Mystery and adventure for four young detectives in Ancient Roman times.. It seems that Flavia's tutor, Aristo, has committed a terrible crime - attempting to murder Flavia's own father. When Aristo escapes, Flavia and her friends give chase, but they aren't the only ones on Aristo's trail. Who else is after the young tutor? And what made him want to kill?

When Olivia, wild-haired and headstrong, makes a terrible mistake, she must turn to the person least likely to help—her mother, Elaine. Motherhood was a role that Elaine never embraced and her best never amounted to much. But now Olivia faces prosecution for a naïve connection to a drug deal and she needs Elaine more than ever. As the days count down and Olivia's future hangs in the balance, Elaine must decide just how much she is willing to give for a second chance with her daughter. "A powerhouse novel of complex emotions so compelling that when I finished the book, I started over again."—Amy Tan

When Mark Styler, a writer of glossy ‘true crime’ paperbacks, tries to get an interview with Easterman, a notorious serial killer, he has no idea what he’s walking into. First he has to get past Dr Farquhar, the quixotic head of Fairfields – the asylum where Easterman is kept. But soon he discovers that nothing is what it seems. Who is the mysterious Borson? Where did he get the meat in the fridge? And why isn’t the skeleton in the closet? Mindgame is a puzzle-box of a play. A dazzling thriller and a jet black comedy that twists its way towards a shocking conclusion. Reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues.

When American film director Richard Storm first comes to London, he has his own secret mission. Part vacation, part research, he finds renewed purpose working at a curious magazine of weird phenomena, 'Bizarre'. The owner/editor is herself a curiosity and opens up an extraordinary new world - of strange but true hauntings, hunts and spirit worship. When Richard is introduced to beautiful heiress Sophia Endering, he finds himself helplessly in love with her. But she is as dangerous to herself as she is for those who love her - for she has an almost unstoppable death wish. Strange forces are at work and the uncanny twists of fate which brought Richard to London have something much more apocalyptic in store...

When four members of a wealthy household are killed in their suburban Chicago mansion, shock reverberates around the quiet community. The only witness is a small child, and with the obvious culprit soon behind bars, it seems like an open-and-shut case. Enter Cameron Winter. Winter -- a spy turned English professor -- has a unique knack for solving complicated crimes. Despite the lead detective blocking his involvement, Winter discovers this seemingly safe suburban paradise is concealing something dark, something that people want to keep hidden -- and he will do anything to bring the truth to light.

They are two sworn enemies with a single obsession: a woman on the run from them both. Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a professional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel. Julie spent one night with Foy--a night of psychopathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back. There's only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She's begged him not to look for her, fearing he'll bring the killer in his wake. But Weiss can't stay away. Now, from a town called Paradise, through a wilderness that feels like hell, Weiss searches for Julie--and the killer follows, waiting for his chance. They are two expert hunters matching move for move--until it ends on Damnation Street.

"Austin, a struggling screenwriter living in LA, is transported to the medieval city of Galiana, where he is charged with murder. He is suddenly transported back to LA and sets off in search of the only book written about the medieval kingdom. But Austin is not the only one interested in the book - Serge Orosgo, a powerful billionaire and family friend, wants the books so badly that he threatens to kill Austin if he doesn't find it. Realizing Serge and his family are on an evil mission, Austin struggles to stay alive and find the book before it gets into Serge's hands. His search is continually derailed, however, because Austin has no control over his passage between the two worlds and keeps suddenly returning Galiana."--

CONTENTS: I. The Needless Mystery of Court House Government. II. Fights and Rights. III. Facts Are Guesses. IV. Modern Legal Magic. V. Wizards and Lawyers. VI. The "Fight" Theory versus the "Truth" Theory. VII. The Procedural Reformers. VIII. The Jury System. IX. Defenses of the Jury System--Suggested Reforms. X. Are Judges Human? XI. Psychological Approaches. XII. Criticism of Trial-Court Decisions--The Gestalt. XIII. A Trial as a Communicative Process. XIV. "Legal Science" and "Legal Engineering." XV. The Upper-Court Myth. XVI. Legal Education. XVII. Special Training for Trial Judges. XVIII. The Cult of the Robe. XIX. Precedents and Stability. XX. Codification. XXI. Words and Music: Legislation and Judicial Interpretation. XXII. Constitutions--The Merry-Go-Round. XIII. Legal Reasoning. XXIV. Da Capo. XXV. The Anthropological Approach. XXVI. Natural Law. XXVII. The Psychology of Litigants. XXVIII. The Unblindfolding of Justice. XXIX. Classicism and Romanticism. XXX. Justice and Emotions. XXXI. Questioning Some Legal Axioms. XXXII. Reason and Unreason--Ideals.

