Review"Miss Read has three great gifts--an unerring intuition about human frailty, a healthy irony, and surprisingly, an almost beery sense of humor." (_The New Yorker_ ) "Humor guides her pen but charity steadies it. Her portraits are delightful." (_Time Literary Supplement (London)_ ) Product DescriptionOpen the gate to Fairacre, America’s favorite English village. The end of a school year often brings unmitigated rapture for schoolteachers, and so it should for Miss Read, schoolmistress in the charming English village of Fairacre. But on the very first day of the long summer holiday, she falls and breaks her arm. Just when her summer seems ruined, her old friend, Amy Garfield, comes to her aid with a diverting suggestion. They travel to Crete for two weeks, and the change of scene provides a welcome break for both of them. When Miss Read returns, refreshed, to her beloved village, she is ready to tackle the problems that await her.

Heaven to Betsy: Betsy Ray is loving every minute of freshman year at Deep Valley High--with new and old friends all around her . . . not to mention boys! But most intriguing of all is the one she and her best friend, Tacy, dub "the Tall Dark Stranger."Betsy in Spite of Herself: Betsy is at the center of every activity as a Deep Valley High sophomore--and suddenly, thanks to her old friend Tib, she's offered a golden opportunity for glorious transformation. But will she impress the special boy by becoming dramatic, mysterious Betsye--or would she be better off just being Betsy in spite of herself?

A serial killer stalks the agents of Department Z in a rip-roaring thriller from the Edgar Award–winning author who sold eighty million books worldwide. London, 1941. In the unending darkness of the London Blackout, an assassin slinks through the night, striking down victims with deadly accuracy. His targets are agents, killed while on watch. Department Z is baffled. Who is the silent killer, why is he targeting them, and what is their secret . . . just how are they managing to take down the best-trained agents in Britain? Gordon Craigie, Department Z's fearless leader, soon finds himself faced with the toughest challenge of his career—to catch the killer before his deadly skill falls into enemy hands, putting all of Europe in grave danger . . . "Mr. Creasey realizes that it is the principal business of thrillers to thrill." —Church Times "Little appears in the newspapers about the...

Mystery and adventure follow the Bobbsey twins on their trip to Ocean Cliff. While searching for clams and driftwood on the shore, they find a mysterious message in a bottle. Will this clue help them rescue a little girl's father? **

About the AuthorDean Koontz was born into a very poor family and learned early on to escape into fiction. His novels have sold over 200 million copies worldwide and more than thirty have appeared on national and international bestseller lists. He lives in southern California with his wife, Gerda and a vivid imagination.

"The Worm Ouroboros" is a heroic high fantasy novel by Eric Rucker Eddison, first published in 1922. The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas. The work is slightly related to Eddison's later Zimiamvian Trilogy, and collectively they are sometimes referred to as the Zimiamvian series.

Hap and Everett, adopted children of the Yaqui County sheriff and his wife, where known as the Kingman twins. Actually Hap was the son of the upright rancher Warren Allen, who had been killed by bushwack bullets, while Everett's father was the ruffianly cattle thief, Dev Hewett. The boys were ignorant of their own identity until they came of age. And then, for reasons of their own, the crooked lawyer entrusted with telling them the truth pretended that Hap was the rustler's son, and gave to him Hewett's legacy: a six-gun, and instructions to use it to murder Dev Hewett's ancient enemy.

Rogue Moon is a short sf novel by Algis Budrys, published in 1960. It was a 1961 Hugo Award nominee, losing to Walter M. Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. A novella-length version of the story was included in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2, edited by Ben Bova. Before 1969, every science fiction writer wrote his or her own version of the first Moon landing. Few carry the horror of Budrys' unsettling story. During all recorded history, the Moon has hovered above our heads, a timeless symbol for lovers' ecstasy. Goddesses & Gibson Girls have tripped the light fantastic of her beams while sonneteers & scientists have scanned her changing phases. Now humans had actually reached the Moon, & on it the explorers found a structure, a formation so terrible & incomprehensible that it couldn't even be described in human terms. It was a thing that devoured people; that killed them again & again in torturous, unfathomable ways. Earthbound are the only two men who could probe the thing: Al Barker, a homicidal maniac, whose loving mistress was death, & Dr. Edward Hawks, a scientific murderer, whose greatest mission was rebirth.

