An explosion rips the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris apart during celebratory mass, killing hundreds and revealing a hidden crypt with a most gruesome find: the crucified body of a naked young woman; twelve tombstones inscribed with a single phrase -- in domina nostra salus. CIA agent John Russell, an expert in religious crime, is summoned to investigate a wave of atrocities that surges through Europe: Bodies on cathedral towers covered in baffling tattoos; the massacre of a Cistercian monastery; the relentless execution of senior Cardinal Bishops. Sorting through the bizarre crimes, Russell and his team are plunged into a web of age-old conspiracies involving the Vatican, the Ceile De, spouses of the gods, warrior priestesses and their quest to settle a primeval score. In a race against time, Russell drags his team through Europe in a desperate struggle to prevent total cataclysm. In just four days...

    It can't turn back. And the fuel's running out.Reaching the end of a four hour flight, the crew of Phoenix Flight 375 find themselves facing an impossible dilemma: terrible weather, a natural disaster and a silent killer force them to decide not how to live, but how they might have to die. Half of the passengers want to survive. The others want a quick and painless end. They have one hour of fuel remaining, and then their choices will be over.At thirty-seven thousand feet and five hundred miles per hour, you're not in control of anything. On this flight, neither are the pilots...

    Duke Rogers finds himself in a racially charged situation. The case might have to wait... The immediate problem: getting out of South Central Los Angeles in one piece during the 1992 Rodney King riots and that's just the beginning of his problems.Private investigator Duke Rogers finds an old "friend" for a client. The client's "friend," an up and coming black actress, ends up dead. Duke knows his client did it. Now, feeling guilty, he wants to find the client/killer. He starts his mission by going to the dead actress' family in South Central L.A. - and while there the Rodney King riots ignite. And while he tries to track down the killer he must also deal with the racism of his partner, Jack, and from the dead woman's brother, Warren. He must also confront his own possible latent racism - even as he's in an interracial relationship with the murder victim's dead woman's sister.

    After being forced into hiding until the trial, Heidi finds Camdon, someone who changes her :Making her new life more than bearable, he makes it perfect.Now she has to decide if it's worth giving up the perfect life she has to testify, if it's worth it to go back to the old life she had before, and if she can keep lying to the only person that she's ever loved.

    Have you ever wondered how an attorney would feel if that same recently acquitted client kills a second time? Again, I have, and these very questions prompted me to write a dark mystery/thriller about just such an attorney…I call it DEFENDING EVIL.Travis Knight is an extraordinary Criminal Defense Attorney winning high profile cases in Atlanta. One of his recently acquitted clients kills again, which has Travis and his wife Julie, questioning what he does for a living. Travis is shaken to his core, but being a consummate lawyer, he is able to move past his feelings of guilt; Julie isn’t. In a bizarre twist, a mysterious vigilante begins executing Travis’ clients after he wins them an acquittal. This righteous vigilante decides that the clients Travis is helping to put back into society are guilty, and don't deserve to live--the vigilante delivers ultimate justice.The police only half-heartedly search for the vigilante-off the record, they are glad someone is cleaning-up after the hot-shot attorney.The vigilante's attention turns to the source, and sends Travis an ultimatum--stop defending guilty clients or he will be the next to be executed. Risking his life, and his marriage, Travis refuses to be intimidated, and continues to defend clients accused of murder. This story chronicles the labyrinth of high-speed twists and turns of a deadly cat-and-mouse game…a game that can end with only one winner.Buckle-up and enjoy the ride!Best Regards,Charles Shea - Author of DEFENDING EVIL

    It also inspired us to come out with a delightful article, the ‘Indian Masketeers’, exploring Indian culture through its various masks. We also have ‘Dotty and the Albino Dragon’, the First Prize winning story in the Tinkle Original Story Competition. Moving on, we have three popular characters this issue, Shikari Shambu, Kalia the Crow and the Defective Detectives. Shambu goes on a rollicking ‘Jumbo Adventure in Assam’ while the Defective Detectives have a spine-chilling experience in ‘The Horror’. As for Kalia, can you imagine him, Chamataka and Doob Doob playing together? If you can’t, you should check out ‘Let’s Play a Game’. Next, enjoy a fun story by a reader, ‘Show Business’ in our Fan Fiction segment along with ‘Pranav’s Dadi and the Karate Kid’, where Dadi tries her hand at karate! And to wrap it up we have two diverse stories about two brave men who refused to give up. So check out ‘A Mighty Will’ and ‘No Crazy Ideas’. Enjoy!

