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The Fatal Contract | William Hemings | null | The Fatal Contract is set in the earliest period of the French monarchy. Childerick is king; Fredigond, his wife and queen, is the play's villainess; Clotair and Clovis are their sons. In the play's backstory, Clotair raped Chrotilda, the sister of two young noblemen named Lamot and Dumain (the play's virtuous characters). One of their relatives mistakenly killed the queen's brother Clodimer in revenge, thinking him the rapist; Fredigond is now quietly and systematically exterminating the members of Chrotilda's family. In a macabre touch, the queen maintains a group portrait of the family; she paints in the members — grandmother, parents, infant child — as she kills them off. (In a sudden frenzy of rage, Fredigond stabs the painting.) The queen is assisted in her villainy by a Moorish eunuch called, with brutal literateness, Castrato. Childerick is poisoned by Fredigond; Lamot and Dumain are blamed for the death, but manage to escape. The prince Clovis is in love with Aphelia, and she with him; but his elder brother, and now king, Clotair is envious. Castrato helps Clotair plan Aphelia's rape. Clovis intercepts his brother; as they fight, Castrato raises an alarm and their mother Fredigond arrives. Rather than trying to stop the fight, she eggs them on. Clotair stabs Clovis, who is carried off, presumably dead. Ferdigond and her lover Landrey are in her chamber; Castrato sets the room on fire, but the queen disguises her lover as the ghost of Clovis. Fredigond plans to rule the kingdom with Landrey once Clotair, Clovis, and Aphelia are dead. She wants Clotair to execute Aphelia, to placate Clovis's "ghost." Clotair initially falls for the trick, but Castrato, who is busily manipulating the other characters ("on all sides the eunuch will play foul"), informs him of the queen's intentions. Clotair responds by marrying Aphelia instead of killing her. Lamot, disguised as a surgeon, has discovered that the wounded Clovis is still alive. Clovis masquerades as the ghost of his father Childerick, and terrifies the queen into admitting that she poisoned her husband. Clovis turns Fredigond and Landrey over to Castrato, who starves the imprisoned queen and her paramour, then poisons them. Landrey tries to escape with a concealed dagger; but in his weakened state he is unable to evade Castrato, who trips him, sits on him, and stabs him. Castrato has convinced Clotair that Aphelia has been unfaithful to him; Clotair binds his wife and Castrato tortures her (he "sears her breast"). Castrato displays the corpses of Fredigond and Landrey, and Clotair understands that Aphelia is innocent and that he has been abused. Clotair stabs Castrato, who, dying, reveals her true identity as Chrotilda. Lamot and Dumain break into the castle with a party of supporters. The play's conclusion indicates that Clotair, Aphelia, and Chrotilda will die and that Clovis will inherit the throne. |
The Mermaids Singing | Val McDermid | null | In the fictional English city of Bradfield, men are being abducted and tortured to death using brutal medieval techniques. The bodies are then found in areas frequented by gay men and women. The police reluctantly recruit a criminal profiler, Dr. Tony Hill. He joins forces with Detective Inspector Carol Jordan, for whom he develops complicated romantic feelings. Dr. Tony Hill has problems of his own, including a mysterious woman named Angelica who frequently calls him for phone sex. As Tony becomes increasingly involved in the investigation, it becomes apparent that the killer is seeking Tony as the next victim. The killer is revealed to be the anonymous caller Angelica, a transsexual woman who kills men that do not return her affections. When kidnapped, Tony figures out her weakness (her desire to be loved) and uses it to avoid being tortured and murdered. He kills her in self-defence. |
The Gargoyle: A Novel | Andrew Davidson | 2,008 | The Gargoyle follows two different time lines, one in the form of a story [or ‘memory’], and one in real time. In real time, an unnamed atheist and former porn star with a troubled childhood is driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Hallucinating that a volley of arrows is being shot at him from a forest, he swerves off the road and into a ravine. There his car sets alight, and he begins to burn. Just as he thinks he will die, the car tips into a creek and he survives, though badly burned. While recovering, the Burned Man becomes addicted to morphine and believes there is now a snake in his spine. Hatching a suicide plan, he gets a visitor named Marianne Engel, who is a sculptress suspected of having Manic Depression or Schizophrenia. Humoring her at first as she believes she knew him several hundred years prior, they soon begin a friendship/ relationship, and he moves in with her. Throughout, Marianne reveals their ‘past’, and tells tales of love and hope, inspiring the Burned Man to live. Their ‘past’ story begins in fourteenth-century Germany, at a monastery named Engelthal. A baby is found at the gates, and taken in and raised as a nun. The young sister Marianne is soon found to possess incredible language skills, understanding languages she has never been taught. One day, a man is brought to the monastery. He is severely burned, except for a small rectangle over his heart where there is an arrow wound. The man is a member of a Condotta, a mercenary troop. The nuns believe the burned man is too injured to live. Marianne however looks after him, and he survives. Finding love with each other, the Burned Man and Marianne flee the monastery and begin a new life together, getting married and conceiving a baby. One day while out shopping, they see the troop that the Burned Man was once a part of. If he is found alive, he will be put to death for being a deserter. Seeing an old friend of his, Brandeis, still with the Condotta, Marianne lures him back to their apartment where the two soldiers reunite like brothers. Brandeis too is eager to escape, so they hatch a plan. After a few months, Brandeis has escaped, and comes to live with Marianne and the Burned Man. But trouble follows as they are hunted down by the Condotta. Heavily pregnant, Marianne and the two men try to escape. Eventually they are caught. Brandeis is executed and the Burned Man is tied up and burned alive once more. In order to spare him pain, Marianne shoots an arrow through his heart, exactly through the first wound. However, the Condotta see her, and chase her over a frozen river. Falling through, Marianne encounters three ‘presences’, who claim they are now her three masters. As penance for the sins she had committed, she was told she now has a chest full of ‘hearts’, that she must give away, which she does in the form of sculpting. She will have one heart left for her lover, who must ‘accept it, and then give it back’ to set her free. As their love story unfolds past and present, Marianne also spins romantic tales from across the centuries and around the world that defy pain and suffering and bring hope and succor to her deeply damaged friend. But as he starts to fight his demons and the morphine-addicted serpent embedded in his spine, Marianne begins the count down of her hearts... |
Fifteen | Beverly Cleary | null | Jane Purdy is a 15-year-old student at Woodmont High School in California. She dreams of having a boyfriend like blonde, popular, and sophisticated 16-year-old Marcy Stokes has. Jane feels somewhat left out of social circles at her high school, and envies the more popular girls who go out on dates, seem more confident and wear more expensive clothes. One day while babysitting, she meets 16-year-old Stan Crandall, who is a delivery boy for a pet-food store. Jane is immediately attracted to Stan, although she does not believe that he will be attracted to her as she forgets to pretend to be sophisticated during their brief encounter. However, Stan calls her later, and asks her out on a date.Jane is extremely upset but it turns out that Stan asked Bitsy to the dance before he met Jane and he feels he cannot break the date now even though he is not attracted to Bitsy. Jane and Stan's relationship fluctuates throughout the book. Jane constantly analyses her status with Stan, worrying about whether she's ready to date someone without scaring him off. After another outing, Jane takes Stan's unusually quiet and detached behavior as a sign that he's tired of her, but later she learns that he is sick with appendicitis. In the end, Stan reassures Jane that she's his girlfriend, and gives her his ID bracelet as a symbol that they are going steady. |
Santa Esperanza | null | null | Santa Esperanza is a multi-cultural country stretched on three small islands lost somewhere in the middle of the Black Sea. The islands are inhabited by the Georgians, the Genoese (descendants of the Black Sea settlers), the Turks and the British. The islands are often visited by tourists, who essentially view the place as an earthly Paradise. However, there are occasional tourists who take a closer look at the distinct and singular culture, as well as the traditions turned into taboos. Since the Crimean War, the Island has been under British rule. Apparently, at that time they leased the three islands for 150 years from the last governor Sarri-Beg, a Turk of Georgian origin. The main story of the novel unfolds in 2002, when the British leave the islands and Santa Esperanza gains independence. The rivalry between the local powerful clans grows into a civil war, which has no clear political coloring, it rather is a clash of spiritual monsters reared during the lull of several centuries. For this reason, the war has no obvious cause, and the only tangible conflict is the primacy of the clan to receive the state insignia from the British Governor. The hostilities are instigated by the Visramianis, the wealthiest Georgian clan, owners of one of the islands. The family traditions and internal regulations comprise a sophisticated system of numerous prohibitions and complicated, opinionated restrictions, which eventually causes dramatic developments in the personal lives of the younger generation. One of the central stories is a love relation between Salome Visramiani and Sandro da Costa, the heir of an eminent Genoese family. For nearly twenty years the Visramianis have been fighting the relationship of their girl with the lad brought up on completely different principles and traditions. The Visramianis call themselves ‘the Preserved’ while looking down on the Genoese, considering them foreigners, and opposing the marriage of the loving couple. The love between Salome and Sandro, which began in school, finishes tragically: in the ensuing chaos, Salome, turned into a drug addict in the turmoil, becomes the head of her family, which eventually brings Sandro, the young poet stranded in the other part of the city torn by the hostilities, to commit suicide. The novel abounds in extracts from his diary and unsent letters, telling their adventures from childhood to the war onset. Another narrative line of the novel describes the life of Data, the prodigal son of the Visramiani clan. He is obsessed with playing cards, an ungainly and unacceptable pastime for the millionaire’s family. Data’s appearance on the pages uncovers yet another layer in the traditions and cultural life of Santa Esperanza, related to a popular local card game Intee (‘run’). The 36 booklets of the novel are designed following the Intee structure and their titles represent individual cards. The game is absolutely dissimilar to any other known card game, as it presupposes its own rules combined with no less complicated regulations reflecting life itself. The other local tradition that Data is tightly linked to is the singing: a unique kind of folk song, the Blue Song, only performed by women. Due to their proverbial passion, they were prescribed to hide their faces behind veils. Even nowadays, as a result of the ancient custom, the women remain faceless and nameless singing in clubs with restricted access. The emergence of the Blue Songs was rather strange too: a woman would sit at the waterfront, accompanying the waves with her wordless, but deeply emotional singing. Data is infatuated by Kesane, one of the singers. She also falls victim to the civil war: captured by the guardsmen, she jumps from the Citadel keep. Data, together with Panteleimon, an Orthodox monk, his only and the most loyal friend, flee the turmoil in a boat, not knowing whether they are going to ever reach any coast. The Eastern Orthodox Monastery is the oldest stone building of the island. It was here that the monks used to write the local history, preserving and unveiling the past in their chronicles. One of the main metaphors of the novel is a pair of windows. One is in the Monastery, through which a monk first observed a strangely grieving woman singing her Blue Song on the beach many years ago. The other is in the Citadel (which housed the museum during the British rule) from which Kesane, the bluemarina, jumped. These two windows have been facing each other for centuries over the old Slave Market Square, used for exactly that purpose in the Middle Ages. One can get an absolutely stunning view of Santa City from these windows. It is through the Monastery window that an old-fashioned arrow finds its prey, Nick, a mobster seeking refuge on Santa Esperanza. He fled Georgia only to find himself involved in the islanders’ entangled relationships. The Visramianis force him to marry Salome, but a mysterious intrigue and a constant necessity to hide, make him an irreconcilable opponent of his new family. There are 25 active characters in the novel. Among them are three British intelligence agents trying to ensure a peaceful transition of power. The British political priority is a formal hand-over of the island to the direct descendant of Sarri-Beg, the last governor. This happens to be an old woman known as Queen Agatha, who lives alone in considerable poverty in her small cottage. Nick, the Georgian mobster, and Parna the Standard Bearer, a professional gambler and Data’s friend, are among her courtiers, who share a tragic end with their Sovereign. Another line of the plot is the story of the Sungalis, who make up the fighting force of the opposing sides. This ethnic group, inhabiting one of the three islands, has its own century-old insular traditions and customs, demonstrating unwillingness to mingle and inter-marry the multi-cultural population of the main island. Seven or eight centuries ago, having decided to safeguard them, one of the Georgian kings asked the then governor of Santa Esperanza to take these people under his protection. (It was not uncommon for the Georgian rulers of the olden days to hide entire villages from the Mongol tax-collectors.) The Sungalis are illiterate peasants with a militant spirit, who strictly follow their archaic traditions and live in small communities on their island, where everyone is everyone else’s relative. In the tourist attraction areas they work as guards in cafes, restaurants, clubs and hotels. These goblin-like people are extremely open-hearted and ingenuous, though fighting and warfare is in their blood. With the Esperanza clans it is an old tradition to take them as servants, guards and bailiffs. As a result, every clan has a formidable host of the Sungalis at its disposal. The Sungalis have their own hereditary priests, but they don’t liaise with any official church. These people stranded in the history have two leaders: a retired bailiff Khetia, who keeps a country guest-house, and Martia, the head of the Visramiani security. The friendship and enmity of the two men with complex characters determine much in the narrative. Sly and crafty Khetia leads the rebellion. He is the one behind the entire intrigue, which eventually threw the country into the civil war. Resisting the whole idea of the war with all his heart, Martia nevertheless finds himself deeply involved in it, which finally leads to his death. Martia is hopelessly in love with Salome, also adored by a former sailor Luka, who is the author of a once best-seller. Luka’s character seems to have travelled from an old-fashioned novel. Despite numerous hardships, he radiates kindness and cheerfulness, his unbelievable stories and adventures entertain everyone around him. Luka’s line is entwined with that of his ex-wife, Jessica de Rider, the author of popular romances. One of the characters is Lamour the Walker, the representative of an old local trade: in the pre-newspaper times, his ancestors used to make a living by passing the news across and between the islands. But he manages to combine his hereditary trade with the job of a private eye, which enables him to sell gossip in a most cynical manner. Another character is Monica Uso di Mare, a journalist desperately in love with Sandro da Costa. She is the reason of unhappiness of an English writer Edmond Clever, who is famous for his several books featuring Santa Esperanza. One of his books is In Search of the Lost Pipe dedicated to yet another local myth: governor Ali-Bey had a pipe of such length that its end rested on the other island and seagulls were perched on it. Several pieces of the legendary pipe are truly sacred for a lot of islanders. One of them is Morad-Bey, a coffee-shop owner, trying to collect all the pieces in order to put them together. Rummaging through Queen Agatha’s possessions, Alfredo da Costa, the Museum Director, comes across a sack full of the pipe pieces. Three British agents assemble them only to find that Ali-Bey’s pipe was actually much shorter than it was believed. Alfredo da Costa, Sandro’s uncle and the sole survivor of the family, sets to work on the family history in the post-war Santa City. Just before the hostilities began, austere and mighty patriarch Constantine Visramiani died of haemorrhage. On his deathbed he clearly realised where his ambition had brought the entire country, but was unable to say anything due to serious brain damage. However, he managed to scribble the word ‘run’ on the blanket for his grandson Data to see. Data and Salome’s mother Kaya becomes a hostage of her own clan. Salome succeeds in putting an end to the hostilities, but the flourishing Santa Esperanza of the British period is razed to the ground. The main characters are dead. The culture and traditions reigning the small country throughout the centuries lie waste. The book finishes with the dramatic events unfolding on the Sungali Island, as it is attacked by the peace-keeping forces from three sides. |
