he’s sprinting across Wrigley Field mid-game as a college student with cops in pursuit, chasing down Hank Aaron on the field for an interview after Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record, running with the bulls in Pamplona, or hunkering down to face the daunting physical challenges of fighting leukemia, Craig Sager is always ready to defy expectations, embrace life, and live it to the fullest.Including a foreword by Charles Barkley and with unique insight from his son Craig Sager II, this entertaining, honest, and introspective account of a life lived in sports reveals the enduring lessons Sager has learned throughout his career and reminds you that no matter what life throws at you, to always look at the bright side.
The Last Place You Look: A Mystery (Roxane Weary #1)
by Kristen Lepionka"Roxane is a wonderfully complex character...This is a remarkably accomplished debut mystery, with sensitive character development and a heart-stopping denouement. Let's hope there are more Roxane Weary novels on the way."—Booklist (starred review)2018 Shamus Award Winner and Best First Novel Nominee for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, The Last Place You Look is a head-on collision between an allegedly closed case and a tenacious, troubled private investigator who doesn't know when to quit.Nobody knows what happened to Sarah Cook. The beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton—black and from the wrong side of the tracks—was convicted of the murders and is now on death row. Though he’s maintained his innocence all along, the clock is running out. His execution is only weeks away when his devoted sister insists she spied Sarah at an area gas station. Willing to try anything, she hires PI Roxane Weary to look at the case and see if she can locate Sarah.Brad might be in a bad way, but private investigator Roxane Weary isn’t doing so hot herself. Still reeling from the recent death of her cop father in the line of duty, her main way of dealing with her grief has been working as little and drinking as much as possible. But Roxane finds herself drawn in to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she links the disappearance to one of her father’s unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl. The stakes get higher as Roxane discovers that the two girls may not be the only beautiful blonde teenagers who’ve turned up missing or dead. As her investigation gets darker and darker, Roxane will have to risk everything to find the truth. Lives depend on her cracking this case—hers included.
Bad Country: A Novel
by CB McKenzieWinner of the Tony Hillerman PrizeWinner of the Spur Award for Best Western Contemporary NovelFinalist for the Shamus Award for Best First P.I. NovelFinalist for the Edgar Award for Best First NovelA debut mystery set in the Southwest starring a former rodeo cowboy turned private investigator, told in a transfixingly original style.Rodeo Grace Garnet lives with his old dog in a remote corner of Arizona known to locals as El Hoyo. He doesn't get many visitors in The Hole, but a body found near his home has drawn police attention to his front door. The victim is not one of the many undocumented immigrants who risk their lives to cross the border in Rodeo's harsh and deadly "backyard," but a member of a major Southwestern Indian tribe, whose death is part of a mysterious rompecabeza-a classic crime puzzler-that includes multiple murders, cold-blooded betrayals, and low-down scheming, with Rodeo caught in the middle.Retired from the rodeo circuit and scraping by on piecework as a bounty hunter, warrant server, and divorce snoop, Rodeo doesn't have much choice but to say yes when offered an unusual case. An elderly Indian woman from his own Reservation has hired him to help discover who murdered her grandson, but she seems strangely uninterested in the results. Her attitude seems heartless, but as Rodeo pursues interrelated cases, he learns that the old woman's indifference is nothing compared to true hatred, and aligned against a variety of creative and cruel foes, the hard-pressed PI is about to discover just how far hate can go.CB McKenzie's Bad Country is a noir novel that is as deep and twisty as a desert arroyo. With confident, accomplished prose, McKenzie captures the rough-and-tumble outer reaches of the Southwest in a transfixingly original style that transcends the traditional crime novel.
