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Keepers of the Stones and Stars
by Michael BarakivaKeepers of the Stones and Stars is a witty young adult contemporary fantasy about a group of five teens chosen by magical gems to save the world.Save the world. Get the guy. Reed is leading his best life: he’s just kissed the boy of his dreams, his band is finally taking off, and he’s a shoo-in to getting elected as next year’s Student Council president. But he’s ready to give it all up when his suspiciously aristocratic guidance counselor tells him he has been chosen to go on the adventure of a lifetime. Because Reed is the first of five Stone Bearers to be chosen by magical gems and granted their powers. All he has to do is unite all five and lead them to seal a portal that will release an onslaught of uncontrollable chaotic magical energies, and destroy the world as we know it. It’s up to the Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz, Emerald, and Amethyst Bearers to save the world, fulfilling their roles in a centuries-old cycle that dates back to 17th century Mughal India and the first Keepers of the Stones and Stars.
One Man Guy
by Michael BarakivaAlek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Why bother, when their home cooking is far superior to anything "these Americans" could come up with? Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek's parents announce that he'll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshmen year of high school. He never could've predicted that he'd meet someone like Ethan. Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. When Ethan gets Alek to cut school and go to a Rufus Wainwright concert in New York City's Central Park, Alek embarks on his first adventure outside the confines of his suburban New Jersey existence. He can't believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend—he's barely ever had a girlfriend—but maybe it's time to think again. Michael Barakiva's One Man Guy is a romantic, moving, laugh-out-loud-funny story about what happens when one person cracks open your world and helps you see everything—and, most of all, yourself--like you never have before.
The Prince He Loved
by Michael BarnettePrince Raphael d'Alleven flees for his life after his family is murdered and the government of Alleven is taken over. Exhausted and unable to find a way off world, Raphael literally runs into his best hope for salvation: a genetically engineered soldier named Hadrian Ice. Ice hadn't planned on taking service with anyone, but understanding the predicament Raphael finds himself in, Ice is unable to turn him away. With bounty hunters on their trail and Vicount Alfonso Macchoine, scion of the House responsible for the coup, joining the hunt, it will take all of their combined skills to restore the government of Alleven to its rightful ruler, Raphael's missing twin sister, Raphaella. As long as they don't get killed first.
Worth More Than Words
by Michael BarnetteJin Donovan, code named Topaz, is a psi-talented hacker, a technomancer with the power to enter the electronic world found inside computers and most electronic devices. Recruited to the Organization--a clandestine group dedicated to protecting the world from crime syndicates--right out of college, Jin is their top technokinetic. He teams up with Damon Champion--known within the Organization as Steel--a sometime assassin, bodyguard, and biokinetic. The pair find themselves mutually attracted and give in to temptation after they conclude their mission successfully. But attractions like theirs aren't approved of in their line of work, and Jin cuts Damon off immediately. Unfortunately, being an operative for the Organization isn't a safe profession and Jin vanishes without a trace. Now it's up to Damon to find Jin, the man he's fallen in love with, and rescue him from his captors... if he isn't already dead.
Closet Queens: Some 20th Century British Politicians
by Michael BlochIn Closet Queens, masterful biographer Michael Bloch turns his attention to the men of British politics who were forced to lead double lives. Outwardly conforming to the requirements of heterosexual middle class society, many twentieth-century British politicians had illicit, clandestine and often thrilling queer sex lives. Some sought relationships with men of their own class, others with 'rough trade' and some confined themselves to fleeting, anonymous encounters in public places. After the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 decriminalised sexual acts in private between consenting males, the great fear of closet queens was not of prosecution in the courts but exposure in the press, leading some men to continue to repress their sexuality in order to realise their ambitions. Opening doors into the private, hidden worlds of key political figures in Britain, Closet Queens is an astonishing work that will be one of the talking points of 2015.
