Follow counterterrorism operative and ex-SEAL Scot Harvath’s action-packed exploits, and discover why Brad Thor has been called “America’s favorite author” (KKTX). The Athena Project When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, four of Delta Force’s best and brightest women—part of a top-secret program codenamed the Athena Project—are tasked with hunting down a Venetian arms dealer. But as team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper close in on their target, the deadly assignment unearths a grisly discovery in the jungles of South America...and a foreign spy penetrating a mysterious secret hidden in the American West. With an unthinkable second attack already set in motion, the women of the Athena Project race to uncover the greatest of threats: the secrets kept by their own government. Full Black Born in the shadows and kept from heads of state, some missions are so deadly, so sensitive, that they simply don’t exist. When one such mission goes horribly wrong, only former Navy SEAL Team 6 member turned covert counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath can carry out an audacious plan to prevent the United States from facing complete and total collapse. But as the identities of the perpetrators are laid bare, Harvath will be left with only one means to save America. Unable to trust anyone, he will be forced to go full black. Black List Somewhere…deep inside the United States government is a closely guarded list. Once your name is on the list, it doesn’t come off…until you’re dead. Someone…has just added counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath’s name. Somehow…Harvath must evade assassination long enough to untangle who has targeted him and why. Somewhere, someone, somehow…can put all the pieces together. But Harvath must get to that person before the United States suffers the most withering terrorist attack ever conceived.

    Then there's a group of tales that Poe acknowledged reading, and that clearly influenced him: tales of premature burial, of a man trapped beneath a great clanging bell, of a doomed girl reborn and doomed again. To describe this book as a "must" for all admirers of Edgar Allen Poe is surely unnecessary: it's so self-evident.

    What sort of person was Ngaio Marsh, whose detective novels made her name known throughout the world? With all the insight and sense of style her readers have come to expect of her, her autobiography reveals the influences and environment that have shaped her personality.Widely acclaimed when first published in 1965, Black Beech and Honeydew is a sensitive account of Ngaio Marsh’s childhood and adolescence in Christchurch and the establishment of her theatre and writing careers both there and in the UK. It captures all the joys, fears and hopes of a spirited young woman growing up and transmits an artist’s gradual awareness of the special flavour of life in New Zealand and the individual character of its landscape.Fully revised and updated in 1981, this new edition is reissued 21 years later as a commemoration of Ngaio Marsh’s life and work. It is a sanguine, poised, unpretentious, thoughtful and often moving record of a full life, and – despite its unavailability for nearly 20 years – has been acclaimed as her most distinguished work. No one who had read and enjoyed any of Ngaio Marsh’s 32 novels can afford to overlook this gifted and charming autobiography.

    

    . . THE PRESIDENT'S SHADOW There are stories no one knows. Hidden stories. I find those stories for a living. To most, it looks like Beecher White has an ordinary job. A young staffer with the National Archives in Washington, D.C., he's responsible for safekeeping the government's most important documents . . . and, sometimes, its most closely held secrets. But there are a powerful few who know his other role. Beecher is a member of the Culper Ring, a 200-year-old secret society founded by George Washington and charged with protecting the Presidency.Now the current occupant of the White House needs the Culper Ring's help. The alarming discovery of the buried arm has the President's team in a rightful panic. Who buried the arm? How did they get past White House security? And most important: What's the message hidden in the arm's closed fist? Indeed, the puzzle inside has a clear intended recipient, and it isn't the President. It's Beecher, himself. Beecher's investigation will take him back to one of our country's greatest secrets and point him toward the long, carefully hidden truth about the most shocking history of all: family history.

    Not only does it lack the word burglar in the title, but Bernie’s not the story’s viewpoint character. It’s told entirely through the spirited and enterprising young woman whose fate it is to walk in on our lad in mid-job, all in a near-empty office building in the middle of the night. That could be pretty frightening, but hey, it’s Bernie. She’s got nothing to be afraid of, and neither do we.The story originated in the late 70s, commissioned by a women’s magazine called Savvy, with a suite of offices in the huge old Port Authority building on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea. A couple of editors decided it was an intimidating location late at night, and thought it would be a good setting for a short story, even though they hadn’t yet run any fiction. One of them knew my work, and they got in touch.I wrote the story, and they loved it and paid a decent price for it, but they never seemed to find room for it in an issue of the magazine. They kept scheduling it and changing their minds, and it seems to me they changed editors in the bargain, and after a couple of years of this they went out of business. Which was a pity, because it was an interesting publication, except for the fiction—of which, alas, there wasn’t any. My agent got the story back, and I believe he sent it over to Cosmopolitan, and no end of online sources now assure me that it ran in that magazine’s May 1983 issue.And maybe it did. Except I don’t have a copy of the magazine, and don’t think I ever saw one. I’ve seen Cosmo’s May 1983 cover, it’s not hard to find online, and they blurbed eight or nine major pieces on it, and my story is not among them. Well, really, what difference does it make? It either ran there or it didn’t, and it’s been in short story collections of mine since, including my omnibus, Enough Rope. I had to read it closely in order to format the scanned story for ePublication, and I was pleased to find that I like it a lot. I can only hope, Dear Reader, that it works as well for you.

    https://www.penguin.com.au/bonus/400-...In this exclusive FREE Jack Reacher short story, a rookie detective finds Jack wounded and in hospital…

