A mesmerizing novel about memory, privacy, fear, and what happens when our past catches up with us. After a decade living in England, Jeremy O'Keefe returns to New York, where he has been hired as a professor of German history at New York University. Though comfortable in his new life, and...  more

A mesmerizing novel about memory, privacy, fear, and what happens when our past catches up with us. After a decade living in England, Jeremy O'Keefe returns to New York, where he has been hired as a professor of German history at New York University. Though comfortable in his new life, and happy to be near his daughter once again, Jeremy continues to feel the quiet pangs of loneliness. Walking through the city at night, it's as though he could disappear and no one would even notice. But soon, Jeremy's life begins taking strange turns: boxes containing records of his online activity are delivered to his apartment, a young man seems to be following him, and his elderly mother receives anonymous phone calls slandering her son. Why, he wonders, would anyone want to watch him so closely, and, even more upsetting, why would they alert him to the fact that he was being watched?  As Jeremy takes stock of the entanglements that marked his years abroad, he wonders if he has unwittingly committed a crime so serious that he might soon be faced with his own denaturalization. Moving towards a shattering reassessment of what it means to be free in a time of ever more intrusive surveillance, Jeremy is forced to ask himself whether he is 'no one', as he believes, or a traitor not just to his country but to everyone around him.

When young Philip Haldane builds a play city out of odds and ends, the fantastic creation comes to life, and he and new stepsister Lucy are magically transported into it. Now they must try to save the Magic City by fulfilling an ancient prophecy--despite a mysterious adversary determined to...  more

When young Philip Haldane builds a play city out of odds and ends, the fantastic creation comes to life, and he and new stepsister Lucy are magically transported into it. Now they must try to save the Magic City by fulfilling an ancient prophecy--despite a mysterious adversary determined to steal their glory for herself. How Philip and Lucy come to forge a friendship and together triumph over impending disaster makes for a riveting read. Afterword by Peter Glassman.

Jeremy Oxley is being transported from Wolverhampton to London to face trial for a string of offences but manages an audacious escape with the help of his lover, and two policemen are killed in the process. Superintendent Tallis at Scotland Yard is livid and Inspector Robert Colbeck is...  more

Jeremy Oxley is being transported from Wolverhampton to London to face trial for a string of offences but manages an audacious escape with the help of his lover, and two policemen are killed in the process. Superintendent Tallis at Scotland Yard is livid and Inspector Robert Colbeck is determined to catch the man, particularly as he has strayed across Colbeck's path in the past. But Oxley is adept at disappearing acts and leads the detective on a cat and mouse journey all the way across the Atlantic to New York. Will Oxley pay the price for the crimes he has committed and what lies ahead for the Railway Detective.

In this thrilling police-procedural, we are introduced to Alice Rice, Edinburgh's latest fictional detective. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, we follow her as she races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst Edinburgh's...  more

In this thrilling police-procedural, we are introduced to Alice Rice, Edinburgh's latest fictional detective. Smart and capable, but battling disillusionment and loneliness, we follow her as she races against time and an implacable killer to solve a series of grisly murders amongst Edinburgh's professional elite in the well-to-do New Town.

Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy's bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda's twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda's life. She...  more

Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy's bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda's twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda's life. She doesn't hear from him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy -- and one final scavenger hunt. When Miranda returns home to Los Angeles and to Prospero Books -- now as its owner -- she finds clues that Billy has hidden for her inside novels on the store's shelves, in locked drawers of his apartment upstairs, in the name of the store itself. Miranda becomes determined to save Prospero Books and to solve Billy's last scavenger hunt. She soon finds herself drawn into a journey where she meets people from Billy's past, people whose stories reveal a history that Miranda's mother has kept hidden -- and the terrible secret that tore her family apart.

