There is a long and honourable tradition of great detectives and Dirk Gently does not belong to it. Sherlock Holmes observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Dirk Gently, however, does not like to eliminate the impossible.In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency a simple search for a missing cat reveals two ghosts, a dodo, an Electric Monk, the devastating secret that lies behind the whole of human history and threatens to bring it to a premature close, and, finally, the utterly terrifying reason why Richard MacDuff has had a sofa stuck on his stairs for three weeks.As The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul opens a passenger check-in desk at Terminal Two, Heathrow Airport, shoots up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame. The usual people try to claim responsibility. However, no rational cause can be found for the explosion - it was simply designated an act of God. But, thinks Dirk Gently, which God? And why? What God would be hanging around Terminal Two of Heathrow Airport trying to catch the 15.37 to Oslo?What do a dead cat, a computer whizz-kid, an electric monk, quantum mechanics, a chronologit over 200 years old, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and pizza have in common? Apparently not much, until Dirk Gently begins his investigation.

    An all-around superstar, he plays the game with a single-minded ferocity that makes his New York Mets team all but invincible. Yet Barr himself is a mystery with no past, no friends, no women, and no interests outside hitting a baseball as hard and as far as he can. Not even Ellie Jay, the jaded sportswriter who can out-think, out-drink, and out-write any man in the press box. She wants to think she admires Barr's skill on a ballfield, but suspects she might be in love with a man who isn't really there.Barr leads the Mets to one championship after another. Then chaos arrives in the person of new manager Charli Stanzi, well-known psychopath. Under Stanzi's tutelage, the team simply falls apart. Then Barr himself inexplicably starts to unravel. For the first time in his life, his formidable skills fail him, and only Ellie Jay and another can help - if he will let them. Hanging in the balance are his sanity, the World Series, and true love.

    For Claire Anderson, this crosses the line. To make matters worse, they’re on the lam and can’t be returned to sender until In Between, the afterlife way station, can arrange transportation to pick them up. In the meantime, Claire tries to contain this motley crew, hoping to stave off an international incident. How do they manage to walk among us? Will Claire succeed in repatriating them? And at what cost? The Afterlife Coach is a humorous tale of second chances, self-awareness and, for those among us who make bad choices, demonstrates just how hard it is to die happily ever after.

    Imagine a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women share a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine them part of a novel that only Tom Robbins could create? A magically crafted work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat. But no matter how hard you try, you'll never imagine what you'll find inside the Villa Incognito: a tilt-a-whirl of identity, masquerade, and disguise that dares to pull off "the false mustache of the world" and reveal the even greater mystery underneath. For neither the mists of Laos nor the Bangkok smog, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the pure linguistic phosphor that illuminates every page of one of America's most consistently surprising and inventive writers.

    Today, more than 35 million people in the United States and Canada spend hours upon hours each week on their fantasy sports teams. And as the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for ESPN, Matthew Berry is on the front lines of what has grown from a niche subculture into a national pastime. In Fantasy Life, Berry celebrates every aspect of the fantasy sports world. Brilliant trash talk. Unbelievable trophies. Insane draft day locations. Shake-your-head-in-disbelief punishments. Ingenious attempts at cheating. And surprisingly uplifting stories that remind us why we play these games in the first place. Written with the same award-winning style that has made Berry one of the most popular columnists on ESPN.com, Fantasy Life is a book for both hard-core fantasy players and people who have never played before. Between tales of love and hate, birth and death, tattoos and furry animal costumes, the White House Situation Room and a 126-pound golden pelican, Matthew chronicles his journey from a fourteen-year-old fantasy player to the face of fantasy sports for the largest sports media company in the world. Fantasy will save your life. Fantasy will set you free. And fantasy life is most definitely better than real life. You'll see.

