Before his first mission, the Soviet Union collapses and he disappears.We meet him twenty years later in the Everglades, keeping as far from people as he can get, until his best friend–his only friend–is murdered and he is forced to assemble a team of people like him to fight the international conspiracy behind the murder.“A dead-on thriller for the decade . . . . I can’t imagine anyone reading this and not wanting more” — Thomas F. Monteleone, author of the NY Times bestseller The Blood of the Lamb and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing a Novel“Ted Krever has been a writer to watch, now he’s a writer to read. Do not miss MINDBENDERS.” -F. Paul Wilson“Ted Krever is a great storyteller but more importantly, the stories he creates and writes are ones that I want to read. In this ADD era, where even e-mails are considered too long, Ted’s work commands my attention. It is definitely worthy of yours, too.” -David Leaf, biographer and award-winner writer/director/producer of such films as ‘The Night James Brown Saved Boston,’ ‘The US Vs. John Lennon’ and ‘ BEAUTIFUL DREAMER: Brian Wilson and The Story of SMiLE.’

    Includes:Jim Shepard’s "Tedford and the Megalodon"Glen David Gold’s "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter"Dan Chaon’s "The Bees"Kelly Link’s "Catskin"Elmore Leonard’s "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman"Carol Emshwiller’s "The General"Neil Gaiman’s "Closing Time"Nick Hornby’s "Otherwise Pandemonium"Stephen King’s "The Tale of Gray Dick"Michael Crichton’s "Blood Doesn’t Come Out"Laurie King’s "Weaving the Dark"Chris Offutt’s "Chuck’s Bucket"Dave Eggers’s "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"Michael Moorcock’s "The Case of the Nazi Canary"Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers"Harlan Ellison’s "Goodbye to All That"Karen Joy Fowler’s "Private Grave 9"Rick Moody’s "The Albertine Notes"Michael Chabon’s "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance"Sherman Alexie’s "Ghost Dance"

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    But his daughter Lisa, now grown, in her search to uncover the truth surrounding the puzzling death of her brilliant scientist father finds a cache of deep secrets--ones that start to destroy her family, marriage, and sanity. The facts Lisa uncovers are shocking and come at a high cost.

    To find the killer, rookie detective Callum Pederson has gone undercover where the Princes hold court. He’s found enough secrets among the bros to bring them in for questioning—but he could very well get lost in the games the Princes play.

    In his singular universe, televisions talk (and sometimes sing), animals live in small apartments where their nephews visit from the sea, and men and women and boys and girls fall down wells and fly through space and find love on Ferris wheels. In a voice full of fable, myth, and dream, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day draws us into a world of delightfully wicked recognitions, and introduces us to a writer of uncommon talent and imagination.Contains 40 stories, including "The Duck," "The Man and the Moose," and "Death and the Fruits of the Tree," as heard on NPR's This American Life, "The Book," as heard on Selected Shorts, and "The TV," as found in The New Yorker.A selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program and the Starbucks Coffee Bookish Reading Club.Winner of the 2011 Nobbie Award for Best Book of the Year."This guy can write!" –Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451

    Instead, she finds herself at the heart of a mystery and she's forced to investigate a jewellery thief. With all the important people at the Puppy Academy, she can't afford to step on any toes… or paws.

    

    But when their plane crashes an ocean away in the bear-infested jungles of South China, the mysterious motive behind their abduction is the least of their problems, and they must lever every ounce of their courage and wits to survive the wilds and escape the ruthless drug lord who is hot on their heels. Can a gifted child learn to kill in order to save his loved ones?Important Note: This 130-page novella features the characters and continuing story from the #1 Bestselling “Brainrush” Thriller series. It is a complete story unto itself, compiled from books four and five of the series, “Brainchild” and “Smoke & Mirrors.” If you’ve read those full-length novels, then you’ve already read most of the contents of this novella.