Recently retired from teaching high school English for nearly forty years, Ernestine Carpenter freely admits that she's more than a bit nosy. She is also good at solving problems, and she's let it be known, amongst her many friends and relatives, that she's willing to take on interesting...  more

Recently retired from teaching high school English for nearly forty years, Ernestine Carpenter freely admits that she's more than a bit nosy. She is also good at solving problems, and she's let it be known, amongst her many friends and relatives, that she's willing to take on interesting jobs.Mary Tucker McElroy, well known as a patron of the arts in Southern literary circles, hires Ernie (as she is called by her nearest and dearest) to help her figure out which of her circle might have murdered one of their own. The group had gathered for the Christmas festivities at Idlewild, Miss McElroy's ancestral home in north central Mississippi, and one guest, writer Sukey Lytton, turned up dead in the pond one day, an apparent suicide.Six months afterwards, Miss McElroy is convinced that Sukey Lytton was murdered, and she wants Ernie to help her figure out the guilty party. Was it Lurleen Landry, best-selling author of Southern women's fiction? Did Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Russell Bertram kill her? Or was it his nasty, vindictive wife Alice? Maybe it was literary enfant terrible Brett Doran, who seems to have more than one secret to hide. Could Sukey Lytton's missing manuscript be the motive? Ernie finds danger lurking in unexpected places at Idlewild, as the killer continues to strike.

Navajo Nation Police Officer Bernadette Manualito witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of someone very close to her. With the victim fighting for his life, the entire squad and the local FBI office are hell-bent on catching the gunman. Bernie, too, wants in on the investigation, despite...  more

Navajo Nation Police Officer Bernadette Manualito witnesses the cold-blooded shooting of someone very close to her. With the victim fighting for his life, the entire squad and the local FBI office are hell-bent on catching the gunman. Bernie, too, wants in on the investigation, despite regulations forbidding eyewitness involvement. But that doesn't mean she's going to sit idly by, especially when her husband, Sergeant Jim Chee, is in charge of finding the shooter. Bernie and Chee discover that a cold case involving his former boss and partner, retired Inspector Joe Leaphorn, may hold the key. Digging into the old investigation, husband and wife find themselves inching closer to the truth...and closer to a killer determined to prevent justice from taking its course.

A literary sensation and bestseller both in England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of homosexuality before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of chilling clarity, for ways of life that can no longer be lived with impunity. "Impeccably...  more

A literary sensation and bestseller both in England and America, The Swimming-Pool Library is an enthralling, darkly erotic novel of homosexuality before the scourge of AIDS; an elegy, possessed of chilling clarity, for ways of life that can no longer be lived with impunity. "Impeccably composed and meticulously particular in its observation of everything" (Harpers & Queen), it focuses on the friendship of two men: William Beckwith, a young gay aristocrat who leads a life of privilege and promiscuity, and the elderly Lord Nantwich, an old Africa hand, searching for someone to write his biography and inherit his traditions.  

With Monty Python's Flying Circus, Eric Idle proved he was one of the funniest people in the world. And with The Road to Mars he reaffirms this with a raucously sidesplitting vengence.Muscroft and Ashby are a comedy team on "The Road to Mars," an interplanetary vaudeville circuit of the future....  more

With Monty Python's Flying Circus, Eric Idle proved he was one of the funniest people in the world. And with The Road to Mars he reaffirms this with a raucously sidesplitting vengence.Muscroft and Ashby are a comedy team on "The Road to Mars," an interplanetary vaudeville circuit of the future. Accompanied by Carlton, a robot incapable of understanding irony but driven to learn the essence of humor, Alex and Lewis bumble their way into an intergalactic terrorist plot. Supported by a delicious cast, including a micropaleontologist narrator (he studies the evolutionary impact of the last ten minutes) and the ultra-diva Brenda Woolley, The Road to Mars is a fabulous trip through Eric Idle's inimitable world, a "universe expanding at the speed of laughter."

Jack would rather be at sea than fixing the mistakes of his grandfather, the late Earl of Stansworth. Instead, he finds that inheriting his grandfather's wealth and title and securing the welfare of his sister and mother means joining the ranks of high society and living with the aristocracy....  more

Jack would rather be at sea than fixing the mistakes of his grandfather, the late Earl of Stansworth. Instead, he finds that inheriting his grandfather's wealth and title and securing the welfare of his sister and mother means joining the ranks of high society and living with the aristocracy. Luckily, Ivy Carslisle, the granddaughter of a dear friend of Jack's late grandmother, is willing to teach him etiquette and properly introduce him into society. Jack soon learns that his challenge isn't surviving his new lifestyle but surviving the conspiracies against him as well as keeping himself from falling madly in love with his new tutor.

