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Gin and Panic: A Mystery (Discreet Retrieval Agency Mysteries #3)
by Maia Chance“Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets—and has a high old time doing it! So will you.”—Ann B. Ross, New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Julia seriesFormer socialite Lola Woodby is now struggling to make ends meet as a not-so-discreet private eye in Prohibtion-era New York City, along with her stern Swedish sidekick, Berta. When they’re offered a piece-of-cake job—retrieving a rhinoceros trophy from the Connecticut mansion of big game hunter Rudy Montgomery—it seems like a no-brainer. After all, their client, Lord Sudley, promises them a handsome paycheck, and the gin and tonics will be plentiful and free. But no sooner do they arrive at Montgomery Hall than Rudy is shot dead. When the police arrive to examine the scene, they conclude that Rudy had actually committed suicide. But Lord Sudley can’t believe his friend would have done that, and there’s a houseful of suspicious characters standing by. So Lord Sudley ups the ante for Lola and Berta, and suddenly, their easy retrieval job has turned into a murder investigation. Armed with handbags stuffed with emergency chocolate, gin flasks, and a Colt .25, Lola and Berta are swiftly embroiled in a madcap puzzle of stolen diamonds, family secrets, a clutch of gangsters, and plenty of suspects who know their way around a safari rifle.Gin and Panic is the next jaunty, compelling Discreet Retrieval Agency mystery from beloved crime writer Maia Chance.
Expiration Date: A Novel
by Duane SwierczynskiIf you thought Duane Swierczynski's The Blonde and Severance Package were page turners, hold on to your seat. Expiration Date is a detective novel with a time-travel twist that will leave readers gasping.In this neighborhood, make a wrong turn… and you're history. Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment—his sick grandfather's place. The only problem: it's in a lousy neighborhood—the one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape. But now he's back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he's reached rock bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally. At first he thinks it's a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, searching for answers about the grandfather he hardly knows, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below. The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey's father.
Dante in Love: A Biography
by A. N. WilsonFor William Butler Yeats, Dante Alighieri was "the chief imagination of Christendom." For T. S. Eliot, he was of supreme importance, both as poet and philosopher. Coleridge championed his introduction to an English readership. Tennyson based his poem "Ulysses" on lines from the Inferno. Byron chastised an "Ungrateful Florence" for exiling Dante. The DivineComedy resonates across five hundred years of our literary canon. In Dante in Love, A. N. Wilson presents a glittering study of an artist and his world, arguing that without an understanding of medieval Florence, it is impossible to grasp the meaning of Dante's great poem. He explains how the Italian states were at that time locked into violent feuds, mirrored in the ferocious competition between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. He shows how Dante's preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology, and the great Christian philosophers inform every line of the Comedy. Dante in Love also explores the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice whom he barely knew. With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's comprehension of the creative process, A. N. Wilson paints a masterful portrait of Dante Alighieri and unlocks one of the seminal works of literature for a new generation of readers.
The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers
by Mark GevisserOne of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020. Longlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize. "[Mark] Gevisser is clear-eyed and wise enough to have a sharp sense of how tough the struggle has been, and how hard it will be now for those who have not succeeded in finding shelter from prejudice." --Colm Tóibín, The GuardianA groundbreaking look at how the issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world todayMore than seven years in the making, Mark Gevisser’s The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers is an exploration of how the conversation around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to divide—and describe—the world in an entirely new way over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. No social movement has brought change so quickly and with such dramatically mixed results. While same-sex marriage and gender transition are celebrated in some parts of the world, laws are being strengthened to criminalize homosexuality and gender nonconformity in others. As new globalized queer identities are adopted by people across the world—thanks to the digital revolution—fresh culture wars have emerged. A new Pink Line, Gevisser argues, has been drawn across the globe, and he takes readers to its frontiers.Between sensitive and sometimes startling profiles of the queer folk he’s encountered along the Pink Line, Gevisser offers sharp analytical chapters exploring identity politics, religion, gender ideology, capitalism, human rights, moral panics, geopolitics, and what he calls “the new transgender culture wars.” His subjects include a Ugandan refugee in flight to Canada, a trans woman fighting for custody of her child in Moscow, a lesbian couple campaigning for marriage equality in Mexico, genderqueer high schoolers coming of age in Michigan, a gay Israeli-Palestinian couple searching for common ground, and a community of kothis—“women’s hearts in men’s bodies”—who run a temple in an Indian fishing village. What results is a moving and multifaceted picture of the world today, and the queer people defining it.Eye-opening, heartfelt, expertly researched, and compellingly narrated, The Pink Line is a monumental—and urgent—journey of unprecedented scope into twenty-first-century identity, seen through the border posts along the world’s new LGBTQ+ frontiers.