From the author of the acclaimed novel Living Dead Girl , a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, come twelve haunting stories about people caught somewhere between love and madness. Simplify mines the often surreal terrain of people on the margins of life: from the man with a photo of Elvis bleeding on his wall in "Comeback Special," to the profoundly troubled boy genius of the title story "Simplify," to the family that must traverse "The Distance Between Us" to finally get to the truth about their son the murderer, each story hums with sharp drama, mystery, wonder, and startling humor. Simplify, the first collection of short fiction by Tod Goldberg, portrays a world where redemption, hope, and violence are never too far apart. "A keen voice, profound insight...Tod Goldberg's fine ear for dialogue and for the spoken nuances of social microstrata enable him to dispense with reams of descriptive background and cut straight to the heart of the matter. If sometimes his overwhelmed characters fail to fully engage emotionally, their deadpan delivery of jolting ironies reaches to laugh-out-loud heights of insight. Even the collection's title has a sardonic ring. While hardly simple, "Simplify" is devilishly entertaining." --Los Angeles Times "Tod Goldberg's collection, "Simplify," contradicts its title: Goldberg complicates things, in brilliant and moving ways, in stories that live along the border between the mundane and the surreal." --Chicago Tribune "Simplify by Tod Goldberg is lovely and odd." --New York Journal-News Everybody dies at the end of a Tod Goldberg story. Well, almost. The ones who don’t die — violently, through hangings, shots to the heart, slit wrists, drownings, murders — are left to deal with the emotional and psychological fallout. They are the mothers, fathers, younger brothers and sisters in Goldberg’s creepy, strangely sardonic, definitely disturbing version of Middle America...And that, of course, is where the fun begins." --LA Weekly "Goldberg's work is an eclectic collection of realist and surrealist storytelling...startling and shuddersome." --TimeOut Chicago "It’s rare to find a book that can evoke such strong emotions within a single collection, however, Tod Goldberg’s Simplify is a force to be reckoned with." --Bookslut.com "The stories on the whole are powerful, provocative and a pleasure to read. The title entry, in particular, is a minor masterpiece." --Crime Fiction Dossier "The stories in this collection hum with speed and ferocity and a raw energy that exposes your nerve endings, wakes up places inside of you that you had happily lulled to sleep. The sharp-edged, hard-luck boys that populate these pages know exactly how you feel at two in the morning and are telling the truth about it. Simplify is ruthless and tender, truthful, full of heart and scary in all the right ways." --Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness; Sight Hound "Energized, engaging, highly readable-- each one of Tod Goldberg's stories is a nugget of originality. I started each new story with fresh interest, wondering where he would take me next-- to bleeding Elvis, or the Salton Sea, or through the strange way childhood cruelty rearranges adulthood. A terrific collection." --Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt; Willful Creatures "With Simplify Tod Goldberg places himself in the company of such modern masters of short fiction as Dan Chaon, Rick De Marinis and Thom Jones, demonstrating a broad range of styles and moods that he manages to coalesce into a single and frankly, pretty disturbing whole." --Scott Phillips, author of The Walkaway; The Ice Harvest "Tod Goldberg is an amazing true original who plunges deep into the scary heart of our American life. Hilarious and unnerving, charming and creepy, dusted with a strange, ineffable melancholy, these stories made the hair on my head stand up and my eyes fall out. I recommend Simplify to everyone, everywhere. Read it right now!" --Dan Chaon, aut