Eagerly-awaited new novel from the author of the bestselling Journey to the River Sea. In a tiny alpine church, on a June day in 1897, an abandoned baby girl is found by a middle-aged cook from Vienna. So begins the unusual childhood of Annika, brought up in the house of three eccentric...  more

Eagerly-awaited new novel from the author of the bestselling Journey to the River Sea. In a tiny alpine church, on a June day in 1897, an abandoned baby girl is found by a middle-aged cook from Vienna. So begins the unusual childhood of Annika, brought up in the house of three eccentric professors by their two domestic servants. By the age of seven she can bake and ice a three-tiered cake and polish parquet floors to perfection. Her life in this golden city of music, fabulous food, and the beautiful Lippizana stallions who dance before the Emperor Franz Joseph is greatly blessed-until her unknown mother tracks her down and comes to claim her.... Here is another Ibbotson masterpiece of wonderful adventure, packed with dozens of unforgettable characters who weave their way through a faultless, intricate plot of enthralling events-sometimes hilarious, sometimes bleak, but always marvellously entertaining. It offers every reader who loved Journey to the River Sea an enchanting new world of fictional riches. It is a timeless classic, for readers young and old. - One of the biggest events in the children's publishing year, backed by a major trade and consumer promotion - Journey to the River Sea won the Smarties Gold Award, was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and was runner-up for the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year and the Guardian Fiction Award.

This delightful husband-and-wife collaboration features three stories by two-time Shamus award-winner Max Allan Collins, four stories by acclaimed short-story writer Barbara Collins, and two stories that the couple co-wrote. Among the contributions from Max Allan Collins is...  more

This delightful husband-and-wife collaboration features three stories by two-time Shamus award-winner Max Allan Collins, four stories by acclaimed short-story writer Barbara Collins, and two stories that the couple co-wrote. Among the contributions from Max Allan Collins is "Catgate," in which a womanizing senator tries to replace his dead mistress with a lookalike, and "Inconvenience Store," in which a late-night craving drives a pregnant private eye out to a convenience store and into a hostage situation. Max's movie, Real Time: Siege at Lucas Street Market is based on this short story. Barbara Collins' work has been included in the first three volumes of The Year's 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. Her pieces include "Seeing Red," where PMS meets road rage and leads to tragedy. And the talented duo conspired on "Eddie Haskell in a Short Skirt," the story of a father-daughter private eye team who hire an office manager and become the suckers in a scam.

`she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.' North and South is a novel about rebellion. Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through...  more

`she tried to settle that most difficult problem for women, how much was to be utterly merged in obedience to authority, and how much might be set apart for freedom in working.' North and South is a novel about rebellion. Moving from the industrial riots of discontented millworkers through to the unsought passions of a middle-class woman, and from religious crises of conscience to the ethics of naval mutiny, it poses fundamental questions about the nature of social authority and obedience. Through the story of Margaret Hale, the middle-class southerner who moves to the northern industrial town of Milton, Gaskell skilfully explores issues of class and gender in the conflict between Margaret's ready sympathy with the workers and her growing attraction to the charismatic mill ownder, John Thornton. This new revised and expanded edition sets the novel in the context of Victorian social and medical debate.

Born of noble blood, Kassandra is gifted with the ability to see into the future -- and her visions tell of a battle that will bring the wrath of the gods upon all of Greece. She has foreseen the fall of Troy, but no one believes Kassandra's prophecies, or heeds her warnings about the...  more

Born of noble blood, Kassandra is gifted with the ability to see into the future -- and her visions tell of a battle that will bring the wrath of the gods upon all of Greece. She has foreseen the fall of Troy, but no one believes Kassandra's prophecies, or heeds her warnings about the beautiful woman known as Helen...

Dragon Hunter Wanted: Sword supplied. No experience necessary.   One moment, I was a normal (if somewhat germaphobic) math teacher getting ready for summer vacation. Then my sister died in a pile of black ash, leaving me with a sword... and her destiny as dragon hunter. It turns out...  more

Dragon Hunter Wanted: Sword supplied. No experience necessary.   One moment, I was a normal (if somewhat germaphobic) math teacher getting ready for summer vacation. Then my sister died in a pile of black ash, leaving me with a sword... and her destiny as dragon hunter. It turns out there's a whole other world out there filled with demons, dragons, and spirits. Now my job is to protect mortals - and I haven't got a clue what I'm doing.   Then there's tattooed hotness Ian Iskander. Part dragon hunter and part demon, Ian's got some seriously creepy business associates and keeps trying to steal my sword. So why do we keep getting lost in hungry, crazy-hot kisses? Ian is the only person who can help me figure out who - and what - I am. But trusting a half-demon is dangerous... because when you play with dragon fire, someone always gets burned.

