Flora and Edward invite the match seller into their home. The match seller is silent; faced with this silence, Edward destroys himself while Flora gains strength, until finally Flora turns Edward out with the tray of matches. The midsummer's day which began with Edward having a 'slight ache' ends in his total disintegration.

THE STORY: Furthering the theme of political consciousness expressed so forcefully and eloquently in his earlier play One for the Road, the author's present play takes place in an anonymous country where individual liberties have been forfeited to the state. Set in a prison where the inmates are forbidden to speak their own language, the play is comprised of four terse, arresting scenes which make masterful use of nuance and subtle understatement (with sudden bursts of violence) to create an overwhelming sense of terror and shocking futility. In one scene uniformed officers taunt and belittle the women who have come to visit their men, who are political prisoners; in another a mother and son are allowed to speak only in the language of the capital, which they do not know; in the third scene a young woman accidentally sees a guard holding a limp, tortured man whom she knows to be her husband; and, in the final scene the old woman reunited with her bloody, trembling son and, though told she may now speak, she has been silenced so long that she cannot, or will not, do so. Quintessentially Pinteresque in its skillful use of pregnant pauses, resonant images and nightmarish utterances, the play is both enthralling theatre and a stirring reminder of what can happen when the power of the state becomes all-encompassing and the rights of the individual are forfeited, whether through neglect or weakness of will.

The basement: two men, (Tim) Law and (Charles) Stott, compete for possession of and dominance over a "basement flat" and their at-times mutual girlfriend, Jane. During the course of the play, they reverse roles with relation to each other, to the ownership or possession of the flat, and to their relationship with or possession of Jane. The changing furnishings of the room reflect their changing roles and who is in power over whom at various points in time. At first Jane appears to be submissive in relation to the men; but as the action develops, at times she appears to dominate each man and both of them. The character relationships between Stott and Law and the basic plot resemble Pinter's prose fiction works "Kullus" and "The Examination".

Win Liberte has it all. He prides himself on never having worked a day in his life. He has everything he wants-fast cars, beautiful women, a racing yacht, a penthouse in Manhattan. Orphaned at eleven, Win inherited an international diamond business that is managed by his uncle. Then Win loses it all when his uncle commits suicide after investing all of Win's money in a scheme that fails. His single remaining asset is a bankrupt diamond mine in Angola, a steaming, war-ravaged country in equatorial Africa. In the blood and muck of central Africa, Win experiences the "Diamond Curse" first hand. Battles over Angola's vast wealth in gems occur daily, and fights for control of the diamond industry have wiped out generations. Thriving on the challenge, Win founds an international diamond business that challenges a powerful cartel's stranglehold on the market. Loved by two women-a movie goddess who sears men's souls and a dedicated UN worker who risks her life in Africa-Win doesn't find anything worth living for until he loses love. From the tunnels of the diamond mine to the stage at the Academy Awards, from the beds of beautiful women to a battle with warlords, Win has to fight to get back everything he ever wanted.

Cesare Cardinali is a young Italian aristocrat with an inborn penchant for violence who owes his lush lifestyle to the favors of a Mafia overlord. He is more than happy to return the favors by silencing four men awaiting trial in a sensational case against organized crime. Special Agent George Baker is the man who has assembled the evidence to put those same four men away for life. When one is knifed under the watchful eye of a policeman outside a New York courtroom, and another is found slumped over a Las Vegas gaming table, Baker enters a cat-and-mouse game to entrap Cardinali before his whole case is destroyed. But for Baker's adversary, it is the sting of the stiletto as it sinks into another human being that keeps Cesare Cardinali killing - not the debt he presumes to owe to the Mafia kingpin. And once he has begun to savor that encompassing rush, nobody - friend, enemy, or mistress - is likely to stop him from knowing it again.

"You have two days to pass your audition. You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?"Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself.When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

For twenty-five years, Rabbi Harold Kushner served as the congregational rabbi of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, speaking each week with understanding and compassion to his congregants. While readers across the world embraced his writing, it is only these congregants in Natick who have heard his spoken words - until now. ECHOES OF SINAI collects over two decades of Rabbi Kushner's most popular sermons, exploring questions as essential as "What Makes Life Worth Living," "To Be an Authentic Human Being," and more. The sermons are as compelling as they are thought-provoking and as personal as they are universal. Together, they affirm Rabbi Kushner's status as one of our great humanists.

Originally published in 1995, and in the same classic investigative style of Whitewash and Case Open , Harold Weisberg turns his sharp investigative eye towards the events surrounding the autopsy of John F. Kennedy. Inside Never Again! you’ll find: • The specific truths regarding the autopsy of John F. Kennedy—truths that have for thirty years been buried, distorted, or ignored not only by the government but also by the national press • The blatant errors and calculated deceit of the Journal of the American Medical Association in their 1992 reports on the Kennedy autopsy • The path of conspiracy leading from the Navy Hospital in Bethesda through the corridors of the FBI to the Justice Department, into the office of the attorney general and eventually that of the president Weisberg argues this case with exclusive regard for the facts. Facts lead to the book’s startling new illuminations. Facts provide a compelling narrative filled with intrigue and laced with outrage. Facts reveal the failure of America’s institutions to deal effectively with perhaps its most profound national tragedy. In the face of overwhelming facts, Harold Weisberg justly warns us that this must never again happen!

Influential assassination researcher Harold Weisberg revolves the third installment in his Whitewash series around the photographic evidence available to government officials investigating the death of John F. Kennedy. Given the materials and photographs available to the Warren Commission, Weisberg shows that in numerous cases the government either ignored the evidence it had in front of it or intentionally misrepresented evidence. Using the photographs themselves to show the inadequacies of the government’s research techniques, as well as the impossible conclusions at which the government arrived, Weisberg’s most damning argument is that the government twisted the evidence to make it fit preconceived theories and explanations for the assassination of the president. In the years since its original publication in 1974, the books in Weisberg’s Whitewash series have become classics of assassination literature and have established the author as one of the premier investigators and researchers in his field. Decades later, the shocking revelations painstakingly detailed in his work have lost none of their impact, and the information uncovered beneath the government’s whitewash is crucial to understanding the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

"The stars are afire with rebellion against the tyranny of Earth. Jan Kulozik, rebel in exile, returns home as a prisoner on a ship bearing a cargo of death. But Kulozik escapes his captors and ignites the flames of revolt across half a world. With the aid of Dvora, a lovely but lethal comrade-at-arms, Jan races toward a rendezvous with destiny, and a reckoning with a treacherous double agent who holds the fate of the human race in his hands."--Page [4] of cover.

Long overdue, the Jupiter probe ship Pericles returns to Earth with a single infected crewman

"A political thriller about South American politics, Nazis and arms dealers set on a cruise ship" -- synopsis from ISFDB