Soledad's Sister | null | null | The novel starts in a cloudy August night when a casket bearing the corpse of one who is identified as Aurora V. Cabahug arrives in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Jeddah. Mysteriously identified by Jeddah authorities as having died from drowning, she is one of 600 Filipino overseas workers who return as corpses to NAIA every year. The corpse, however, is not the real Aurora Cabahug but of her older sister, Soledad. The real Aurora Cabahug, called Rory, has in fact never set foot beyond the small town of Paez and is a singer in the Flame Tree, a KTV nightclub frequented by cops, the town’s vice-mayor and Koreans. Rory learns of her sister's death and she claims the body with the help of a local police officer, Walter G. Zamora. Along the way, their vehicle along with the casket is stolen by notorious carnapper known as Boy Alambre. In the end, Soledad's casket, is discovered by Boy Alambre. He pushes the casket into a murky river, but in an ironic twist of fate, the thief is taken along and drowns with the corpse. Soledad remains as faceless as she was when she came home. In a series of flashbacks and narrations, we learn of the stories in each of the main characters’ lives. Their mysteries are not fully unraveled however, left to the past or to events that have yet to be told. |
Gone, Baby, Gone | Dennis Lehane | 1,998 | Boston based lovers and private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro are hired by a woman to look into the case of her niece, Amanda McCready, whose disappearance has become an important local news story. They take the case despite the seeming reluctance off the girl's uncle Lionel. During the investigation they quickly come to the conclusion that Amanda's mother, Helene, who has been prominently featured in the news stories about the case, is a degenerate and neglectful parent. At the time of Amanda's disappearance, Helene had left her alone for several hours while she partied at a local dive bar. In another incident, Helene had left her daughter unsupervised on the beach for several hours, resulting in the girl getting a terrible sunburn. While Helene has been pleading with the public for her daughter's return, in private she often seems more concerned about her own life and the possible benefit the publicity might have on it. In perhaps the most irresponsible act of parenting, Patrick and Angie discover that Helene had taken Amanda along while she and her then boyfriend Skinny Ray stole several thousand dollars from men working for the imprisoned drug dealer Cheese. Patrick and Angie quickly begin working with police officers Remy Broussard and Nick "Poole" Raftopoulous. The police receive an apparent ransom demand calling for a meetup at the Quincy Quarries. Under cover of Darkness, Angie, Patrick, Poole and Remy arrive at the quarry, but before they can meet the kidnappers a confused gun battle breaks out, resulting in the death of a couple of gangsters working for Cheese and the disappearance of the ransom money. Angie finds Amanda's favorite doll, which had been taken along with her, in the water of the quarry and they conclude that the little girl was likely thrown in and drowned. Later on, Patrick learns that Remy had previously worked in the unit responsible for investigating crimes against children and that he had known Lionel, Helene's brother. Questioning Lionel, he discovers that the whole kidnapping had been orchestrated at Lionel's behest in order to get Amanda away from Helene's neglectful care. Remy and Poole, disguised as burglars, stage a hold up of the bar where Patrick, Angie, and Lionel are meeting and kill Lionel. Patrick gives chase to Remy and mortally wounds him. Remy confesses that he is part of a small ring of cops who take children from abusive and neglectful homes and place them with caring competent parents. The first child had been his own daughter, who he had found as an infant malnourished and abused in a crack house, her birth parents were so disinterested in her welfare that they didn't even file a missing persons report after Remy took her. He, Poole, and their Captain, had taken Amanda after Remy learned of Helene's neglectful parenting from Lionel. Patrick and Angie go to the captain's beach home where they discover Amanda McCready, apparently happy and well care for. The Captain begs Patrick and Angie not to reveal Amanda's whereabouts, insisting that she will be placed with a loving family. Angie and Patrick argue about the proper course with Patrick finally informing the authorities about the kidnapping. Angie, disappointed, leaves Patrick. it:La casa buia sv:Gone, Baby, Gone |
Gallia | null | null | Ever since their only child Gallia decided to get a university education about five years ago, Lord and Lady Hamesthwaite have been carefully watching their daughter's silent alienation from their world and have had their doubts if she will ever consent to marry one of the eligible young men that present themselves to the family. Gallia is attractive, healthy and clever but all the men around her agree that she never behaves in an easy-going, coquettish manner. Family and friends are occasionally shocked by the topics she chooses for polite conversation, such as politics or sex. Since her Oxford days, Gallia has known Hubert Essex, who has embarked on an academic career and does research on Darwinian theory. It is Essex with whom Gallia genuinely falls in love. Her honesty compels her to confess her love for him, and she is devastated when she is rejected by Essex. When he tells her bluntly that his "life has no need of" her, Gallia knows that she will never be able to experience romantic love again. What Essex omits from his speech is the fact that he is suffering from a hereditary heart condition and that he is very likely to die young. When Gallia is introduced to Mark Gurdon, an ambitious social climber who wants to get ahead within the British Civil Service, and when she realizes that he is handsome, healthy, and virile, she chooses him to be the father of her future child, or children. Gurdon, whose guiding principle in life is decency, is keeping a mistress in a studio flat in London who resorts to a self-induced abortion to terminate a pregnancy just at the time when Gurdon starts being attracted by Gallia. But Gallia does not mind: when he proposes to her, she accepts but makes it clear right from the start that she will never be able to love him. |
Magic Study | Maria V. Snyder | 2,006 | After saving the life of the Commander, falling in love with Valek, the assassin, and discovering she was kidnapped as a child because of her suspected magical abilities, Yelena is forced to return to her original home of Sitia to train in magic so she is no longer an unstable threat to the magical world. The death sentence upon her from Ixia for her ability to do magic, despite her saving the Commander, also prevents her return to Ixia and her love, Valek. Yelena is taken to the Zaltana clan and meets her long lost parents and older brother, Leif, who despises her and states his belief that she is a spy for Ixia. Because of his abilities as a magic user himself, many in her clan think he may be right, but her parents are welcoming despite her inability to remember them. When Leif leaves for the Academy to advise the Council, Yelena must accompany him to start her training at the Academy. Along the way, they are ambused by Cahil and his soldiers, who tells her that he is the sole heir to the throne of Ixia, the only one that Valek missed during his assassinations in the Commander's takeover. He intends to have what is rightfully his, and wants Yelena to give him information about troop movements and such in Ixia. Though Yelena protests that she is not a spy, Cahil keeps her in chains. She escapes, but comes back later that night of her own accord to strike a deal with Cahil, since they are going to the same place and she wants to prove her innocence. Cahil brings her before the First Magician, Roze, who essentially rapes Yelena's mind before declaring she is not a spy. Yelena manages to mostly fend her off, but spends several days in horror recuperating before beginning the basics of her training. During her training, Yelena assists in helping a young women raped and beaten by a serial killer who inadvertently left her alive. In doing so, she discovers that she is likely a Soulfinder, a very powerful magic user. However, Yelena tries not to believe this is so, as the last Soulfinder stole people's souls and used them to his own purposes before he was finally killed. She has a talent for influencing people and can at times take over their bodies, leaving her own. Yelena's methods of doing things her own way and relying only on herself bring the wrath of her mentor, the Fourth Magician Irys, and when she goes off on her own to meet the serial killer, who has taken eleven souls of girls and needs a twelfth to come to him willingly, Irys breaks off the mind link between them in anger. But Yelena has Valek for help, as he has arrived in disguise with an Ixian delegation and has a natural immunity to magic. Together, and with help from her reluctant brother, they capture the killer. With the help of a Story Weaver magician named Moon Man, Yelena and Leif work out their differences as well, though they still banter as a real brother and sister. However, the killer, who they nickname Ferde, is not the only rogue magician still out there. Yelena and another group of magicians fight many of the rogues, but are forced to retreat to fight another day. Valek returns to the delegation headed back to Ixia, and Yelena joins them briefly as well, at the request of the Commander, who promises to revoke her death sentence if she becomes a spy. Instead, Yelena offers to act as an intermediary between the two countries, once her magic training is complete. |
Midnight: A Gangster Love Story | Sister Souljah | 2,008 | Midnight tries to manage his life with Akemi and look out for his family and hang with his friends while managing his family's newly opened business, he comes to terms with struggles that occur from day to day. |
Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three | null | null | On May 5, 1993, Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Steven Branch went missing from their homes in West Memphis, Arkansas. The next day, their bodies were found in the woods near their homes with evidence showing that they had been brutally beaten and savagely murdered. In the case of Christopher Byers, the evidence revealed that he had been castrated and his penis had been skinned before he was killed. News of the boys deaths and the manner in which they happened soon reached the inhabitants of the small community. The rumor then spread that the nature of Christopher Byers death in particular hinted that the deaths may have been related to a Satanic ritual. Weeks after the murders, a local woman by the name of Vicki Hutcheson brought her eight-year-old son Aaron to see the police. Aaron claimed to have witnessed the kidnapping of his three friends. Vicki Hutcheson volunteered to help the investigation by becoming "involved" with both Jessie and Damien. Hutcheson was a neighbor of Jessie's and coaxed him into setting up a "meeting" with Damien so Hutcheson and Damien could get to know each other. Vicki Hutcheson would later admit to the police that she had attended an Esbat with both men. Years after the trials, Hutcheson would admit that she had lied about attending the Esbat. Over the months that led up to the arrests and trials, her son Aaron would also change his account of what happened numerous times, each time the story becoming more outrageous and unbelievable. Eventually, the police brought in Jessie Misskelley for questioning in relation to the murders. Misskelley was 17 and considered mildly retarded. Despite this, a simple questioning turned into a heated interrogation by West Memphis Police which resulted in a confession from Misskelley that was almost immediately recanted. Based on this confession and the story told to police by Aaron Hutcheson, Misskelley, Echols and Baldwin were all arrested and charged with three counts of Capital Murder. Each of the three men encountered issues during the course of their trials, including the inability to have the trial moved away from Arkansas area, lack of the prosecution's required assistance in the delivery of all intended evidence to the defense, and what is perceived by the author to be a biased judge. Author Mara Leveritt makes numerous comparisons to the trials of the three men to that of the Salem Witch Trials, stating that the men were convicted based on the "Satanic Craze" the community was surrounded by after the murders. Actual evidence used by the prosecution during the trials included pictures of Metallica t-shirts worn by Jason Baldwin and books checked out by Damien Echols at his public library. Prosecution cases contained little more than circumstantial evidence. Eventually, all three men were convicted of the murders, with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley receiving life sentences without parole and Damien Echols receiving the death penalty. |
A Pinch of Snuff | Reginald Hill | 1,978 | Receiving a tip from his dentist Jack Shorter, Inspector Peter Pascoe takes a closer look at the Calliope Kinema Club, a film club notorious for showing adult entertainment movies. Shorter is convinced that one particular scene in a movie he recently saw was too realistic to have been staged with fake blood, but when Pascoe starts investigating, he soon comes across the actress in question, Linda Abbott, who obviously didn't suffer from any harm and assures Pascoe that his and Shorter's concerns are unnecessary. Meanwhile, the "Calli" has been vandalised and its proprietor Gilbert Haggard has been assaulted so badly that he succumbs to a heart attack. The only existing copy of "Droit de Seigneur" - the film Jack Shorter was so worried about - has been destroyed, and when 13-year-old Sandra Burkill accuses the dentist of being the father of her (yet unborn) child, it begins to look as if Shorter had merely tried to avert suspicions by his claims against the "Calli". |
Avon: A Terrible Aspect | null | null | The story begins approximately 26 or 27 Earth years before the events of Blake's 7 proper, when Rogue Avon, a former professional assassin defected from the Federation death squads, on the run from his former employers, briefly meets a young woman called Rowena and fathers a child, the future Ker Avon, before continuing his attempts to evade his pursuers and reach Earth. The first part of the novel follows the further adventures of Rogue Avon as he travels from Phax, a fictitious moon of Uranus, through the Clouds of Magellan to Earth, where he is eventually killed by his half brother Axel Reiss, who has remained loyal to the Federation. The second part of the novel details Rowena's endeavours to raise her son Kerguelen and avenge his father; however, she fails in the latter and is killed on Reiss' orders. The third part portrays Reiss' attempts to mould the education of the young Ker Avon in order to use him in his schemes to achieve more power in the Federation hierarchy. In the fourth and final part of the novel, these plans misfire when Ker Avon, whose intelligence and survival skills have been honed in the challenging environment of Federation intrigue and double cross, turns the tables on Reiss and kills him, partly to avenge his father and partly as an element in his scheme to defraud the Federation banking system and abscond to a safe haven outside the Federation's sphere of influence. However, in the course of his final duel with Reiss, Avon sustains injuries that prevent him from avoiding capture. Avon is sentenced to be deported to the prison colony of Cygnus Alpha, and the novel ends as Avon boards the Federation prison ship London, seconds before the beginning of the first season episode Space Fall in which Avon first meets Blake. |
Crusade | Robyn Young | 2,007 | Crusade, like Brethren before it, follows Will Campbell, a Templar involved in a secret order known as the Anima Templi, as he tries to secure peace in the Holy Land with the help of Kalawun, a high-ranking officer in the Mamluk court ruled by Sultan Baybars. Both of these men face plots from within their own organizations to throw the Holy Land into war: in Acre, Will must stop a cabal of merchants seeking to start a war by stealing the Muslim relic known as the Black Stone; while in Egypt, Baybars' son Baraka Khan and soothsayer Khadir al-Mihrani are plotting to overthrow Baybars and redouble the attack on the last remaining Franks in the Holy Land. Meanwhile, Will's childhood friend, Garin de Lyons, is now in the employ of King Edward I and has returned to Acre to extort money from the Anima Templi and to pursue his own, more selfish ends; and Will faces a threat from Baybars as the sultan gets nearer and nearer to discovering that it was Will who, many years before, ordered an assassination attempt which had failed but had taken the life of Baybars' closest friend. |