    Making matters even worse are the threatening letters: Dear Sir: Only for the moment are we saying nothing. Yours, etc., Present Associates.Despite such precautions as a two-inch-thick surgical steel door and a bullet-proof limousine, Smith remains worried. So he undertakes to build a giant mausoleum, complete with plumbing, in which to live. Hunter S. Thompson called reading this book “like sitting down to an evening of good whisky and mad laughter in a rare conversation somewhere on the edge of reality.”

    That is, until he gets tangled up with Sophie Delfino and her Sensational Sex workout. He s supposed to help her demonstrate Kama Sutra positions for her couples yoga class. The rigorous postures require more than just physical control. And his co-instructor unexpectedly tests his control to the limit.Sophie s been fantasizing about David since her teens, but she never dreamed she d actually be expected to run through her intimate desires with an audience! The class is very professional, tame even or it would be, if she d been in any of the positions before. But she hasn t except in her wildest fantasies about David. Sophie knows she wants David in every way, and she s flexible enough to use whatever she has to get him.David can t afford any unexpected distractions. Besides the sensual positions he has to endure without embarrassing himself in public, there s an embezzler stealing from his company. And then there s Sophie who is well on her way to stealing his well-guarded heart."

    Packed full of hilariously stories, exclusive anecdotes and refreshing appraisals, in The Greatest Games Jamie Carragher takes you into the heart of these matches, revealing new insights into the teams, players and coaches that have shaped football.

    Stumbling onto a yellowed file containing correspondence between Beau Stedman, an astonishingly talented teenage golfer, and the legendary Bobby Jones (once a partner at the firm), Hunter finds himself embroiled in a decades-old murder case–and searching for an invisible champion who won nearly all his matches with the masters.As Hunter unravels the facts of Stedman’s case, his hunger for the truth is matched only by his deepening reverence for the game, one that leads him to a heart-stopping courtroom showdown between golf’s most powerful association and a family torn apart by buried secrets.

    He's convinced he gave his twin sister cancer when they were nine years old. And his crazy fiancee refuses to accept the fact that their engagement really is over.Then Sonny, his allegedly clairvoyant basset hound, is found murdered.The ensuing amateur investigation forces Russell to confront several things at once---the enormity of his family's dysfunction, the guy stalking his family, and his long-buried feelings for a most peculiar love interest.At its heart, My Name Is Russell Fink is a comedy, with sharp dialogue, characters steeped in authenticity, romance, suspense, and fresh humor. With a postmodern style similar to Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland, the author explores reconciliation, forgiveness, and faith in the midst of tragedy. No amount of neurosis or dysfunction can derail God's redemptive purposes.

    Against the Technicolor unreality of Florida's finest tourist attractions, the Drummonds stumble into every illicit activity under the tropical sun-kidnapping, blackmail, gunplay, and black market negotiations, to name a few. But even as the Drummonds' lives spin out of control, Coupland reminds us of their humanity at every turn, hammering out a hilarious masterpiece with the keen eye of a cultural critic and the heart and soul of a gifted storyteller. He tells not only the characters' stories but also the story of our times--thalidomide, AIDS, born-again Christianity, drugs, divorce, the Internet-all bound together with the familiar glue of family love and madness.

    Their guns are drawn on the bank manager. She nervously recites the alarm code, and the tumblers within the huge vault fall. The timing and execution are brilliant. It could be the perfect heist. But as the huge sum of cash is stolen, so too is one man's heart -- and that man is the Prince of Thieves...Charlestown, a blue-collar Boston neighborhood, produces more bank robbers and armored car thieves than any square mile in the world. In this gripping, intricately plotted thriller, Claire Keesey, the branch manager for a Boston bank and one of an influx of young professionals chipping away at the neighborhood's insularity, is taken hostage during a robbery. She is released, but Doug MacRay, the brains behind the tough, tight-knit crew of thieves, can't get her out of his mind. Tracking her down without his mask and gun, Doug introduces himself, and as soon as he and Claire meet, their mutual attraction is undeniable -- as are the risks of a relationship. Meanwhile, Doug's crew pulls off another audacious, meticulously planned job. Frustrated by their ingenuity and brazen ambition, FBI Agent Adam Frawley begins to zero in on Doug and his pals -- and against his own better judgment, he, too, develops more than a professional interest in Claire.Under pressure from Frawley's ever-closer investigation, Doug imagines a life for himself away from bank robberies and Charlestown. But before that can happen, the crew learns that there may be a way to rob Boston's venerable baseball stadium, Fenway Park. It's a magnificently dangerous and utterly irresistible opportunity -- yet for Doug, pursuing his former hostage may be the most dangerous act of all... Chuck Hogan's brash tale of four men -- thieves, rivals, friends -- being hunted through the streets of Boston by a tenacious FBI agent, and the woman who may destroy them all, is a spectacular, stylish, heart-pounding thriller.