    Upload. Ruin a reputation. In this page-turning short story from international bestselling author Jeffery Deaver, senior detective Jon Avery inherits a deeply troubling case. At an off-campus party, university professor Rose Taylor is drugged, undressed, and photographed on a burner phone. In seconds her humiliation is uploaded, and millions of JPEGs are zipping like immortal wasps through the internet. But why would someone target her? She has no vengeful exes or rival academics, no stalkers or unhinged students. Jon Avery, the sharpest, most experienced investigator in the sheriff’s office, is determined to find out who’s behind this horrific invasion of privacy. But soon he runs into a wall of silence at Preston College—an academic mecca whose reputation one doesn’t dare tarnish. The message is clear: if he pursues the case, he’ll pay for it.

    Author of the New York Times bestsellers “Let the Great World Spin” and “Transatlantic,” McCann has been called “a giant among us” (Peter Carey), “dazzlingly talented” (O: The Oprah Magazine), and “that rare species in contemporary fiction: a literary writer who is an exceptional storyteller” (The Independent). He’s received a National Book Award, an Oscar nomination, and a slew of international prizes. His talents are on full display in his new short story, “Gone,” a deeply affecting literary thriller about a mother and son, alone in a cottage on the west coast of Ireland, and the search that ensues when the boy—whom she adopted years before, deaf and with “already a whole history written in him”—goes missing. He slips away in early morning, down to the cold sea with his new Christmas wetsuit, and as the hours and days drag on, the coast guard, police, dogs, fishermen, farmers, and schoolchildren holding hands search the sea and walk the fields while the television crews and detectives come and go, the police at the cottage seeming to “ghost into one another: almost as if they could slip into one another’s faces.” The mother, Rebecca, now under suspicion, is racked with guilt over the decisions that led to her son’s disappearance, and tormented by the judgment of others: "You bought what? A wetsuit? Why in the world? What sort of mother? How much wine did you drink?" For Rebecca, “every outcome was unwhisperable.” “Gone” is a charged narrative that propels you forward, heart in your throat, and a moving, intimate look at life’s struggles toward grace and a kind of redemption.

    The estate is in disrepair, but one couple is determined to restore the estate to its former glory. But when strange accidents begin to become more dangerous, putting their crew’s lives at risk, the fixer-upper couple realize they might have bitten off more than they could chew.The Haunting of Calhoun MansionThree murders. One night. No convictions.Nicole Harper, a hospice nurse with a floundering marriage, is assigned a new patient in the remote Northwestern wilderness. But when Nic meets her new patient, she discovers the old woman's family history is as troubling as her medical condition.The Haunting of the Holloway FamilyA job opportunity has brought the Holloway family to a small desert town on the Arizona/California border in the middle of nowhere. But what is thought as a godsend soon devolves into a parent’s worst nightmare.

    A schoolboy. A CEO. A UPS delivery driver. A retired schoolteacher. A computer gamer. A hunter. They are just everyday people with nothing in common.No ransom is demanded. No one knows why they are taken. And no one could possibly imagine the horrors they've been chosen to face. Given no instructions, totally isolated from the outside world, all they find is ice.From the moment they awaken, the ice begins to melt and their terrifying struggle for survival begins. The ice will push them beyond their limits of endurance. It will reveal their personal secrets. It will torture them in ways they hadn't imagined possible, but it is also their only hope of escape.As cryptic patterns emerge, the ice reveals its rules. Rules they must obey or die. Thrust into the most horrifying ordeal of their lives, seven strangers must band together to survive. But as the ice melts, what they find inside begins to tear their group apart.They will learn terrible things about each other. They will learn their own personal limits. Scariest of all, they will learn what humans are capable of when pushed to the edge of sanity.

    "With the help of Lythgoe's spot on descriptions - not to mention the beautiful cover art - I could practically feel the mirror under my fingers. I own an old mechanical typewriter that I used to write many a poem on when I was younger. It belonged to my father and the clack and clatter of it when he used to write was a well-loved sound to me. Lythgoe's story brings to mind many memories of my youth and childhood and how the simple things were very special. In the Mirror is well crafted, full of deep emotion, wonder, loss, hope and most of all, magic."--Kristie Kiessling, Reviewer

     Crazy people craving human flesh have been appearing without warning in hoards in towns across Kent. He is just as mystified as everyone else, but when the elderly husband of the recent viral internet sensation known as Zombie Granny asks him to prove she is no such thing, he has to take the case. Then outside his office, people start screaming...