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The Crocodile Bird
A mother and a daughter live quietly in the rustic gatehouse of Shrove House, an isolated British estate. Their life seems perfectly ordinary except that daughter Liza has been kept isolated from the outside world for all of her sixteen years. And that he has seen her beautiful mother commit murder... more than once. Now, as the police come searching for a missing man, Liza's sheltered, strange world begins to fall apart. Piece by piece she will reveal her mother's tale of betrayal, desire, and obsession. Step-by-step we discover how much like mother, like daughter she is.
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The Count Of Monte Cristo
A popular bestseller since its publication in 1844, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of the great page-turning thrillers of all time. Set against the tumultuous years of the post-Napoleonic era, Dumas’s grand historical romance recounts the swashbuckling adventures of Edmond Dantès, a dashing young sailor falsely accused of treason. The story of his long imprisonment, dramatic escape, and carefully wrought revenge offers up a vision of France that has become immortal. As Robert Louis Stevenson declared, “I do not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance.”
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Our Gang
A ferocious political satire in the great tradition, Our Gang is Philip Roth’s brilliantly indignant response to the phenomenon of Richard M. Nixon. In the character of Trick E. Dixon, Roth shows us a man who outdoes the severest cynic, a peace-loving Quaker and believer in the sanctity of human life who doesn’t have a problem with killing unarmed women and children in self-defense. A master politician with an honest sneer, he finds himself battling the Boy Scouts, declaring war on Pro-Pornography Denmark, all the time trusting in the basic indifference of the voting public
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Grimus
After drinking an elixir that bestows immortality upon him, a young Indian named Flapping Eagle spends the next seven hundred years sailing the seas with the blessing–and ultimately the burden–of living forever. Eventually, weary of the sameness of life, he journeys to the mountainous Calf Island to regain his mortality. There he meets other immortals obsessed with their own stasis and sets out to scale the island’s peak, from which the mysterious and corrosive Grimus Effect emits. Through a series of thrilling quests and encounters, Flapping Eagle comes face-to-face with the island’s creator and unwinds the mysteries of his own humanity
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The O. Henry Prize Stories
A radiant reflection of contemporary fiction at its best, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2006 features stories from locales as diverse as Russia, Zimbabwe, and the rural American South. Series editor Laura Furman considered thousands of stories in hundreds of literary magazines before selecting the winners, which are accompanied here by short essays from each of the three eminent jurors on his or her favorite story, as well as observations from all twenty prize winners on what inspired them. Ranging in tone from arch humor to self-deluding obsessiveness to fairy-tale ingenuousness, these stories are a treasury of potential classics.
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Double Act
Ten-year-old Ruby and Garnet are identical twins who do everything together. Especially since their mother died three years earlier. They dress alike, wear their hair the same, and sit together in every class. In fact, everything about them is the same--except their personalities. Ruby is funny and outgoing, Garnet is sensitive and shy. Together they're the perfect double act--and that's just the way they like it. But can being a double act work forever? Especially when so much around them is changing?
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Arranged Marriage
Beautifully told stories of transformed lives . . . Both liberated and trapped by cultural changes on both sides of the ocean, these women struggle fiercely to carve out an identity of their own.
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The Book Of Lost Things
Connolly has made a name for himself specialising in darkness, and THE BLACK ANGEL is no exception. Five Star. 'Seldom has a thriller writer been so adept at turning the screw yet further and evoking a sense of awful dread among his landscapes and tormented characters. Colourful but visceral grand guignol, and definitely not to be read at night
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Neglected Lives
Lionel arrives in Debrakot on horseback, escaping a reckless love affair in Lucknow. Brigadier and Mrs Augden take him into their home. The picturesque surroundings help Lionel find a measure of peace, though he finds himself trapped within an isolated, aging Anglo-Indian community who struggle with ghosts of the British Raj. He discovers troubling secrets of personal history, questions that arise from a legacy of mixed parentage, and encounters disturbing and fascinating characters like Farleigh, an eccentric recluse who raises leeches, and Salim, the overweight heir to a decrepit hotel… Stephen Alter’s debut novel, Neglected Lives, was first published in 1978. It remains an elegiac work of fiction that leads us into a part of India that is seldom visited. Told through the voices of different characters, this story explores themes of identity, love and youth, weaving together moments of violence and tenderness to create a resilient fabric of human experience.
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Secret Servant
Jane Moneypenny may project a cool, calm and collected image but her secret diaries reveal a rather different story. In the grip of an uncertain love affair and haunted by a dark family secret, the last thing she needs is a crisis at work. But the Secret Intelligence Service is in chaos. One senior officer is on trial for treason, another has defected to Moscow and her beloved James Bond has been brainwashed by the KGB. Only a woman's touch can save them. Moneypenny soon finds herself embroiled in a highly-charged adventure infused with the glamour of the Cold War espionage game. Alone on a dangerous Russian mission she turns, with breathless intimacy, to writing a truly explosive private diary.