Improbable Fiction | Alan Ayckbourn | null | The play begins with Arnold anxiously setting up the chairs for a writers' circle meeting. First to arrive is Ilsa, a young girl whom Arnold hires to serve the tea. Ilsa also looks after Arnold's live-in bed-ridden mother, who periodically demands attention by banging a stick on the upstairs floor. She holds Arnold and the rest of the group in awe on the grounds that they are all writers, although Arnold himself, the only member of the group to have had something published, only writes instruction leaflets. When the rest of the group arrive, they all, over the first act, reveal what they are working on. Grace shows her illustrations for her children's story "Doblin the Goblin" (with friend Sid the Squirrel), Jess tells her of her vision for her period romance, Vivi explains how her latest detective novel is darker than the last three, Brevis plays a (somewhat tuneless) song "There's Light at the End of the Tunnel" from his musical adaptation of The Pilgrim's Progress, and Clem reads out an extract from his science fiction story (or, as Clem sees it, "science fact", with names changed to protect identities). All the writers have obvious weaknesses with their writing. Grace's children have long since grown up and her ideas would be confusing to the age this kind of story is aimed at. Jess never manages to start writing, whilst Vivi is clearly over-writing, and her description of the detective's smitten sidekick is obviously modelled on her and her search for the right man. Brevis's long list of successfully performed musicals can be attributed to the fact that he was a teacher at a school, and now that he is retired he is stuck. And Clem gets angry that no-one can follow his incomprehensible plot, and his persistent mispronunciation of words (such as "invulshable" instead of "invincible") drives Brevis up the wall. There is not much sign of the writers helping each other that much, and the group is still reeling from last week's visiting writer (if you can count someone who is only publicised on the internet as a writer), whose summary, in Arnold's words, was that "You should get the F-word on with it" (to which Brevis points out he finished with "you bunch of wankers.") When a nervous Ilsa enters and serves the tea painfully slowly, the rest of the group start making wild speculation about her. With the meeting over, the five writers go home, leaving just Ilsa, waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up on his motorbike. Suddenly, the lights go out, and Arnold sees Ilsa, in Victorian dress, walk towards him with a candle and a knife. The other five writers also surround him in Victorian dress. Ilsa screams, Arnold cries "Good Gracious!" and the first act ends. With the second act starting exactly where the first one left off, Arnold suddenly hears Jess narrating the story, somewhat in the style of Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters. Ilsa, it seems, has turned into an heiress who has seen some sort of ghost. But before this mystery can be solved, the room changes into that of a 1930s house, and a detective (Clem) and his assistant (Vivi, behaving very similar to the real Vivi) question Arnold about the murder of his wife, rather like a Poirot mystery. And then, before this is solved, Arnold finds himself confronted by a group of agents investigating the alien abduction of his mother-in-law (this time, with striking similarity to The X Files, Alien or The Matrix), with the leader (Brevis), mispronouncing all the long words exactly how Clem would want them. As Arnold flits back and forth through the stories, the first two mysteries are solved relatively easily. The ghost that the heiress/Ilsa saw, was, of course, just a model created by her scheming cousin (Clem) so that she could be declared insane and he could get the inheritance, but he gets rumbled. And so (or, as Jess narrates "And so, dear reader ...") this story ends. The murder's alibi in the 1930s is exposed when it is pointed out she did not have her glasses at the time, but not before the detective comes across a strange instruction manual in his pocket. Making the first kind comment ever to his sidekick (and Vivi says "Isn't he wonderful!") he leaves Arnold with the maid/Ilsa, who now seems to be his mistress. Ilsa advances on a bemused Arnold, but before she can have her way with him, he is back in the sci-fi story. The agents capture an alien pod and use it as trade. Whilst waiting, Brevis almost starts playing a song he wrote on the piano, but gets interrupted by the release of the captive. Suddenly, the alien pod starts to open to reveal ... Doblin the Goblin (Ilsa). A much more tuneful version of "There's Light at the End of the Tunnel" starts playing, Doblin sails down the river (the open alien pod now serving as Doblin's walnut-cum-boat), Sid the Squirrel follows, with all the rest in tow. And so Arnold is left alone again. He says "It's nice to finish with a song". The real Ilsa joins him - evidently, whilst he spent an hour in other people's imaginations, for her it was just a moment in another room. It is clear that Arnold and Ilsa have a genuine friendship. Then, after Ilsa leaves, to prove it is back to reality, Arnold's mother bangs on the ceiling once more. He goes upstairs saying "It was a quiet evening really. Nothing unusual ..." |
Treasure Fever! | Andy Griffiths | 2,008 | He tells the class that a man has a goat, a wolf and some cabbage, and he needs to cross a river. There's a boat there, but it can only hold two things. If the man takes the wolf, the goat will eat the cabbage, and if the man takes the cabbage, the wolf will eat the goat. The class starts arguing about why he needs the things anyway, and why he needs to cross the river. To get them to try to work it out, he offers a lollipop to whoever gets it right, much to Henry's desire. While trying to work it out, Clive shoots spit balls at him. Although it's annoying, Henry uses the chewed up bits of paper to help him solve the problem, winning him the lollipop. At recess Clive and Fred, Clive's brother, claim that the lollipop is his, because he used Clive's spitballs to help him work it out. Fred and Henry then have a fight, until Mrs Cross stops it. Even though Fred started it, Mrs Cross blames it on Henry, as she and all the other teachers see him as a model student. As a result he gets sent to the principal's office. Expecting the worst, Greenbeard actually understands what he's talking about and tells him of a treasure full of things that he had, buried in a hill that he named "Skull Island", which had been stolen by another pirate! The object left in the chest was a note: Search the Northwest Southeast seas Search upon bended and bloodied knees But of your riches you will only dream - Greenbeard's pirates are no match for me. McThrottle would go through all lengths just to find. He finds out that the line "Dig for a thousand nights and a night" was a reference to a book named The Thousand and One Nights. He reads it, and discovers that the line "But of your riches you will only dream" is a reference to one of the stories in the book. The ending of the story leaves him to conclude that th He asks another boy at class, Grant Gadget, to borrow his metal-detecting machine. The next day, Henry, his friends and Grant watch as the metal detector (or what he calls the "super charged treasure detector") blow up and reveal a key. Unfortunately, gossip has passed around the school, Fred and Clive pop up again, and outsmart one of Henry's friends, Jack Japes, into revealing that a treasure does indeed exist. Henry double-crosses Fred by providing him with a realistic-looking fake map and get back to work. Unfortunately, they are caught by Mrs Cross, who just happens to be passing. Mr Brainfright to conduct an archaeological dig to find the treasure. They do indeed find the top of the treasure box with the help of Mr Brainfright's jackhammer. This annoys Mrs Cross and she leaves to the principal's office to request that Mr Brainfright be fired. Gretel manages to dig out thechest, but Fred snatches it, and opens it up with the key. All that is found is a marble, a rock, a pencil, a yo-yo, a shark's tooth, a rabbit's foot, a black-eye patch, a plastic ring, a water pistol, and a football card. Fred gets angry with Henry when he saw what was inside, and attempts to attack him. Instead, he trips over Newton's foot and falls into the hole where the treasure was found, giving time to grab it and race to Greenbeard's office. Greenbeard gets so happy that his book was found, and saw that the bottom of the box had the initials - Mrs Cross' name before she was married! Henry and his friends take one item each from the box, but it's not over yet - the pencil that Henry picks up turns out to be the Pencil of Doom! |
The Knife That Killed Me | Anthony McGowan | 2,008 | The Knife that Killed Me is a novel which follows a teenager, Paul Varderman, as he tries to fit in with a group in his school. At the beginning of the book, he is a loner, looking into the groups from the outside. A series of events in which he stands up for members of a group known as "The Freaks" lead to him becoming included by them. "The Freaks" are different from the other groups as they do not live under the rule of the school thug, Roth. As Paul becomes more involved with "The Freaks", he also begins to become influenced by Roth. Roth uses Paul as a messenger between himself and a rival school and gives him a knife. The relationship between the two schools develops, with Roth leading the way to war between them. |
The Knife of Never Letting Go | Patrick Ness | 2,008 | Todd Hewitt is the only boy left in Prentisstown, a small settlement on 'New World' where all boys become men at the age of 13. He begins the novel oblivious to Prentisstown’s history, having been told that all women have been killed by a ‘germ’ released by the native species on his planet known as the Spackle. As a side effect of this germ, the remaining men in Prentisstown can hear each other's thoughts, described as an ever-present cascade of ‘Noise’. Todd, however, is soon forced to learn the truth. Ben and Cillian, his adoptive parents, have been planning his escape for the past eleven years. When Manchee, Todd's dog (which was a present from Ben on his 12th birthday), spills them out, Todd is forced to tell them of a spot of moving silence in the Noise; the two men immediately force him to leave Prentisstown. Todd unwillingly obeys, taking with him a rucksack Ben has prepared containing Todd’s deceased mother’s diary. Ben then proceeds to give him his hunting knife when they part ways. He follows a map through the swamp. Whilst Todd is escaping, they are attacked by the town priest, Aaron, who has recently been provoking Todd in physical and mental fights. Managing to escape him, Todd comes across the spot of silence and meets the girl who is causing the silence. She says nothing but leads him through the swamp to her spaceship, where her parents’ bodies are half buried. It is apparent that she has crash-landed on New World. They begin traveling together. During their journey, Todd realizes that he, infected with the germ, might transmit the germ to the girl and kill her. She hears this in his Noise and flees, but he pursues her until they both encounter Aaron and men from Prentisstown who are tracking them. The girl eventually saves them both and tells Todd her name, Viola. After their escape, Todd and Viola are found by a woman. She tells Todd that the 'germ' is not fatal for women and in fact does not affect them at all. She then takes the two to her settlement. At nightfall, an army of men from Prentisstown arrives and burns down the town, killing all those who will not join them. Todd and Viola escape and flee for the most technologically advanced settlement on New World, Haven, where there maybe be a cure for Noise and a transmitter tower to contact Viola's people still in space. After a few days, the Mayor’s son, Prentiss Jr., finds them. Todd tries to kill him but discovers he cannot. Instead, Todd ties up the Mayor’s son before heading off for Haven with Viola. During this trip, they find a live Spackle. Todd is shocked, since he had believed that all Spackle had been killed in the war. Having grown up hearing terrible stories of the Spackle, Todd leaps at the Spackle and kills it, but is greatly disturbed by the Spackle's fear and the blood. Aaron then finds them, stabs Todd, and kidnaps Viola. Several hours later, Todd wakes up and hurriedly goes after Aaron, although his stab wound becomes infected and sickens him. Todd rescues Viola, by choosing to sacrifice his dog Manchee. The pair escape on a boat, where Todd collapses from his shock. When he wakes up, Todd insists on a walk and surprisingly encounters Ben. Ben explains the truth: the Noise germ was a natural part of the planet, not an attack by the Spackle. The men of Prentisstown, driven mad by Noise and resenting the women's ability to remain silent, killed the women and were subsequently banished from the rest of the world for this crime. The boys were supposed to learn the truth on their thirteenth birthday. This was why Todd had been sent away - he could only be accepted by the rest of the world if his thoughts were wholly innocent. Ben, Todd, and Viola continue toward Haven, but Prentiss Jr. finds them again. Ben distracts him to allow Todd and Viola to run, but then the two run into Aaron. Aaron corners them in a cavern near a waterfall. Todd then realizes that the boys of Prentisstown become 'men' by killing someone upon turning thirteen. Aaron thinks of himself as a symbolic sacrifice for the 'last boy' in Prentisstown and tries to provoke Todd into killing him. Instead, Viola kills Aaron. She explains that this way, Todd does not let the Prentisstown ritual have power over him. Prentiss Jr. again intercepts the pair on their way to Haven and shoots Viola through her stomach. Todd escapes him and carries Viola to Haven to try to find help. However, Mayor Prentiss is already there to greet them; Haven had surrendered without a fight, allowing the Mayor to declare himself President of New World. Through his despair, Todd realizes that he can no longer hear the Mayor's Noise. |
Chasing Darkness | Robert Crais | 2,008 | In the midst of a hillside fire caused by the Santa Ana Winds, police and fire department personnel rush door-to-door to evacuate local residents. They discover the week-old corpse of an apparent gunshot suicide. In the victim's lap, however, is a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women -- one per year, for seven years. The suicide victim, Lionel Byrd, was the former suspect in one of those murders, a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. Arrested by L.A.P.D., a taped confession coerced by the detectives inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrd's case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape allowed Lionel Byrd to be set free. Elvis was hailed as a hero. But the discovery of the 'death album' in Byrd's possession changes everything. To all appearances, the 'World's Greatest Detective' was an unwitting accomplice to murder. Only the murderer could have such gruesome material. Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims -- two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked. Elvis Cole, along with his partner Joe Pike, set out to discover if he cost two more young women their lives by having the real killer released from custody. Even so, the pair are shutout by a special L.A.P.D. task force investigating the case, seemingly determined to close it. Elvis and Joe desperately fight to uncover what actually happened with Lionel Byrd and the string of serial murder victims, and why L.A. power brokers and police want to sweep it all under the rug without finding the truth behind it all. it:Attraverso il fuoco |
Run | null | null | This novel tells the story of Bernard Doyle, an Irish Catholic Boston politician. He married, had one son, and adopted two more. The adopted kids are African-American brothers named Tip and Teddy. (The adoptees' names were given to them by the Doyles as a tribute to the Massachusetts senators Thomas "Tip" O'Neill and Edward "Teddy" Kennedy) Four years later, Doyle loses his wife to cancer. Sixteen years after his wife's death, their two adopted sons are University students. Bernard, the former mayor of Boston, has invited them to a Jesse Jackson lecture. After the lecture, Bernard asks his sons to go to a reception. Tip declines and backs off a curb into the path of an oncoming car. A woman in the crowd pushes him out of the way and is injured in the process. The novel's plot centers around the story of that woman's identity. Her daughter, an 11 year old girl named Kenya, asks to live with the Doyles. The plot has to do with interracial adoption, familial allegiances and rivalries, Boston’s notoriously complex political and racial history. |
The Beauty of Fractals | Heinz-Otto Peitgen | 1,986 | The books starts with a general introduction to Complex Dynamics, Chaos and Fractals. In particular the Feigenbaum scenario and the relation to Julia Sets and the Mandelbrot set is discussed. The following special sections provide in depth detail for the shown images: Verhulst Dynamics, Julia Sets and Their Computergraphical Generation, Sullivan's Classification of Critical Points, The Mandelbrot Set, External Angles and Hubbard Trees, Newton's Method for Complex Polynomials: Cayley's Problem, Newtons's Method for Real Equations, A Discrete Volterra-Lotka System, Yang-Lee Zeros, Renormalization (Magnetism and Complex Boundaries). The book also includes invited Contributions by Benoît Mandelbrot, Adrien Douady, Gert Eilenberger and Herbert W. Franke, which provide additional formality and some historically interesting detail. Benoit Mandelbrot gives a very personal account of his discovery of fractals in general and the fractal named after him in particular. Adrien Douady explains the solved and unsolved problems relating to the almost amusingly complex Mandelbrot set. |
Wycliffe and the Last Rites | null | null | The vicar of Moresk, a quiet Cornish village, is shocked by the discovery of a woman's corpse sprawled across the church steps, raising suspicion that a Satanic ritual has taken place in the grounds. Wycliffe slowly becomes convinced that the murder is an expression of hatred for the whole community, instead of just the victim herself. When another slaying strikes the area, he develops a theory about who the killer could be; but can he prove it? |
Wycliffe and the House of Fear | null | null | For five hundred years the Kemps, a fiercely Catholic family, have held onto their ancestral home of Kellycoryk. But when dwindling finances looked as though they might be forced into selling it on, patriarch Roger married the tough and uncompromising businesswoman Bridgit, who would only save the house if she could take it over for development, an idea that greatly displeased her husband. Then, without warning, she vanishes into thin air just as Roger's previous wife, Julia (another wealthy, independent woman), did several years ago, supposedly having been killed in a boating accident. When Wycliffe, who has been recovering from an illness in the area, arrives on the scene, his curiosity aroused by the mystery of Roger's wives and his home, he soon suspects that the family know more about matters than they're letting on... |
Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy | null | null | The village of Kergwyns is baffled by the bizarre shooting of an attractive local woman; the only thing stolen from the scene being her left shoe and stocking, exposing her foot deformity. As Wycliffe investigates, he becomes acquainted with the life of a deeply unhappy woman who routinely manipulated the men around her. When it becomes apparent that she left clues regarding her murder imbedded in crossword puzzles, the detective wonders why, if she knew about her impending death, did she do nothing about it? And, perhaps more importantly, is somebody of power carefully stage managing the case's progress? |
Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat | null | null | A young, auburn haired and naked woman turns up strangled in a seedy hotel room down by the docks, her face savagely beaten after death. The discovery of a thousand pounds stashed underneath some clothing, along with the observance of expensive luggage indicating more class than her present surroundings, exacerbate the mystery of her murder, and Superintendent Wycliffe finds himself drawn towards the investigation, interrupting his seaside holiday so he can make inquiries of his own... |
Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi | null | null | Social butterfly Caroline Bryce causes a scandal in her home village of Treen, when her dead body is dragged from the bottom of a local river. Baffled as to a possible motive for killing the beautiful and personable Ms. Bryce, Wycliffe mulls over several possibilities. Could it have been a lover's qaurrel? Family feud? Or perhaps even the explosion of a long held resentment for the woman? However, as the detective steadily untangles a spiders web of love and hate, he finds himself up against a psychotic nemesis who feels no remorse, no compassion, and would not think twice about killing again... |
Jubilee City | null | null | The book begins in Andoe’s place of birth Tulsa, Oklahoma, the location of a popular department store in the 1960s, Jubilee City, from which the book takes its name. The first third of the memoir describe his childhood and teen years. Andoe presents his young self as reckless, with no attempt to control his dangerous impulses. Art is rarely mentioned, with the exception of a few pages concerning an art club at his high school. His first love, Kay will later become a major influence on his art, and be the sole human figure he will paint “ So after being in New York for twenty years, all of a sudden I had the urge to paint the human figure...They all looked alike. They were all the same girl with the round face called Kay.” Andoe attended college majoring in art. It is during this time that he becomes involved in a turbulent relationship, which after marriage becomes rockier still. Soon thereafter the couple moves to New York, where Andoe and his wife have a child. The wife is the primary provider for the family and Andoe assumes the role of a stay-at-home dad, though he does continue to paint. Acclaim for his artwork begins to accumulate, and with success a more stable lifestyle ensues. Soon his wife and him separate, and once again drugs and alcohol, become a major part of his life. It is during this time he lived at the Hotel Chelsea like so many fellow artists. The book ends on a slightly upward note, as Andoe learns how to better balance his life and ceases to drink.. |
Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin | null | null | With his wife away for Christmas, Wycliffe readily accepts an invitation to stay with a Penzance lawyer and his family in their remote country home; although when he arrives he finds the atmosphere less than welcoming, and the unease soon culminates in the disappearance of a young girl, whom he had seen playing the Virgin Mary in a recent nativity play. He soon discovers that the missing youth was unpopular in her local community, and even her parents seem indifferent about the whole affair. Nevertheless, the detective leads a mass search for her and is soon caught up in a major criminal investigation... |
Wycliffe and the Beales | null | null | The Beales, a strange, reclusive family living on the edge of Dartmoor in Ashill House, consist of Simon, an old man entirely withdrawn from active life, Nicholas and Gertrude, perpetually hitting the bottle and playing war games, and the painter Edward, who takes long walks along the moors in search of artistic inspiration. The only one with any drive or ambition is Gertrude's husband Frank Vicary, and all of his time is absorbed by the task of running the family business. When a murder rocks their local community, no-one has any reason for suspecting one of the Beales, until Wycliffe arrives on the case and finds his investigation leading him up the Beales's garden path. |
Wycliffe and the Pea-Green Boat | W. J. Burley | null | Somebody has booby trapped a boat in the ownership of Cedric Tremain's father, blowing him apart. Following Cedric's subsequent arrest, his fellow villagers are unanimous in their belief that he isn't a likely murderer. However, circumstantial evidence soon begins piling up and conspiring against the hapless sailor. When Wycliffe arrives on the scene of the crime, he too finds himself believing Cedric's protestations of innocence, and soon establishes a link between the current murder and that of a young woman twenty years ago, supposedly strangled by a cousin of Cedric's, who served fourteen years of a commuted death sentence. |
Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine | null | null | On the moor west of St Ives, an artists' colony has been running on the site of a disused mine, run by the married astrologers Archer and Lina. The latest member is the shadowy and beautiful Francine, who hopes to invest a legacy into the business. Because of her Scorpio star sign, Archer isn't convinced, although Lina soon accepts her offer. However, the trouble begins when Francine is found dead, killed by a deliberately blocked gas heater. Wycliffe soon makes his presence known as a murder investigation begins, and he quickly learns that several of the creative souls assembled have justifiable reasons for not wanting the police intruding on their private affairs. ... |
Five Go To Mystery Moor | Enid Blyton | 1,953 | George and Anne are spending their holiday at a riding school called "Captain Johnson's Riding School" by themselves. There, George meets a girl called Henrietta who is similar to her in that she likes being a boy. One day, George and Anne hear about travellers across "Mystery Moor" and become very curious about it. But when Julian and Dick decide to come to the stables and hear about the travellers, the fun begins. The four children meet a blacksmith who tells them a story about "Mystery Moor". The four children decide to follow the travellers and camp on the moor. There is something mysterious about "Mystery Moor". The Famous Five risk treacherous mists to follow the travellers across the moor—but will the trail lead to danger? |
Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery | null | null | Fifteen years ago, Cochran Wilder supposedly vanished during a walking holiday in Cornwall, and has now just been released from a psychiatric hospital, where he was incarcerated after successfully pleading insanity for an indecent assault charge. His father, a prominent MP, regards his son as a horrible embarrassment, and is in for more professional strife when Cochran's murdered body is found buried deep inside a sand dune. Wycliffe suspects one (or possibly even all) of six figureheads in the local community, who had been spending an illicit weekend at a Chalet near the scene of Cohran's grisly end. When a series of threatening communications begin circulating and a second murder is committed, the sleuth finds himself caught up in a deadly race against time... |
Wycliffe and the Tangled Web | null | null | Shortly after informing her boyfriend and sister of her pregnancy, a young woman from a quiet Cornish village goes missing, opening up the possibility that she may have been raped or murdered. When a body surfaces, Wycliffe thinks he may have solved the vanishing, but his theory is soon dashed after an identification proves it isn't her. As he recommences his investigation, he steadily unwinds a tangled web of complex family relationships, rivalries and pure hatred, all the time wondering weather the unclaimed corpse may still have some bearing on the case... |
Wycliffe and the Scapegoat | null | null | Every Halloween in Cornwall, the life size effigy of a man rolls down the cliffs and into the sea inside a flaming wheel; the morbid commemoration of an age old Pagan ritual whereby the dummy would in fact be a human sacrifice. This year, however, every gruesome detail of the legend is re-enacted when respected builder and undertaker Jonathan Riddle finds himself signed up as the so-called 'scapegoat', strapped within the blazing ferris wheel and pushed towards a fiery grave. Wycliffe's investigation, meanwhile, proves almost as bizarre as the crime itself, with baffling new evidence arriving by the bucket load, and the eventual discovery of a solution stranger than anything he's ever encountered before... |
Wycliffe and the Redhead | null | null | Simon Meagor, a lonely bookseller and divorcee, ends up falling for pretty redhead Morwenna, whose father killed himself as a result of Simon's testimony in a murder trial several years ago. Initially horrified by the young woman's application for a job in his shop, he reluctantly accepts and, mesmerised by her charms, remains oblivious as she steadily manipulates her way into every corner of his life, before mysteriously disappearing. Her body eventually shows up in a flooded quarry and police suspect suicide, especially after the discovery that she was suffering from a fatal illness, but soon all the evidence begins pointing towards foul play and Simon becomes prime suspect. Furthermore, Wycliffe finds himself immersed in a sea of dark and murky secrets from the past... |
The Private Patient | P. D. James | 2,008 | In deepest Dorset, the once magnificent Cheverell Manor has been renovated and transformed into a plastic surgery clinic, run by the famous cosmetic practitioner George Chandler-Powell. Two days after Rhoda Gradwyn, an investigative journalist, arrives in the hope of having her lifelong facial scar removed, she's savagely murdered and Powell finds his surgery under scrutiny from Dalgliesh and his team, who are soon caught in a race against time when another body shows up... |
Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue | W. J. Burley | 1,987 | Following the death of artist Edwin Garland from a heart attack, his family and friends gather for the funeral, and are duly shocked by the apparently motiveless shooting of the dead man's son. When Wycliffe yields no clues after the reading of the old man's mischievously contrived will, the only leads he's left with are the mysterious artist's pigment known as Winsor Blue, and the death of Gifford Tate, a fellow painter and friend of Edwin's, several years before... |
Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist | null | null | When the body of amateur flautist Tony Mills is found shot dead by his own gun on the secluded estate of Lord and Lady Bottrell, everyone simply assumes suicide. However, closer inspection reveals some sinister inconsistencies and Wycliffe soon opens a murder investigation, unravelling as he does so the mystery of Mills's last days and the disappearance of Lizzie Biddick, a maid who worked for the Bottrells several years ago. Eventually, the case takes on a more urgent edge as another body shows up, the result of bitter family feuds and the exposure of illicit relationships... |
The Road Home | null | null | The story concerns with Lev who is a middle-aged immigrant and widowed. He leaves Auror, a village in an unspecified eastern European country, when the sawmill closes. Soon after, he travels to London to find work so he can make money that he can send to his mother, his daughter that is 5 years old, and his best friend. He finds his first job at a Muslim kebab-shop, before washing dishes at a five-star restaurant named GK Ashe. Lev also meets a translator from his home country named Lydia, a divorced Irish plumber named Christy, a young chef named Sophie, and a rich old woman named Ruby. |
The Faerie Path | null | 2,007 | On the eve of Anita's sixteenth birthday, boating with her boyfriend Evan, she is in an accident which sends her to the hospital. Upon awakening, she is frightened to find that Evan is not yet awake, although nothing is wrong with him. As the clock strikes midnight, Anita's parents give her one of her presents to brighten her mood. The present, wrapped in a postal envelope with no return address, is a very beautiful book, but the pages are blank. Anita's parents leave her to rest, but Anita cannot. She explores the book, which suddenly has a story written inside. The story tells about a lost princess, the seventh of seven daughters, who has become trapped in the Mortal World on her sixteenth birthday, the night before she was to marry Lord Gabriel Drake. Anita finds herself needing to check two bites on her back, and searches the hospital for a mirror. Once in the bathroom, her wings grow and she flies out of the window. She flies above London for a moment before it fades away, and all she can see now is the Thames river and Hampton Court. Suddenly, her wings wither away and she falls. Found in the hospital bathroom by a nurse, she is returned to her bed, still worried about Evan not waking. The nurse brings Anita a gift addressed to her, from Evan's belongings. The gift is a necklace that she quickly puts around her neck. She fell asleep, and when she woke up, Evan is gone. A ghostly image appears to Anita, the image of Gabriel Drake, calling her to follow him. Anita followed Lord Drake out onto a balcony where he urges her to focus strongly on him so that she can reach him. Anita tries her hardest to focus on him and suddenly their hands meet in the air. Lord Drake pulls Anita from the Mortal realm presents her to her father. She soon realized she is more than she seems. |
Wycliffe and the Four Jacks | null | null | The reclusive writer David Cleeve has been receiving mysterious warnings in the form of a single playing card; the Jack of Diamonds. When the card arrives torn in half one day, a murder is committed that same evening. Holidaying in the local area, Wycliffe finds himself drawn into the investigation and soon uncovers a sinister tale of double murder, arson attacks and a whole host of other crimes reverberating down the years. |
Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase | W. J. Burley | 1,982 | While taking a leisurely Sunday stroll along the West Country estuary, Wycliffe stumbles across a service revolver with one recently fired chamber. From these humble beginnings, he soon ends up embroiled in a world of shady art robberies, crooked dealers, a suspicious suicide and the hunt for a missing yacht... |
Ladybug Girl | Jacky Davis | 2,008 | Lulu's family is busy and she has nothing to do. So she plays with her dog, Bingo. Lulu spends her time outside doing things such as saving ants from boulders, crossing puddles that could contain sharks, and building a fort for herself. |
Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place | null | null | In a remote corner of the Isles of Scilly, the murdered body of a young woman has been found, her skull and facial bones smashed. The locals, scared and angry, turn against the newcomer in their midst, Vince Peters, a famous pop star and teenage idol. However, Wycliffe is not so convinced of his guilt, and soon scratches away at the surface of this supposedly close-knit community, exposing an undercurrent of fear and hatred. |
Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street | null | null | In a sleazy cul-de-sac just off the main road of a sprawling West Country port, a prostitute has been found naked and strangled in her bed. While the local police pass it off as just another sex crime, Wycliffe isn't so sure, partly because the victim, Lily Painter, isn't a typical lady of the night; she enjoys Beethoven and has a variety of degrees to her name. Furthermore, when the detective begins unearthing her past he discovers shady connections with smugglers and property speculators. However, it will take a dangerous arson attack and another murder before he can wrap up this case... |
Wycliffe and the Schoolgirls | null | null | Two very different women, a nightclub singer and a nurse, have been strangled in their own homes, under the same efficient modus operandi, within the space of one week. Although the media and police are unanimous in the belief that these murders are the work of a psychopath, Wycliffe believes the solution may be a bit more complex. When another attack is suddenly aborted for no earthly reason, the detective feels his theory has been proved; this is no ordinary killing spree. But his colleagues are entirely uninterested, and he knows he will be on his own this time. In the course of his solo investigation he uncovers a connection with an old school trip, a youth hostel and a cruel practical joke played on a lonely student. |
Wycliffe in Paul's Court | W. J. Burley | null | The small community of Paul's Court is shattered by the violent deaths of Willy Goppel, a German doll house maker found hanging from a beam in his home, and Yvette Cole, a fifteen year old with a wild reputation, found strangled, half-naked and thrown callously over a churchyard hedge. With the help of a local detective, Wycliffe uncovers a dark string of anatgonisms weaving across Paul's court... |
Colors Insulting to Nature | Cintra Wilson | 2,004 | Set in the early 1980s, Liza Normal goes on numerous theater and commercial auditions, at the behest of her mother Peppy, who costumes the child in a strapless evening gowns, heavy make-up, and false eyelashes. Humiliations repeat for Liza, as she and her family encounter endless degradation, after opening a dinner theater in Marin County, California. Throughout the first half of the novel, Liza is forced to perform in a dilapidated firehouse, which functions as the theater, as well as the family's home, attend school where she is constantly ridiculed and tormented, and at one point, raped. After this, Liza undergoes several phases, the first of which is a gravitation toward the punk rock aesthetic, specifically embracing and cultivating the look of Plasmatics performer, Wendy O. Williams. Liza eventually becomes involved with a drug pusher, and at one point becomes addicted herself during her stint at "Elf House," which Wilson describes as a commune of hippies who have a fetish with elves and speaking in "Quenya, the J.R.R. Tolkien version of High Elf language." It is during this time, that Liza, while working for Centaur Productions—a company that creates and distributes Slash fiction, that she concocts an "alter ego, Venal de Minus, into a phone sex phenomenon and Las Vegas stage act," achieving a new definition of success that is a spin-off of the earlier theater ambitions initially sought by her mother. |
A Mind to Murder | P. D. James | 1,963 | In a psychiatric clinic late one night, the piercing scream of a dying woman shatters the calm, and Commander Dalgliesh is called away from his literary soiree to investigate. He soon finds the body of a clinic employee sprawled across the cold basement floor, a chisel driven mercilessly through her heart; and so marks the beginning of a deadly psychological battle with an intellectual, predatory killer who feels no remorse, no regret and no self-control over his darker impulses... |