1863: As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedpeople's Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the "old life." It is where the March family has finally...  more

1863: As the American Civil War rages on, the Freedpeople's Colony of Roanoke Island is blossoming, a haven for the recently emancipated. Black people have begun building a community of their own, a refuge from the shadow of the "old life." It is where the March family has finally been able to safely put down roots with four young daughters: Meg, a teacher who longs to find love and start a family of her own. Jo, a writer whose words are too powerful to be contained. Beth, a talented seamstress searching for a higher purpose. Amy, a dancer eager to explore life outside her family's home. As the four March sisters come into their own as independent young women, they will face first love, health struggles, heartbreak, and new horizons. But they will face it all together.

From the award-winning author of The Age of Wonder and Falling Upwards, a luminous meditation on the art of biography that fuses the author?s own story as a biographer with a history of the genre that reveals how it succeeds in telling both fiction and fact.   In this chronicle of his lifelong...  more

From the award-winning author of The Age of Wonder and Falling Upwards, a luminous meditation on the art of biography that fuses the author?s own story as a biographer with a history of the genre that reveals how it succeeds in telling both fiction and fact.   In this chronicle of his lifelong obsession with discovering, assembling, and re-creating the lives of writers and scientists, Richard Holmes here casts a new eye not only on the Romantic poets and lost women of Romantic science he has long studied, including Margaret Cavendish and Mary Somerville, but on their biographers as well. He examines the evolution of the myths that have overshadowed certain lives (Percy Shelley?s death at sea, Mary Wollstonecraft?s paramours, Samuel Taylor Coleridge?s opium-fueled lectures) and reveals how the manner in which each generation tells the stories of the lives that came before it shapes and is shaped by a contemporary understanding of human nature. These colorful portraits are deftly woven together with Holmes?s own experience as a biographer, giving us the rare privilege of observing a master at work. Here is an altogether spellbinding examination of the nature of biographical knowledge, brimming with the infectious curiosity that has characterized all of Holmes?s acclaimed books.   (With 16 pages of full-color and black-and-white illustrations throughout)

Tess Bailey: the galaxy's Most Wanted. Captain Tess Bailey is in deep trouble. She and her crew are on the run, pursued by a tyrant who'll take them dead or alive. Tess's best hope is a tall, dark, and much-too-appealing stranger, Shade Ganavan, who says he can help her. But his...  more

Tess Bailey: the galaxy's Most Wanted. Captain Tess Bailey is in deep trouble. She and her crew are on the run, pursued by a tyrant who'll take them dead or alive. Tess's best hope is a tall, dark, and much-too-appealing stranger, Shade Ganavan, who says he can help her. But his motivations are far from clear... Shade Ganavan: arrogance, charm...and that special something that makes you want to kick him. With the dreaded Dark Watch closing in, what Tess and Shade don't know about each other might get them killed...unless they can set aside their differences and learn to trust each other before it's too late.

She's not waiting for her prince. He's not looking for a bride. But sometimes the most unlikely love stories end in 'happily ever after'... SHE WAS STOLEN AWAY Ellie Stratham gave up her childhood dreams of a fairy tale romance long ago. To repay her late father's...  more

She's not waiting for her prince. He's not looking for a bride. But sometimes the most unlikely love stories end in 'happily ever after'... SHE WAS STOLEN AWAY Ellie Stratham gave up her childhood dreams of a fairy tale romance long ago. To repay her late father's debts, she's forced to serve her spoiled cousin, Lady Beatrice. But Ellie has devised a secret plan to escape her life as a drudge. A plan that is thrown into jeopardy when she's abducted by a mysterious stranger. BUT CAN HE STEAL HER HEART? A notorious seducer of women -- and a scoundrel to boot -- Damien Burke has earned his nickname as the Demon Prince. But his plot to kidnap Lady Beatrice to make her brother return a priceless heirloom backfires--and he ends up with their penniless cousin Ellie as his hostage. By the time Damien realizes his mistake, he and his fiery-willed captive are trapped in a remote castle during a wild winter storm. And he soon finds that the true hostage may be his own heart.