A crime reporter with ESP tackles a double homicideIn a San Francisco apartment building, a young woman is found strangled beside a piano player with a broken neck. He’s a nobody—a dreamer with little talent and no future—but she is Roberta Grinnel, daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the Bay Area. Stephen Drake, crime reporter for the Sentinel, feels nothing when he looks at their corpses, and this is a troubling fact. For Drake is a psychic, and when his sixth sense fails him, that means more trouble ahead.As Drake tries to come to grips with his cosmic gift, the mystery of the heiress and the piano player becomes the hottest story in town. To keep his gig at the paper, Drake will call on every source he has—on this plane and the astral one—but knowing danger’s lurking doesn’t guarantee he can stay out of its way.Review“Collin Wilcox gets better and better.” —Tony Hillerman“One of the three best mystery writers in America, his stories and characters as real as a clenched fist.” —Jack Finney, author of Time and Again“[An] old pro.” —Kirkus ReviewsAbout the AuthorCollin Wilcox (1924–1996) was an American author of mystery fiction. Born in Detroit, he set most of his work in San Francisco, beginning with 1967’s The Black Door—a noir thriller starring a crime reporter with extrasensory perception. Under the pen name Carter Wick, he published several standalone mysteries including The Faceless Man (1975) and Dark House, Dark Road (1982), but he found his greatest success under his own name, with the celebrated Frank Hastings series.Hastings, a football player turned San Francisco homicide detective, made his debut in The Lonely Hunter (1969), and Wilcox continued to follow him for the rest of his career, publishing nearly two dozen novels in the series, which concludes with Calculated Risk (1995). Wilcox’s other best-known series stars Alan Bernhardt, a theatrical director with a habit of getting involved in behind-the-scenes mysteries. Bernhardt appeared in four more books after his introduction in 1988’s Bernhardt’s Edge.

SHE STOOD NO CHANCE WITH GIDEON...Arabella Birch had a less than happy introduction to Holland when she became involved in a road accident. It seemed destined that the first person on the scene should be Dr. Gideon van der Vorst, who took charge of the situation--and Arabella--in a very commanding way. When Arabella found herself involved professionally with the imposing doctor, she began to wonder if destiny had known what it was doing. Once her glamorous cousin Hilary caught sight of Gideon, it would be no use falling in love with him.