    These three audios are offered at 40% off the indivial retail price. ANDROMEDA STRAINRead by Chris North The Andromeda Strain sets forth the story of Project Wildfire - the crash mobilization of the nations highest scientific and medical resources when an unmanned research satellite returns to earth mysteriously and lethally contaminated. Four American scientists are summoned under conditions of total news blackout and utmost urgency to Wildfire's secret laboratory five stories below the Nevada desert. There - surrounded by the most sophisticated computer equipment, and sealed off from the outside world - they work against the threat of a worldwide epidemic. Step by step they begin to unravel the puzzle of the Andromeda Strain until, terrifyingly, their microbacterial adversary ruptures the hypersterile seal of the lab and their already desperate search for a biomedical answer becomes a split second race against time. JURASSIC PARKRead by John Heard A shroud of secrecy covers a privately-owned island off the coast of the Dominican Republic where an American bioengineering firm is quietly building a resort theme park. Even the expert consultants on the project don't know exactly what it is. And local doctors are mystified when an injured park worker arrives at the hospital with gashes on his body, as if he's been mauled by an animal of monstrous proportions. A year later, when the first invited guests to "Jurassic Park" attend a 4-day preview, the amazement, the shock, and finally, the terror they experience there offer a horrifying solution to this disturbing puzzle. Riveting scientific detail ad a driving, suspenseful narrative make this an unforgettable story - one of advanced technology versus prehistoric monsters . . . and of an extraordinary good idea gone extraordinary bad. THE LOST WORLDRead by Anthony Heald The sequel to Michael Crichton's bestselling "Jurassic Park." It is now six years since the secret disaster at Jurassic Park: six years since that extraordinary dream of science and imagination came to a crashing end - the dinosaurs destroyed, the part dismantled, the island indefinitely closed to the public. There are rumors that something has survived.

    

    Ginger Munz, a woman dying of cancer hires him to find the son she lost as a baby. The child’s father is a sadistic sociopath named Moon who has vowed to kill her and Josh’s girlfriend Cass, for ratting him out. The trail leads to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and west into no-man’s land where Josh learns the monstrous fate of the stolen child.Josh is the BIKER, caught up in a race for survival against a human monster on the road between heaven and hell at the end of which lies either salvation or damnation. Baron spins a tale of unrelenting suspense and horror that moves across his narrative landscape like the roar of a chopper’s engine.

    With "Nightfall," written in 1941, Asimov triggered a spark of awareness in the publishing community that science fiction could be more than Buck Rogers comic books. His "Foundation" series and robot novels (he coined the word "robotics") are acknowledged as the cornerstone of modern science fiction. Asimov's Foundation series was awarded the Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award in 1966. He was awarded the special lifetime Nebula Grandmaster award in 1987.Over the next fifty years, Isaac Asimov would distinguish himself as one of the most prolific, versatile, and creative authors ever. His broad range of works includes histories, children's books, collections of articles, mysteries, and books concerning the Bible, literature, geography, humor, and nonfiction science material. He managed over his creative lifetime to have at least one book included in each of the Dewey Decimal System's 10 major library classifications. He was known for his profound knowledge of Shakespeare, the Bible, Gilbert and Sullivan, limericks, and history, whether it be Roman, Greek or American. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 at the age of 72.Volume 1 of "Isaac Asimov: Short Stories" contains the Hugo and Nebula Award Nominee, Locus Poll Award Winner and Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Winner "Robot Dreams," the Hugo Award Winner and Locus Poll Award Nominee "Gold," the Locus Poll Award Nominee "Potential," the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Nominated "Kid Brother," and more excellent short science fiction, including arare 1974 Saturday Evening Post four-part series, collectively entitled the "The Dream."

    Like the flaming projectiles his protagonists often launch into the sky, these stories crackle with energy and violence and a furious beauty. Benjamin Percy is a force. -- Anthony Doerr

    Navigating the scarred and poisoned landscape that once was America and guided by a powerful talisman, Logan has sworn an oath to seek out a remarkable being born of magic, possessed of untold abilities, and destined to lead the final fight against darkness.Across the country, Angel Perez, herself a survivor, has also been chosen for an uncanny mission in the name of her ruined world’s salvation. From the devastated streets of Los Angeles, she will journey to find a place - and a people - shrouded in mystery, celebrated in legend, and vital to the cause of humankind . . .Meanwhile, in the nearly forsaken city of Seattle, a makeshift family of refugees has carved out a tenuous existence among the street gangs, mutants, and marauders fighting to stay alive. In time, all their paths will cross. Their common purpose will draw them together.As the legions of darkness draw the noose tighter, and the time of confrontation draws near, those chosen to defend the soul of the world must draw their battle lines and prepare to fight with, and for, their lives. If they fail, humanity falls.

    Short story from Horror Show magazine (Summer/Jul 1986), anthologized in The Architecture of Fear (1987) and collected in Strange Highways (1995)

     Chances Part One: Gino's Story READ BY THE AUTHOR JACKIE COLLINS NOW A SMASH TELEVISION MINI-SERIES! He started with nothing, and built an empire. She was born to bad times -- and lived through much worse. Orphans and outlaws alike, Gino Satangelo and Carrie Jones were survivors in a harsh, loveless world...a passionate young Italian and an exotic dark beauty whose chance meeting yields a secret that can't be spoken for years to come... From the luxury of Park Avenue to the early days of Las Vegas, the raw heat of jazz-era Harlem to the brutality of gangland Chicago, the Santangelo saga begins to unfold -- a tale of secrets, betrayal, and unbridled lust that sets the stage for one of the most unforgettable heroines that Jackie Collins ever created...the incomparable Lucky Santangelo! JACKIE COLLINS... AS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD HER! Now in this intimate recording, Jackie Collins takes you further into the fast-lane world of Lucky Santangelo than ever before. Listen for yourself...as she delivers a superstar performance that captures all of the passion and breathless suspense that have made her the undisputed Queen of glamorous fiction.