    The work was back-breakingly hard, but the Tate & Lyle factory was more than just a workplace - it was a community, a calling, a place of love and support and an uproarious, tribal part of East London. This is Ethel’s story, one of four stories from The Sugar Girls.‘On an autumn day in 1944, Ethel Alleyne walked the short distance from her house to Tate & Lyle’s refinery on the shining curve of the Thames. Looking up at the giant gates, Ethel felt like she had been preparing for this moment all her life. She smoothed down her frizzy hair, scraped a bit of dirt off the corner of her shoe and strode through.She was quite unprepared for the sight that met her eyes …’In the years leading up to and after the Second World War thousands of women left school at fourteen to work in the bustling factories of London’s East End. Despite long hours, hard and often hazardous work, factory life afforded exciting opportunities for independence, friendship and romance. Of all the factories that lined the docks, it was at Tate and Lyle’s where you could earn the most generous wages and enjoy the best social life, and it was here where The Sugar Girls worked.This is an evocative, moving story of hunger, hardship and happiness, providing a moving insight into a lost way of life, as well as a timeless testament to the experience of being young and female.

    She’s well on her way to becoming a world-renowned actress and her latest movie will surely be a big hit at the box office. She’s basically winning at life… Until now. The emergence of a mysterious stalker, hell-bent on taking her no matter what, has put a wrench into Veronica’s perfect life. After a foiled kidnapping attempt at her latest project, her agents are left with no choice but to hire a Delta Protector. Jason Keyes had been content serving as part of the Delta Force until a mission goes awry and the blood of his beloved comrade stained his hands. Desperate for escape, he leaves the military and goes back home, only for his old friend Chase to offer him a job he can’t refuse: to protect Veronica Langley. As their differences collide and each of them battle to get their way, will their passionate arguments lead to something more? Or will their bullheaded personalities clash and spell death for the both of them? TORN APART Georgiana Pratt, aka “George”, is sick and tired of living under her parents’ rules. She yearns for the day when she can finally spread her wings and make decisions for herself. Studying at a university far, far away from her parents’ prying eyes seems like the perfect solution to her problem. Despite their protest, she leaves the comforts of home and takes the first step into college. She swears this time the only person to run her life is the person possessing it: her. Ex-Marine Spencer Downing has been waiting for a challenge to come his way, and his new assignment might just be the ticket. It wasn’t just a simple protector job; he needed to disguise himself as a student, and keep an eye on a girl who’s never been out of her parents’ roof. The catch is she must never find out. As the fates conspire to get Spencer and George closer, will they give in and provide a chance for their love to blossom? Or will the secret between them tear them apart? BROKEN Rebecca Hayes has joined Chase’s pack of delta protectors, and her first mission involves protecting two subjects – a budding musician and his daughter. Despite her extensive military training and expertise, even she has to admit guarding two people would be difficult…which is why she’s getting a partner. Rebecca is in for the shock of her life when she meets Michael Gardner, the newest addition, and her partner, as well as the man who destroyed her heart many years ago. Michael is surprised to meet his former flame, and sees this moment as an opportunity to rekindle the bond broken between them. But how can he do that when the girl he left behind is now a woman determined to have nothing to do with him? Tanner Lee’s reputation in the music industry has reached a point where going out unprotected is no longer an option, more so for his daughter, Elizabeth, who he already hardly ever has time for. While he plays his bad boy image down to a T, a bigger part of him just wants to be the doting father Elizabeth needs and deserves. He hires Rebecca and Michael to protect them, and the spark that ignites between him and Rebecca is too strong to deny… With feelings she thought she’d buried to the ground starting to resurface, can Rebecca and Michael work things out before their issues threaten to jeopardize the mission? Or will Tanner and Rebecca cross the forbidden line and find their own happy ending…with each other ***Delta Protectors is three standalone security romance books each with a guaranteed happily ever after.

    Races operating within their own planetary systems are to be left alone until they begin to develop the ability to travel at FTL (faster than light speeds). When the ability to travel at FTL becomes apparent, one of the members of the Federation is nominated to help ease the newcomer through the Galactic citizenship process. Unfortunately, not all the galaxies systems belong to the Federation, and some of those systems are much less than friendly. The last several decades have seen the development of war like societies that systematically loot developing planets. They take the water, and other precious resources, including slaves, leaving the remaining native inhabitants a barren planet. Without resources the population simply dies a slow death. The Egolari are here because we, meaning the people of Earth, happen to possess a skill set and an aptitude that is critical to the needs of the Federation. The major problem within the Federation is that virtually all the members have, for centuries been living in peace. They have developed a society that is not well suited to counter the growing violence presented by the nonaligned races. In short, they have no way to protect themselves, let alone protect the fledgling races just arriving on the galactic scene. Enter Earth. Of all the emerging races to become future galactic members, one has a superior potential to face the violence threatened by the nonaligned races. You guessed it, Humanity. The Federation realized that to continue to function as an organized galactic society, they would have to develop a military arm that could provide the Federation and emerging systems the protection of a fleet of space vessels and marines. Humanity was the race most capable of leading the development of that military organization because we had not progressed so far that our war like tendencies had begun to erode. Although we were not yet ready for galactic membership, we were a necessity that could fill the need, thus we were getting a crash course in how to travel the galaxy, protecting ourselves and the Federation with the full expectation that we would go where no human has gone before, and kick some alien ass.