Monkey Puzzle | Julia Donaldson | 2,000 | The story revolves around a child monkey who has lost its mother in the jungle. The monkey is then assisted to find its mother by a butterfly, however the butterfly keeps suggesting incorrect animals as the monkey's mother. This book is known as "Where's my mom" in America. |
The City & the City | China Miéville | 2,009 | Inspector Tyador Borlú, of the Extreme Crime Squad in the European city-state of Besźel, investigates the murder of Mahalia Geary, a foreign student found dead with her face disfigured in a Besźel street. He soon learns that Geary had been involved in the political and cultural turmoil involving Besźel and its "twin city" of Ul Qoma. His investigations start in his home city of Besźel, lead him to Ul Qoma to assist the Ul Qoman police in their work, and eventually result in an examination of the legend of Orciny, a rumoured third city existing in the spaces between Besźel and Ul Qoma. |
Kenny & the Dragon | null | null | Kenny Rabbit is a young bunny that lives in a village called Roundbrook and enjoys reading. He is informed from his father that a dragon has moved to the hill by his parents' farm. The dragon, Grahame, loves literature, enjoys reciting long poems over dinner, and only uses his fire-breathing abilities to torch crème brûlée through his left nostril and he is a rarity among dragons. At school, Kenny accidentally says that he saw a dragon. When the villagers hear of it, they panic. A retired knight (George), who is Kenny's best friend, has been hired to slay Grahame. Kenny wants to keep his two friends from fighting or killing each other, but no one will listen to him. Kenny quickly came up with a way to convince them that they would become best friends if they gotten to know each other. |
Thank You, Mr. Moto | John P. Marquand | null | An expatriate American, Tom Nelson, has been living in Peking (modern day Beijing) for some time and believes that he understands the Oriental mind. When he meets Eleanor Joyce he thinks that she is getting involved in matters way over her head when she agrees to meet with Major Jamison Best, a British ex-Army officer who sells stolen Chinese artifacts and art treasures. After dinner with Best, Nelson tries to make sense of Best’s cryptic conversation concerning a Chinese bandit chief named Wu Lo Feng and the possibility of trouble brewing in Peking. On leaving dinner, he runs into Joyce whom he tries to persuade to not get involved in any scheme Best has going. She doesn’t listen to him but later he finds her wandering around outside of Best’s house, distraught. The next day Major Best is found dead, killed by a bolt from a Chinese crossbow. Mr. Moto is investigating the murder and he tells Nelson not to get involved with what is going on. Nelson doesn’t listen to him and goes to warn Joyce since she was the last to see Best alive. Nelson soon discovers that Moto has made Best’s murder seem like a suicide. When he returns home someone tries to kill Nelson with a Chinese crossbow. Moto arrives and Nelson thinks he is the murderer. Cool and calm despite having a gun pointed at him, Moto once again warns Nelson not to interfere and offers him a chance to escape Peking on the next steamer. When Moto leaves, Nelson discovers that Wu Lo Feng is there ready to kill him. After escaping, Nelson goes to Joyce’s hotel to convince her to leave. She refuses and Nelson sees that she has an ancient Chinese scroll that Best mentioned and that a curio dealer, Pu had offered to him. Nelson and Joyce take the scroll to Prince Tung, a friend of Nelson’s. Nelson discovers that Joyce is a museum buyer sent to Peking to buy a set of eight ancient scrolls. Tung is shocked to discover that someone has promised all eight scrolls to Joyce since seven of them are in his private vault. The situation becomes dire when Wu’s men arrive and kidnap Nelson, Joyce and Tung. Soon after they arrive at their prison, an abandoned temple, Mr. Moto is brought in as yet another prisoner. Moto explains the situation to them. A rival political party in Japan believes that their country is not advancing fast enough. These militant Japanese led by Mr. Takahara have hired Wu Lo Feng to cause a military disturbance in Peking. Major Best was to raise money for the campaign by selling the eight scrolls that were stolen from Prince Tung. Best double-crossed Wu by selling information to Mr. Moto, and so was killed. Wu Lo Feng arrives with Takahara to finalize their plans for Peking. Nelson, Tung and Moto are certain to be killed but are philosophical about their plight. However, Joyce makes an unexpected move and grabs Wu’s gun. They all escape after tying up Takahara and Wu. Moto organizes the Peking police to stop the uprising and they all retire to Nelson’s home. Tung admonishes Nelson for not killing Wu since he is sure to retaliate. When Moto arrives he admits that he liquidated both Takahara and Wu to guarantee everyone’s safety. They all profusely thank Mr. Moto. |
A Mirror for Witches | Esther Forbes | null | Doll Bilby is a young girl, denounced by a relative as being a witch, and is then caught up in the hysteria of the Salem witch trials. |
The Planet Savers | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,958 | The novel concerns a person with two personalities who seeks help from an alien race to save the planet Darkover. |
The Sword of Aldones | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,962 | The novel concerns involved intrigue on the planet Darkover. |
The Turquoise Shop | null | null | Several months ago, Mona Brandon's artist husband disappeared, and his body has now surfaced deep in the heart of the nearby desert, pecked beyond recognition by a horde of odious turkey vultures. This event coincides with the mysterious arrival of Pat Abbott, a handsomely rugged private investigator from San Francisco with hopes of pursuing an art career, while the shallow and snobbish Mona finds herself ostracized by her small New Mexico community of Santa Maria, including Jean Holly, the owner of The Turquoise Shop, after she had her own beautiful teenager daughter incarcerated by police. However, Mona soon becomes the focus of local attention when murder strikes again at her luxurious mansion home, and the various creative talents assembled there soon fall under suspicion. |
The Indigo Necklace | null | null | While staying in an old New Orleans mansion, Pat Abbott overhears the disquieting sound of opening doors and stolen footsteps across the balcony outside his room, before discovering the ghostly white, robed body of a man in the adjoining courtyard. Against his will, he finds himself up against a serial murderer with experience in exotic poisons, and whose master plan somehow involves the titular Indigo necklace. |
Permanence | null | null | The novel tells the story of two characters, Rue Cassels and Michael Bequith, and their encounter with an alien spacecraft Rue has named Jentry's Envy. Schroeder uses the story as a venue for discussing the information economy and philosophy. Rue, on the run from her brother Jentry and out of money, files claim on an undiscovered comet. She expects to profit from the mineral rights, but it turns out that the "comet" is actually an interstellar cycler, a ship that travels in a light-years length orbit, at relativistic speeds (85% c) carrying cargo and passengers between the Halo Worlds, planets that orbit Brown dwarf stars. The discovery causes a sensation, since the ship is the first to approach the planet Erythrion in ten years. Eventually her claim is upheld, since the cycler is silent, and her mineral rights become salvage rights, making her potentially very wealthy. A rich cousin of hers, Max Cassels, sponsors an expedition to the ship so she can claim it. Intrigue happens on the trip as several factions also want to claim it, such as the planetary government. The cyclers were the centerpiece of the Cycler Compact, but have slowly fallen out of use since the discovery of FTL travel, only possible between "lit" worlds. When they reach the ship, they are surprised to discover that it is an alien cycler, an unknown because all known aliens use FTL ships. They explore the ship some and jump off as it passes a lit world, Chandaka. Michael Bequith, a NeoShinto monk and aide to Dr. Laurent Herat, an exobiologist are commandeered by Rear Admiral Crisler of the Rights Economy to join a joint expedition back to the Envy. The RE is interested, because the Envy appears to be a multi-species vessel, something previously unheard of. They are also interested because writing on the craft is the script of an alien species, the Lasa, who have supposedly been extinct for the last two billion years. Rue and her crew are also returning, since under Compact law she can only complete her claim if she can control the Envy. Before they can leave, the city suffers a rebel attack and one of their party, Dr Linda Ophir, is murdered. They travel in a ramscoop ship, the Banshee. When they arrive, they explore various areas of the ship before an explosion damages life support on the Banshee. Michael discovers that Dr. Ophir was murdered because she had discovered pictures of the writing on the Envy had been tampered with. Eventually they discover that part of the Envy is designed as a test to ascertain living conditions for visitors. Rue completes the process and the cycler builds them a new module and a set of controls. The expedition leaves the Envy for Oculus, a Halo world. Rue, now a Cycler Captain by law, is caught up in Compact politics over the course of the Envy. Michael and Dr. Herat arrange with representative of the alien Autotrophs to translate the writing on the Envy. The translation has grave consequences since it implies that the weapon of the Chicxulub, an ancient race that sent out waves of self-replicating machines to wipe out potential competitors, has survived. They realize that Crisler wants to use the weapon to wipe out the rebels. Rue learns from Max that Mallory, a Halo Worlder, wants to dissolve the Compact and join the RE. Rue goes to meet her crew gather to prepare to leave, but they are ambushed by Crisler and Max is killed. Rue, Michael, Dr Herat and Barents (a Rebel) escape in a submarine, but the attackers destroy the control computer just as they dive. They continue to do so for some hours, eventually getting caught by a cold current. They wind up at a secret undersea research base, where they are rescued by military police. They learn that Rue was believed dead along with her cousin and Crisler and Mallory have already departed for the Envy, having learned its point of origin, Apophis and Osiris, planetless binary brown dwarfs. They expect that he will arrive in sixteen months. The government has a secret way that will get them there, but only for citizens of the Compact. Dr. Herat elects to become a citizen of the compact, but Michael abstains. Michael passes preparation time for the trip by exploring abandoned ice tunnels on the planet with Barents. They discover that the Autotroph plans to leave the planet and warn its race about the weapon. Michel convinces them to let humans handle it. A message from a loyal member of the Envys crew arrives, stating that Crisler is planning a dangerous maneuver that will cut three months off his travel time. Rue takes drastic measures and shanghais Michael on the voyage, a new technology that allows a fleet of 15 small interceptor ships to enter FTL from inside the atmosphere of a brown dwarf. They arrive safely at the Twins (except for one ship) and discover that the Twins are ringed with power tethers that allow resources and power to be extracted. In the orbital center of the system is the construction shack that created the Envy. Her fleet is briefly attacked by the systems defenses, but she learns how to camouflage her ships. The Banshee was less successful and suffered a major hull breach. Rue and the soldiers sneak into the Banshee and free some of her original crew. The rest are in the construction shack, being used as explorers by Crisler. They leave for the construction shack, stealing an antimatter generator to use as cover. They enter the shack by way of burning a hole in the hull. Inside, Michael's team and Crisler's men are engaged in a firefight (literally, as the inside atmosphere is a hydrogen/oxygen mix). Michael shoots out a magnet block controlling the airlock and Crisler's marines are sucked out into space. However, Chrisler soon recaptures them. He reveals that the shack is not the true treasure, but the cycler mother seeds, one of which can regrow a complete cycler construction system. He plans to reverse engineer the technology and use it to wipe out the rebels and their worlds. Since the ships would be unable to distinguish between Rebel and alien worlds, this would amount to genocide on a universal scale. They also discover that the shack was not built by Lasa, but renegade Chicxulub, who embraced the Lasa philosophy. The Crysler's new cycler finishes and the shack launches it. Rue and company escape from Crisler by cutting loose a habitat. Barendts leaves with the seed and Michael pursues him. Rue leaves the habitat to get one of the interceptors and meets Michael, returning with the seed. Later, Rue and her crew watch as Crysler's cycler is launched from the system. The power tethers have redirected power back into one of the dwarfs to create a massive flare to use as an energy beam. On Erythrion, Rue announces her plan to revitalize the Cycler Compact, since the Lasa/Chicxulub technology means that the Halo worlds will at last be able to launch their own cyclers. Rue, however, is already planning her voyage to New Armstrong to reclaim the Envy and capture Crysler and Mallory. |
The Bloody Sun | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,979 | Jeff Kerwin, an orphan born on Darkover and raised on Earth, returns to his home planet Darkover as an adult. He brings with him a mysterious blue stone that he has treasured since the half-forgotten trauma of his early memories, and which proves to be the key to his true heritage and identity. The expanded rewrite retains the basic plot structure but is more closely connected to several other Darkover books, especially The Forbidden Tower. It also changes the identity of one of Kerwin's parents, although the later book Exile's Song uses his textually original parentage as background information. |
Star of Danger | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,965 | The novel concerns a hero who combats aliens to decide the fate of the Terrans on the planet Darkover. |
Boys of Steel | null | 2,008 | Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster are meek, bespectacled teens in Depression-era Cleveland who seek escape in the worlds of science fiction and pulp magazine adventure tales. "In a crowded high school hallway, Jerry wishes he could be with his 'friends,' and a turn of the page reveals Tarzan, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. Joe, 'lousy at sports and mousy around girls,' draws sci-fi heroes with a passion. In 1934, when both are 20, Jerry dreams up the Superman concept and Joe draws prototypes labeled 'S' for 'super.' And for 'Siegel' and 'Shuster.'" It is four more years before they convince a publisher to take a chance on their character in the new comic book format. "In June 1938, their creation launches in Action Comics. Nobleman details this achievement with a zest amplified by MacDonald's punchy illustrations, done in a classic litho palette of brassy gold, antique blue and fireplug red. MacDonald's Depression-era vignettes picture Siegel pondering his superhero's powers and the friends casting a single, caped shadow. A cautionary afterword chronicles their protracted financial struggles with DC Comics--when Siegel and Shuster sold their first Superman story, they also sold all rights to the character, for $130." |
The White Tiger: A Novel | Aravind Adiga | 2,008 | The White Tiger takes place in modern day India. The novel’s protagonist, Balram Halwai is born in Laxmangarh, Bihar, a rural village in “the Darkness”. Balram narrates the novel as a letter, which he wrote in seven consecutive nights and addressed to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao. In his letter, Balram explains how he, the son of rickshaw puller, escaped a life of servitude to become a successful businessman, describing himself as a successful entrepreneur. Balram begins the novel by describing his life in Laxmangarh. There he lived with his grandmother, parents and brother and extended family. He is a smart child; however, he is forced to quit school in order to help pay for his cousin sister's dowry. He begins to work in a teashop with his brother in Dhanbad. While working in the teashop he begins to learn about India’s government and economy from the customers' conversations. Balram describes himself as a bad servant and decides that he wants to become a driver. Balram learns how to drive and gets a job driving Ashok, the son of the Stork, the local landlord. During a trip back to his village Balram disrespects his grandmother and tells the reader and the Chinese Premier that in the next eight months he intends to kill his boss. Balram moves to New Delhi with Ashok and his wife Ms Pinky Madam. Throughout their time in New Delhi, Balram is exposed to the extensive corruption of India’s society, including the government. In New Delhi the separation between poor and wealthy becomes even more evident by the juxtaposition of the wealthy with poor city dwellers. One night Pinky decides to drive the car by herself and hits something. She is worried that it was a child and the family eventually decides to frame Balram for the hit and run. The police, however, corrupt and lazy, tell them that no one reported a child missing so that luckily no further inquiry is done. Ashok becomes increasingly involved with the corrupt government itself. Balram then decides that the only way that he will be able to escape India’s "Rooster Coop" will be by killing and robbing Ashok. One raining day he murders Ashok by bludgeoning him with a broken liquor bottle. He then manages to flee to Bangalore with his young nephew. There he bribes the police in order to help start his own driving service. When one of his drivers kills a bike messenger Balram pays off the family and police. Balram explains that his family was almost certainly killed by the Stork as retribution for Ashok's murder. At the end of the novel Balram rationalizes his actions by saying that his freedom is worth the lives of Ashok and his family and the monetary success of his new taxi company. |