Shatter the Night: A Detective Gemma Monroe Mystery (Detective Gemma Monroe Novels #4)
by Emily LittlejohnAn enthralling, atmospheric new novel from Emily Littlejohn, author of acclaimed debut Inherit the Bones, featuring Colorado police officer Gemma Monroe. It’s Halloween night in Cedar Valley. During the town’s annual festival, Detective Gemma Monroe takes a break from trick or treating with her family to visit an old family friend, retired Judge Caleb Montgomery, at his law office. To Gemma’s surprise, Caleb seems worried—haunted, even—and confides in her that he’s been receiving anonymous threats. Shortly after, as Gemma strolls back to her car, an explosion at Caleb’s office shatters the night. Reeling from the shock, Gemma and her team begin eliminating suspects and motives, but more keep appearing in their place, and soon another man is killed. Her investigation takes her from a chilling encounter with a convicted murderer at the Belle Vista Penitentiary, to the gilded rooms of the renovated Shotgun Playhouse, where Shakespeare’s cursed play Macbeth is set to open in a few weeks. Yet most disturbing of all is when Gemma realizes that similar murders have happened before. There is a copycat killer at play, and if Gemma can’t stop him, he’ll carry out his final, deadly act.
Beyond America's Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East
by Stephen P. CohenAN INCISIVE "WHITE PAPER" ON THE UNITED STATES'S STRUGGLE TO FRAME A COHERENT MIDDLE EAST POLICY In this book, the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen traces U.S. policy in the region back to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, when the Great Powers failed to take crucial steps to secure peace there. He sees in that early diplomatic failure a pattern shaping the conflicts since then—and America's role in them. A century ago, there emerged two dominant views regarding the uses of America's newfound power. Woodrow Wilson urged America to promote national freedom and self-determination through the League of Nations—in stark contrast to his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt, who had advocated a vigorous foreign policy based on national self-interest. Cohen argues that this running conflict has hobbled American dealings in the Middle East ever since. In concise, pointed chapters, he shows how different Middle East countries have struggled to define themselves in the face of America's stated idealism and its actual realpolitik. This conflict came to a head in the confused, clumsy Middle East policy of George W. Bush—but Cohen suggests the ways a greater awareness of our history in the region might enable our present leaders to act more sensibly.
The Blue Bloods Cookbook: 120 Recipes That Will Bring Your Family to the Table
by Bridget Moynahan Wendy Howard Goldberg Chris PetersonERIN REAGAN: How many times have you and I been setting the table together for Sunday dinner?NICKY REAGAN: A million.Anyone who has ever seen the hit TV show Blue Bloods knows that the family dinner is the centerpiece of every episode. And there are really only three things that Blue Bloods-and everyone else-need to make a successful family dinner: family, love and food. Bring the first two to the table and The Blue Bloods Family Dinner Cookbook will provide the third!Bridget Moynahan, the show's star, invites you to partake in that sacred family ritual, offering food lovers more than 100 delectable recipes and bringing you Irish/Italian comfort food that will make you feel right at home, including: -Clam Chowder (Manhattan, of course!)-Arthur Avenue Spaghetti and Meatballs-Chicken Francese-Pizza, Reagan Style-Standing Rib Roast with Cippolini Onion Sauce-Cheesecake with NYPD Blue ToppingJust as there is a chair around the table for every family member, there is a recipe in this cookbook sure to make any eater happy to be home again. Hearty and soulful, The Blue Bloods Cookbook will make you say, "Amen, now pass the potatoes!"