Closet Queens: Some 20th Century British Politicians
by Michael BlochCloset Queens is a fascinating study of gay men in twentieth century British politics, from Lord Rosebery and Lord Beauchamp in Edwardian times to Michael Portillo and Peter Mandelson in our own era. As all homosexual activity was illegal until 1967, and exposure meant ruin and disgrace, such men were obliged either to repress their sexual feelings or else lead double lives, indulging their tastes secretly while respectably married with children.The need to cover up their sexuality, while causing problems and disappointments, often sharpened their skills as politicians - they were masters of secrecy and subterfuge, and knew how to take calculated risks. An entertaining and insightful account of some extraordinary personalities, Closet Queens opens doors into a hidden world.
Jeremy Thorpe
by Michael Bloch'A revealing, insightful and gripping biography of one of the most extraordinary people ever to lead a British political party' ObserverThe story of Jeremy Thorpe's rapid rise and spectacular fall from grace is one of the most remarkable in British politics. When he became leader of the Liberal Party in 1967 at the age of just thirty-seven, he seemed destined for truly great things. But as his star steadily rose so his nemesis drew ever nearer: a time-bomb in the form of Norman Scott, a homosexual wastrel and sometime male model with whom Jeremy had formed an ill-advised relationship in the early 1960s. Scott's incessant boasts about their 'affair' became increasingly embarrassing, and eventually led to a bizarre murder plot to shut him up for good. Jeremy was acquitted of involvement but his career was in ruins.Michael Bloch's magisterial biography is not just a brilliant retelling of this amazing story; ten years in the making, it is also the definitive character study of one of the most fascinating figures in post-war British politics.
Jeremy Thorpe
by Michael Bloch'A revealing, insightful and gripping biography of one of the most extraordinary people ever to lead a British political party' ObserverThe story of Jeremy Thorpe's rapid rise and spectacular fall from grace is one of the most remarkable in British politics. When he became leader of the Liberal Party in 1967 at the age of just thirty-seven, he seemed destined for truly great things. But as his star steadily rose so his nemesis drew ever nearer: a time-bomb in the form of Norman Scott, a homosexual wastrel and sometime male model with whom Jeremy had formed an ill-advised relationship in the early 1960s. Scott's incessant boasts about their 'affair' became increasingly embarrassing, and eventually led to a bizarre murder plot to shut him up for good. Jeremy was acquitted of involvement but his career was in ruins.Michael Bloch's magisterial biography is not just a brilliant retelling of this amazing story; ten years in the making, it is also the definitive character study of one of the most fascinating figures in post-war British politics.
Befriending the Queer Nineteenth Century: Curious Attachments (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature)
by Michael BorgstromBefriending the Queer Nineteenth Century: Curious Attachments addresses a longstanding question in literary and cultural studies: how can a case be made for the ongoing value of the humanities without an articulation of that field's social effects? In response, this book examines how readers "befriend" works of literature, overtures that are based in a curiosity about the world that help those readers to appreciate the world anew. As an instance of this dynamic, it examines how the contemporary social interest in queerness can be contextualized through encounters with texts produced during an earlier era of queer flux: the U.S. nineteenth century. The book offers first-hand accounts of such meetings, weaving within its analysis reports on readers' engagements with literature and the consequences of those connections. It frames such dynamics as central to a new politics, or to finding a vocabulary for a familiar politics that has not received its due.
A Queer History of the United States
by Michael BronskiThe first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present. In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to "Publick Universal Friend," refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized "female marriage." And in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP's magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. These are just a few moments of queer history that Michael Bronski highlights in this groundbreaking book. Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, A Queer History of the United States is more than a who's who of queer history: it is a book that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, noted scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the 1990s, and has written a testament to how the LGBT experience has profoundly shaped our country, culture, and history. A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history-the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today. At heart, A Queer History of the United States is simply about American history. It is a book that will matter both to LGBT people and heterosexuals. This engrossing and revelatory history will make readers appreciate just how queer America really is.
