Belkin must begin each day with the task he calls The Service: visiting Christian chat-rooms to reply to users innocent questions with mocking answers. “Why do they call the taking of the communion ‘Mass?’”? Belkin124 responds: “They call it the Mass because after Jesus was crucified, a mass of people rushed forward to the cross and ate him. Now they eat the wafer to remember it.” At forty-seven, balding, and mildly agoraphobic, Belkin is a man without direction. He rarely leaves his apartment (he refers to the outside world as The Pounding), and when he must leave, he meticulously recounts the day in his Thunder Book; a journal where he lists all that repulsed him that day.But everything changes the day Belkin returns to his apartment to find the building ablaze along with the suspected murder of the apartment building’s maintenance man. As police question him, Belkin meets the mysterious Pernice Balfour, the alluring, religiously obsessed neighbor accused of the crime. Soon, Belkin has no choice but to come out of his shell (and his apartment) to try to clear her name. But the more Belkin investigates, the muddier things become. Wandering through San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin district, Belkin begins to unravel the truth behind the murder, and encounters a bizarre series of characters and situations: "pansexual" crime-scene photographer, an idiot detective, and an all-knowing government operative.Whispering Bodies is comical offbeat exploration of the wisdom found in madness and the madness found in conventional life, all brought together in a classic tale of who-done-it.

    Rose comes a provocative and moving story of a young female architect in post-World War II Manhattan, who stumbles upon a hidden treasure and begins a journey to discovering her mother’s life during the fall of the Romanovs.Sophia Moon had always been reticent about her life in Russia and when she dies, suspiciously, on a wintry New York evening, Isobelle despairs that her mother’s secrets have died with her. But while renovating the apartment they shared, Isobelle discovers something among her mother’s effects—a stunning silver tiara, stripped of its jewels.Isobelle’s research into the tiara’s provenance draws her closer to her mother’s past—including the story of what became of her father back in Russia, a man she has never known. The facts elude her until she meets a young jeweler, who wants to help her but is conflicted by his loyalty to the Midas Society, a covert international organization whose mission is to return lost and stolen antiques, jewels, and artwork to their original owners.Told in alternating points of view, the stories of the two young women unfurl as each struggles to find their way during two separate wars. In 1915, young Sofiya Petrovitch, favorite of the royal household and best friend of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, tends to wounded soldiers in a makeshift hospital within the grounds of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and finds the love of her life. In 1948 New York, Isobelle Moon works to break through the rampant sexism of the age as one of very few women working in a male-dominated profession and discovers far more about love and family than she ever hoped for.In M.J. Rose’s deftly constructed narrative, the secrets of Sofiya’s early life are revealed incrementally, even as Isobelle herself works to solve the mystery of the historic Romanov tiara (which is based on an actual Romanov artifact that is, to this day, still missing)—and how it is that her mother came to possess it. The two strands play off each other in finely-tuned counterpoint, building to a series of surprising and deeply satisfying revelations.

    We have ensured this. Six strangers wake up on a remote island in the Florida Keys with no memory of their arrival. They soon discover their common bond: all of them are heroin addicts. As the first excruciating pangs of withdrawal make themselves felt, the six notice a yacht anchored across open water. On it lurk four shadowy figures, protected by the hungry sharks that patrol the waves. So begins a dangerous game. The six must undertake the impossible—swim to the next island where a cache of heroin awaits, or die trying. When alliances form, betrayal is inevitable. As the fight to survive intensifies, the stakes reach terrifying heights—and their captors’ motives finally begin to emerge.

    A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde’s stolen automobile.Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp. Eventually, Weldon and Rosita fall in love and marry and, with Hershel, return to Texas to seek their fortunes.There, they enter the domain of jackals known as the oil business. They meet Roy Wiseheart—a former Marine aviator haunted with guilt for deserting his squadron leader over the South Pacific—and Roy’s wife Clara, a vicious anti-Semite who is determined to make Weldon and Rosita’s life a nightmare. It will be the frontier justice upheld by Weldon’s grandfather, Texas lawman Hackberry Holland, and the legendary antics of Bonnie and Clyde that shape Weldon’s plans for saving his family from the evil forces that lurk in peacetime America and threaten to destroy them all.