Flood | Stephen Baxter | 2,008 | The above effects are catastrophic, and exceed current estimates of climate change-related sea level rise. In the opening chapter, four main characters (former USAF Captain Lily Brooke, British military officer Piers Michaelmas, English tourist Helen Gray, and NASA scientist Gary Boyle) are liberated by a private megacorporation called AxysCorp from a Christian extremist Catalonian terrorist bunker in Barcelona in 2016, after five years of captivity. AxysCorp was hoping to save a fifth prisoner, John Foreshaw, but he was executed minutes before the rescue. Nonetheless, the corporation continues to look after the four hostages and search for Helen's daughter, Grace, who was conceived in captivity by the son of a Saudi royal and taken by his family. Helen befriends Foreign Office official Michael Thurley in the hopes of finding her daughter, and the four rescued hostages make a pact to keep in contact. At this point, sea level changes have already submerged Tuvalu, a low lying South Pacific island, whose inhabitants have been evacuated to New Zealand, and London and Sydney are prone to constant flooding. However, as a tidal surge hits London and Sydney, killing hundreds of thousands in both cities, scientists become aware that this cannot be explained solely by the consequences of climate change. American oceanographer Thandie Jones uncovers the truth – through deep sea diving missions to oceanic ridges and trenches reveal that the seabed has fragmented, and there is turbulence that can only be attributable to the infusion of vast subterranean reservoirs of hitherto hypothesised but undetected oceanic masses of water. Over the next three decades, ocean waters rise exponentially and inundate the whole world, as the main characters struggle for survival in a vast and continuously altering environment. Lily and her sister Amanda, as well as her children Benj and Kristie experience the flooding and abandonment of London. Amanda and her children settle into a refugee resettlement in Dartmoor, but the rising floodwaters make that only a temporary respite. In 2019, a tsunami obliterates western coastal cities in England, Scotland and Wales killing Helen Gray and tens of thousands of others. At the same time, New York is demolished by an Atlantic tidal wave (with hundreds of thousands killed in New York and the city leveled in the process), and Washington, D.C. is evacuated. For the next twenty years, Denver becomes the capital of the steadily diminishing United States, which fragments as individual states assert their own survival needs. By 2020, much of the eastern United States is underwater, as well as Sacramento, California, on its western coast. AxysCorp CEO Nathan Lammockson, the man who ordered the main characters' rescue and indirect friend of Lily, has a contingency plan for survival of an affluent western minority, which involves evacuation to the mountainous Peruvian Andes. Lily, Amanda with her children, and Piers tag along to the settlement, where Nathan discloses that he is aware of the extent of global inundation, which will not stop until all land on Earth is submerged, apart from the Greenland and eastern Antarctica ice sheets. As the United States is eroded away, a contingent of refugees which includes Gary, Thandie, and Grace, heads south to meet Lily. When they reach Nathan's 'Project City' in Peru, they are swept up in a revolt that tries to seize control of the former elite settlement which results in the deaths of Amanda, Benj, and Kristie's husband, Ollantay, a self-claimed Inca descendant who leads the revolt. Gary parts ways with Lily as he hands over Grace, so they, along with Piers and Kristie board Nathan's "Ark Three", a Queen Mary sized (and shaped) ocean vessel that sets sail in 2035. By then, little of Western Europe, Russia, the Americas, Oceania and Africa remain above the water. Ark Three sails the global ocean in search for trading and finding higher ground, despite running into skirmishes with pirates that lead to Lily falling overboard and staying on a submarine with Thandie for a year, the survivors head for Tibet. However, when they arrive, Nepal's Maoist rulers have devastating news – Tibet is ruled by a Khmer Rouge-like regime that practices human slavery and cannibalism. Ark Three heads back out to sea but has nowhere to go, given that the floods are now lapping around the Rocky Mountains. Seaborn piracy is rife from those refugee seaborn populations who have taken to scavenging the refuse from the posthumous remains of human civilization; and after a visit to coastal Colorado, the pirates ultimately board and destroy Ark Three. By this time, over five billion people have perished from the floods. By 2048, the Andes, Rocky Mountains and elsewhere have been submerged. Tibet's regime is no more, and Australia, North America, South America, Africa, and most of Asia except for the highest mountains in the Himalayas have been flooded. As Lily, Gary, and Thandie settle into life as sea-dwelling survivors; Piers, Nathan, and Kirstie die in staggered succession since the sinking of Ark Three. The novel ends in 2052, as a group of survivors watch the submergence of the peak of Mount Everest. Lily has survived, and wonders what the grandchildren of her late-sister's family and her old hostage comrades from three decades ago will make of post-deluge Earth, now at a new environmental equilibrium, with a vast global storm system that is reminiscent of those on Jupiter and Neptune. Civilization is virtually dead at the novel's end. Survivors continue to exist only on the rafts and some decrepit surviving former navy vessels. The children of the rafts, raised on the water, start building their own aquatic culture. By the end of the novel, extinction seems certain for humanity on Earth. However, we learn later in the book that Ark Three (the aforementioned ocean liner) was one of many projects created by AxysCorp and a few other groups. One of these (Ark One) was a starship project, which was taken over by the remnant government of the United States, and launched as Denver flooded in 2041; and at that time earlier in the novel, Lily had managed to get Grace aboard it just before it launched, and at the time she was unwillingly pregnant with the child of Nathan's snobbish and estranged son, Hammond. In 2044, a lunar eclipse occurs, just as a massive burst of light is sighted near Jupiter and the survivors realize it must be Ark One, and Grace's survival is thus ensured. As they prepare to leave the former site of Mount Everest Lily realizes something. She sailed on Ark Three, and Ark One is a starship. In closing, she asks "What is Ark Two?" The question ends the novel, and sets the scene for Baxter's sequel, Ark, in which it is resolved. |
The War Within: A Secret White House History | Bob Woodward | 2,008 | The book states that President Bush "rarely leveled with the public to explain what he was doing and what should be expected... The president was rarely the voice of realism on the Iraq war." It also calls him "the nation’s most divisive figure" and described his foreign policy as a failure, saying "He had not rooted out terror wherever it existed... He had not achieved world peace. He had not attained victory in his two wars." At the same time, the book largely supports the 'surge' strategy and lauds the President for adopting it. The book describes Bush as largely leaving the management of the war to Generals George Casey and John Abizaid and deferring to their judgment based on Bush's perception of Lyndon Johnson's micromanagement during the Vietnam War. As the generals' strategy of drawing down U.S. forces and transferring control to the Iraqis begins to fail, the book argues, Bush grows more disillusioned and sought other ideas. The book alleges that, nevertheless, the President delayed serious investigation because of his fear that leaked reports would hurt the Republican Party's chances in the 2006 congressional elections. It states that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to consider resigning unless the Republicans lost control of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. After the Democratic Party's takeover of Congress, Bush allegedly delegated the responsibility for finding a new strategy almost solely to National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and deputy National Security Adviser Meghan L. O’Sullivan. Against the advice of the vast majority of his staff and other administration officials, Bush finally decided on the 'surge' strategy devised by retired General Jack Keane and General David H. Petraeus. The book describes deep in fighting within the administration. |
In the Days of the Comet | H. G. Wells | 1,906 | An unnamed narrator – by implication H. G. Wells himself – is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man who is none other than the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative that is the novel per se: now 72 years of age, he is writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change." This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World. Book I, which is remarkable for its close description of early 20th-century working-class living conditions in the English Midlands, recounts how William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton," quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. His emotional life is dominated by his love for Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", who lives 17 miles away in a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to the cause of socialism by his older, scientifically inclined friend, Parload, Leadford is a headstrong youth who blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified, but evidently takes place in the near future. (At the end of Book I war has broken out between Great Britain and Germany, so the book has a certain prophetic character.) When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family he buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and then himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms ever larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Leadford finds Nettie and Verrall in a little seaside bungalow village called Bone Cliff, near Shaphambury, as a naval battle is taking place off the coast. Just as he is about to execute his murderous plan the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere, causing a green fog to envelop the planet that puts all animal life (except in the sea) to sleep for three hours. Book II opens with Leadford's awakening. He feels a great clarity of mind and experiences a total alteration in his relation to himself, to society, and to the world. No longer is he dominated by passion; he is acutely aware of the beauty in the world and his attitude toward others is one of generous fellow-feeling. The same effects occur in everyone around the world; they immediately concur in the necessity to "begin afresh" and remake human society. By chance, Leadford falls in with a Cabinet minister and briefly becomes his secretary, enabling him to observe how leaders, too, come to their senses and resolve to transform society by eliminating private ownership of land, etc. Book III begins with an intense discussion by Verrall, Leadford, and Nettie, about their future. Although Nettie wants to establish a ménage à trois, Leadford and Verrall reject the idea, and Leadford returns to devote himself to his mother, now in declining health. She dies toward the end of the Year of the Scaffolding (as the first year after the comet is called). Leadford marries Anna, who has been helping care for his mother, and they have a son, but soon thereafter Nettie contacts Leadford. They still love each other, but the felt necessity of sexual exclusivity has become a thing of the past. In the epilogue, the author expresses distate for this development, and the 72-year-old Leadford tells him that he and Nettie became lovers, and that he, Nettie, Verrall, and Anna were from then on "very close, you understand, we were friends, helpers, personal lovers in a world of lovers." The author is troubled "by my uneasy sense of profound moral differences." |
The Gift of Rain | Tan Twan Eng | 2,007 | It is set in Penang in the years leading up to and during the Japanese occupation of Malaya in World War II. It concerns Philip Hutton, of mixed Chinese-English heritage, and his relationship with Endo-San, a Japanese diplomat who teaches him aikido. As war looms and the Japanese invade, both Endo-San and Philip find themselves torn between their loyalty to each other and to their country and family respectively. Philip decides to assist the Japanese and Endo-San in administering the country in an attempt to keep his family safe, but wherever possible passes intelligence to the guerilla fighters of Force 136, which include his best friend Kon. |
Three to See the King | Magnus Mills | 2,001 | The nameless narrator lives in an isolated tin house situated on a windswept sandy plain, miles from his nearest neighbours whom he meets infrequently. He is quite happy in his lonely self sufficiency until unexpectedly a woman comes to live with him. Unsettled at first, the narrator gradually gets used to the companionship. Then news comes of a new community being established on the edge of the plain by a charismatic, yet enigmatic figure who is digging a canyon and gaining more and more followers to his revolutionary cause. One by one, his neighbours join the canyon project, moving their tin houses to the new community as the narrator feels under increasing pressure to join them... |
Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America | Thomas L. Friedman | 2,008 | In the book, Friedman addresses America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11 and the global environmental crisis. He advocates that global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the expansion of the global middle class is leading to a convergence of hot, flat, and crowded. The solution to the environmental threat and the best way for America to renew its purpose is linked: take the lead in a worldwide effort to replace wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation. This means that the big economic opportunities have shifted from IT (Information Technology) in recent decades to ET (renewable Environmental Technologies). Friedman frequently uses 2050 as a marker for when it will be too late for our world to reverse the harmful effects of climate change. Friedman writes that the needed green revolution of the title would be more ambitious than any project so far undertaken: It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; and it will change everything from transportation to the utilities industry. This project is described in terms of nation-building. The book alleges we've gone from the "Cold War Era" to the "Energy-Climate Era", marked by five major problems: growing demand for scarcer supplies, massive transfer of wealth to petrodictators, disruptive climate change, poor have-nots falling behind, and an accelerating loss of biodiversity. A green strategy is not simply about generating electric power, it is a new way of generating national power. Many of the primary points of the book were built out of his New York Times Magazine essay "The Power of Green" and the "Foreign Policy" article "The First Law of Petropolitics" |
Falcons of Narabedla | Marion Zimmer Bradley | null | The novel concerns a person who is transported into the future and an alien world where Terrans and Darkovans have meshed and become decadent. |
White Dog | Peter Temple | 2,003 | A Melbourne property developer is murdered and his artist ex-girlfriend is the prime suspect. Jack Irish, a lone private investigator, comes in to investigate. |
The Serpent Bride | Sara Douglass | 2,007 | The novel begins with the tale of Kanubai, the first entity who invited Light and Water to be his companions. They co-existed peacefully for a while, until Light and Water merged creating Life. Kanubai was jealous of Life because he was not part of the union and tried to consume Life with chaos and darkness. Light and Water fought against Kanubai and sent him to the abyss. The story shifts to Ishbel Brunelle, an eight year old girl whose family was killed by the plague. She is driven to despair because the villagers outside will not let her leave her home. Eventually Ishbel tries to kill herself, but finds she cannot die from the plague. After some time, she is rescued by a man named Aziel, who turns out to be the arch-priest of the Coil, a group of people who worship a deity known only as the Great Serpent. Twenty years in the future and Ishbel is introduced as the arch-priestess of the Coil, and has a revelation; if she is to save the Outlands and Serpents Nest from destruction, she must marry the King of Escator, Maximillian Persimius. |
A Different Flesh | Harry Turtledove | null | 1610: At Jamestown colony, Edward Wingfield must rescue his infant daughter from the tribe of wild sims who kidnapped her. 1661: The story is made up of a series of entries in Samuel Pepys's diary. Pepys owns several sims and contemplates the origin of the species. By watching these sims, as well as observing various other animals found in North America, Pepys develops the theory of evolution. Only one of the diary's entries in the story has a corresponding entry in the real diary Pepys kept. 1691: Thomas Kenton, a scout from Virginia and descendant of Edward Wingfield, and his sim companion, Charles, explore the interior of North America. Kenton is after the teeth of the spearfang cats that populate the area. He is captured by a group of wild sims, and must hope that Charles will rescue him. 1782: Steam-driven trains first appear, and a race is held with one of the hairy elephant-pulled trains they threaten to replace. 1804: A house-slave named Jeremiah goes on trial for running away, and his attorney presents the argument that with sims, there is no reason for human beings to enslave other human beings. They are successful and the court's decision leads to the emancipation of all human slaves. 1812: Henry Quick, a trapper in the Rockies, is wounded by a bear and is nursed back to health by sims. While there, he ends up impregnating one of the sims, resulting in a Sim-Human hybrid. 1988: A group of sim's rights activists, including a female descendant of Henry Quick, protesting experimentation on sims "rescue" Matt, a sim infected with HIV, from a medical lab but fail to take enough HIV inhibitor, which is medicine that suppresses the effects of HIV/AIDS. Eventually, this forces the activists to return Matt to the researchers. |
The children of Niobe | Tasos Athanasiadis | null | In the twelve chapters of the first book, the life just before the Greek occupation in Anatolia is being described. In the twelve chapters of the second book, the life up to the destraction of İzmiris being. In the eight chapters of the third book (1st to 8th) and in the seven chapetrs of the fourth book (9th to 15th) of the novel,the displacement in Greece is being described. |
