What Remains

What Remains

Nicholas DelBanco

Nicholas DelBanco

Told in the alternating voices of a family who moves from London to New York at the end of the Second World War, Nicholas Delbanco's memoiristic novel is a moving story about how a family of immigrants come to terms with life in America. How does a German Jewish family from London blend a past filled with ancestral homes in Germany, relatives fleeing the Nazi regime, and an intellectual life in London with the strange shores of America where they emigrate in order to take advantage of the land of opportunity? How can one balance the romanticism of a native land with a desire to fit in to the new? How can one realize what is lost, and what is gained in the journey from England to America? These are the questions that lie at the heart of "What Remains", a memoiristic novel imbued with both the personal experience and the considerable talent of one of America's finest writers.
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The Case of the Deadly Toy

The Case of the Deadly Toy

Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Deadly Toy (1959) – A boy with a toy printing press and a .22 leads Perry Mason to a murder trial where his mother is on trial for the murder of his father, and his wealthy grandfather will do anything to get her convicted.ENGAGED TO A NIGHTMAREWhen Norda Allison sees her husband-to-be slap his young son, she immediately calls off the wedding. Now she is terrified. Her ex-fiancé has beat up her new boyfriend. Anonymous newspaper clippings are flooding her mailbox--articles graphically depicting what jilted men do to the women who leave them. Then Norda's life takes an even darker turn. It begins with a barking dog, a child's scream, a gunshot, and the discovery of a very dead body--and ends when Norda is arrested, charged with a brutal murder.Now only brilliant courtroom strategist Perry Mason stands between Norda and a sentence of certain death . . .THE ORIGINAL COURTROOM NOVELSReview"Gardner [is] humorous, astute, curious, inventive--who can top him? No one has yet."--Los Angeles Times From the Inside FlapENGAGED TO A NIGHTMAREWhen Norda Allison sees her husband-to-be slap his young son, she immediately calls off the wedding. Now she is terrified. Her ex-fiancé has beat up her new boyfriend. Anonymous newspaper clippings are flooding her mailbox--articles graphically depicting what jilted men do to the women who leave them. Then Norda's life takes an even darker turn. It begins with a barking dog, a child's scream, a gunshot, and the discovery of a very dead body--and ends when Norda is arrested, charged with a brutal murder.Now only brilliant courtroom strategist Perry Mason stands between Norda and a sentence of certain death . . .THE ORIGINAL COURTROOM NOVELS
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The Demon Apostle

The Demon Apostle

R. A. Salvatore

Science Fiction & Fantasy

With the demon dactyl and its foul minions defeated, the war-weary citizens of the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear wish only to begin rebuilding their broken lives. Yet the specter of civil war haunts the ravaged land -- and a specter more fearsome still. For the demon, though defeated, was not destroyed. And now its vengeful spirit has found an unholy sanctuary. The elf-trained ranger Elbryan Wynden presses north to reclaim the savage Timberlands from retreating goblin hordes. His companion, Pony, mistress of gemstone magic, turns south to the civilized -- but no less perilous -- streets of Palmaris. Suddenly they find themselves caught up in a ruthless power struggle to decide the fate of all Corona -- a struggle that will push their courage and love to the breaking point. . . and beyond.
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Soldiers Live

Soldiers Live

Glen Cook

Science Fiction & Fantasy

When sorcerers and demigods go to war, those wars are fought by mercenaries, "dog soldiers," grunts in the trenches. And the stories of those soldiers are the stories of Glen Cook's hugely popular "Black Company" novels. If the Joseph Heller of Catch-22 were to tell the story of The Lord of the Rings, it might read like the Black Company books. There is nothing else in fantasy like them. Now, at last, Cook brings the "Glittering Stone" cycle within the Black Company series to an end . . . but an end with many other tales left to tell. As Soldiers Live opens, Croaker is military dictator of all the Taglias, and no Black Company member has died in battle for four years. Croaker figures it can't last. He's right. For, of course, many of the Company's old adversaries are still around. Narayan Singh and his adopted daughter--actually the offspring of Croaker and the Lady--hope to bring about the apocalyptic Year of the Skulls. Other old enemies like Shadowcatcher, Longshadow, and Howler are also ready to do the Company harm. And much of the Company is still recovering from the fifteen years many of them spent in a stasis field. Then a report arrives of an evil spirit, a forvalaka, that has taken over one of their old enemies. It attacks them at a shadowgate--setting off a chain of events that will bring the Company to the edge of apocalypse and, as usual, several steps beyond. Glen Cook is the leading modern writer of epic fantasy noir, and Soldiers Live is Cook at his best. None of his legion of fans will want to miss it.
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Voodoo Moon

Voodoo Moon

Ed Gorman

Ed Gorman

Psychological profiler Robert Payne is drawn into a circle of intrigue and murder and he investigates the murder of man's girlfriend, whom he claims was killed by an arsonist who burned down an asylum long ago, and disappeared. With TV Psychics and the local police, Payne must unravel the past to solve the case in the present.
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Slice and Dice