"In 1656, a young Amsterdam merchant was excommunicated by his Portuguese-Jewish community in the harshest terms it had ever used. Baruch Spinoza was accused of unspecified "horrifying heresies," but the precise reasons for his expulsion remain a mystery. When he published his Theological-Political Treatise in 1670, which was condemned as "the most atheistic book ever written," he began to reveal to the world what his heresies may have been. Yet ever since the eighteenth century, most readers and scholars have assumed that Spinoza was a pantheist--even a "God-intoxicated man," as the poet Novalis put it. After all, how could a person whose books are suffused with talk of God be an atheist? In Spinoza, Atheist, Steven Nadler, one of the world's leading authorities on the philosopher, aims to settle the question and show that that's exactly what he was. Nadler makes a powerful case that there is no real divinity for Spinoza. God is Nature, and isn't an object of worshipful awe or religious reverence but can only be understood through philosophy and science. There is nothing supernatural--no mystery, ineffability, or sublimity. Spinoza does speak of "blessedness" and "salvation," but these, too, are to be understood in natural and rational terms, as the peace of mind and happiness that come from understanding ourselves and the world. Whether Spinoza believed in God is a fascinating and enduring controversy. Spinoza, Atheist promises to transform our understanding of his views and to make clear just how radical a thinker he was and remains."--

Laurel Wang knows that the ghost of her beloved great-grandfather lives in the oak tree outside her house. But now her grandparents are arriving from China, and the family must move to a bigger place, leaving the protective spirit behind. Twelve-year-old Jonathan and his family are moving into Laurel's house -- and he's not too happy either. He's living with a stepfather he can't stand and a dog he didn't choose; now he has to say goodbye to his old neighborhood and his wonderful Uncle Jake. But moving blues soon give way to angry ghosts, fortune cookies that predict the future, and a very scary accident, as the two teenagers with very different backgrounds join together to investigate a mystery and in the process discover something remarkable about each other.

Passion for objects and love for science: scientists and students reflect on how objects fired their scientific imaginations. "This is a book about science, technology, and love,” writes Sherry Turkle. In it, we learn how a love for science can start with a love for an object—a microscope, a modem, a mud pie, a pair of dice, a fishing rod. Objects fire imagination and set young people on a path to a career in science. In this collection, distinguished scientists, engineers, and designers as well as twenty-five years of MIT students describe how objects encountered in childhood became part of the fabric of their scientific selves. In two major essays that frame the collection, Turkle tells a story of inspiration and connection through objects that is often neglected in standard science education and in our preoccupation with the virtual. The senior scientists' essays trace the arc of a life: the gears of a toy car introduce the chain of cause and effect to artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert; microscopes disclose the mystery of how things work to MIT President and neuroanatomist Susan Hockfield; architect Moshe Safdie describes how his boyhood fascination with steps, terraces, and the wax hexagons of beehives lead him to a life immersed in the complexities of design. The student essays tell stories that echo these narratives: plastic eggs in an Easter basket reveal the power of centripetal force; experiments with baking illuminate the geology of planets; LEGO bricks model worlds, carefully engineered and colonized. All of these voices—students and mentors—testify to the power of objects to awaken and inform young scientific minds. This is a truth that is simple, intuitive, and easily overlooked.

"Two expertly crafted crime stories set in a far-future science fiction universe, from two award-winning authors known for their gripping plots and unforgettable characters-a short novel and a long novella that will thrill fans of space adventures, mystery, and intergalactic intrigue in this Saga Double"-- Provided by publisher.

By the author of the critically acclaimed international hits The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and The Warsaw Anagrams , this novel proves Richard Zimler's mastery of the "riveting literary murder mystery" ( Independent on Sunday ). It's Berlin, 1932. Sophie is a smart and sexually precocious fourteen-year-old coming of age during Hitler's rise to power. Forced to lead a double life when her father and boyfriend become Nazi collaborators, she reserves her dreams of becoming an actress for her beloved elderly neighbor, Isaac Zarco, and his friends, most of whom are Jews working against the government in a secret group called the Ring. When a member is sent to Dachau, she realizes there must be a Nazi traitor in the group. But who? Through successive mysteries, reversals, and surprises --and a race against time --The Seventh Gate builds to a shattering end. In its chilling but sensuous evocation of the time and place, Richard Zimler's novel is a love story and a tale of ferocious heroism