Constellation of Genius: 1922, Modernism Year One
by Kevin JacksonEzra Pound referred to 1922 as Year One of a new era. It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and ended with the publication of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, two works that were arguably "the sun and moon" of modernist literature, some would say of modernity itself.In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the titanic achievements of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared. As Jackson writes in his introduction, "On all sides, and in every field, there was a frenzy of innovation." It is in 1922 that Hitchcock directs his first feature; Kandinsky and Klee join the Bauhaus; the first AM radio station is launched; Walt Disney releases his first animated shorts; and Louis Armstrong takes a train from New Orleans to Chicago, heralding the age of modern jazz. On other fronts,Einstein wins the Nobel Prize in Physics, insulin is introduced to treat diabetes, and the tomb of Tutankhamun is discovered. As Jackson writes, the sky was "blazing with a ‘constellation of genius' of a kind that had never been known before, and has never since been rivaled."Constellation of Genius traces an unforgettable journey through the diaries of the actors, anthropologists, artists, dancers, designers, filmmakers, philosophers, playwrights, politicians, and scientists whose lives and works—over the course of twelve months—brought a seismic shift in the way we think, splitting the cultural world in two. Was this a matter of inevitability or of coincidence? That is for the reader of this romp, this hugely entertaining chronicle, to decide.
The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke
by Sallie Bingham"Men who inherit great wealth are respected, but women who do the same are ridiculed. In The Silver Swan, Sallie Bingham rescues Doris Duke from this gendered prison and shows us just how brave, rebellious, and creative this unique woman really was, and how her generosity benefits us to this day.” —Gloria Steinem A bold portrait of Doris Duke, the defiant and notorious tobacco heiress who was perhaps the greatest modern woman philanthropistIn The Silver Swan, Sallie Bingham chronicles one of the great underexplored lives of the twentieth century and the very archetype of the modern woman. “Don’t touch that girl, she’ll burn your fingers,” FBI director J. Edgar Hoover once said about Doris Duke, the inheritor of James Buchanan Duke’s billion-dollar tobacco fortune. During her lifetime, she would be blamed for scorching many, including her mother and various ex-lovers. She established her first foundation when she was twenty-one; cultivated friendships with the likes of Jackie Kennedy, Imelda Marcos, and Michael Jackson; flaunted interracial relationships; and adopted a thirty-two year-old woman she believed to be the reincarnation of her deceased daughter. This is also the story of the great houses she inhabited, including the classically proportioned limestone mansion on Fifth Avenue, the sprawling Duke Farms in New Jersey, the Gilded Age mansion Rough Point in Newport, Shangri La in Honolulu, and Falcon’s Lair overlooking Beverly Hills. Even though Duke was the subject of constant scrutiny, little beyond the tabloid accounts of her behavior has been publicly known. In 2012, when eight hundred linear feet of her personal papers were made available, Sallie Bingham set out to probe her identity. She found an alluring woman whose life was forged in the Jazz Age, who was not only an early war correspondent but also an environmentalist, a surfer, a collector of Islamic art, a savvy businesswoman who tripled her father’s fortune, and a major philanthropist with wide-ranging passions from dance to historic preservation to human rights. In The Silver Swan, Bingham is especially interested in dissecting the stereotypes that have defined Duke’s story while also confronting the disturbing questions that cleave to her legacy.
Pakistan: Deep Inside the World's Most Frightening State
by Mary Anne WeaverAn eyewitness account by an acclaimed New Yorker reporterWedged between India and Afghanistan, Pakistan is the second-largest nation in the Islamic world, and is situated in what is currently one of the most volatile regions on earth. It has assumed a commanding role in militant Islam, a frightening portent being its creation of Afghanistan's bizarre fundamentalist student militia, the Taliban; and with some fifteen private Islamist armies and at least twenty nuclear weapons, it is considered to be one of the most terrifying places in the world. Its disintegration would pose an unthinkable threat to the United States and the West, and the man who will determine Pakistan's future course is the little-known, enigmatic General Pervez Musharraf. Mary Anne Weaver presents her personal journey through a country in turmoil, reconstructing, largely in the voices of the key participants themselves--Generals Musharraf and Zia, and Benazir Bhutto--the legacies now haunting Pakistan in the aftermath of the U.S.-sponsored jihad of the 1980s in Afghanistan. Fusing geopolitical choices with a vivid portrait of a land--of its people, its mystery, and its clans--Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, provides an essential background for those seeking to understand the problems the international community now faces, and poses some deeply disturbing questions about the future of conflict in South Asia.
