Ripley: "Her best novel" (The New Yorker). Set in Tunisia in the mid-1960s, this is the story of Howard Ingham, an American writer who has gone abroad to gather material for a movie too sordid to be set in America. Ingham is cool toward the girlfriend he left behind in New York-but his feelings start to change when she doesn't answer his increasingly aggravated letters, and the filmmaker who hired Ingham fails to show in Tunisia. Amid the tea shops and alleys of the souk, the sun-blasted architecture, and the beaches and hotels frequented by international tourists, Ingham tries to pass the time by working on a writing project. But a series of peculiar events-a hushed-up murder, a vanished corpse, secret broadcasts to the Soviet Union-will pull him in, and may finally put his increasingly fragile sense of morality to the test.

    When his tentative efforts at a relationship with elegant political campaign worker Betsy come to naught, Travis conceives of an assassination attempt upon her boss, Senator Charles Palantine. But as he cruises the streets at night, Travis encounters a hapless child prostitute, Iris, and her sinister pimp, sport. Travis's mounting psychosis acquires a new focus, and violence erupts . . .One of the key films of the 1970s and winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, Taxi Driver was the first of several potent collaborations between Paul Schrader and director Martin Scorsese. Inspired by Ford's The Searchers, Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest, the diaries of real-life gunman Arthur Bremer, and an especially tormented period in Schrader's own life, Taxi Driver remains a devastating portrait of a man in urban purgatory.

    Includes detailed scene notes by Paul Oosterhouse, assistant to the Wachowskis throughout the making of the movie.

    As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began with a fire in an antiquarian bookstore.A distinguished Shakespearean scholar found tortured to death . . . A lost manuscript and its secrets buried for centuries . . . An encrypted map that leads to incalculable wealth . . . The Washington Post called Michael Gruber's previous work "a miracle of intelligent fiction and among the essential novels of recent years." Now comes his most intellectually provocative and compulsively readable novel yet. Tap-tapping the keys and out come the words on this little screen, and who will read them I hardly know. I could be dead by the time anyone actually gets to read them, as dead as, say, Tolstoy. Or Shakespeare. Does it matter, when you read, if the person who wrote still lives? These are the words of Jake Mishkin, whose seemingly innocent job as an intellectual property lawyer has put him at the center of a deadly conspiracy and a chase to find a priceless treasure involving William Shakespeare. As he awaits a killer—or killers—unknown, Jake writes an account of the events that led to this deadly endgame, a frantic chase that began when a fire in an antiquarian bookstore revealed the hiding place of letters containing a shocking secret, concealed for four hundred years. In a frantic race from New York to England and Switzerland, Jake finds himself matching wits with a shadowy figure who seems to anticipate his every move. What at first seems like a thrilling puzzle waiting to be deciphered soon turns into a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, where no one—not family, not friends, not lovers—is to be trusted. Moving between twenty-first-century America and seventeenth-century England, The Book of Air and Shadows is a modern thriller that brilliantly re-creates William Shakespeare's life at the turn of the seventeenth century and combines an ingenious and intricately layered plot with a devastating portrait of a contemporary man on the brink of self-discovery . . . or self-destruction.

    The storyline follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school cliques) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.

    Chase Gordon has the life.The former Marine works part-time as a bartender to support his life island-hopping on his 40-foot sailboat.When the pretty young wife of one of his fellow Marines shows up looking for her husband, Chase steps in to help her out.Immediately, he finds himself in a stand-off between one of South Florida's most dangerous drug dealers and the D.E.A.Now, he's left wondering what kind of trouble his friend might be facing.Can Chase even save him?Filled with action and adventure, Chase Gordon is the next Travis McGee.

    Francis Hotel: girls, jazz, bootleg hooch . . . and a dead actress named Virginia Rappe. The D.A. says it was Arbuckle who killed her ? crushing her under his weight ? and brings him up on manslaughter charges. William Randolph Hearst's newspapers stir up the public and demand a guilty verdict. But what really happened? Why do so many people at the party seem to have stories that conflict? Why is the prosecution hiding witnesses? Why are there body parts missing from the autopsied corpse? Why is Hearst so determined to see Arbuckle convicted? In desperation, Arbuckle's defense team hires a Pinkerton agent to do an investigation of his own and, they hope, discover the truth. The agent's name is Dashiell Hammett, the book's narrator. What he discovers will change American legal history ? and his own life ? forever.