A Queer History of the United States (ReVisioning American History #1)
by Michael BronskiWinner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfictionThe first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated same-sex desire, atheism, and interracial marriage. Transgender evangelist Jemima Wilkinson, in the early 1800s, changed her name to “Publick Universal Friend,” refused to use pronouns, fought for gender equality, and led her own congregation in upstate New York. In the mid-nineteenth century, internationally famous Shakespearean actor Charlotte Cushman led an openly lesbian life, including a well-publicized “female marriage.” And in the late 1920s, Augustus Granville Dill was fired by W. E. B. Du Bois from the NAACP’s magazine the Crisis after being arrested for a homosexual encounter. These are just a few moments of queer history that Michael Bronski highlights in this groundbreaking book. Intellectually dynamic and endlessly provocative, A Queer History of the United States is more than a “who’s who” of queer history: it is a book that radically challenges how we understand American history. Drawing upon primary documents, literature, and cultural histories, noted scholar and activist Michael Bronski charts the breadth of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from 1492 to the 1990s, and has written a testament to how the LGBT experience has profoundly shaped our country, culture, and history. A Queer History of the United States abounds with startling examples of unknown or often ignored aspects of American history—the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the impact of new technologies on LGBT life in the nineteenth century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the devastating backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. Most striking, Bronski documents how, over centuries, various incarnations of social purity movements have consistently attempted to regulate all sexuality, including fantasies, masturbation, and queer sex. Resisting these efforts, same-sex desire flourished and helped make America what it is today. At heart, A Queer History of the United States is simply about American history. It is a book that will matter both to LGBT people and heterosexuals. This engrossing and revelatory history will make readers appreciate just how queer America really is. From the Hardcover edition.
A Queer History of the United States for Young People (ReVisioning American History for Young People #1)
by Michael BronskiQueer history didn't start with Stonewall. This book explores how LGBTQ people have always been a part of our national identity, contributing to the country and culture for over 400 years.It is crucial for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer youth to know their history. But this history is not easy to find since it's rarely taught in schools or commemorated in other ways. A Queer History of the United States for Young People corrects this and demonstrates that LGBTQ people have long been vital to shaping our understanding of what America is today. Through engrossing narratives, letters, drawings, poems, and more, the book encourages young readers, of all identities, to feel pride at the accomplishments of the LGBTQ people who came before them and to use history as a guide to the future. Here we meet: * Indigenous tribes who embraced same-sex relationships and a multiplicity of gender identities. * Emily Dickinson, brilliant nineteenth-century poet who wrote about her desire for women. * Gladys Bentley, Harlem blues singer who challenged restrictive cross-dressing laws in the 1920s. * Bayard Rustin, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s close friend, civil rights organizer, and an openly gay man. * Sylvia Rivera, cofounder of STAR, the first transgender activist group in the US in 1970. * Kiyoshi Kuromiya, civil rights and antiwar activist who fought for people living with AIDS. * Jamie Nabozny, activist who took his LGBTQ school bullying case to the Supreme Court. * Aidan DeStefano, teen who brought a federal court case for trans-inclusive bathroom policies. * And many more!With over 60 illustrations and photos, a glossary, and a corresponding curriculum, A Queer History of the United States for Young People will be vital for teachers who want to introduce a new perspective to America's story.
Song of the Loon
by Michael Bronski Richard Amory“More completely than any author before him, Richard Amory explores the tormented world of love for man by man... a happy amalgam of James Fenimore Cooper, Jean Genet and Hudson’s Green Mansions.”—from the cover copy of the 1969 edition<P> Published well ahead of its time, in 1966 by Greenleaf Classics, Song of the Loon is a romantic novel that tells the story of Ephraim MacIver and his travels through the wilderness. Along his journey, he meets a number of characters who share with him stories, wisdom and homosexual encounters. The most popular erotic gay book of the 1960s and 1970s, Song of the Loon was the inspiration for two sequels, a 1970 film of the same name, at least one porn movie and a parody novel called Fruit of the Loon. Unique among pulp novels of the time, the gay characters in Song of the Loon are strong and romantically drawn, which has earned the book a place in the canon of gay American literature.