Slice and Dice

Ellen Hart

Mystery & Thrillers / Gay & Lesbian

MURDER A LA CARTEIf all goes according to plan, Connie Buckridge's culinary empire will soon boast a state-of-the-art cooking academy and restaurant in her home town of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Unfortunately, just when the kitchen queen and her bickering entourage hit town on a publicity tour, so does a bestselling investigative writer who is hot on her scandalous trail.Primed by an anonymous e-mail informer, Marie Damontraville is preparing to cook Connie's goose with a major expose of her strategies for success. The one missing ingredient in this unsavory stew is murder, and when food critic Sophie Greenway finds a cooking colleague stabbed with his own kitchen knife, a fire that has been smoldering for forty years suddenly bursts into flame. . . .SPECIAL AUTHOR INTERVIEW INSIDE
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The Old Wives' Tale

The Old Wives' Tale

Arnold Bennett

Fiction

'[Arnold Bennett's] superb Old Wives' Tale, wandering from person to person and from scene to scene, is by far the finest 'long novel' that has been written in English and in the English fashion, in this generation.'--H. G. WellsFirst published in 1908, The Old Wives' Tale affirms the integrity of ordinary lives as it tells the story of the Baines sisters--shy, retiring Constance and defiant, romantic Sophia--over the course of nearly half a century. Bennett traces the sisters' lives from childhood in their father's drapery shop in provincial Bursley, England, during the mid-Victorian era, through their married lives, to the modern industrial age, when they are reunited as old women. The setting moves from the Five Towns of Staffordshire to exotic and cosmopolitan Paris, while the action moves from the subdued domestic routine of the Baines household to the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. 'Like Wordsworth, [Arnold Bennett] has...
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The Best a Man Can Get

The Best a Man Can Get

John O'Farrell

John O'Farrell

Michael Adams is a composer of advertising jingles who shares a bachelor pad with three other guys. He spends his days lying in bed (a minifridge positioned perfectly within reach) and playing trivia games with his underachieving roommates. And when he feels like it, Michael crosses the city and returns home to his unsuspecting wife and two small children. Michael is living a double life, stretching out his “wilting salad days” with imaginary business trips and fake deadlines while his wife enjoys the exhausting misery of the little ones. It’s the best thing for his marriage, Michael figures. She can care for the new loves of her life as it seems only she knows how, and he can sleep until the afternoon. Can this double life continue indefinitely? In The Best a Man Can Get, best-selling comic novelist John O’Farrell takes readers on a dark romp through the soul of the contemporary male, torn between eternal adolescence and the very real demands of...
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The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands

Erskine Childers

Mystery & Thrillers / Military Science

Carruthers, a minor official in the Foreign Office, is contacted by an acquaintance, Davies, asking him to join in a yachting holiday in the Baltic Sea. Carruthers agrees, as his other plans for a holiday have fallen through. He arrives to find that Davies has a small sailing boat (the vessel is named Dulcibella, a reference to Childers\'s own sister of that name), not the comfortable crewed yacht that he expected. However Carruthers agrees to go on the trip and joins Davies in Flensburg on the Baltic, whence they head for the Frisian Islands, off the coast of Germany. Carruthers has to learn quickly how to sail the small boat. Davies gradually reveals that he suspects that the Germans are undertaking something sinister in the German Frisian islands. This is based on his belief that he was nearly wrecked by a German yacht luring him into a shoal in rough weather during a previous trip. Davies is suspicious about what would motivate the Germans to try to kill him. Having failed to interest anyone in the government in the incident, he feels it is his patriotic duty to investigate further – hence the invitation to Carruthers. Carruthers and Davies spend some time exploring the shallow tidal waters of the Frisian Islands, moving closer to the mysterious site where there is a rumoured secret treasure recovery project in progress on the island of Memmert. The two men discover that an expatriate Englishman, Dollmann, is involved in the recovery project. Carruthers realises that Davies is in love with Dollmann’s daughter, Clara. Carruthers and Davies try to approach Memmert. They’re warned away by a German navy patrol boat, the Blitz, and its commander Von Bruning. This makes them all the more sure that there is something more than a treasure dig on the island. Taking advantage of a thick fog, Davies navigates them covertly through the complicated sandbanks in a small boat to investigate the site. Carruthers investigates the island. He overhears Von Bruning and Dollmann discussing something more than treasure hunting, including cryptic references to "Chatham", "Seven" and "the tide serving". The pair return through the fog to the Dulcibella. There, they find Dollmann and Von Bruning have beaten them and are seemingly suspicious. Von Bruning invites them to Dollmann\'s villa for a dinner, where he attempts to subtly cross-examine them to find out if they are British spies. Carruthers plays a dangerous game, admitting they are curious. But he convinces Von Bruning that he believes the cover story about treasure and merely wants to see the imaginary "wreck". Carruthers announces that the Foreign Office has recalled him to England. He heads off, then doubles back to follow Von Bruning and his men. He trails them to a port where they board a tugboat towing a barge. Carruthers sneaks aboard and hides, and the convoy heads to sea. Carruthers finally puts the riddle together. The Germans are linking the canals and the railways, dredging passages through the shifting sands and hiding a fleet of tugs and barges. The only explanation is that they are going to secretly transport a powerful German army across the North Sea to invade Britain’s east coast. He escapes after grounding the tugboat and rushes back to Davies. He finds him and explains how they must flee before the Germans come after them. They convince Dollmann and Clara to come with them to avoid Dollmann\'s being arrested by the Germans, who will think he has changed sides again. As they sail across the North Sea, Dollmann commits suicide by jumping overboard, presumably to avoid disgrace and probable arrest for treason. An epilogue by the "editor" examines the details of a report prepared by Dollmann, outlining his plan for the invasion force. A postscript notes that the Royal Navy is finally taking countermeasures to intercept any German invasion fleet and urges haste.
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Portrait in Sepia