The Villa of Death: A Mystery Featuring Daphne Du Maurier (Daphne du Maurier Mysteries #3)
by Joanna ChallisYoung Daphne du Maurier must defend a friend who has been accused of murder in the next installment in the beguiling mystery series that readers of Rebecca will love.It's the summer of 1927 and aspiring novelist Daphne du Maurier is headed to Cornwall for the wedding of her dear friend Ellen Hamilton to American millionaire Teddy Grimshaw. Having met during the chaos of the Great War, the lovers were cruelly separated for nearly a decade by circumstance and family interference. Now the wedding ceremony—held at Thornleigh Manor, a grand estate that has been in the Hamilton family for five centuries—marks a renewed hope for the future.But joy quickly turns to devastation when Teddy is found murdered right after the wedding. Wealth, jealousy, and buried secrets provide no shortage of suspects—or danger to everyone at Thornleigh, including Daphne herself. When Ellen is suspected of being the murderess, the independent-minded Daphne, along with the dashing Major Browning, is inspired to uncover the truth, and to write her next novel.
Dead Red: A Raymond Donne Mystery (The Raymond Donne Mysteries #3)
by Tim O'MaraFilled with the kinds of unexpected twists that make for the best crime fiction and with secrets that run far deeper than loyalties, Dead Red is the most thrilling mystery yet in Tim O'Mara's widely acclaimed series.New York City school teacher Raymond Donne had no idea how bad his night was going to get when he picked up the phone. Ricky Torres, his old friend from his days as a cop, needs Ray's help, and he needs it right now in the middle of the night. Ricky picks Ray up in the taxi he has been driving since returning from serving as a Marine in Iraq, but before Ricky can tell Ray what's going on the windows of the taxi explode under a hail of bullets, killing Ricky and knocking Ray unconscious as he dives to pull Ricky out of harm's way.Ray would've done anything to help Ricky out while he was alive. Now that he's dead, he'll go to the same lengths to find out who did it and why. All he has to go on is that Ricky was working with Jack Knight, another ex-cop turned PI. They were investigating the disappearance of a PR giant's daughter who had ties to the same Brooklyn streets that all three of them used to work. Is that what got Ricky killed or was he into something even more dangerous? Was there anything that Ray could've done for him while he was alive? Is there anything he can do for him now?
Skating Around the Law: A Mystery (Rebecca Robbins Mysteries #1)
by Joelle CharbonneauRebecca Robbins is a woman on a mission---to sell the roller rink she inherited from her mother and get back to Chicago. Fast. However, when she discovers the dead body of the town's handyman headfirst in a rink toilet, potential buyers are scared off. Now Rebecca is stuck in a small town where her former neighbors think she doesn't belong, living with her scarily frisky grandfather, Pop, and relying on a police department that's better at gardening than solving crimes.Eager to move forward with her life, Rebecca begins investigating the murder herself, reluctantly accepting help from Pop and his extensive social network, which includes a handsome veterinarian and a former circus camel named Elwood. Nevertheless, someone isn't happy she's looking into the case, and their threats will have her questioning whether playing sleuth was such a good idea after all.Joelle Charbonneau's debut is a sheer delight---a laugh-out-loud mystery with plenty of heart.