Queer Airwaves: The Story of Gay and Lesbian Broadcasting
by Michael C Keith Phylis W JohnsonThis book is both a retrospective history of the gay community's use of electronic media as a way of networking and creating a sense of community, and an examination of the current situation, an analysis and critical assessment of gay/lesbian electronic media. Keith and Johnson use original interviews and oral history to delineate the place of electronic media in the lives of this increasingly visible and vocal minority in America.
Coming Out, Coming Home: Helping Families Adjust to a Gay or Lesbian Child
by Michael C. LasalaThe discovery that a child is lesbian or gay can send shockwaves through a family. A mother will question how she's raised her son; a father will worry that his daughter will experience discrimination. From the child's perspective, gay and lesbian youth fear their families will reject them and that they will lose financial and emotional support. All in all, learning a child is gay challenges long-held views about sexuality and relationships, and the resulting uncertainty can produce feelings of anger, resentment, and concern. Through a qualitative, multicultural study of sixty-five gay and lesbian children and their parents, Michael LaSala, a leading expert on this issue, outlines effective, practice-tested interventions for families in transition. His research reveals surprising outcomes, such as learning that a child is homosexual can improve familial relationships, including father-child relationships, even if a parent reacts strongly or negatively to the revelation. By confronting feelings of depression, anxiety, and grief head on, LaSala formulates the best approach for practitioners who hope to reestablish intimacy among family members and preserve family connections& mdash;as well as individual autonomy& mdash;well into the child's maturation. By restricting his study to parents and children of the same family, LaSala accurately captures the reciprocal effects of family interactions, identifying them as targets for effective treatment. Coming Out, Coming Home is also a valuable text for families, enabling adjustment through relatable scenarios and analyses.
little reef and other stories
by Michael Carroll"Little Reef and Other Stories" announces the arrival of an original voice in literature. From Key West to Maine, Michael Carroll's debut collection of stories depicts the lives of characters who are no longer provincial but are not yet cosmopolitan. These women and their gay male friends are "B-listers" of a new, ironic, media-soaked culture. They live in a rich but increasingly divided America, a weirdly paradoxical country increasingly accepting of gay marriage but still marked by prejudice, religious strictures, and swaths of poverty and hopelessness. Carroll shows us people stunned by the shock of the now, who have forgotten their pasts and can't envision a future.
My Father's Scar
by Michael CartCart's dazzling novel is a potent reminder of the pain and the euphoria that come from growing up and how we remember our family, friends, and first loves.
Collected Fiction: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, and Werewolves in Their Youth
by Michael ChabonThree extraordinary works by the New York Times–bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Moonglow. A trio of acclaimed masterworks of contemporary fiction by multiple award-winning author Michael Chabon, hailed by the Washington Post Book World as &“a young American Nabokov.&” The Mysteries of Pittsburgh: Michael Chabon&’s &“astonishing&” debut (The New York Times) follows Art Bechstein, a man still too young to know what he wants. He only knows what he doesn&’t want: the life of his money-laundering father. During the summer after graduation he&’s finding his own way with brilliant and seductive new friends—erudite Arthur Lecomte, the confounding and mercurial Phlox, and a poetry-reciting biker who pulls Art inevitably back into his father&’s mobbed-up world. Wonder Boys: Grady Tripp&’s first novel made him a literary star. Seven years later, he&’s a writing professor in Pittsburgh, plummeting through middle age, stuck with an unfinishable manuscript, an estranged wife, a pregnant girlfriend, and a talented but alienated student named James Leer. During one lost weekend at a writing festival with Leer and debauched editor Terry Crabtree, Tripp finally confronts the wreckage of his past in a &“wise, wildly funny&” (Chicago Tribune) reckoning with the self-destructive decisions of his life. Werewolves in Their Youth: An indelible cast of characters finds themselves at crossroads in this astonishing collection of short fiction. A young misfit fails to protect his best friend from the scorn of their classmates; a kleptomaniac real estate agent leads an unhappy couple on a disastrous house tour; and a heartbroken grifter finds his ex-girlfriend&’s grandmother is both an easy mark and a source of redemption. &“When you read these stories, it may strike you how seldom you come across really beautiful writing&” (USA Today).
