Chip Clewt, known simply as the weirdo, lives like a hermit in the Powhatan Swamp, a National Wildlife Refuge that is at the center of a heated controversy between local hunters and environmentalists. A hunting ban on the Powhatan is about to expire. The environmentalists want to protect the wildlife; the hunters are oiling their guns. Then someone completely unexpected comes forward to spearhead the conservation effort--the weirdo. *Includes a reader's guide. *

Death is only the beginning in Olivia Blacke's A New Lease on Death, a darkly funny supernatural mystery that introduces an unlikely crime-solving duo.Ruby Young's new Boston apartment comes with all the usual perks. Windows facing the brick wall of the next-door building. Heat that barely works. A malfunctioning buzzer. Noisy neighbors. A dead body on the sidewalk outside. And of course, a ghost.Since Cordelia Graves died in her apartment a few months ago, she's kept up her residency, despite being bored out of her (non-tangible) skull and frustrated by her new roommate. When her across-the-hall neighbor, Jake Macintyre, is shot and killed in an apparent mugging gone wrong outside their building, Cordelia is convinced there's more to it and is determined to bring his killer to justice.Unfortunately, Cordelia, being dead herself, can't solve the mystery alone. She has to enlist the help of the obnoxiously perky, living tenant of her apartment. Ruby is...

THE SHADOW Wealthy, powerful and majestically handsome, he is a man of dark secrets--a master of the ancient martial arts of an exotic distant land. Scarred by a childhood of shocking degradation, he has sworn to love chastely... but burns with the fires of unfulfilled passion. THE STAR Lovely, innocent and nearly destitute, she is drawn to him by a fevered yearning she could never deny -- following her enigmatic "shadow warrior" into a dangerous world of desire and righteous retribution.

The 15th installment in the Aubrey/Maturin series. This splendid installment in Patrick O'Brian's widely acclaimed series of Aubrey/Maturin novels is in equal parts mystery, adventure, and psychological drama. A British whaler has been captured by an ambitious chief in the Friendly Isles (Tonga) at French instigation, and Captain Aubrey, R.N., is dispatched with the Surprise to restore order. But stowed away in the cabletier is an escaped female convict. To the officers, Clarissa Harvill is an object of awkward courtliness and dangerous jealousies. Aubrey himself is won over and indeed strongly attracted to this woman who will not speak of her past. But only Aubrey's friend, Dr. Stephen Maturin, can fathom Clarissa's secrets: her crime, her personality, and a clue identifying a hightly placed English spy in the pay of Napoleon's intelligence service. In a thrilling finale, Patrick O'Brian delivers all the excitement his many readers expect: Aubrey and the crew of the Surprise impose a brutal pax Britannica on the islanders in a pitched battle against a band of headhunting cannibals.

A popular crime fiction novelist ready for the next chapter in her life.A lonely lawman who leaves the violence of the big city for a small town.A crafty serial killer who continues to toy with law enforcement and elude capture . . .Best-selling author Karlyn Campbell is ready for a new start after her recent divorce from a temperamental artist. When she receives word that her father had a stroke, she heads for Walton Springs with mixed feelings. Broderick Campbell wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning literary novels and denounced his daughter's work as pedestrian and commercial, causing a rift that finally heals on his deathbed. Karlyn chooses to stay in the small Georgia town to write her popular Matt Collins series and decides to try her hand at true crime when Atlanta's Rainbow Killer, Roy G. Biv, captures her interest.Detective Logan Warner's marriage didn't survive after he lost his twins to a crazed killer who was never caught. He returns to his hometown's police...

In this powerfully affecting Flaubert's Parrot gives readers a brilliant take on the deceptions that make up the quivering substrata of erotic love. "An interplay of serious thought and dazzling wit. . . . It's moving, it's funny, it's frightening . . . fiction at its best."--New York Times Book Review. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Caught between love and revenge, Jake has one chance to live up to the man his uncle was.Earth crashed into interstellar politics as a lightweight, lagging so far behind other planetary weapons systems everyone feared they wouldn't survive first contact with other worlds without quick action. By 2185, Earth had united itself into five geographic sectors and developed a defense system powerful enough to keep aggressors at bay—for now, at least.Jake Saunders became a Legion soldier to honor the memory of his war hero uncle, who was brutally murdered in front of him when he was still a young teen. Fast forward a few years, and Jake and his best friend Cal have been tasked with escorting Cal's older sister Diane to become Earth's ambassador on a far-off planet. It's the opportunity of Diane's career, very likely a lifetime post. But for Jake, that could mean a lifetime's heartbreak. He has loved Diane since they were kids, and every step closer to that...