    As the subsequent years pass, unable to come to terms with the accident, the survivors set the path for a deeply troubled future for each generation that followed.Jonathan Melton had a traumatic childhood in which he ended up in foster care, but when he meets the wild, willful, sexually experienced and free spirited Sophia at university, everything changes. At first inept with women, Jonathan’s complex relationship with Sophia evolves from a one-way obsession into a genuine love and shared passion, as the relationship brings happiness, romance and joy to both their lives that neither thought was ever possible. The two marry, and Sophia gives birth to their first child; a beautiful baby daughter. Everything is seemingly perfect, until the evening that their tiny baby is found dead in her cot. As his world falls apart around him, Jonathan slips into a dark depression and, increasingly haunted by his past, becomes distant and dysfunctional as he struggles to cope with the loss of his daughter. His marriage to Sophia disintegrates, and Jonathan along with it as he descends further into darkness after leaving Sophia. Although his close friend David succeeds to some extent in saving him from his demons, Jonathan remains a lost and lonely soul, until his apparent chance meeting with the enigmatic Maolíosa in a Dublin bar. Maolíosa and Jonathan form a unique bond, and she challenges his vision of life and the world around him. Fate intervenes, but it ultimately leads Jonathan to redemption, and a final resolution to the aftermath and consequences of the 1947 tragedy. Inspired by the timeless film, It’s a Wonderful Life, Dublin in the Rain provides a sweeping narrative of love, desire and misfortune, spanning the thirty years of Jonathan Melton’s life. Andrew Critchley’s witty and complex characters reveal how a painful familial legacy can haunt our present and distort our future. Moving and magical, Dublin in the Rain reminds us that while tragedy can blight our journey, life is still very much what we choose to make it.Dublin in the Rain is the first of a trilogy of contrasting stories around the theme of redemption by Andrew Critchley.

    Rider Haggard's Quatermain series, including 'King Solomon's Mines' and 'Allan Quatermain.' Includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.Contents:King Solomon's MinesAllan QuatermainAllan's WifeMaiwa's RevengeMarieChild of StormAllan the Holy FlowerFinishedThe Ivory ChildThe Ancient AllanAllan and the Ice-GodsMagepa the BuckA Tale of Three LionsHunter Quatermain's StoryLong OddsHenry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set predominantly in Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. Haggard is most famous as the author of the novels KING SOLOMON'S MINES and its sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN, and SHE and its sequel AYESHA, swashbuckling adventure novels set in the context of late 19th century Africa. Hugely popular KING SOLOMON'S MINES is one of the best-selling adventure books of all time.This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text, with minor errors and omissions corrected.

    It’s now 1875, however, and there has been peace in this part of Wyoming for several years, and Ethan has settled down in the small town of Lockwood. No longer working in stealth, he is the town’s lone lawyer. When two young Sioux are lynched by a makeshift posse for a crime they may or may not have committed, Ethan knows he must act quickly to prevent a bloody retaliation from their Sioux tribe. Can he gain the trust of both his former enemy and the townspeople of Lockwood so that there is enough time to unravel the mystery of the crime and ensure justice is fairly served? In Night of the Coyote, the worlds of the old and new collide, and the clock is ticking for Ethan to prevent a further descent into violence.

    That’s how long Clyde Barr has been away from Colorado’s thick forests, alpine deserts, and craggy peaks, running from a past filled with haunting memories. But now he’s back, having roamed across three continents as a hunter, adventurer, soldier of fortune, and most recently, unjustly imprisoned convict. And once again, his past is reaching out to claim him.By the light of a flickering campfire, Clyde received a frantic phone call for help from Jen, the youngest of his three older sisters. Then the line goes dead. Clyde doesn’t know how much time he has. He doesn’t know where Jen is located. He doesn’t even know who has her. All he knows is that nothing short of dying will stop him from saving her.Tagging along with Clyde on this strange, desperate, against-all-odds rescue mission is a young woman named Allie whose motivations for hurtling into harm’s way are fascinatingly complex. As the duo races against the clock, it is Allie who gets Clyde to see what he has become and what he can be.