Revolutionary Brothers: Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette, and the Friendship that Helped Forge Two Nations
by Tom ChaffinIn a narrative both panoramic and intimate, Tom Chaffin captures the four-decade friendship of Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette.Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette shared a singularly extraordinary friendship, one involved in the making of two revolutions—and two nations. Jefferson first met Lafayette in 1781, when the young French-born general was dispatched to Virginia to assist Jefferson, then the state’s governor, in fighting off the British. The charismatic Lafayette, hungry for glory, could not have seemed more different from Jefferson, the reserved statesman. But when Jefferson, a newly-appointed diplomat, moved to Paris three years later, speaking little French and in need of a partner, their friendship began in earnest. As Lafayette opened doors in Paris and Versailles for Jefferson, so too did the Virginian stand by Lafayette as the Frenchman became inexorably drawn into the maelstrom of his country's revolution. Jefferson counseled Lafayette as he drafted TheDeclaration of the Rights of Man and remained a firm supporter of the French Revolution, even after he returned to America in 1789. By 1792, however, the upheaval had rendered Lafayette a man without a country, locked away in a succession of Austrian and Prussian prisons. The burden fell on Jefferson, along with Lafayette's other friends, to win his release. The two would not see each other again until 1824, in a powerful and emotional reunion at Jefferson’s Monticello. Steeped in primary sources, Revolutionary Brothers casts fresh light on this remarkable, often complicated, friendship of two extraordinary men.
The Demon of Dakar: The Princess Of Burundi, The Cruel Stars Of The Night, And The Demon Of Dakar (Ann Lindell Mysteries #3)
by Kjell ErikssonAlready a huge star in Europe and the Nordic countries, Kjell Eriksson has American critics also raving, with almost every review studded with words like "stunning," "chilling," "suspenseful," "haunting," and "brilliant."In The Demon of Dakar, Ann Lindell and her motley crew of colleagues are faced with a most baffling murder case in which all clues lead straight back to a popular local restaurant named Dakar. The owner, Slobodan Andersson, has some shady connections in his past, and his partner's reputation is equally murky.The kitchen crew is not above suspicion, either. The meat chef is an oddball, to say the least, while unbeknownst to the rest, the newest hire's personal life is a tangled web of lies. Even Eva Willman, the seemingly blameless older woman returning to the workforce as a waitress, has skeletons in her closet.And then the tension rachets up a number of notches as it becomes apparent that one murder has not satisfied the killer in the least. If Ann is to prevent a bloodbath at Restaurant Dakar, she must match wits with a killer whose motives are seemingly completely obscure.But the reader knows the killer well. His crimes are justified from his point of view. Not only that, he's a very likable fellow who is only looking for justice. As in all of Kjell Eriksson's compelling spellbinders, though, justice entails a frantic race to the finish, a race without rules and fraught with danger.Winner of the Swedish Academy Award for Best Crime Novel.
Murder Off Mike: A Talk Radio Mystery (Talk-Radio Mysteries #1)
by Joyce KriegMurder Off Mike by Joyce Krieg introduces Shauna J. Bogart, a small and sassy radio talk show host/amateur sleuth. Shauna J. is used to dealing with the controversial, the contentious, the cranky, and the just plain crazed as the host of the afternoon gab fest on the top-rated station in California's state capital. But nothing prepares her for the day a fellow shock jock turns up with a bullet in his head. The cops say it's suicide, but Shauna J. isn't buying it. She launches her own investigation, putting herself at peril.Her investigation, aided and abetted by her loyal callers, leads her to a shattering secret that could derail the campaign of the leading candidate for governor. Meanwhile, behind-the-scenes shenanigans threaten the very existence of the radio station Shauna J. calls home. The action climaxes in a down-to-the-second pursuit through the streets of historic Old Sacramento during the city's world-famous Jazz Jubilee. Armed with only a roll of copper wire, a pirate radio transmitter, and her ingenuity, can Shauna J. get the station back on the air in time to reveal the truth to her listeners?