    A striking and emotionally resonant collection, SUBWAY DANCER AND OTHER STORIES is a compilation of stories originally published in some of the most respected literary magazines in the country, including The Antioch Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train and Ploughshares. In the award-winning story “Bloodlines,” two neighbors of different ethnicities are friends in spite of their differences…until an argument about expensive purebred dogs versus mutts from the pound brings the whole neighborhood’s precarious balance crashing down. “Bloodlines” was reprinted in Bark Magazine’s best-selling anthology Dog is My Co-Pilot and was cited in Best American Short Stories. In Witness to Breath, a woman living a dangerous life working on the streets takes in an elderly dog left behind when his owner is killed in a robbery. Despite never having been a dog person, their brief relationship changes her in ways she never could have expected.In Disappearances, a man not fluent in his own emotions tries unsuccessfully to broadside a train in his pickup truck, then spends the rest of the story figuring out the first clue to why he’d try to do such a thing.Among the other riveting and beautifully crafted stories included in this collection, “Five Singing Gardeners and One Dead Stranger” and “Requiem For a Flamer” were nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and “The Man Who Found You in the Woods” was cited in Best American Short Stories. This collection includes an Author’s Note by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

    The man is found strangled in his bed.Unknown to him, five individuals frequently meet in a room. They have been meeting for decades.During the course of the investigation another man is found murdered. This time the victim's throat has been slashed.Is there a link between the two victims? Can Whaler solve the cases before there are any more murders?THE OCTOBER FIVE is a spiraling page-turner that examines friendship, loyalty, and justice.

    I was lost ... Pat Quirke tried to come in and control everything' Bobby Ryan's disappearance in rural Tipperary in June 2011 mystified all who knew him. The truck-driver and part-time DJ (known as Mr Moonlight) was an easy-going fellow with no enemies. Or so everyone thought.When Ryan's body was found 22 months later on the farm of Mary Lowry, the wealthy young widow he had been seeing, it was clear that he had met a violent end.And the most likely person to have brought about that end? Pat Quirke, the man who had 'discovered' the body - Mary Lowry's brother-in-law, financial advisor, tenant and one-time lover.Following the longest running murder trial in Irish criminal history Quirke was convicted of murder in May 2019. Getting to that day had taken years of exhaustive work by gardaí. The Murder of Mr Moonlight is the definitive account of their investigation as well as the compelling story of how an innocent man paid the price for another man's obsessions.Catherine Fegan, Irish Journalist of the Year (2017), and Chief Correspondent at the Irish Daily Mail, covered every day of Quirke's trial. Over many months she also conducted interviews in Tipperary and further afield. She has written an extraordinary insightful and meticulous account of the case that gripped the nation. '[An] excellent book that shows all the colours of the story that intrigued the nation' Irish Daily Mail 'Well-researched and highly readable ... Fegan proves her journalistic mettle, delivering forensic detail in accessible language ... Anyone who followed the trial will not be disappointed by Fegan's book' Sunday Business Post 'Absolutely compulsive reading (as I know because my wife wouldn't let me anywhere near it - but I did get it in the end!) ... a page-turner' Eamon Dunphy, The Stand

    At first I tried to deny my condition (trying to treat a tumor with hot baths and ice packs). Eventually, I decided I would learn as much about my illness as possible while trying to keep my emotions on hold.What followed was an experience that finally forced me to deal with issues about my body that I had tried to ignore for decades. Along the way I dealt with a physician who gave me ridiculous advice and acquaintances who asked unbelievable questions. But I was also fortunate to be surrounded by people who supported me and doctors who helped me through the process.

    He grew up at a wild time and did what he had to do to survive. The law took one view of it; he took another. And the law wouldn’t get off his back. He did time, broke out of prison. He went north, hoping to leave the past behind. But the past followed him. And now there were murder charges. Whichever way he turned, trouble was right there. This is his account of what happened. Jack was born in Charleston in 1861. His parents died early of cholera and his guardian died when he was fifteen, leaving him penniless and alone. He went west and got work as a cattle drover. He shot an outlaw who was trying to rob him. Another outlaw, named Ibbetson, got away alive. Later, he ran across a cowboy called Skeeter on a cattle drive. They met again in a saloon and Skeeter asked him to help drive a herd of horses. Jack didn’t know they were stolen. He was arrested, went to jail. During his trial, he broke out of the courthouse with another inmate, who shot a courthouse constable. After that, a rope was waiting. He went north and got work on a ranch called Sand River. For a while it looked like he’d outrun trouble. He did the job and stayed clean. But up there, range wars were being fought. Ranchers hired range detectives to handle trouble. To some, they were hired killers. One of them was Ibbetson. When they met again, Jack knew it wouldn’t end well. His past had arrived.

    Bearing a weapon forged from the seed of a Dungeon Core that allows him to absorb into himself slain monsters, Daniel Richards embarks on the journey of a lifetime.An ancient seal unlocked.Daniel holds secret to the survival of the nation, a secret kept from him since birth. Fighting against tradition and a unforgiving system, Daniel must discover the true meaning of thrice blessed if he is to save his homeland from the gathering storm of enemies.