A banker heeds the call of the sea and joins the crew of an ocean steamer in this "exciting adventure thriller" from the author of The Deadly Shore (Hull Daily Mail). John Baxter is not truly a seaman. Having served on a destroyer during the war, he went back to work with his father at the bank. But no longer content with the daily office grind, John sets out to find work on the open ocean. Leaving behind his wife, Constance, and his job, he sets sail on the Wheel of Fortune. Bunking with an experienced seaman named Laratee, John soon discovers the man's dark past. Not only does Laratee look strange, but he also drinks—heavily—to forget the many skeletons in his closet. But soon, it isn't just their own personal demons John and Laratee must battle, but the volatile nature of the open ocean, where no-one is safe . . .

Magician Uncle Joe's birthday present entitled "The Book" swirls green mist and grants pal Fred's wish to "see knights and all that stuff for real", sending Sir Joe the Magnificent, Sir Fred the Awesome, and Sir Sam the Unusual to King Arthur's castle opposing the Black Knight, grossly smelly giant Bleob, and fire-breathing leather-winged iron-clawed green dragon Smaug. Fred plays tag and wields a baseball bat. Sam cleverly politicks. Joseph Arthur tricks with cards. But Merlin has "The Book" to get home.

In the Texas Panhandle, Newt Bascom and Sam Jordan are stock detectives who have the brains to outwit most rustlers—and the brawn to outfight the rest. Now, Bascom and Jordan are being dispatched on a once-in-a-lifetime job. Someone has made off with a prized, imported English bull named Homer. The detectives have to bring Homer home...From Palo Duro Canyon through the Staked Plains, Bascom and Jordan pick up the trail of the missing bull—and the shadowy rustler who took him. And when Dodge City, run by an ornery Marshall named Earp, turns up empty, the detectives head into a wild land. Bluffing, bludgeoning and bragging their way into a smart, secretive and deadly criminal gang, Bascom and Jordan find their bull all right. But stealing back a critter who has love and leisure on his mind proves to be the easy part of the job. The hard part is getting back to Texas—with Homer and their lives...

Raj Whitehall was a young noble of the Civil Government, the last remnant of galactic civilization on the planet Bellevue. Possessed of an unparalled strategic genius, Raj dreamed of leading his people's armies to victory against the barbarians who threatened to engulf them.Yet it was not exterior enemies who were Raj's greatest challenge, but the Civil Government itself. Its bureaucrats had become corrupt extortionists. The ranks of its armies were filled with barbarian mercenaries ready to turn on the paymasters they despised. Those at the highest levels sank their knives into each other's backs even as the barbarians closed in. And the Governor himself, the man to whom Raj was sworn and given absolute loyalty, nourished a paranoid envy and mistrust that grew with every victory Ray won...Luckily for Bellevue, Raj had a hidden asset beyond the worship of his troops and his own genius for war. Raj was possessed of- or possessed by- a "guardian angel" that guided him inexorably toward the goal of planetary dominion. But could even a battle computer of the Galactic Age be enough to counter the fury of Raj's enemies...and the treachery of his "friends"?

After her first day in junior high, Alice McKinley says, "I can think of at least seven things about seventh grade that stink". But after a week, Alice has decided that maybe junior high isn't so bad. In fact, maybe she can go a whole year being friends with everyone, teachers and students alike. This is before she has her first run-in with Denise "Mack-Truck" Whitlock. Alice, who has survived sixth grade and The Summer of the First Boyfriend, soon discovers that it isn't so easy to be Alice the Likeable. Even her best friends get in the way sometimes. And just when she is sure no one has more problems than she does, she is drawn into the ones her twenty-year-old brother and her widowed father are facing, which seem worse. Thinking a favorite teacher may hold the answer to at least one difficulty, Alice ends up with a bigger mess than ever. She realizes, however, that it is possible to overcome disaster and to find a way out of troubles. Most of all, she discovers, it's good to have a father and a brother who love you and look out for you. In fact, sometimes, having family is almost enough.

Murder and intrigue on the steps of the United States capital building pulls Robert Brixton into his most personal case yet, in Margaret Truman's Murder at the CDC2017: A military transport on a secret run to dispose of its deadly contents vanishes without a trace.The present: A mass shooting on the steps of the Capitol nearly claims the life of Robert Brixton's grandson.No stranger to high-stakes investigations, Brixton embarks on a trail to uncover the motive behind the shooting. On the way he finds himself probing the attempted murder of the daughter his best friend, who works at the Washington offices of the CDC.The connection between the mass shooting and Alexandra's poisoning lies in that long-lost military transport that has been recovered by forces determined to change America forever. Those forces are led by radical separatist leader Deacon Frank Wilhyte, whose goal is nothing short of bringing on a second Civil War.Brixton joins...