Grand Improvisation: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945–1957
by Derek LeebaertA new understanding of the post World War II era, showing what occurred when the British Empire wouldn’t step aside for the rising American superpower—with global insights for today.An enduring myth of the twentieth century is that the United States rapidly became a superpower in the years after World War II, when the British Empire—the greatest in history—was too wounded to maintain a global presence. In fact, Derek Leebaert argues in Grand Improvisation, the idea that a traditionally insular United States suddenly transformed itself into the leader of the free world is illusory, as is the notion that the British colossus was compelled to retreat. The United States and the U.K. had a dozen abrasive years until Washington issued a “declaration of independence” from British influence. Only then did America explicitly assume leadership of the world order just taking shape. Leebaert’s character-driven narrative shows such figures as Churchill, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennan in an entirely new light, while unveiling players of at least equal weight on pivotal events. Little unfolded as historians believe: the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; the Korean War; America’s descent into Vietnam. Instead, we see nonstop U.S. improvisation until America finally lost all caution and embraced obligations worldwide, a burden we bear today.Understanding all of this properly is vital to understanding the rise and fall of superpowers, why we’re now skeptical of commitments overseas, how the Middle East plunged into disorder, why Europe is fracturing, what China intends—and the ongoing perils to the U.S. world role.
While Innocents Slept: A True Story of Revenge, Murder, and SIDS
by Adrian HavillDeath seemed to be part of Garrett Wilson's life. Both of his parents had died by the time he was in his early twenties. So friends shrugged when sadly, an infant daughter, and then a son, succumbed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Six years later, after he divorced his wife, Missy, and married another woman, his former spouse became convinced that their child's passing was anything but natural. Was it cold-blooded murder by Garrett, or a quest for revenge by his ex-wife? Missy's own investigation that led to Garrett Wilson's arrest and eventual trial will keep the reader guessing until the final pages. Havill takes us through each stage of this intricate and chilling story all the way to the courtroom, where the jury's stunning verdict is given. Acclaimed author Adrian Havill conducted nineteen in-person interviews with the accused both before and after his trial. He had full access to both the defense and prosecution teams. The result is an unprecedented look at a murder investigation and an edge-of-the-seat real-life medical thriller that stretches from Maryland to Texas and Florida.
Head Cases: Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath
by Michael Paul MasonHead Cases takes us into the dark side of the brain in an astonishing sequence of stories, at once true and strange, from the world of brain damage. Michael Paul Mason is one of an elite group of experts who coordinate care in the complicated aftermath of tragic injuries that can last a lifetime. On the road with Mason, we encounter survivors of brain injuries as they struggle to map and make sense of the new worlds they inhabit.Underlying each of these survivors' stories is an exploration of the brain and its mysteries. When injured, the brain must figure out how to heal itself, reorganizing its physiology in order to do the job. Mason gives us a series of vivid glimpses into brain science, the last frontier of medicine, and we come away in awe of the miracles of the brain's workings and astonished at the fragility of the brain and the sense of self, life, and order that resides there. Head Cases "[achieves] through sympathy and curiosity insight like that which pulses through genuine literature" (The New York Sun); it is at once illuminating and deeply affecting.
A House by the Side of the Road
by Jan GleiterSomeone in a peaceful Pennsylvania town has a brutal murder on his conscience......but who and why remain a mystery-- until Meg Kessinger moves in. The house she's inherited from an aunt is dilapidated, but she adores it-- and sets about restoring it with the help of a hunky, laid-back lawyer; a handsome, witty artist; and the secretive husband of her new girlfriend down the road. But soon Meg's rustic rhapsody is blighted by telltale traces of an unseen intruder's search for...what? Her determination to piece together rumors about the sexpot who lived there before her, and the convenient death of an old lady with a twitchy heart, will drag her into a perilous undertow of greed, cunning, and desperation that could turn her dream house into a waking nightmare...
Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy
by Brian LatellIn CASTRO'S SECRETS, highly acclaimed author and intelligence expert Brian Latell offers a strikingly original view of Fidel Castro in his role as Cuba's supreme spymaster. Based on interviews with high level defectors from Cuba's powerful intelligence and security services, long-buried secrets of Fidel's nearly 50-year reign are exposed for the first time. They include numerous assassinations and attempted ones carried out on Castro's orders, some against foreign leaders. More than a dozen ranking Cuban secret agents embraced by the CIA and FBI speak in these pages; some have never told their stories on the record before. Latell also probes dispassionately into the CIA's most deplorable plots against Cuba - including previously obscure schemes to assassinate Castro - and presents shocking new conclusions about what Fidel actually knew of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Christopher Unborn
by Carlos FuentesThis inspired novel, Christopher Unborn, is narrated by the as yet unborn first child to be born on October 12, 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America; his conception and birth bracket the novel. A playfully savage masterpiece by Carlos Fuentes.