From The Highly Acclaimed Author Of The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon And Hunting Midnight Comes A Sweeping Tale Of Devotion, Persecution And Vengeance In Colonial India By The Time The 16Th Century Was Drawing To A Close In The Portuguese Colony Of Goa, The Catholic Inquisition Was Making Excellent Progress In Its Mission To Keep All Sorcerers Whether Native Hindus Or Immigrant Jews From Practising Their Traditional Beliefs. Those Who Refused To Denounce Others And Give Up Their Ways Were Either Strangled By Executioners Or Burnt Alive In Public Autos-Da-Fé. By Living Just Outside Colonial Territory, The Zarco Family Manages To Stick Firm To Its Portuguese Jewish Roots. Tiago And His Sister Sofia Enjoy A Peaceful Childhood Learning To Illustrate Manuscripts With Their Father, And Secretly Dipping Into The Heady Chaos Of The Hindu Festivals Celebrated By Their Beloved Cook Nupi. As The Children Reach Adulthood, The Family Is Torn Apart When First The Father And Then The Son Are Imprisoned By The Inquisition. But Who Could Have Betrayed Them? Impeccably Researched, Guardian Of The Dawn Is Both A Riveting Historical Mystery And, In Its Profound Exploration Of The Nature Of Evil, A Powerful Reinterpretation Of Othello. This Is Richard Zimler At His Imaginative, Energetic, And Insightful Best. Praise For The Last Kabbalist Of Lisbon Zimler [Is] A Present-Day Scholar And Writer Of Remarkable Erudition And Compelling Imagination, An American Umberto Eco. Francis King, Spectator Drenched In Atmosphere And Period Detail. Wall Street Journal A Riveting Literary Murder Mystery, His Novel Is Also A Harrowing Picture Of The Persecution Of 16Th-Century Jews, And In Passing, The Atmospheric Introduction To The Hermetic Jewish Tradition Of The Kabbalah. Independent On Sunday A Fascinating Novel With Spellbinding Subject Matter. Elle Praise For Hunting Midnight Enthralling&Hunting Midnight Is A Shamelessly Sprawling Historical Novel, Spanning Continents, Napoleonic Wars, A Secret Jewish Family, Kalahari Magic, And Slavery In South Carolina. Sydney Morning Herald Zimler Is Always An Exhilaratingly Free Writer, Free Of Ordinary Taboos&Hunting Midnight Shows Zimler At The Height Of His Powers. London Magazine This Is An Epic Melodrama, Spanning Three Continents And More Than Twenty-Five Years, Building Up To A Genuinely Moving Climax. Literary Review This Is A Rousing Roaring Roller Coaster Of A Read. Climb Aboard And Have Zimler Rattle You Off Into The Sort Of Expansive Imaginative Realm That Readers Dream Of And Lesser Writers Steer Clear Of&Bracing, Spine-Tingling Stuff. Australian Reading Hunting Midnight Was Like Discovering A Rare Gem. Richard Zimler Is A Brilliant Author With A Touch Of Genius. Rendezvous Magazine (Usa)