The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (P. S. Series)
by Michael ChabonThe Pulitzer Prize–winning author&’s &“astonishing&” debut novel, about a son&’s struggle to find his own identity and integrity (The New York Times). Michael Chabon, author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Moonglow, and The Yiddish Policeman&’s Union, is one of the most acclaimed talents in contemporary fiction. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, published when Chabon was just twenty-five, is the beautifully crafted debut that propelled him into the literary stratosphere. Art Bechstein may be too young to know what he wants to do with his life, but he knows what he doesn&’t want: the life of his father, a man who laundered money for the mob. He spends the summer after graduation finding his own way, experimenting with a group of brilliant and seductive new friends: erudite Arthur Lecomte, who opens up new horizons for Art; mercurial Phlox, who confounds him at every turn; and Cleveland, a poetry-reciting biker who pulls him inevitably back into his father&’s mobbed-up world. A New York Times bestseller, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh was called &“astonishing&” by Alice McDermott, and heralded the arrival of one of our era&’s great voices. This ebook features a biography of the author.
Things a Bright Boy Can Do
by Michael ChangIn Michael Chang's latest, all the world's a vaudeville stage, and this poet is its jester with a knife.Like an elongated diss track, Chang's poems go from flirty to righteous, wrathful to lackadaisical, all in the span of one page. The titans of pop culture and poetry wrestle at Chang’s whimsy, their poems a series of flings and retorts at the end of a late-night spree. Like a compendium of American poetics, this collection breezily changes style and mood as easily as a prom queen smiles beneath the crown. With nods to O’Hara and Ashbery, the poems in Things a Bright Boy Can Do flit from the sewage of Americana to the heights of ecstatic experience. Each poem is a playground meant to delight readers before they skip along. With each successive book, Michael Chang showcases a poet at home in the twenty-first century; nothing is too silly or too morbid for the page. When reading Chang’s poetry, the madness of interpreting the social media age suddenly makes sense. You can’t help but join in on the heckling, sticking your tongue out in the face of our strange world.“Michael Chang is back, with their signature irrepressibility: the voice that bubbles with endlessly exuberant wit, encyclopedic pop culture references, playful orthography, and intense emotion. Oh, yes – these poems are in their feelings! Are you here for poetry that can lure Superman, Dolly Parton, and Prince allusions together? Are you up for parataxis with a vengeance? If wordplay and irreverence are music to your ears, tune into Things a Bright Boy Can Do.” – Evie Shockley, author of Suddenly We“Michael Chang’s Things a Bright Boy Can Do pushes and pushes, and then pushes some more. It’s provocative, fearless, and relentless, unafraid to reinvent tone, grammar, and just about everything else that dares to enter the path of Chang’s perception. Things a Bright Boy Can Do is a ride on the back of a new modern language.” – Victoria Chang, author of The Trees Witness Everything
God Hates Fags: The Rhetorics of Religious Violence (Sexual Cultures #20)
by Michael Cobb2007 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAt the funeral of Matthew Shepard—the young Wyoming man brutally murdered for being gay—the Reverend Fred Phelps led his parishioners in protest, displaying signs with slogans like “Matt Shepard rots in Hell,” “Fags Die God Laughs,” and “God Hates Fags.” In counter-protest, activists launched an “angel action,” dressing in angel costumes, with seven-foot high wings, and creating a visible barrier so one would not have to see the hateful signs.Though long thought of as one of the most virulently anti-gay genres of contemporary American politics and culture, in God Hates Fags, Michael Cobb maintains that religious discourses have curiously figured as the most potent and pervasive forms of queer expression and activism throughout the twentieth century. Cobb focuses on how queers have assumed religious rhetoric strategically to respond to the violence done against them, alternating close readings of writings by James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Jean Toomer, Dorothy Allison, and Stephen Crane with critical legal and political analyses of Supreme Court Cases and anti-gay legislation. He also pays deep attention to the political strategies, public declarations, websites, interviews, and other media made by key religious right organizations that have mounted the most successful regulations and condemnations of homosexuality.