Prepare to be cured by this quirky and hilarious debut novel about a sixteen-year-old loner who is sent to rehab for video game addiction??perfect for teen gamers and readers who are fans of Jesse Andrews and John Green? (School Library Journal). Sixteen-year-old Jaxon is being committed to...  more

Prepare to be cured by this quirky and hilarious debut novel about a sixteen-year-old loner who is sent to rehab for video game addiction??perfect for teen gamers and readers who are fans of Jesse Andrews and John Green? (School Library Journal). Sixteen-year-old Jaxon is being committed to video game rehab?ten minutes after meeting a girl. A living, breathing girl named Serena, who not only laughed at his jokes but actually kinda sorta seemed excited when she agreed to go out with him. Jaxon?s first date. Ever. In rehab, Jaxon can?t blast his way through galaxies to reach her. He can?t slash through armies to kiss her sweet lips. Instead, he has four days to earn one million points by learning real-life skills. And he?ll do whatever it takes?lie, cheat, steal, even learn how to cross-stitch?in order to make it to his date. If all else fails, Jaxon will have to bare his soul to the other teens in treatment, confront his mother?s absence, and maybe admit that it?s more than video games that stand in the way of a real connection. From a bright new voice in young adult literature comes the story of a young man with a serious case of arrested development?and carpal tunnel syndrome?who is about to discover what real life is all about.

Jean le Flambeur gets up in the morning and has to kill himself before his other self can kill him first. Just another day in the Dilemma Prison. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is a currency,...  more

Jean le Flambeur gets up in the morning and has to kill himself before his other self can kill him first. Just another day in the Dilemma Prison. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is a currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned-singularity lights the night. Meanwhile, investigator Isidore Beautrelet, called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur....Indeed, in his many lives, the entity called Jean le Flambeur has been a thief, a confidence artist, a posthuman mind-burgler, and more. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his deeds are known throughout the Heterarchy, from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. In his last exploit, he managed the supreme feat of hiding the truth about himself from the one person in the solar system hardest to hide from: himself. Now he has the chance to regain himself in all his power?in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.The Quantum Thief is a breathtaking joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people who communicate via shared memory, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as an MMORPG guild. But for all its wonders, The Quantum Thief is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, jealousy, and revenge. It is a stunning debut.One of Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of 2011

“The good thing is, no one will ever die again. The bad thing is, everyone will want to.” A physicist receives a mysterious paper. The ideas in it are far, far ahead of current thinking and quite, quite terrifying. In a city of “fast ones,” shadow players, and jinni,...  more

“The good thing is, no one will ever die again. The bad thing is, everyone will want to.” A physicist receives a mysterious paper. The ideas in it are far, far ahead of current thinking and quite, quite terrifying. In a city of “fast ones,” shadow players, and jinni, two sisters contemplate a revolution. And on the edges of reality a thief, helped by a sardonic ship, is trying to break into a Schrödinger box for his patron. In the box is his freedom. Or not. Jean de Flambeur is back. And he’s running out of time.  

With his infectious love of storytelling in all its forms, his rich characterization and his unrivaled grasp of thrillingly bizarre cutting-edge science, Hannu Rajaniemi swiftly set a new benchmark for Science Fiction in the 21st century. Now, with his third novel, he completes the tale of the...  more

With his infectious love of storytelling in all its forms, his rich characterization and his unrivaled grasp of thrillingly bizarre cutting-edge science, Hannu Rajaniemi swiftly set a new benchmark for Science Fiction in the 21st century. Now, with his third novel, he completes the tale of the many lives, and minds, of gentleman rogue Jean de Flambeur. Influenced as much by the fin de siècle novels of Maurice leBlanc as he is by the greats of SF, Rajaniemi weaves intricate, warm capers through dazzling science, extraordinary visions of a wild future,and deep conjectures on the nature of reality and story. In The Causal Angel we will discover the ultimate fates of Jean, his employer Miele, the independently minded ship Perhonnen, and the rest of a fractured and diverse humanity flung throughout the solar system.