A wave of 'babynappings' has terrified parents from San Diego to Portland. And when the Pied Piper - named for the penny flute he leaves in the cribs of his victims - claims his first Seattle infant, the investigation draws in homicide detective Lou Boldt. Assigned temporarily to Intelligence, Boldt's role is to keep the FBI out of the Seattle Police Department's way. Then the Pied Piper snatches Boldt's own daughter, promising that unless Boldt throws both the Feds and the SPD off his trail he'll never see his child again. Caught between his professional obligations and his fear for his daughter's life, Boldt launches his own private manhunt - and discovers how the Piper has managed to stay a step ahead of the police, elude capture, and find his small victims... ### Amazon.com Review A wave of babynappings has terrified parents from San Diego to Portland. And when the Pied Piper--named for the penny flute he leaves in the cribs of his victims--claims his first Seattle infant, the investigation draws in homicide detective Lou Boldt. Assigned temporarily to Intelligence so he can spend more time with his kids while his wife is hospitalized for chemotherapy, Boldt's role is to keep the FBI out of the Seattle Police Department's way. But FBI special agent Gary Flemming is a tough adversary--so tough it almost seems as if he's intentionally sabotaging the SPD's investigation. Then the Pied Piper snatches Boldt's own daughter, promising that unless Boldt throws both the Feds and the SPD off his trail he'll never see his child again. Caught between his professional obligations and his fear for Sarah's life, Boldt launches his own private manhunt with the help of John La Moia, his replacement in homicide, and police psychologist Daphne Matthews, his closest friend in the department. They form a sub rosa task force under the noses of the Feds and the SPD, and soon discover how the Piper has managed to stay a step ahead of the police, elude capture, and find his small victims. The chase moves from Seattle to Portland to New Orleans, culminating in a thrilling denouement in the daffodil fields of Washington's Skagit Valley. Combining strong characterizations with an impressive command of both policing and pacing, Ridley Pearson, author of *Chain of Evidence* and *Beyond Recognition*, delivers another sure winner in this outing for Lou Boldt. *--Jane Adams* ### From Publishers Weekly A serial kidnapper called the Pied Piper?the villain of Pearson's ingenious, fast-moving 11th thriller?has targeted Seattle, and newly promoted Lieutenant Lou Boldt (last seen in Beyond Recognition) is called in on the case by John LaMoia of the Seattle Crimes Against Persons unit. Boldt, whose wife, Liz, is undergoing chemotherapy, soon discovers that the Pied Piper has managed to target families, steal children and vanish from city after city seemingly at will, although the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent Gary Flemming, has been chasing the serial kidnapper across the country for months. And it looks like the same thing will happen in Seattle, especially when vital information is withheld by the FBI in a turf battle with the locals. But just as Boldt starts asking the right questions, the Pied Piper abducts his daughter, Sarah. It's twists like this that fuel the rest of the novel as Pearson tightens the screws on Boldt as he tries to find his daughter and prevent another kidnapping. The plot begins simply and becomes wonderfully complex, stretching from Seattle to New Orleans; while the lucky car accident that helps break the case wide open is somewhat facile, the work of Boldt and an expertly drawn supporting cast of characters will hold the attention of readers. As will be clear even to neophytes, Boldt's relationship with forensic psychologist Daphne Matthews, and the ongoing affair between two members of the task force, point to a lot of history between these characters, none of it confusing for first-timers, who may be tempted to pick up earlier novels to see whether they're all this good. $250,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club selections; author tour. Agent, Al Zuckerman. (Aug.) FYI: A mass market edition of Beyond Recognition will be published simultaneously. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

One-armed detective Dan Fortune takes on New York's underworld, with nothing to gain....except his life.".........."An excellent novel...skillfully plotted with finely honed suspense.

Good Men Won't Go Into Politics! That is an American axiom.But Read Cole was a good man and a good governor of Ohio. He was concerned about the interests of his people and the State; he did what he thought was right and did it as well as he could. But no matter how capable and sincere, Read Cole was a practical politician. Politics was his career, he knew that a man went from Governor to Senator, from Senator to ...But that was in the future. At the moment Read Cole had a fight on his handsl he was running for reelection as Governor and he had to win. If he lost he was a has-been, a party wheelhorse fit only to warm the bench. America has no place for losing politicians.Here, then, is the story of a battle, with troops deploying, guns booming, and spies behind the lines - the story of Read Cole's battle to stay in office. Here is the story of what a good man will do, has to do, to win the votes we all cast so carelessly, sometimes so scornfully.Into the story and into the battle come Read Cole's son and daughter, irresponsible and giddy with youth; the neurotic wealthy woman he expects to marry; a madman with a postoll a newspaperman, completely besotted and umfortably safe, a bit of dynamite in the person of a pretty check-girl; a rabble-rousing radical , and the industrialists he has terrified into putting the weight of their money behind Cole and conservatism.The battle is joined in the six days leading up to November 4th. THis November 4th - any November 4th.The battle is not pretty - not battle is - but it is exciting and illuminating. Fascism, Communism, Liberalism - all of these varying ideals shrivel before the one conclusive reality; VOTES. God, her once again, is on the side of the biggest batallions.When you have lived through these six crackling days and stop for breath you will know more about politicians than you do now and more about yourself.

As the sun begins to set on the British Empire, an agent of Eastern "evil" haunts Cairo, London and points between. In this second Fu-Manchu novel by English writer Sax Rohmer, aka Henry Sarsfield Ward (1883-1959), the "devil doctor" leads our heroes on a chase through exotic and dangerous worlds.