    Not only has he lost the race, but also his licence, as the Jockey Club suspends him - believing he threw the race.Only he knows that the problem lay with the horse's performance, not his own. Suspecting he was framed, Kelly sets about finding out how it was done, and then who might have done it.But the closer he gets to the perpetrators, the more danger he finds himself in. Now there's more than his reputation and career at stake. There's also his life . . .Packed with intrigue and hair-raising suspense, Enquiry is just one of the many blockbuster thrillers from legendary crime writer Dick Francis.

    He works the graveyard shift. He has a poster of Bela Lugosi on his wall and a box of uneaten Count Chocula in his pantry. He drinks stem-cell-derived blood from cleverly packaged and marketed juice boxes. He is, in short, a vampire. But since his wildly successful scheme to turn as many mortals as possible into vampires -- "vamp" them rather than kill them -- resulted in a new immortal majority, Marty finds little of interest to fill his countless days. From the deeply imaginative mind of David Sosnowski -- who gave us the critically acclaimed junkie-angel classic Rapture -- bursts this neo-vampire novel studded with pint-size vampires known as "screamers" (children who were vamped and are none too happy about it); priest vampires who helped convert their flock into lifetime members of the Church; stripper vampires who lap-danced their way into customers' veins; and one very small, very outspoken human girl. When Marty decides to end his endless life of soul-crushing ennui -- call it vampire affluenza -- a three-foot blond obstacle is thrown in his path: Isuzu Trooper Cassidy, a refugee from a human hunting preserve. At first he thinks "midnight snack," but before the sun comes up, Isuzu is the one snacking on his prized cereal collection as she charms him into staying undead long enough to raise her in a world rife with danger and almost entirely populated by vampires yearning for the taste of real human blood. The critics applauded David Sosnowski when Rapture was published, saying he "staked out a patch of turf somewhere between Franz Kafka and Douglas Adams." Now with Vamped, Sosnowski takes on a time-honored genre and breathes new life into it by turning Martin Kowalski's vampire world upside down and telling his story with rich, masterful, and frequently hilarious prose.

    Only two things would improve his life - children and a lower golf handicap. Both are unlikely. The former because Gary's wife Pauline is intent on leaving him as soon as she's snared Findlay Masterson, the self-made carpet millionaire she's set her sights on. And the latter because, frankly, Gary is an appalling golfer.Far away from the world of golf handicaps, down in the murky depths of Ardgirvan's criminal underclass, Gary's hapless brother Lee is stumbling from one botched drug deal to another, his orbit drawing terrifyingly close to local crime overlord Ranta Campbell.Then Gary gets smashed on the head by a golf ball and knocked into a coma. He wakes to find that the neurological trauma he's suffered has resulted in some pretty radical side effects - among them an absolutely perfect golf swing. He wins his local club championship. He breaks the course record. He qualifies for the Open...Meanwhile Pauline and Masterson have hit upon a plan to help him avoid a ruinously expensive divorce. It's the kind of plan that ends with a funeral. Their stories converge as the two brothers stumble into uncharted territory - Lee towards murder and Gary teeing it up with his golfing hero, Calvin Linklater, the world number one, in the Open Championship...The Amateurs is a hilarious examination of family and sport, of the ties that bind and how trying to put a little white ball in a hole can literally drive some men insane.