Portrait in Sepia

Isabel Allende

Literature & Fiction / Biographies & Memoirs / Science Fiction & Fantasy

"Portrait in Sepia is the best book Allende has published in the United States since her first novel of nearly two decades ago, The House of the Spirits.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World “Portrait in Sepia tightens the weave of a multigenerational fantasy as complete and inspiring as the real world it parallels … Allende’s enchanting historical universe keeps expanding and Portrait in Sepia is a new galactic jewel.” —Chicago Tribune A richly imagined historical novel about memory and family secrets from the New York Times bestselling author of Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, Zorro, and House of the Spirits.
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The Fisherman

The Fisherman

James Quinn

James Quinn

Tom Lyth is a man of many parts; writer, adventurer and exiled American living in the UK.He is also a man of secrets: a ruthless covert intelligence operative known as The Fisherman. A master manipulator, a seasoned spy and lover.When one of the shining stars of The Fisherman's weapons technology intelligence network, codename Sailfish, is compromised, an extraction operation is ordered to bring him back in from the cold. But there are other power players who want to get their hands on future weapons technology, and after Sailfish himself becomes a target for enemy assassins, only The Fisherman and his team of covert operators can protect him.From the Souks of North Africa to the streets of London, Berlin, Vienna and beyond, James Quinn, author of the Gorilla Grant spy novels, introduces a new hero to the world of future covert intelligence.
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Treasure of the Templars

Treasure of the Templars

Tim Champlin

Tim Champlin

In the ruins of a Scottish dungeon, an archeology professor finds the journal of a long-dead knight revealing the location of a vanished treasure. An 1898 shadow organization is also after the treasure and Professor McGinnis' life. Marcus Flood, former monk, becomes the professor's bodyguard. With the professor's niece, they go after the treasure deep in the American southwest.
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Forests of the Heart

Forests of the Heart

Charles de Lint

Fantasy / Young Adult

In the old century, they called them the Gentry: ancient spirits of the land, magical, amoral, and dangerous. When the Irish emigrated to North America, some of the Gentry followed...only to find that the New World already had spirits of its own, called manitou and other such names by the Native tribes. Now generations have passed, and the Irish have made homes in the new land, but the Gentry still wander homeless on the city streets. Gathering in the city shadows, they bide their time and dream of power. As their dreams grow harder, darker, fiercer, so do the Gentry themselves -- appearing, to those with the sight to see them, as hard and dangerous men, invariably dressed in black. Bettina can see the Gentry, and knows them for what they are. Part Indian, part Mexican, she was raised by her grandmother to understand the spirit world. Now she lives in Kellygnow, a massive old house run as an arts colony on the outskirts of Newford, a world away from the Southwestern desert of her youth. Outside her nighttime window, she often spies the dark men, squatting in the snow, smoking, brooding, waiting. She calls them los lobos, the wolves, and stays clear of them -- until the night one follows her to the woods, and takes her hand.... Ellie, and independent young sculptor, is another with magic in her blood, bus she refuses to believe it, even though she, too, sees the dark men. A strange old woman has summoned Ellie to Kellygnow to create a mask for her based on an ancient Celtic artifact. It is the mask of the mythic Summer King -- another thing that Ellie does not believe in. Yet lack of belief won't dim the power of the mask, or its dreadful intent. Once again Charles de Lint weaves the mythic traditions of many cultures into a seamless cloth, bringing folklore, music, and unforgettable characters to life on modern city streets.
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The Confederation Handbook

The Confederation Handbook

Peter F. Hamilton

Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Night's Dawn Trilogy is one of the most triumphant works of science fiction to appear in decades. Swiftly gathering a worldwide readership, this masterwork of cosmic imagination and storytelling brought to life an entire galaxy of diverse planets and astonishing civilizations. At the core is the Confederation, an assembly of human and alien colony worlds whose cultures, conflicts, and turmoil are described over a Timeline of nearly 600 years. "The Confederation Handbook" is Peter F. Hamilton's companion guide to the diverse elements in the massive universe he created. Including a full list of characters and their roles and, of course, details of the Timeline itself, this is a must-read for Hamilton's fans.
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