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Shadow Man
Special Agent Smoky Barrett hunted serial killers for the FBI. She was one of the best–until a madman terrorized her family, killed her husband and daughter, and left her face scarred and her soul brutalized. Turning the tables on the killer, Smoky shot him dead–but her life was shattered forever. Now Smoky dreams about picking up her weapon again. She dreams about placing the cold steel between her lips and pulling the trigger one last time. Because for a woman who’s lost everything, what is there left to lose? She’s about to find out.In all her years at the Bureau, Smoky has never encountered anyone like him–a new and fascinating kind of monster, a twisted genius who defies profilers’ attempts to understand him. And he’s issued Smoky a direct challenge, coaxing her back from the brink with the only thing that could convince her to live. The killer videotaped his latest crime–an act of horror that left a child motherless–then sent a message addressed to Agent Smoky Barrett. The message is enough to shock Smoky back to work, back to her FBI team. And that child awakens something in Smoky she thought was gone forever. Suddenly the stakes are raised. The game has changed. For as this deranged monster embarks on an unspeakable spree of perversion and murder, Smoky is coming alive again–and she’s about to face her greatest fears as a cop, a woman, a mother…and a merciless killer’s next victim
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Back Spin
The boy was born and raised on the Main Line. But he vanished on Philadelphia's mean streets - last seen in a down town cheater's hotel. For sports agent Myron Bolitar, his client, superstar Linda Coldren, comes first, and that means unravelling the mystery of her son's kidnapping. But when Myron goes after the missing boy, he crashes through a crowd of low lifes, blue bloods and liars on both sides of the social divide. And when family skeletons start coming out of the closet, Myron is about to find out how deadly life can get...
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Fade Away
The home was top-notch New Jersey suburban. The living room was Martha Stewart. The basement was Legos—and blood. For sports agent Myron Bolitar, the disappearance of a man he'd once competed against was bringing back memories—of the sport he and Greg Downing had both played and the woman they both loved. Now, among the stars, the wanna-bes, the gamblers and groupies, Myron is unraveling the strange, violent life of a sports hero gone wrong, and coming face-to-face with a past he can't relive, and a present he may not survive.In novels that crackle with wit and suspense, Edgar Award winner Harlan Coben has created one of the most fascinating and complex heroes in suspense fiction—Myron Bolitar—a hotheaded, tenderhearted sports agent who grows more and more engaging and unpredictable with each page-turning appearance.
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Tunnel Vision
Stubbornness has landed private eye V.I. Warshawski in big trouble at her Chicago office. With her grand old Loop building set to be razed, she's become a hold-out tenant amid frayed wiring and scary, empty corridors. Then she finds a homeless woman with three kids in the basement, and before she can rescue them, they disappear. Worst of all, she's been implicated in a murder--after the body of Deirdre Messenger, a prominent lawyer's wife, turns up sprawled across her desk. V.I., who had volunteered with Deirdre at a women's shelter, suspects her death is linked to a case of upper-class domestic abuse so slickly concealed that the police refuse to believe it. Increasingly at odds with the cops, V.I. is blindly plunging ahead after the truth. And her path may lead to corruption at the highest levels.or deep into the abandoned tunnels beneath Chicago's streets, where secrets are hiding in the dark like a child's--or V.I.'s--worst nightmare.
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The Romanov Prophecy
Atlanta lawyer Miles Lord, fluent in Russian and well versed in the country’s history, is thrilled to be in Moscow on the eve of such a momentous event. After the fall of Communism and a succession of weak governments, the Russian people have voted to bring back the monarchy. The new tsar will be chosen from the distant relatives of Nicholas II by a specially appointed commission, and Miles’ job is to perform a background check on the Tsarist candidate favored by a powerful group of Western businessmen. But research quickly becomes the least of Miles’ concerns when he is nearly killed by gunmen on a city plaza. Suddenly Miles is racing across continents, shadowed by nefarious henchmen. At first, his only question is why people are pursuing him. But after a strange conversation with a mysterious Russian, who steers Miles toward the writings of Rasputin, he becomes desperate to know more–most important, what really happened to the family of Russia’s last tsar? His only companion is Akilina Petrov, a Russian circus performer sympathetic to his struggle, and his only guide is a cryptic message from Rasputin that implies that the bloody night of so long ago is not the last chapter in the Romanovs’ story . . . and that someone might even have survived the massacre. The prophecy’s implications are earth-shattering–not only for the future of the tsar and mother Russia, but also for Miles himself.