    Simply waiting for a bus why should Anne ever dream of dying? He was an opportunist driven by lust, needing to climax while looking into her eyes as she died. Found two months later she will be like all the others - frozen in time. Hunting the killer down is Detective Inspector Jack Gilbert, a dinosaur of the old school, a fish out of water in the swinging sixties, but with a reputation second to none. What is Jack’s sad secret? What does the future hold for him? Read the ICE MAIDEN and there’s a link at the end allowing you to download for FREE, number one in the Jack Gilbert Series – THE CHOCOLATE KILLER. For you, chocolate will never taste the same again!

    It is currently being translated into numerous languages, and in 2014 will be published in a dozen countriesIn December of 2013, Killing Pythagoras appears in English for the first timeKilling Pythagoras is a thriller that will keep readers on the edge of their seats from the prologue to the final page. Based on real historical events, the novel is an extraordinary combination of intrigue, romance, and action.Synopsis:The venerable philosopher Pythagoras, one of the most powerful political figures of his time, is preparing to name a successor from among his grand masters when a string of murders rocks the Pythagorean community. The killings, each more baffling and unpredictable than the last, gradually unveil the workings of a dark and powerful mind, more formidable than that of Pythagoras himself.Egyptian investigator Akenon and the enigmatic Ariadne work to identify the murderer while at the same time coming to terms with their own tumultuous relationship. The challenge they face is one in which the ghosts of the past are interwoven with the sinister threats of the present: a challenge from which it seems impossible they will escape alive.Killing Pythagoras, based on real-life historical events, will plunge readers into an apparently unsolvable mystery. Readers will unearth cryptic clues and come face to face with some of the most unnerving characters ever to appear in the pages of fiction: Glaucus the Sybarite, the gruesome Boreas, the vengeful Cylon, and above all, the mysterious stranger who wields his prodigious capabilities to sow death.Media:“Crime, mystery, and romance in a fast-paced action novel.” HISTORIA NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC“Maximum excitement and fun; [the author] achieves a compelling mix of strong elements.” ONDA CERO RADIO“A fast-paced historical thriller that transports us to the cradle of civilization among intrigues and passion.” LA VANGUARDIA“An edge-of-your-seat narrative driven by suspenseful action, it succeeds in creating a tense atmosphere in the face of the deadly threat that attempts to destroy the main characters.” QUÉ LEERLiterature Blogs:“A supremely interesting novel that surprised and hooked me, by an author who expertly juggles the tension and suspense up to the last second. Highly recommended.” LEER ES VIAJAR“…it has all the ingredients necessary in a book to hook you: crime, mystery, love, action… I loved it. I didn’t know there was a sequel and I’m very happy to hear there is! I can’t wait to read it.” MARIÁNLEEMÁSLIBROS“The meticulous detail with which the era is recreated gives the novel incredible realism… While the novel is fast-moving from the beginning, the pace accelerates even more toward the end, creating an action-packed finish.” ADIVINA QUIÉN LEE“The novel hooks you from the first page to the last. The plot is so intricately woven it’s hard to put down once you begin.” AL RICO LIBRO

    Heartbroken after the end of a long relationship, he becomes intrigued with a new, advanced operating system, which promises to be an intuitive entity in its own right, individual to each user. Upon initiating it, he is delighted to meet "Samantha" , a bright, female voice, who is insightful, sensitive and surprisingly funny. As her needs and desires grow, in tandem with his own, their friendship deepens into an eventual love for each other.

    Raymond Chandler's screenplay for The Blue Dahlia is a valuable addition to the published canon for the writer who has been called "the Shakespeare of hard­boiled fiction." Converted from a never-completed novel, this screenplay is all that survives of the novel Chandler worked on between The Lady in the Lake and The Little Sister. In 1944 Paramount Pictures, where Chandler was under contract, needed a rush script for Alan Ladd. Chandler agreed to cannibalize his novel-in-progress, but-as detailed in producer John Houseman's memoir-he became stuck and decided that he could only complete his screenplay drunk. The Blue Dahlia was completed on schedule and was well received, earning Chandler his second Academy Award nomination. Although the writer's screenplay is metamorphosed by other hands in the movie-making process, the screenplay as written has an independent existence, and may be read and judged as a literary work. Indeed, the movie studio archives are a valuable literary resource; and it is inevitable that many screenplays will be published as the study of movies ex­pands. The Blue Dahlia is the story of a war hero who is suspected of having mur­dered his unfaithful wife. Although it does not involve a private-eye, the work utilizes familiar elements of Chandler's world: the loner hero, the quest for jus­tice, the sense of a corrupt society, and- above all-the theme of personal honor.

    Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: He has a top agent and publisher in New York, and his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies. Only Stephen King, one of the few mystery writers whose fame exceeds his own, is capable of inspiring a twinge of envy in Rush. But Rush is hiding a dark secret. Under the pseudonym "Jack of Spades," he pens another string of novels—noir thrillers that are violent, lurid, masochistic. These are novels that the upstanding Rush wouldn't be caught reading, let alone writing. When his daughter comes across a Jack of Spades novel he has carelessly left out, she picks it up and begins to ask questions. Meanwhile, Rush receives a court summons in the mail explaining that a local woman has accused him of plagiarizing her own self-published fiction. Before long, Rush's reputation, career, and family life all come under threat—and in his mind he begins to hear the taunting voice of the Jack of Spades.

    For his centennial, The Library of America inaugurates its Macdonald edition with four classic novels from the 1950s, all featuring his incomparable protagonist, private investigator Lew Archer.Set against the background of a glittering yet darkly enigmatic Southern California, Macdonald’s books are both unsurpassed entertainments and emotionally powerful evocations of an outwardly prosperous, inwardly turbulent America. Macdonald mastered the hard-boiled detective form early on and brought to it a prose style of extraordinary beauty. The four novels collected in this volume reveal him broadening the genre into an intensely personal means of expression, transforming the tragedies and dislocations of his own life into haunting fiction. “My interest,” he wrote to his publisher, “is the exploration of lives.”In The Way Some People Die, Lew Archer embarks on a missing persons case that starts at a house in Santa Monica “within earshot of the coast highway and rifleshot of the sea,” and takes him on a violent and twisted journey through Los Angeles high and low. The Barbarous Coast exposes a world of hidden crime and corruption in the movie business, as Archer intrudes on the well-protected secrets of a studio head. A gripping and tightly knit drama of madness and self-destruction, The Doomsters signaled a breakthrough in the Archer novels with its exploration of “an alternating current of guilt” within a family, a theme to which Macdonald would often return. The Galton Case, one of the standout masterpieces of the detective form, is a mythically charged and deeply personal book that traces the calamitous consequences of a young man’s claim to be the lost heir to a fortune. For Macdonald The Galton Case marked a turning point in his career, the realization of his quest to create fiction from “some of the more complicated facts of my experience.”As a special feature, this volume includes five important statements—among them the famous essay “Writing The Galton Case”—in which Macdonald reveals the autobiographical background of his books and his understanding of his own contribution to the evolving genre of detective fiction.

    . . . Written with the same kind of deadpan humor Levison used so well in his first book.--USA TodayA gleeful satire. . . . It's an amusingly bleak little (im)moral fable.--Detroit Free PressExciting, funny, poignant and sociologically important.--The Chicago TribuneLevison's irony is acute as he caricatures the working world's groundlings.--The New York Times Book ReviewThe work Jake Skowran is offered is a lot less than legal. He's got little choice except to take it. The guys who owned the factory have left town for someplace where there's more sun and cheaper labor. The deserted plant is fenced in and the fence topped with razor wire, as if they'd worried that the locals would steal tractor-building equipment and start making tractors in their basements. Jake's girlfriend has also decamped (along with the vacuum cleaner and the entertainment center).She went off with some used car dealer, huh? his bookie mocks.He was a new car dealer, Jake retorts.Jake's got six months of unemployment left before he's dead broke and the locks get changed. Life has turned into one big downgrade. It has downsized and hardened him. He's up for anything. The economy is pain, lies and silliness, and he is going to carve off a piece of it for himself or die trying.Iain Levison is the author of A Working Stiff's Manifesto, an account of his postcollegiate work experience, consisting of 42 jobs in 10 years. He lives in Philadelphia.

    He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children's book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old, Milo, affectionately dubbed "Spooky," and a non-collie named Lassie, who's all but part of the family.So Cubby knows he shouldn't let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to him — even if it does appear in the nation's premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic Shearman Waxx. Cubby knows that the best thing to do is ignore the gratuitously vicious, insulting, and inaccurate comments. Penny knows it; even little Milo knows it. If Lassie could talk, she'd tell Cubby to ignore them, too.Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a good look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a career — or a life.But Shearman Waxx isn't what Cubby expects, and neither is the escalating terror that follows what seemed to be an innocent encounter. For Waxx gives criticism; he doesn't take it. He has ways of dealing with those who cross him that Cubby is only beginning to fathom. Soon Cubby finds himself in a desperate struggle with a relentless sociopath, facing an inexorable assault on far more than his life.