Book picks similar to
Size Matters by John Locke


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philosophy
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When I Walk, I Bounce: Walking from Land's End to John o'Groats


Mark Moxon - 2007
    In this entertaining and frequently hilarious book, Mark takes us on a journey not only of 1111 miles, but of the highs and lows of long-distance walking.'I read the entire journey cover to cover in a couple of days. Totally fascinating, very amusing.' - Howard J'I highly recommend that people read it from start to finish. It is a great tale ' - Peter K'Thank you for being so enthusiastic about travelling and revealing your passion in such a constructive way ' - Jenny S'A certain cure for a jaded outlook.' - Marilyn S'You can't put it down.' - Frank W'A great job ' - Kevin P

The Letter Promised


Kevin Wignall - 2013
    Returning to the Paris hotel where he spent his honeymoon six years earlier, he decides to take what seems like the only way out - suicide. But a chance encounter with a Russian in a similar predicament leaves Nick with an unlikely obligation to fulfil, one that will take him to Italy, and offer him a chance at something like redemption. www.kevinwignall.com

Brad Thor Collectors' Edition #2: Blowback / Takedown / The First Commandment


Brad Thor - 2011
    But when the war on terror takes a chilling turn, the president has no choice but to secretly bring Harvath back inside. Deep beneath an Alpine glacier, an ancient weapon designed to decimate the Roman Empire has been unearthed--and a shadowy organization intends to use it for America's downfall. Racing across Europe, Harvath must secure the ultimate instrument of destruction before it brings the United States and the rest of the world to its knees.TakedownJuly 4th weekend, New York City: As thousands of holiday travelers make their way out of Manhattan, a flawlessly executed terrorist attack plunges the city into a maelstrom of panic and death. Amid the chaos, an elite team of foreign operatives is systematically searching for one of their own, a man so powerful that the US government refuses to admit he even exists and will do anything to keep him hidden. Now, with the world's deadliest enemy upon America's doorstep, counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath must fight his way through the burning city streets to take down an invisible terrorist mastermind with the means to unleash hell on a global scale.The First CommandmentWhen the president of the United States is black-mailed into releasing five detainees from Guantanamo Bay, a sadistic assassin with a vendetta years in the making is reactivated. Suddenly, the people closest to counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath are being targeted and he realizes that somehow, somewhere he has left the wrong person alive. With his life plunged into absolute peril, and the president ordering him to stay out of the investigation, Harvath must mount his own covert plan for revenge--and in so doing will uncover shattering revelations about the organizations and the nation he has spent his life serving.

Stalking Horse


John Francome - 2003
    He's ridden over 1000 winners and landed all the big prizes in the sport - all except one. So he's determined that this season the title of champion jockey will finally be his. But it won't be easy. There's Ben O'Brien, the brilliant young Irish rider in his first full season who already has a lead on Josh in the championship race. And leading trainer Leo Lovall, once Josh's best friend and now his most bitter enemy. There's also someone else with a keen interest in Josh. She's his biggest fan, though he has no idea she exists. And hers is the kind of obsession that will never be satisfied - not even by murder...

Bad Move


Linwood Barclay - 2004
    and new homeowner Zack Walker isn’t feeling lucky. Whoever said the burbs were boring will think twice after reading Linwood Barclay’s hilarious debut mystery, in which Dad learns the hard way that he doesn’t always know best.Zack wouldn’t blame you for thinking he’s safety-obsessed. True, he masterminded a plot to trade his family’s exciting city lifestyle for one of suburban tranquillity. True, even after this strategic move, Zack still has issues with family members who forget their keys in the front door, leave their cars unlocked, or park their backpacks at the top of the stairs — where you could kill yourself tripping over them. Just ask his wife, Sarah, or his teenage kids, Paul and Angie, who endure their share of lectures. Zack knows that he needs to chill out and assume the best for once — but we know what happens to those who assume.When Zack realizes their two-faced developer sent a petty thief to fix their leaky shower, he starts fighting hard to ignore the fact that Oakwood isn’t the crime-free paradise he was hoping for. But his brief state of denial comes to an abrupt end when, during a walk by the creek, he stumbles across a dead body. Even more shocking, Zack actually knows who the victim is — and who might want him dead. With a killer roaming around their neighborhood and Zack’s overactive imagination in overdrive, he’s sure things can’t get any worse. But then another local is murdered — and Zack’s paranoid tendencies get him implicated in the crime. While his wife is trying to remember why she married him in the first place, and his kids are considering whether it’s time to have him committed, Zack decides there’s only one thing he can do. To protect his family — and avoid being busted for a crime he didn’t commit — he’s going to have to override his safety-first instincts, tap into his delusions of machismo, and track down the killer himself.From the Hardcover edition.

Warrior Of The Light Volume 3


Paulo Coelho - 2008
    

The Choir Director Wore Out: The Final Chapter (The Liturgical Mysteries Book 15)


Mark Schweizer - 2018
    His writing skills have not improved (despite using Raymond Chandler's typewriter to bang out his hard-boiled prose), but his crime solving prowess is still first rate. He'll need it, since murder seems to abound in the little Appalachian town of St. Germaine, North Carolina. St. Germaine is in a season of change: a couple of new shops have appeared on the square; the Great Smoky Mountain Renaissance Festival has just opened out at Camp Possumtickle; and St. Barnabas Church has a new priest, straight from France. As well as having his Episcopal appointment from the bishop, Father Moneyduck is also a famous mystery author and detective. It's a good thing, because the police department has a raft of homicides on its hands with no end in sight. Of course, they do things a little differently in France ... Hayden Konig's 15th (and final!) mystery The Choir Director Wore Out It s not what you expect ... It's even funnier!