Monopoly games are notoriously long but the one which triggered the events in this book really got out of hand--it's now twenty-five years old. The problem was that one thing led to another and first I played Monopoly with the family and then I invented a game called Anti-Monopoly. Being a Professor of Economics, I decided to market my idea on my own which turned out to be a lot of laughs (on me) at first . . . but I learned. . .and eventually I developed it into a national best-seller with the help of a few loyal associates. At which point, Parker Brothers showed its gratitude for my buying its sacred game by hitting us with a major trademark infringement suit. While this caused us a lot of trouble, the law suit boomeranged into a giant mistake for Rich Uncle Pennybags, like trading Baltic for the Boardwalk even-steven. True, we had to take the smug symbol of riches all the way to the United States Supreme Court before we prevailed, enduring six years of being banned from the market and having 40,000 of our games buried in a garbage dump as an arrogant but ill-fated object lesson to other challengers of the Monopoly monopoly. All that's described in the book but another big part of it tells how the law suit stimulated me to check out the background of Monopoly and how I was almost squashed by the skeletons which started to rattle out of the closet. My detective work wasn't as easy as winning Monopoly when you own the good properties because I was up against a mom and apple pie legend about the origins of Monopoly. Central casting in this epic tale was the rags to riches story of a man named Charles Darrow, a supposedly gutsy victim of the Great Depression who invented Monopoly to feed his pregnant wife and kids but was then catapulted into countless riches as the creator of the most popular, privately-owned board game in history. One mystery phone call on a TV show triggered the hunt which eventually unmasked our hero as an impostor and proved that the whole legend was a corporate- sponsored fraud fabricated to save the business from bankruptcy. I also discovered that Parker Brother's Monopoly was based on a folkgame named monopoly which had been originated by a woman, Elizabeth Magie. Not only that but it had been played on personalized, homemade boards all over the eastern United States for twenty-three years before our folk hero arranged to become a proud papa. The Monopoly in your closet is the Atlantic City version of this folkgame. It was created by some ingenious Quakers who taught school in Atlantic City. Apart from some designs made by a graphic artist, Darrow's sole contribution to the invention was to copy the Quakers' creation with the faithfulness of a medieval monk transcribing a sacred text. The original work was then suppressed as part of a business scheme to dump Monopoly's real world competition and the nation's media, from Sports Illustrated to The New York Times was conned into trumpeting the fake story. Yes, ironically enough, the game in which players rip off tenants and utility users and dump competing players right off the board with their monopoly muscle was itself illegally monopolized by means of a fraudulent patent monopoly. And the engineers of the fraud laughed all the way to the bank as they raked in monopoly profits and gouged you and me for a cool billion dollars. And nobody knew about it until Monopoly decided to push Anti-Monopoly off the market--and this book came to be written.

A messianic tale about a group of professional mourners—a darkly funny novel of grief, mystery and redemption from the author of The Delivery . Ed is a weeper. A professional weeper. He's a card-carrying member of an eccentric union hired to cry at funerals, wakes, services and burials. It’s an odd job, but his services are sorely needed these days, as the town, the region, the country as a whole has become more or less numb. No one is able to summon a shred of human emotion whatsoever. Not anymore. (What’d be the point? The world’s already gone to hell.) So there’s always work for Ed and his colleagues. But all those cries can wear a man down, and the tears don’t flow quite like they used to, even for a consummate pro like Ed. Then one morning, a stranger comes to town. A scrawny kid with no belongings, no parents, no name, no past. And at precisely the moment of his arrival, people begin to experience something new. Something strange. An onslaught of unbidden feelings, unfamiliar feelings, too many feelings A surrealist story of mourning and messiahs, deserts and droughts, cowboys and junkies, miracles and mass hysteria, the lure of despair and the solace of friendship. Peter Mendelsund’s Weepers is a novel for this age: our age of anesthesia and anger.

There are two time levels in the play. The "present" action frames the story, and is set three years after Emily Dickinson's death, 1889. Using poems and letters the characters project scenes of Emily's life which make up the "past" action. The play may be seen as a mystery story; it also has aspects of a literary inquest and an investigation, but these are secondary to the exploration of the mystery that was, and remains, Emily Dickinson.

This illuminating study of Benjamin’s final essay helps unlock the mystery of this great philosopher Revolutionary critic of the philosophy of progress, nostalgic of the past yet dreaming of the future, romantic partisan of materialism—Walter Benjamin is in every sense of the word an “unclassifiable” philosopher. His essay “On the Concept of History” was written in a state of urgency, as he attempted to escape the Gestapo in 1940, before finally committing suicide. In this scrupulous, clear and fascinating examination of this essay, Michael Löwy argues that it remains one of the most important philosophical and political writings of the twentieth century. Looking in detail at Benjamin’s celebrated but often mysterious text, and restoring the philosophical, theological and political context, Löwy highlights the complex relationship between redemption and revolution in Benjamin’s philosophy of history.