Death by Sheer Torture | null | null | Police detective Perry Trethowan suffers a terminal embarrassment when his estranged, aristocratic father is found dead atop a Strappado-style torture device of his own design. Even more humiliating is the revelation that he was wearing spangled tights at the time, exacerbating Perry's fear that he'll be mocked about this case for the rest of his life. However, any hopes he may have had of fading quietly into the background are halted when his superior's force him to lead the investigation, and so he soon finds himself in search of a killer amongst the eccentric relatives he thought he'd left behind years ago… |
Who Would Have Thought It? | null | 1,872 | The novel, written in chronological order, is divided into sixty chapters. The first ten occur during the attack on Fort Sumter (1857–1861), and flashbacks explain the acquisition of wealth of a New England family. The last fifty chapters occur during the Civil War (1861–1864). The novel opens with Dr. Norval's return to New England from a geological expedition in the Southwest, accompanied by a ten-year-old girl, Lola, and trunks of supposed geological specimens. He was appointed her guardian when he and his companions, Mr. Lebrun and Mr. Sinclair, rescued her from Indian captivity. Because her skin was dyed black by her captors, her arrival generates commotion among the abolitionist women in the household, especially Mrs. Norval. She is disgusted at the idea of Dr. Norval contaminating the racial purity of their home, despite his insistence that Lola is of pure Spanish descent and the dye will fade. Mrs. Norval demands that Lola work in order to pay for expenses; Dr. Norval objects and explains to her, through a flashback, how he encountered Lola's mother, Doña Theresa Medina. She had given him gold and precious gems she acquired as a captive of the Apache to finance Lola's care. Doña Theresa Medina asked him to rescue Lola so that she would be brought up Catholic. The Puritan Yankee Mrs. Norval is angered when she hears this but quickly reconciles her emotions when he shows her the trunks filled with Lola's fortune. During the Civil War, the novel narrates the rise and fall of Mrs. Norval which revolves around Lola's wealth. Her husband's absence from New England during the Civil War gives Mrs. Norval unguarded access to Lola's wealth. She plots with the hypocritical minister Mr. Hackwell to exploit Lola's fortune and in the process falls into an affair with him. When news arrives that Dr. Norval has been presumed dead, Mr. Hackwell sees this as an opportunity to enter into a clandestine marriage with Mrs. Norval. He is determined to keep the marriage a secret because he suspects that Dr. Norval might still be alive. Dr. Norval is absented from the novel through his self exile in order to avoid political persecution. After learning that he has been presumed dead, Dr. Norval returns to New England. When Mrs. Norval hears this, she shrieks and says "Who would have thought it?" before succumbing into brain fever. |
Shanghai Girls | Lisa See | 2,009 | Shanghai Girls is divided into three parts: Fate, Fortune, and Destiny. It centers on the complex relationship between two sisters, Pearl and May, as they go through great pain and suffering in leaving war-torn Shanghai and try to adjust to the difficult roles of wives in arranged marriages and of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. Here See treats Chinese immigration from a personal view through Pearl's narration. In On Gold Mountain she objectively placed 100 years of her Chinese family history in the context of the daunting challenges Chinese immigrants faced in coming to American in search of Gold Mountain. America's mistreatment of Chinese immigrants is stressed in both memoir and novel. The sisters' story is interrelated with critical historical events, famous people, and important places—the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Shanghai, internment at Angel Island, Los Angeles Chinatown, Hollywood, World War II, the Chinese Exclusion Act, McCarthyism, etc. Historically significant people appearing in the novel include Madame Chiang Kai-shek, actress Anna May Wong, film personality Tom Gubbins, and Christine Sterling, the "Mother of Olvera Street." Snow Flower and the Secret Fan explores the complex relationship between two intimate friends. In Shanghai Girls See treats the loving yet conflicted relationship between two best friends who also happen to be sisters, especially in the context of their relationship to Pearl's daughter Joy. In speaking of Shanghai Girls, See has commented: "Your sister is the one person who should stick by you and love you no matter what, but she’s also the one person who knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt you the most." That being said, in Shanghai Girls it is the love of Pearl and May for each other that survives. *Pearl Chin The protagonist in the story. Her Zodiac sign is the Dragon. The elder of two sisters, she always thought that she was less loved by their parents. She is in love with Z.G. Li, a painter/photographer who takes pictures of and paints Pearl and May. She later marries Sam Louie to help pay off her father's debt to the Louies. She and Sam raise Joy, May's child as their own daughter. Later on she becomes pregnant with Sam's baby. She carries the baby to term, but the child is a stillborn boy. *May Chin Younger sister of Pearl. Her Zodiac sign is the Sheep. Flirtatious and haughty, she is jealous of her sister who went to college and who she thought was favored by their parents. She has a secret romantic relationship with Z.G. Li. Later it is discovered that she became pregnant by him, resulting in a daughter, Joy. May gives Joy to Pearl to raise as her own daughter because on the night of her wedding to Vern, Sam's brother, she could not bring herself to sleep with him. Father Louie (Vern and Sam's father) suspects she may be pregnant by someone else, so both she and Pearl pretend that Pearl was the one pregnant all along. |
The Fugitive from Corinth | Caroline Lawrence | 2,005 | Flavia and her friends have been travelling the Greek islands with other passengers aboard Lupus's ship, the Delphina, captained by Flavia's father. They have rescued kidnapped children in The Colossus of Rhodes and now they relax for a while in her tutor Aristo's home city of Corinth. But on the night before their departure, Aristo stabs Flavia's father in bed; feverish and suffering from amnesia, he falls into a deep coma. Helen witnessed Aristo's murder but has run off. Believing him guilty, Flavia, along with her friends and the sailor Atticus, sets off to catch him. They save a young beggar boy, Nikos, and he provides information and, when everyone they ask describes Aristo in two different ways, he says that Aristo's brother Dion could be trying to catch him too. They find out that Nikos is actually a girl who lives beside Aristo's house in Corinth. She loves Dion. After asking a Pythia's advice about how to catch Aristo, which Flavia believes to be useless, Lupus sneaks into the temple to ask which temple his mother is in but is surprised to find out that the Pythia is his mother. He decides to leave her to help his friends. Nubia finds Aristo, and she believes his innocence. They arrive in Athens and chase up the Acropolis in which they lose him. They meet a beggar boy called Socrates and Flavia discovers Nubia is trying to stop them from catching Aristo. Jonathan storms off, Atticus is nowhere to be seen, and the 'two Aristos' (Dion and Aristo) descend into the Cave of The Kindly Ones (Furies). Nubia and Flavia follow, and Flavia locks them in. As they are dying they forgive each other, then Jonathan, Lupus and a priest let them out. Flavia eventually forgives Dion and they go back to Corinth to find that her father is still in a coma. Flavia has already asked the Pythia how to wake him up but she does not understand and ends up crying over his body. He wakes up, cured of his amnesia, and they realise that the Pythia's prophecy had come true. |
Conan the Guardian | Roland J. Green | 1,991 | Conan the Guardian describes the employment of Conan and his band of mercenaries at the household of Lady Livia in Argos. |
Princess of Gossip | null | 2,008 | Princess of Gossip tells the story of Avery Johnson, a fourteen year old high school freshman who just moved from Ohio to Southern California. While on MySpace, she is mistaken as a rising pop star's assistant. She scores an invite to a Hollywood Party and snaps a photo of a young starlet and her secret new beau. Finding this information too juicy to keep to herself, she starts a blog, the Princess of Gossip, and posts the story. Overnight, she becomes the newest go-to girl for gossip. Designers are sending her priceless dresses, and she's getting the inside scoop on all things celebrity. When Avery shows up at school in her exclusive fashion swag, even Cecilia, the most popular girl in their class, takes notice. She begins to get jelous. Then celebutante playboy Beckett Howard sees Avery wearing one of his father's designs and asks her out. The Princess of Gossip's true identity is still a secret, but when the paparazzi catch Avery and Beckett on a date, Cecilia gets even more jealous. There's only room for only one it girl at school. Can the Princess of Gossip hold onto her crown? |
The Crisis | Winston Churchill | null | Set in the author's home town of St. Louis, Missouri, the site of pivotal events in the western theater of the Civil War, with historically prominent citizens having both Northern and Southern sympathies. St. Louis was also the pre-war home of both Ulysses Grant and William T. Sherman, each of whom is depicted in the book. Romantic tension develops between the four main characters: one, Virginia Carvel, the fashionable daughter of Comyn Carvel, a southern gentleman of the old school; another, Clarence Maxwell Colfax, her n'er-do-well cousin who becomes a stalwart cavalier in the Southern cause in an effort to win Ginny's approval; the third, Stephen A. Brice, an earnest young lawyer from Boston who antagonizes Virginia by his zeal for Abraham Lincoln's cause; and the fourth, Eliphalet Hopper, a hard-working clerk with ambitions to advance himself both financially and socially. The crisis of the title is provoked by Abraham Lincoln's opposition to the extension of slavery, and the power of his personal integrity to win people to his cause, including the young lawyer Brice, who becomes a devoted admirer and proponent following a personal interview on the eve of the Freeport debate between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. This meeting depicts Lincoln's determination to advance the cause of freedom through the possible (and likely) sacrifice of his own political ambitions, and is related with a very believable combination of rustic humor and political acumen on Lincoln's part. The events prior to Lincoln’s nomination and his eventual election to the Presidency elicit different reactions among the citizens of St. Louis, from the determined antipathy of the Southern sympathizers, to the equally determined patriotism of the population of German immigrants who have fled from their homeland and whose devotion to liberty has caused them to transfer their allegiance to the ideal of American democracy. One of them is Stephen's fellow lawyer, Karl Richter, who bears the scar of a duel fought with broadswords between himself and an arrogant German noble; a duel based on an actual incident in Berlin. Although the personal rivalries follow an almost soap opera style formula, the overall events of the war from the perspective of St. Louis and the Western theater of war are dramatically depicted with well-researched authenticity, and both Grant and Sherman are depicted as having a personal involvement in the lives of the main characters. A pivotal moment in the heroine's life is presented through her transformation from being self-centered and self-absorbed to becoming self-sacrificing and dedicated to easing the suffering of those around her. This is represented as a Christian metaphor for the way that God uses challenges to mould a person's character. In the end, Virgina and the young lawyer find themselves meeting Lincoln together to try to save her cousin's life after Clarence is condemned as a Southern spy, and together they experience Lincoln's power to bring about a reconciliation between them, just before the national reconciliation which Lincoln proposed between the North and the South would be aborted by John Wilkes Booth's bullet. This novel is a story about Abraham Lincoln in the same sense that the novel Ben Hur is "a tale of the Christ," in that Lincoln only appears twice, for a total of about two dozen pages, but his philosophy is a dynamic presence throughout the story. The author portrays Lincoln as being the sacrifice America had to pay to redeem it from the sin of slavery. In his post-script, the author offers this justification for supporting Lincoln's point of view, "Lincoln loved both the South and the North". |
Ten Green Bottles | null | null | The book is told from the viewpoint of the author's mother and starts in 1921. Gerda Karpel (referred to always as Nini in the book) is a 5-year-old Jewish girl living in Vienna in 1921. She comes from an upper middle-class family. The book starts with the birth of Nini's brother, Willi, and chronicles the death of Nini's father shortly after the birth. The book then discusses day to day life from the viewpoint of a Jewish girl growing up in Vienna. It talks about the political instability caused after the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss and the suppression of democracy after it. The Anschluss occurs, and Nini desperately tries to secure tickets to Shanghai. She receives help from Herr Berger, a Gentile Vienna lawyer, and obtains tickets for her family and for her friend's parents. The book then mentions the infamous Kristallnacht and the lead up to their departure. In Chapter 19, the Karpel family arrives in Shanghai. They struggle to survive through the poverty and violence that greets them on arrival and to the moving of most Jews into a ghetto in the Hongkou District. During that time, they purchase ownership in a bar owned by Marco, a Bulgarian Jew; this is where Nini heard the song "Ten Green Bottles". The book ends with the family leaving Shanghai for Richmond Hill, Canada. |
The Indian Emperour | John Dryden | null | In his play, Dryden presents the type of conflict between love and honor that is typical of his serious drama. Montezuma refuses a chance to save his kingdom from conquest, for personal reasons:But of my crown thou too much care dost take; That which I value more, my love's at stake. Cortez takes the opposite course, turning his back on his love for Cydaria to obey the orders of his king, even though he acknowledges that those orders are flawed. Montezuma gets the worst of their conflict; tortured by the Spaniards, he ends the play with his suicide. Dryden wanted to portray Cortez as high-minded and magnanimous; but he also wanted to show the Spaniards as cruel and oppressive. He managed this by the wildly ahistorical recourse of bringing Francisco Pizarro into the play as a subordinate of Cortez, and making Pizarro the villain. Modern critics have studied the play from feminist and anti-colonialist viewpoints. The Indian Emperor by John Dryden |
The Cyborg from Earth | Charles Sheffield | 1,998 | "Jefferson Kopal is a coward. He knows it, and if he doesn't do something about it soon, so will everyone else." This is the self evaluation of the primary protagonist of the novel. Jeff is about to take his final test before a Navy Review Board to see if he is fit for duty as an officer in the Space Navy. After failing the test most valiantly, Jeff is assigned to the Navy's Border Command, a seemingly exile from the solar system and prestigious Central Command, where all the great Kopals have served. Jeff is assigned to a ship that will take him into the Messina Dust Cloud, or Cyborg Territory, as it is called by the residents of the Solar System. After a confrontation with his Cousin, Jeff leaves Kopal Manor and heads into space. Adjustment to Naval life is at first hard on Jeff until he meets the two "'jinners" or engineers. He is at once at ease with them and is able to show his true interest, engineering. Unfortunately, Captain Dufferin, the Commanding Officer, feels that the Kopals are a plague on the Space Navy and intends to make Jeff suffer for his last name. Jeff is sent to the forward observation bubble prior to the jump to The Messina Dust Cloud. While contemplating his current situation, Jeff notices the formation of a "space sounder", a terrifying anomaly that has been know to destroy whole star ships coming directly for the ship. Jeff warns the Bridge and blacks out as the ship takes evasive action to avoid certain death. When Jeff awakes, he finds that he has been abandoned by Captain Dufferin and the majority of the crew. Mercy Hooglich, one of the 'jinners Jeff had befriended, explains how the captain and other officers had taken the runabout back to the Solar System, and are going to charge Jeff with dereliction of duty. Jeff also learns that his injuries were so extensive that to be saved, the medical technology of the Cloud, namely, nanotechnology, had to be used. The remainder of the story revolves around the "rebellion" of the Cloud Territory as well as Jeff fighting to restore his name and place in the family business. In the end, Jeff finds that he is not a coward and everyone else know that as well. |
Sunnyside | Glen David Gold | 2,009 | The novel is about Charlie Chaplin and the rise of Hollywood and celebrity during 1918. |
Romanno Bridge | Andrew Greig | 2,008 | The book is a sequel to Greig's second novel, The Return of John MacNab. It reunites the main characters from the previous book, and teams them with a half-Maori rugby player and a busker from Oslo, in a quest for the Stone of Scone. The action takes place mainly in Scotland, but it also includes sections set in Norway and England. Like The Return of John MacNab, this novel is something of a homage to the stories of John Buchan, although the connection is not made explicit this time around. |