Fatal


John Lescroart - 2017
    At forty-four, she’s happily married to her kind husband, Ron, blessed with two wonderful children, and has a beautiful home in San Francisco. Everything changes, however, when she and Ron attend a dinner party and meet another couple, Peter and Jill. Kate and Peter only exchange a few pleasant words but that night, in bed with her husband, Kate is suddenly overcome with a burning desire for Peter.What begins as an innocent crush soon develops into a dangerous obsession and Kate’s fixation on Peter results in one intense, passionate encounter between the two. Confident that her life can now go back to normal, Kate never considers that Peter may not be so willing to move on.Not long after their affair, a masked man barges into the café Kate is sitting in with her best friend, firing an assault weapon indiscriminately into the crowd. This tragedy is the first in a series of horrifying events that will show Kate just how grave the consequences of one mistake can be. An explosive story of infidelity, danger, and moral ambiguity, John Lescroart’s latest thriller will excite and satisfy both his current and new fans.

Whirligig


Magnus Macintyre - 2013
    He is a fat man. A fat man with thin limbs, like an egg with tentacles. And life is not going well. He’s alone, idle, and on the brink of a medical crisis when a childhood acquaintance makes him an offer he can’t understand, can’t talk about, but ultimately can’t refuse. A week later, he finds himself in the wilds of Scotland, plunged into an eccentric community at war over a wind farm. He’s supposed to be a backer, but he has no idea what side he’s on, even though it may bag him a lot of money. All he wants is to look like a hero in front of the woman with the bright blue eyes who brought him here. To do so he must run the gauntlet of a family with many dark secrets, some dangerous hippies and their hallucinogenic potions, and the wilderness itself with all its threats and dangers. Whirligig is a raucous, joyous, often poignant comedy about the redemptive power of the countryside. Written with peerless wit, it’s a timely fable that takes its place within the tradition of the Great English Comic Novel. It’s The Wicker Man as told by P.G. Wodehouse.

Ill Will


Dan Chaon - 2017
    “We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves,” Dustin Tillman likes to say. It’s one of the little mantras he shares with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison. Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to symbolize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty. Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients gets him deeply engaged in a string of drowning deaths involving drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses talk of a serial killer as paranoid thinking, but as he gets wrapped up in their amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way.From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place.

Saving Max


Antoinette van Heugten - 2010
    Until he's accused of murder.Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max's behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can't accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She'll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that's all too eager to convict him.

The Devil Drives A Jaguar


Suzanne Downes - 2014
    His latest case is intriguing and he gets perhaps a little too involved. Libby Richmond doesn’t believe in ghosts, messages from beyond the grave or any other superstitious nonsense – but when she returns to the old Derbyshire farmhouse to nurse her Great Aunt Lillian through the last stages of terminal illness, she finds all her beliefs turned upside down. Lil wants to discover the truth behind a long-ago family scandal before she dies – and Libby finds herself being drawn in until she too is obsessed with the outcome. Decima Watkins was hanged in 1859 for poisoning three of her older sisters. Now it seems she wants revenge! Libby realizes that there can be no happy ending to this story. Either Decima was a pathetic victim of her father’s fury and a gross miscarriage of justice, or she was the cold-blooded murderess of her own siblings. Whatever the truth, she appears to be taking out her anger on Libby, even managing to inflict physical harm on her hapless descendant. But what is really happening at Hill Farm? Libby has upset quite a few people by supporting Lil when the general opinion is that she should go quietly to a hospice and die there. Is the culprit one of those angry with Libby’s interference? Is it Brendan, the boyfriend she dumped to run off to Derbyshire to be with Lil? Or is Libby simply losing her grip on reality? DI Piper is the one who has to discover the truth when he arrests her and listens to her incredible tale.

Murderer with a Badge


Edward Humes - 1992
    Pulitzer Prize-winner Humes, the first to break the story, conducted exclusive jail-cell interviews with convicted LAPD officer Bill Leasure to give an enthralling account of his chilling crimes. 8-page insert.

The Firm / The Chamber


John Grisham - 1995
    He's young. He's bright. He's ambitious. Mitch could have the pick of the big firms in New York and Chicago, but he's chosen the Memphis tax firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. They're selective. They pay outrageous salaries. They have a turnover rate of zero. And Mitch is about to find out why.Several events fuel Mitch's growing suspicions: two of the partners die in a suspicious diving accident off Grand Cayman; the senior partners seem unduly proud of the fact that no one has ever resigned; and security measures at the office are, even for a company with billionaire clients, more than a little extreme. Then Mitch makes an explosive discovery: The firm is owned and operated by the most powerful organized crime family in Chicago. Even as Mitch discovers the truth, he finds himself caught between the FBI, who wants an informant inside the firm, and the firm itself, which will make him a very rich man—or a very dead one.The ChamberAdam Hill is in his first year at a top Chicago law firm. He volunteers for the toughest assignment any lawyer could ask for. His prospective client doesn't want Adam or his law firm. He is an unrepentent and outspoken racist with a violent past. He is on Death Row for the murder of two Jewish children in a horrific bombing in 1967.Why would he take on Adam, a complete novice, to defend him? And why would Adam want his case so desperately? The answer lies in the past, in a twenty-year-old secret buried in the madness of another time...

Talking to the Dead


Harry Bingham - 2012
    . . . At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy--and long dead--steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She's earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there's that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her . . . something that will break the case wide open.Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man's credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she's only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks--not just from criminals and killers but from her own past . . . and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.