    DI Andy Tregunna is faced with the task of leading the investigation, but soon personal matters force him to step back.On compassionate leave and with little else to do than fight his own demons the unsolved case becomes more and more an obsession to him. As he is drawn deeper into a dark world of secrets, lies and revenge, his private investigation collides with his personal life.The truth is even more sinister than can be imagined...

    In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky. Medgar is beset by a massive mountaintop removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the "company" and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses a brutal hate crime, a sequence is set in play that tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.

    Someone, or something, is leaving the good citizens of East Texas's Ochiltree County savagely mutilated and drained of blood. Slow-talking Sheriff Reeves Duncan needs to put an end to the murders, and soon. But it won't be easy. This is the Big Thicket, dark and brooding, haunted by racial tensions and economic despair. Fortunately, Sheriff Duncan can count on the assistance of an undersized but tough-as-rawhide Texas Ranger, two physicians, a mechanical wunderkind, and a soft-spoken idiot savant who knows the sloughs and baygalls of the Thicket like his own backyard. This league of unimpressive gentlemen is about to be tested by the cunning and ferocity of an enemy that walks by night--and the tentacles of a desperate sectarian plot that threatens the very survival of the human race. Cover design by Shaun Venish.

    But when he finds a portal in his father’s office, he must overcome his fears in an attempt to find him.The portal takes him to another dimension – one populated by fantastic and dangerous creatures and also an advanced society of humans.As Jeff looks for clues regarding what may have happened to his father, he is accused by some of being a spy while thought by others to be a prophesized figure . . . who may be the key to victory in a developing war.

    Around these parts the dead don't stay dead.' Nick Kindle's vacation at Deadwood Canyon Ghost Town takes a deadly turn toward trouble when the fifteen-year-old finds himself trapped in a livery stable with the infamous outlaw Jesse James. The shooter whirls, aims and... vanishes. Great theatrics, Nick thinks, except now he's alone in the hayloft with the bullet-riddled body of Billy the Kid. And by the time the sheriff arrives, the body disappears. Soon Nick is caught in a deadly chas---from an abandoned gold mine, through forbidden buffalo hunting grounds, and across Rattlesnake Gulch. Around every turn he finds another suspect. Will Nick solve the murder? Will his parents have him committed? Or will the town's infatuation with Hollywood theatrics conceal the real truth about souls, spirits and the destiny that awaits those who die.

    They are among the few in South Africa--and the world, as far as they know--to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country. Their world turned upside down, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father's protector, even though he is still only a boy.But Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is both a thinker and a leader, a wise and compassionate man with a vision for a new community that survivors will rebuild from the ruins. And so Amanzi is founded, drawing Storm's -homeless and tempest-tost---starting with Melinda Swanevelder, whom they rescued from brutal thugs; Hennie Flaai, with his vital Cessna plane; Beryl Fortuin, with her ragtag group of orphans; and Domingo, the man with the tattooed hand, whom Nico knows immediately is someone you want on your side. And then there is Sofia Bergman, the most beautiful girl that Nico has ever seen, who changes everything.So the community grows--and with each step forward, as resources increase, so do the challenges they must face--not just from the attacks of biker brigands, but also from within. As Nico undergoes an extraordinary rite of passage in this new world, he experiences hardship and heartbreak and has his loyalty tested to its limits. Looking back later in life, he recounts the events that led to the greatest rupture of all--the hunt for the murderer of the person he loves most.An exhilarating new standalone from the author of the internationally bestselling Benny Griessel thriller series, Fever is a gripping epic like nothing else Meyer has written before.

    Fly is a reader, too, and when he’s not in his taxi he is at home in the equally dizzying labyrinth of books that fills his tiny apartment. His best friend is Otto, a political activist who’s in and out of jails and asylums, mourning his dead wife and lost foster son. On one otherwise tawdry night Fly meets Mary, a book-loving passenger with a domineering husband. So begins a romance that is, for Fly, a brief glimmer of light amid the shadows and grit of the Carnival city.Along with Otto and Mary, Fly introduces us to madmen and revolutionaries, magicians and prostitutes as he picks them up and drops them off, traveling through a nightmarish town that is—we can’t help but notice—a parable for our own debauched, unjust world.Wildly imaginative and darkly ironic, Carnival is a magnificent achievement.