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A Woman's Eye
Crime is common ground for the twenty-one women writers in this extraordinary collection of contemporary mystery fiction. The voices here include professional crime solvers who take you from the mean streets of V.I. Warshawski's Chicago in a case of music and murder... to the California freeway where Kinsey Millhone's beloved VW skids into a shooting... to the gang-held turf of Sharon says mum's the word. And then there are mothers, grandmothers, battered wives, and social workers -- ordinary women in extraordinary situations whose voices reveal contemporary life as seen through a woman's eye. From the opening tale of a girl down-and-out in London and what she steals from a corpse... to the final story of a summer vacation in the Berkshires, complete with romance and sudden death... this unique collection brings us great mystery writing that engages both our intellects and our hearts.
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Jump In!
Executive producer Mark Burnett has revolutionized television. So how did a British immigrant with little cash and no connections become his own entertainment empire? In Jump In!, Burnett shares his astounding personal saga of risk and reward, and tells enthralling stories about his shows and their contestants that have never before been revealed to the public. After years of facing remarkable challenges- both professional and personal- Burnett knows it's best to trust your gut instincts, recognize what you want, and go for it full-throttle. Jump In! is a must read for those who want to seize the moment, take chances, think big, and achieve their goals.
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Evil Under The Sun
Hercule Poirot is enjoying a well-deserved holiday on Smugglers
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The Tiger Prince
The heather-scented hills of the Scottish highlands come to life in a mesmerizing novel about a wickedly disturbing man who transforms a hardheaded businesswoman into a willing slave of passion.
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The Third Twin
Using a restricted FBI database, genetic researcher Jeannie Ferrami has located identical twins born to different mothers. Frightened by her bizarre discovery, she is determined to discover the truth at any cost -- until she finds herself at the center of a scandal that could ruin her career. To fight the charges, Jeannie plunges into maze of hidden evidence. With growing horror, she uncovers a cynical, far-reaching conspiracy involving disturbing genetic experiments and some of the most powerful men in America -- men who will kill to keep their secrets concealed....
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Indemnity Only
Meeting an anonymous client late on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. But trouble is Chicago private eye V.I. Warshwski's specialty. Her client says he's the prominent banker, John Thayer. Turns out he's not. He says his son's girlfriend, Anita Hill, is missing. Turns out that's not her real name. V.I.'s search turns up someone soon enough -- the real John Thayer's son, and he's dead. Who's V.I.'s client? Why has she been set up and sent out on a wild-goose chase? By the time she's got it figured, things are hotter -- and deadlier -- than Chicago in July. V.I.'s in a desperate race against time. At stake: a young woman's life.
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Women on The Case
Crime and detection are women's work for twenty-six great writersin this second brilliant collection of mystery fiction edited by Sara Paretsky. From wicked irony and white-collar crime, here arevoices known and unknown at home and abroad, as familiar crime turf in America and England is expanded to Russia, Algeria, Austria, Germany, and South America. From Ruth Rendell's lovelorn secretary to Eleanor Taylor Bland's Asian-African college professor, the women characters in these tales are girlfriends who collaborate to catch a thief...or get away with murder. In each case, a master storyteller has created a new, powerful fiction that plumbs the depth and breadth of a woman's art.
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The Eighth Day
For Danny Cray, a struggling artist and part-time private investigator, the offer is too good to be true. A wealthy, enigmatic lawyer, Jude Belzer, would like to retain Danny for a little damage control. His client, an elusive billionaire named Zerevan Zebet, is the target of a vicious campaign in the Italian press that threatens to destroy his reputation. Belzer wants Danny to find out who is responsible-and he will pay handsomely. Danny's only lead is the meager estate of a recently deceased professor of religious studies, a man so deeply terrified that he buried himself alive in the basement of an isolated farmhouse. Belzer swears that if Danny can get at the late professor's files, the conspiracy against his own reclusive client will unravel. It's the perfect assignment, in a way, and Danny can sure use the money. But the more he probes, the more apparent it becomes that nothing is what it seems. There is something he isn't being told. Something that's not quite right. Something dark, fast, and sinister that's coming at him from behind. From the powerful world of Washington, D.C., to the ancient grandeur of Rome, from the mysteries of Istanbul to the high-stakes drama of Silicon Valley,
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Right From The Gecko
Surf’s up . . . and so are the stakes when veterinarian and amateur sleuth Jessica Popper escapes to the land of hula, hibiscus, and geckos for a professional conference. The last time she and boyfriend Nick Burby touched down on the island of Hawaii, Nick caused a volcanic eruption when he unexpectedly popped The Question to commitment-phobic Jess. But this trip proves just as dangerous when Jess befriends an ambitious young reporter whose body later washes up on the sand . . . and someone thinks Jess holds the clue to the killer’s motive.There’s no end of suspects among the exotic flora and fauna, from the victim’s journalistic rivals and a mystery boyfriend to an eccentric beachcomber and a governor’s aide with ties to a controversial biotech firm bringing progress to paradise. One of them is a killer with the chameleon-like ability to stay hidden—and if Jessica doesn’t uncover hula-dunnit in time, she’ll be saying aloha . . . permanently.