The Ruin of Kasch
by Roberto CalassoA brilliant new translation of a classic work on violence and revolution as seen through mythology and artThe Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects—“the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else,” wrote Italo Calvino when the book first appeared in 1983. Hailed as one of those rare books that persuade us to see our entire civilization in a new light, its guide is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who knew the secrets of the ancien régime and all that came after, and was able to adapt the notion of “legitimacy” to the modern age. Roberto Calasso follows him through a vast gallery of scenes set immediately before and after the French Revolution, making occasional forays backward and forward in time, from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot, with appearances by Goethe and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Marx, Walter Benjamin and Chateaubriand. At the center stands the story of the ruin of Kasch, a legendary kingdom based on the ritual killing of the king and emblematic of the ruin of ancient and modern regimes. Offered here in a new translation by Richard Dixon, The Ruin of Kasch is, as John Banville wrote, “a great fat jewel-box of a book, gleaming with obscure treasures.”
The Assassin in the Marais: A Victor Legris Mystery (Victor Legris Mysteries #4)
by Claude IznerThe fourth title in Claude Izner's bestselling Victor Legris mystery series, set in belle-epoque ParisThe clock of the Église Trinité had just struck eight o'clock in the morning when, without warning, an ear-splitting explosion ripped through the district. A building on rue de Clichy rocked on its foundations, and within seconds its staircase had collapsed from top to bottom and its windows had shattered.His body vibrated with the shock of the blast and he thought only: Apocalypse. The street began to dance before his eyes. The dust pricked his nostrils, but what invaded him was something other than its bitter odour, something that seemed to emerge as a long-suppressed memory of a past experience. It was the echo of what had happened long ago. A sign.Paris, Spring 1892. Intrepid bookseller Victor Legris stumbles upon a new case to investigate when his business partner Kenji Mori's apartment is burgled. Curiously, the only item stolen is a decorative goblet of little value. But on learning that two people who were connected to the goblet have been murdered, Victor becomes convinced of its secret significance. He launches himself into the investigation, which takes him through the underbelly of Paris, in hot pursuit of the goblet as it is thrown in the garbage, picked up by a rag collector, and resold by several antique merchants, all the while leaving more dead bodies in its wake. How quickly can Victor recover the goblet and end the killing spree, in a city beset with terrorist activity by anarchists? Equal parts action, character, and atmosphere, The Assassin in the Marais is Victor's most challenging case yet.
Chasing the Dragon: A Novel (The North Beach Mysteries #1)
by Domenic StansberryWith Chasing the Dragon, Domenic Stansberry--the acclaimed writer of modern noir--introduces a new hardboiled series set in San Francisco. In this, the series opener, Stansberry tells a story written in clear homage to the masters of the genre, yet with an original, breathtaking voice all his own.A complicated, shadowy man in disgrace, Dante Mancuso leads a double life. Lately, though, the line he walks has become razor thin. Dante works for The Company, a nebulous security organization operating just this side of the law. Dante wants out, but it's a hard life to leave behind-rich with its own seductions, its own dark attractions. His latest assignment sends him back to his old North Beach neighborhood in San Francisco. First rendezvous? His estranged father's funeral in the dying heart of Little Italy. Here Dante picks up the strands of his old life and soon finds himself playing an even more elaborate game, a game that involves not just his duplicitous family, but also his ex-fiancée and his former colleagues in the San Francisco Police Department. Adept as he is, Dante can not play this game forever, pursued by the laconic Frank Ying, a Chinese detective anxious to know the secrets Dante hides. Caught between the sinister imperatives of The Company and the ghosts of his own past, Dante treads a harrowing path to a confrontation more lethal-and more surprising-than he could have imagined.