Body Language (The Mark Manning Mysteries #3)
by Michael CraftA gay Chicago reporter returns to his Wisconsin hometown—and a morass of lust, lies, and lethal family secrets in this &“neatly twisted&” mystery (Booklist). An unexpected windfall has given burned-out Chicago journalist Mark Manning the chance to reconnect with his boyhood roots. With the blessing of his lover, Neil, he leaves the Windy City to return to Dumont, Wisconsin, to take over the town paper. His long-awaited family reunion is cut short when his cousin Suzanne is bludgeoned to death just before Christmas dinner. Before she dies, she whispers something to Manning: the name of her son. Was she expressing a mother&’s dying wish for the future welfare of her child? Or revealing the identity of her murderer? When Manning ends up in the local law&’s sights, he&’s suddenly racing against time to clear his own name and smoke out a killer. With no lack of suspects, from a troubled homophobe to a lesbian activist to a housekeeper, the clock is ticking on a story that could be the biggest of Manning&’s career—if he lives long enough to write it. Body Language is the third book in Michael Craft&’s Mark Manning series, which begins with Flight Dreams and Eye Contact.
Boy Toy: A Mark Manning Mystery (The Mark Manning Mysteries #5)
by Michael CraftJournalist Mark Manning&’s Midwestern hometown closes ranks against him when his nephew is suspected of murder For Mark Manning, running the local paper in his Wisconsin hometown is a refreshing change from his life as a hard-charging reporter for the Chicago Journal. Together with his partner, architect Neil Waite, he&’s settling into scenic, sleepy Dumont, whose inhabitants have welcomed them into their fold. Until Manning&’s nephew becomes the prime suspect in a murder case. Teenagers Thad Quatrain and Jason Thrush alternated the lead role in the community theatre&’s production of Teen Play. Now Jason lies dead in his bedroom, the victim of mushroom poisoning. Amid rumors that Thad threatened to kill Jason, the town begins to turn against him. As a sweltering summer draws to an end, a shocking revelation has tempers seething—and threatening to boil over. A novel about sexual identity, desire, and the lies we tell ourselves, Boy Toy explores the secret passions that war within the human heart. Boy Toy is the fifth book in Michael Craft&’s Mark Manning series, which begins with Flight Dreams and Eye Contact.
Eye Contact
by Michael CraftIt begins as a simple assignment for Chicago Journal reporter Mark Manning. He's been hired to replace colleague, Cliff Nolan, on a top story. Renowned astrophysicist, Pavo Zarnik, claims to have discovered a tenth planet, but to the skeptical reporter, there is no story because there is no proof. Then Manning makes some startling discoveries of his own: Nolan's body with a bullet hole in his back and the last interview with Zarnik is missing. Now the story is no longer a matter of metaphysics, but of murder. It's not just foul play and a puzzle that capture Manning's imagination. His new assistant, twenty-four-year-old David Bosch, awakens every yearning that Manning has struggled to keep in check since building his new life with two-year lover Neil Waite. Now, while Manning and David quickly pick up on the murderer's trail, a desperate predator has marked someone close to Manning. But Manning is driven even harder as he comes closer to the truth ... and to a damning piece of evidence the killer will do anything to destroy. Even if it means committing murder again.