We often think of science as continuously advancing. In this collection of essays, five world-renowned writers explore obscure and neglected episodes in the history of science which suggest instead that the process of understanding the significance of scientific discoveries can be erratic,...  more

We often think of science as continuously advancing. In this collection of essays, five world-renowned writers explore obscure and neglected episodes in the history of science which suggest instead that the process of understanding the significance of scientific discoveries can be erratic, contradictory, even irrational. Jonathan Miller, Oliver Sacks, and Daniel Kevles show how promising new ideas may at first fail to be noticed or accepted, and then, years after they have been dismissed or forgotten, are recognized in a different form as important. R.C. Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould discuss the ways that words and images used by scientists and popularizers alike, from the murals on the walls of natural history museums to such ubiquitous terms as "adaptation" and "environment," reflect serious and often unacknowledged distortions in the way we conceive of both individual organisms and the natural history of the world.These essays demonstrate that science is, in the words of Oliver Sacks, "a human enterprise through and through, an organic, evolving, human growth, with sudden spurts and arrests, and strange deviations, too. It grows out of its past, but never outgrows it, any more than we outgrow our childhood."

We all feel uncomfortable about the role of profit in healthcare, we all have a vague notion that the global $600bn pharmaceutical industry is somehow evil and untrustworthy, but that sense rarely goes beyond a flaky, undifferentiated new age worldview. Bad Pharma puts real flesh on those bones,...  more

We all feel uncomfortable about the role of profit in healthcare, we all have a vague notion that the global $600bn pharmaceutical industry is somehow evil and untrustworthy, but that sense rarely goes beyond a flaky, undifferentiated new age worldview. Bad Pharma puts real flesh on those bones, revealing the rigged evidence used by drug companies. Bad information means bad treatment decisions, which means patients suffer and die: there is no climactic moment of villainy, but drugs are used which are overpriced, less effective, and have more side effects. There are five cheap, easy things we can do to fix the problem. Bad Pharma takes a big dirty secret out into the open, and will provide a single focus for concerns people have both inside and outside medicine.

When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. The entire world watched what transpired above-ground during the grueling and...  more

When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. The entire world watched what transpired above-ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, but the saga of the miners' experiences below the Earth's surface -- and the lives that led them there -- has never been heard until now. For Deep Down Dark, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales. These thirty-three men came to think of the mine, a cavern inflicting constant and thundering aural torment, as a kind of coffin, and as a church where they sought redemption through prayer. Even while still buried, they all agreed that if by some miracle any of them escaped alive, they would share their story only collectively. Héctor Tobar was the person they chose to hear, and now to tell, that story. The result is a masterwork or narrative journalism -- a riveting, at times shocking, emotionally textured account of a singular human event. Deep Down Dark brings to haunting, tactile life the experience of being imprisoned inside a mountain of stone, the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and the spiritual and mystical elements that surrounded working in such a dangerous place. In its stirring final chapters, it captures the profound way in which the lives of everyone involved in the disaster were forever changed.

"Doctors and crime make a popular combination," remarks Inspector DeKok during an investigation that leads him to a prominent Dutch hospital. This latest book in the Baantjer series aptly proves that theory. Women are checking in to Slotervaart Hospital, but not checking out. And...  more

"Doctors and crime make a popular combination," remarks Inspector DeKok during an investigation that leads him to a prominent Dutch hospital. This latest book in the Baantjer series aptly proves that theory. Women are checking in to Slotervaart Hospital, but not checking out. And according to hospital files, they were never even there. Inspector DeKok and his trusty partner Vledder are called upon to investigate this alarming disappearing act. Eerily, the people closest to these vanishing women all comment on a change in their faces; they've become listless, fatigued, and wear a 'mask of death." All indications point to foul play, but the bodies have yet to turn up. A car found in the North-Holland Canal, an apartment stripped clean, an order for a forged book never picked up...it's as if these women never existed. But the frantic loved ones left to find them know otherwise. DeKok is initially stumped as to how these women are connected, and why an esteemed hospital is playing cover-up. The case soon resembles a lugubrious labyrinth, where the trail is lost and found a dozen times.