Thunderspire Labyrinth | null | null | Thunderspire Labyrinth can be run as either a loose sequel to Keep on the Shadowfell or as a standalone module. Players find themselves journeying to Thunderspire, a mountain beneath which lies the abandoned subterranean minotaur city of Saruun Khel. The module suggests many goals for players in Saruun Khel, the largest of which is to investigate a slave ring run by a group called the Bloodreavers and rescue a group of civilians recently enslaved by this organisation. (This may be as a result of events in Keep on the Shadowfell or through other, unconnected, plot hooks.) The players then proceed through a number of mini-dungeons; the Bloodreavers turn out to have sold the slaves to the duergar tribe known as Clan Grimmerzhul, who have then onsold a smaller subset of the slaves to a band of fiend-tainted gnolls. Finding and overcoming the gnolls reveals a sinister plan about to be enacted by a renegade wizard named Paldemar, who has designs on conquest of the Nentir Vale in which Thunderspire is located. Ultimately players confront and defeat Paldemar, which concludes the module. |
The Door Through Space | Marion Zimmer Bradley | null | The novel concerns an intelligence agent and a blood feud in the Dry Towns in the north of a world called Wolf. |
The Acorn People | null | 1,976 | Jones looks forward to his summer at Camp Wiggin, where he will work as a camp counselor. Although he knows the children who attend Camp Wiggin are disabled, he assumes he will still be able to have fun enjoying the outdoors, hiking, swimming and boating at the camp. When he arrives and meets the children, however, he is at first appalled at how severely disabled they are. One of the children is known as "Spider." This is because he has no arms, or legs. Arid is another camper because he can not control his bladder. Then Jones meets his children—a group called "The Acorn People." They have given themselves this name because of the acorn necklaces they make at camp. Over time, they teach their counselor that despite their disabilities, they are just like everyone else on the inside and that they are capable of accomplishing much more than he previously understood. Jones comes to care for and love these children as much as the full-time staff at Camp Wiggin. |
Infinity Beach | null | null | We are alone. That is the verdict, after centuries of SETI searches and space exploration. The only living things in the Universe are found on the Nine Worlds settled by Earthlings, and the starships that knit them together. No life has been found. No intelligent aliens, no strange ecologies, no awesome civilizations. Not even an amoeba, a lichen, a germ. The Universe is as sterile as a laboratory that was used only once. Or so it seems, until Dr. Kimberly Brandywine undertakes to find out what happened to her sister (and clone) Emily, who, after the final, unsuccessful manned SETI expedition, disappeared along with four others--one of them a famous war hero. But they were not the only ones to vanish: so did an entire village, destroyed by a still-unexplained explosion. Following a few ominous clues (including a model of a starship that never existed) Kim discovers that the log of the ill-fated Hunter was faked. Something happened, out there in the darkness between the stars. Someone was murdered--and something was brought back. Something that still leaves ghostly traces in the night. Kim is prepared to go to any length to find out the truth, even if it means giving up her career with Beacon, the most colossal--and controversial--of all the SETI projects. Even if it means stealing a starship. Even if it means giving up her only love. Kim is about to discover the answer to life's oldest question. And she's going to like the answer even less than she imagines. With his trademark ingenuity, scientific audacity, and narrative energy, Jack McDevitt has penned a mystery in which humankind is the detective--and the universe itself is the corpse. Infinity Beach takes usinto the strange, yet strangely familiar, civilization of our own far future--and into the heart of a bold woman whose search for her family's secret leads her to the greatest discovery of all time. |
Resistance | Owen Sheers | 2,007 | The novel features the German invasion of a small Welsh village near Abergavenny who have been instructed to locate and obtain an item for Himmler's collection. The novel begins detailing Sarah's awakening to find her husband gone, with only the indent of his body in their mattress remaining. |
Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains | Laurel Snyder | 2,008 | Lucy lives in the land of Bewilderness, in a village called Thistle. She helps her family with the dairy farm and likes exploring the countryside with her best friend Wynston. Lucy makes up songs that fit with the situation which gives her courage and raises her spirits. She learned how to make up songs from her mother. Her mother vanished when she was two years old. Lucy and her sister never say anything about their mother, because their father gets sad. When Wynston turns twelve, his father thinks that he should practice being a prince which includes finding a princess. Wynston doesn't understand why he has to follow his father's rules; same with Lucy. When Wynston doesn't come to one of their berry-picking parties, she is sad and decides to go on an adventure. She is going to climb the Scratchy Mountains so that she can find her mother. |
Shadow of a Dark Queen | Raymond E. Feist | 1,994 | The prologue introduces the Saaur, warm-blooded humanoid reptiles, whose world is being overrun by demons from the Fifth Circle of Hell. The survivors allied themselves reluctantly with their cold-blooded cousins, the Pantathians, to escape to Midkemia in exchange for a generation of service. The novel starts by introducing best friends Erik Von Darkmoor, an apprentice blacksmith and bastard son of the local baron, and Roo Avery, a local trouble maker. Erik's half-brother Stefan Von Darkmoor, heir to his father's title, who resents Erik's claim to the Darkmoor name, rapes Erik's close friend Rosalyn in an attempt to force Erik into a fight. Erik and Roo find Stefan, and in a rage, Erik holds Stefan down while Roo delivers the killing blow, but Erik is injured during the fight. Now wanted for Stefan's murder, the two realize they must flee, and set out for Krondor. On the way, the boys narrowly escape detection when they happen upon the tent of a strange woman named Gert who aids them. They wake the next morning to find Gert gone and a mysterious woman named Miranda in her place, who helps and heals Erik. Further on their journey, they come to the aid of a man who is being ambushed by some brigands. The man, a merchant named Helmut Grindle, guides them the rest of the way to Krondor. On their journey, Roo befriends the man, questioning him on all matters commerce with the goal of starting a business of his own. When they arrive in Krondor there is a long line on the road into the city, due to the search for the two murderers as well as the rush to reach the city to attend the funeral of Prince Arutha. They hide in a nearby farm and then in a tavern where they are first kidnapped by local slavers, then caught by constables, and sentenced to hang. Their hanging is faked, though, along with several other condemned men, and the group is taken to a man named Robert de Loungville, where they are informed that their sentence has not been commuted, only delayed, and that they can only hope to gain freedom in exchange for service to the crown on an extremely dangerous mission. They are taken to a training camp where they are quickly trained as soldiers. There, they meet their mysterious captain for the first time, the half-elven Calis, as well as encountering Miranda again. They sail across the Endless Sea aboard the Trenchard's Revenge and the Freeport Ranger, to the continent of Novindus, where they must pose as a mercenary group known as "Calis' Crimson Eagles" and attempt to join the army of the Emerald Queen. Their mission is to gather information and assess the Queen's motives. Her army is slowly conquering the entire continent in a bloody campaign, city by city. Meanwhile, Miranda seeks the aid of Pug in the coming conflict, forming a close bond with the great magician. After meeting up with their allies among the natives, Calis and his band successfully infiltrate the army. They discover the Emerald Queen's plans to become a host for a Valheru spirit trapped within several ancient artifacts, then lead her army across the sea to invade the Kingdom of the Isles. When their ruse is discovered, the Crimson Eagles are pursued by the 9-foot-tall Saaur cavalry, only to flee into the secret lair of the Pantathian priests. At great cost, Calis finds his way to the inner chambers and manages to destroy the artifacts. The diminished crew manage to escape to a nearby city under siege by the Emerald Queen. They manage to destroy the shipyards, key to the Queen's plot, and while the invasion is not prevented completely, it is delayed significantly. The surviving members of the group are picked up by Prince Nicholas aboard the Freeport Ranger, and return to Krondor as free men. |
Equal Affections | David Leavitt | 1,989 | Louise, an aging woman, is coming down with cancer. Her husband Nat is having an affair with another woman. Meanwhile, Walter, partner of Louise and Nat's son Danny, has cyber sex and phone sex with other men. April, Danny's sister, visits her brother in suburban New Jersey. With their mother's death looming, they all fly to California where their parents live. To avoid a funeral, Nat throws a lukewarm farewell party. April ends up fighting with her father over his cheating on her mother. Two months later, Nat is publicly seeing his mistress. Danny and Walter invite April and Nat to stay with them at a rented cottage on Long Island. The final part is an prolepsis to Louise's conversion at Catholicism although she is a Jew. |
I'll Take You There | Joyce Carol Oates | 2,002 | A smart student, Anellia, joins a sorority in Syracuse, New York. Soon enough, she crumbles under the exorbitant debt she runs up. Finally, she pretends she indulges in irrational behavior to get out of the sorority and move into affordable accommodation elsewhere on campus. She falls for a black student who audits her philosophy lectures. After she stalks him for a while, they sleep together. Eventually, she learns that he is married and has left his wife and children. She drives to Crescent, Utah to meet her dying father. After his death, he bequeaths his money to her, but she decides to give it to his mistress. She buries him to Strykersville, New York, as he requested. |
Mirror Mirror: a history of the human love affair with reflection | null | null | Pendergrast attempts to cover the history of mirrors and other reflective, refractive or transparent materials and objects. He begins in antiquity, citing references as old as 6200 to 4500 BCE. He continues the thread to today, including space investigations, X-rays and kaleidoscopes. |
The Kiss of Death | Marcus Sedgwick | 2,008 | Death comes in many forms, but in Venice death comes by water... It's the perfect place to hoard secrets. Here the Shadow Queen has her lair, and here she'll gather her forces for a final battle. Marko and Sorrel are unwitting players in her Last Act as they search for his father, and try to stop the madness claiming hers. In the dark alleyways, on silvery waterways slivers the light lance of the lagoon mist. |
And Another Thing... | Eoin Colfer | 2,009 | And Another Thing... starts where Mostly Harmless ends, with Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, and Arthur and Trillian's daughter Random standing inside Club Beta, while the Earth is about to be destroyed by the Vogons. They are then rescued by Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Heart of Gold. Aboard the ship, they learn that Eddie the computer has been replaced by Zaphod's now detached second head, Left Brain. During a debate, Ford accidentally freezes Left Brain and it seems they are doomed, until an immortal named Wowbagger brings them to safety. Angered by Wowbagger's insults, Zaphod promises to get Wowbagger killed, an idea to which Wowbagger, tired of immortality, has no objection; and so the group sets off in search of Thor, to see if he can kill Wowbagger. Meanwhile, Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz, assigned to destroy all humans, hears rumours of a colony of Earthmen, and he sets off to destroy them, while Arthur attempts to get Wowbagger to stop the Vogons. On the Earth colony Nano, the excessively stereotypical Irish leader, Hillman Hunter, is seeking applicants to be the planet's god, who would keep Hillman in charge due to divine providence. Meanwhile, Prostetnic Jeltz's son, Constant Mown, is having rather "un-Vogonly" thoughts, including an enjoyment of poetry and sympathy for humans. Wowbagger and Random start arguing, and Wowbagger drugs and imprisons Random. Afterwards, Trillian and Wowbagger fight, but they share a kiss at the end of the argument. Random is less than impressed with her mother's and Wowbagger's actions, and complains about it to Ford. During this conversation, Random steals Ford's company credit card. Back on Asgard, Zaphod has managed to gain access to Valhalla and finds his old acquaintance Thor. After some negotiations, Thor agrees to help Zaphod by becoming Nano's god and killing Wowbagger. Things on Nano are not going as planned, and Hillman is struggling to find his god and keep order among his own populace, as well as trying to control the Magratheans who built the planet. Hillman recalls creating a cult for the rich, which preached of a coming apocalypse, only for the Grebulons to create such an apocalypse. Having received an offer from the otherworldly Zaphod, Hillman and his followers relocated to their "haven", the planet Nano. However, many of the staff abandoned their rich employers and several rival religious groups also settled on the planet, the most prominent of these being the cheese-worshiping Tyromancers, led by Aseed. The Tyromancers and the Nanites enter into a war, and during one of the war's battles, the Heart of Gold and Thor suddenly arrive. Wowbagger's ship lands on Nano and is met by the Tyromancers. Zaphod negotiates for Thor to be Nano's god and reveals that Aseed and Hillman are actually the same being from parallel universes, both of whom made deals with Zaphod. It is revealed that this is what brought him to Earth, saving Arthur and the rest. With Wowbagger representing the Tyromancers for show and Thor representing the Nanites, the two meet in battle. The battle begins, but Thor is unable to win because Wowbagger does not die, even when hit with the hammer Mjöllnir. A package for Random arrives through interstellar freight, containing the rubber bands involved in Wowbagger's becoming immortal, which Random believes may be able to hurt him. Using Mjöllnir, enhanced with the rubber bands, Thor sends Wowbagger into the air; when he lands, he is clearly mortal. Arthur persuades Thor to let Wowbagger live. For show, Wowbagger denounces the Cheese he was supposed to be fighting for, thus returning stability to Nano with Thor as the one god. Trillian and Wowbagger fly off in his ship to enjoy the time they both have left. The Vogons approach with the intent of destroying Nano. Thor is able to deflect the Vogon missiles, but is seemingly killed by an experimental weapon called QUEST. Constant Mown disables the Vogon gunner, and uses the argument that their orders are to kill Earthlings and not Nanites (legally two distinct groups, with the latter being taxpaying citizens). Prostetnic Jeltz agrees to his argument, and is proud of his son's ability to follow law and bureaucracy. Zaphod and Hillman tell the people that Thor is Nano's martyr and that all commands he will issue shall henceforth come from Hillman, only for Hillman to be sliced in two by a piece of bomb debris. Luckily, Hillman's death is short, as the Heart of Gold medical bay restores him to full health, with only one minor change – he now has hooves rather than feet. Even though he now has control over the populace, he grows displeased upon finding himself swamped with civic paperwork. Zaphod sets off with Left Brain to work on his re-election campaign, and Ford has decided to stay behind and sample the best Nano has to offer, so he can write material for the Guide. Up in space, a very much alive Thor is pleased to learn of his rise back to fame, and the success of his "martyrdom" trick. Arthur finds the beach from his construct, and it becomes his new home. To his displeasure, he finds that Vogons are going to destroy it. |
The Crossing of Ingo | Helen Dunmore | 2,008 | Sapphire and Conor have been called to make the dangerous Crossing of Ingo, a journey to the bottom of the world, and it has been prophesied that if they complete it then Ingo and Air will start to heal. They have their Mer friends, Faro and Elvira, to help them, but their old enemy, Ervys, is determined to make sure they don't succeed. They have many adventures going around the world and Sapphire finds new abilities. ------------------ Sapphire, Conor and their Mer friends Faro and Elvira are ready to make the Crossing of Ingo- the most dangerous journey young Mer have to face. No human has ever been chosen to made the Crossing, and the future of Air and Ingo depends on their success. But Ervys, his followers and new recruits, the sharks are determined that Sapphire and Conor must be stopped - dead or alive.... The book starts out with Faro seeing Saldowr and Ervys blow the conch and start the Call. Then the book goes to Sapphire's house. Her mum and her boyfriend Roger are in Australia leaving Connor and Sapphire alone. They have moved back to their old house, but Rainbow and her stepbrother visit often. One day Sapphy and Connor hear the Call. They both realize that they must answer it. But then, a few days later, Connor notices seagulls nesting on their house. Later, Connor goes up on the roof and comes down with a fish egg. He wants to feed it to a neighbors cat, but Sapphire wants to throw it back in the ocean. A few days later, Sadie is attacked by the gulls. Connor and Sapphire take her to the vet's office. Then, Granny Carne, who knows the children must answer the Call, takes Sadie to her house. When Saphire and Connor go to their cove, they realize they can't go through. Saphire sees Faro, but she wonders why he is not helping them. After they swim free, Faro tells them that Ervys has made their home into a Porth Cas, making it extremely difficult for them to get through. However, they all go to the assembly chamber to answer the Call. They are all chosen with Elvira. They go outside the Chamber and leave right away. A shark sees them and injures Sapph, but dolphins save the day. The children leave the dolphins and head north instead of south. -Summary Unfinished- |
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