The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion
by Wendy WilliamsA New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceA Best Book of 2015, The Wall Street Journal"Love is the driver for Wendy Williams's new book, The Horse . . . [an] affectionate, thoroughgoing, good-hearted book." —Jaimy Gordon, The New York Times Book Review"Charming and deeply interesting . . . Ms. Williams does a marvelous job." —Pat Shipman, The Wall Street JournalThe book horse-lovers have been waiting forHorses have a story to tell, one of resilience, sociability, and intelligence, and of partnership with human beings. In The Horse, the journalist and equestrienne Wendy Williams brings that story brilliantly to life.Williams chronicles the 56-million-year journey of horses as she visits with experts around the world, exploring what our biological affinities and differences can tell us about the bond between horses and humans, and what our longtime companion might think and feel. Indeed, recent scientific breakthroughs regarding the social and cognitive capacities of the horse and its ability to adapt to changing ecosystems indicate that this animal is a major evolutionary triumph. Williams charts the course that leads to our modern Equus-from the protohorse to the Dutch Warmbloods, Thoroughbreds, and cow ponies of the twenty-first century. She observes magnificent ancient cave art in France and Spain that signals a deep respect and admiration for horses well before they were domesticated; visits the mountains of Wyoming with experts in equine behavior to understand the dynamics of free-roaming mustangs; witnesses the fluid gracefulness of the famous Lipizzans of Vienna; contemplates what life is like for the sure-footed, mustachioed Garrano horses who thrive on the rugged terrain of Galicia; meets a family devoted to rehabilitating abandoned mustangs on their New Hampshire farm; celebrates the Takhi horses of Mongolia; and more. She blends profound scientific insights with remarkable stories to create a unique biography of the horse as a sentient being with a fascinating past and a finely nuanced mind.The Horse is a revealing account of the animal who has been at our side through the ages, befriending us and traveling with us over the mountains and across the plains. Enriched by Williams's own experience with horses, The Horse is a masterful work of narrative nonfiction that pays tribute to this treasure of the natural world.
Rizzo's War: A Novel (Rizzo Series #1)
by Lou ManfredoRizzo's War, Lou Manfredo's stunningly authentic debut, partners a rookie detective with a seasoned veteran on his way to retirement in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn."There's no wrong, there's no right, there just is." This is the refrain of Joe Rizzo, a decades-long veteran of the NYPD, as he passes on the knowledge of his years of experience to his ambitious new partner, Mike McQueen, over a year of riding together as detectives in the Sixty-second Precinct in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. McQueen is fresh from the beat in Manhattan, and Bensonhurst might as well be China for how different it is. They work on several cases, some big, some small, but the lesson is always the same. Whether it's a simple robbery or an attempted assault, Rizzo's saying always seems to bear out.When the two detectives are given the delicate task of finding and returning the runaway daughter of a city councilman, who may or may not be more interested in something his daughter has taken with her than in her safety, the situation is much more complex. By the end of Rizzo and McQueen's year together, however, McQueen is not surprised to discover that even in those more complicated cases, Rizzo is still right—there's no wrong, there's no right, there just is.Rizzo's War is an introduction to a wonderful new voice in crime fiction in the Big Apple, ringing with authenticity, full of personality, and taut with the suspense of real, everyday life in the big city.
Stark: A Novel
by Edward BunkerEx-con. Author. Actor. Legend. Edward Bunker is one of the acknowledged masters of crime fiction. Written in the late 1960's and discovered after Bunker's death in 2005, Stark is his first and perhaps his most explosive novel ever.1962. Oceanview, California. The girls are beautiful. The dope is cheap. The squares here are ripe for the plucking--easy money for a man with a plan. Ernie Stark is a hophead and a grifter out to make a big score. If he has to screw over everyone in town, he will. The problem is one more misstep will find him locked up for good.Violent, lightening paced and exotic, filed with the most wonderful cast of lowlifes you'll ever meet and dialogue that crackles, this is the lost novel for mystery lovers everywhere and the legion of fans of the legendary Edward Bunker.
Short Squeeze: A Mystery (Jackie Swaitkowski Mysteries #1)
by Chris KnopfThe outside world thinks living in the Hamptons requires a Bentley, a face-lift, and a shingle-style home the size of Buckingham Palace. The truth is a lot more complicated than that. Dig a little deeper and you're as likely to find a saint--or a Mensa genius--as you are a deviant or certified nut job lurking right below the surface.I know this because these are my beloved clients.Meet Jackie Swaitkowski, a smart-aleck attorney whose legal turf is supposed to be the buzzing Hamptons real-estate market. But when a new client turns up dead, things take a sudden and decidedly dangerous turn. In a client's pocket is an envelope that contains a shocking piece of evidence that suggests that the death was anything but an accident.Jackie has bigger fish to fry--like her old flame Harry's surprise return to town--until a late-night car chase changes her priorities. Now she has every reason to believe that the next name on the killer's list is her own.Chris Knopf has been praised for his quick-witted writing and broad knowledge of the highs and lows of Hamptons life, and his books have been included on best-of-the-year lists complied by The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and others. Now, in Short Squeeze, he brings an irresistible new heroine to center stage.