Whistleblower

      Tess Gerritsen
     Whistleblower

A deadly truth… When Victor Holland comes flying out of the night, he runs straight into the path of Catherine Weaver’s car. Having uncovered a terrifying secret which leads all the way to Washington, Victor is running for his life – and from the men who will go to any lengths to silence him. Victor’s story sounds like the ravings of a madman, but the haunted look in his eyes – and the bullet hole in his shoulder – tell a different story. As each hour brings pursuers ever closer, Cathy has to wonder, is she giving her trust to a man in danger or trusting her life to a dangerous man? “Gerritsen has enough in the locker to seriously worry Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben and even the great Denis Lehane. Brilliant. ” Crimetime “Gerritsen is tops in her genre. ” USA Today “Tess Gerritsen writes some of the smartest, most compelling thrillers around. ” Bookreporter

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    The Stepford Wives

      Ira Levin
     The Stepford Wives

The women of Stepford are not all that they seem... All the beautiful people live in idyllic Stepford, Connecticut, an affluent, suburban Eden populated with successful, satisfied hubbies and beautiful, dutiful wives. For Joanna Eberhart, newly arrived with her husband and two children, it all seems too good to be true -- from the sweet Welcome Wagon lady to all those cheerful, friendly faces in the supermarket checkout lines. But just beneath the town's flawless surface, something is sordid and wrong -- something abominable with roots in the local Men's Association. And it may already be too late for Joanna to save herself from being devoured by Stepford's hideous perfection.

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    Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

      Mary Roach
     Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

“America’s funniest science writer” (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn’t the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of—or has the courage to ask. We go on location to a pet-food taste-test lab, a fecal transplant, and into a live stomach to observe the fate of a meal. With Roach at our side, we travel the world, meeting murderers and mad scientists, Eskimos and exorcists (who have occasionally administered holy water rectally), rabbis and terrorists—who, it turns out, for practical reasons do not conceal bombs in their digestive tracts. Like all of Roach’s books, Gulp is as much about human beings as it is about human bodies.

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    Into the Darkest Corner

      Elizabeth Haynes
     Into the Darkest Corner

When young, pretty Catherine Bailey meets Lee Brightman, she can't believe her luck. Gorgeous, charismatic, and a bit mysterious, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true. But what begins as flattering attention and spontaneous, passionate sex transforms into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon discovers that Lee's dazzling blue eyes and blond good looks hide a dark, violent nature. Disturbed by his increasingly erratic, controlling behavior, she tries to break it off; turning to her friends for support, she's stunned to find they don't believe her. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a meticulous escape. Four years later, Lee is behind bars and Catherine—now Cathy—is trying to build a new life in a new city. Though her body has healed, the trauma of the past still haunts her. Then Stuart Richardson, her attractive new neighbor, moves in. Encouraging her to confront her fears, he sparks unexpected hope and the possibility of love and a normal life. Until the day the phone rings . . .

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    Are You Alone on Purpose?

      Nancy Werlin
     Are You Alone on Purpose?

Harry Roth is the bane of Alison shandling’s existence. He’s obnoxious and rude, and thinks nothing of taunting brainy Alison or making comments about her autistic twin brother. Alison tries to ignore him, but since she sees him at school and at synagogue, he’s hard to avoid. then Harry is injured in a diving accident and winds up in a wheelchair. Now Harry is vulnerable, too, and Alison finds herself inexplicably drawn to him. initially cautious, these unlikely companions begin to understand each other, and their relationship grows first into a friendship and then into something more. . . .

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    The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

      Steven Pinker
     The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year. * The author of The New York Times bestseller The Stuff of Thought* offers a controversial history of violence. Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened? This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

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    The Lie

      Karina Halle
     The Lie

Their love led to a lie Their truth led to the end Brigs McGregor is crawling out from the ashes. After losing his wife and son in a car accident and his job from his subsequent downward spiral, he's finally moving forward, getting a prestigious teaching position at the University of London and a new life in the city. Slowly, but surely, he's pushing past the guilt and putting his tragic past behind him. Until he sees her. Natasha Trudeau once loved a man so much she thought she'd die without him. But their love was wrong, doomed from the start, and when their world crashed around them, Natasha was nearly buried in the rubble. It took years of moving on to forget him, and now that she's in London, she's ready to start again. Until she sees him. Because some loves are too dangerous to ever indulge. And some loves are far too powerful to ignore. Their love just might be the life and the death of them.

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    The Making of a Saint

      W. Somerset Maugham
     The Making of a Saint

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 – 1965) was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. Born in the British Embassy in Paris, where his father worked, Maugham was an orphan by the age of ten. He was raised by an uncle, who tried to persuade the youngster to become an accountant or parson; Maugham instead trained as a doctor, although he never practised professionally, as his first novel, Liza of Lambeth, was published the same year he qualified. By the time of his death in 1965 Maugham was widely judged to be one of the most commercially successful and gifted writers of the twentieth century. The Times obituarist called Maugham "the most assured English writer of his time", and wrote that "no writer of his generation ... graced the world of English letters with more complete or more polished assurance" The Making of a Saint THESE are the memoirs of the Beato Giuliano, brother of the Order of St Francis of Assisi, known in his worldly life as Filippo Brandolini; of which family I, Giulo Brandolini, am the last descendant. On the death of Fra Giuliano the manuscript was given to his nephew Leonello, on whom the estates devolved; and has since been handed down from father to son, as the relic of a member of the family whose piety and good works still shed lustre on the name of Brandolini.

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    The Third Life of Grange Copeland

      Alice Walker
     The Third Life of Grange Copeland

Despondent over the futility of life in the South, black tenant farmer Grange Copeland leaves his wife and son in Georgia to head North. After meeting an equally humiliating existence there, he returns to Georgia, years later, to find his son, Brownfield, imprisoned for the murder of his wife. As the guardian of the couple's youngest daughter, Grange Copeland is looking at his third -- and final -- chance to free himself from spiritual and social enslavement.

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    The Janus Reprisal

      Robert Ludlum
     The Janus Reprisal

** With U.S. intelligence agencies wracked by internal power struggles and paralyzed by bureaucracy, the president was forced to establish his own clandestine group--Covert-One. It is activated only as a last resort, when the threat is on a global scale and time is running out. **It begins with a terrorist attack. Covert-One operative Colonel Jon Smith is attending a conference in The Hague on infectious diseases, together with leading scientists and political figures from around the world. Without warning, the conference hotel is consumed in a bloodbath. Smith is caught in the crossfire and barely escapes . . . but not before discovering a picture of himself and two other targets in the pocket of one of the shooters. But the hotel is not the only location under attack in The Hague. Bombs are going off at the train station, the airport, and the International Criminal Court, where Pakistani warlord Oman Dattar is being held while he's tried for crimes against humanity. In the resulting chaos, the prisoner escapes. Dattar nurses a special hatred for the United States and its allies. With his freedom, and access to a mysterious new weapon, Dattar puts in motion a murderous, ambitious plot to exact his revenge and bring down the West once and for all--unless Covert-One can stop him.

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    Resurrection Blues

      Arthur Miller
     Resurrection Blues

Arthur Miller’s penultimate play, Resurrection Blues, is a darkly comic satirical allegory that poses the question: What would happen if Christ were to appear in the world today? In an unidentified Latin American country, General Felix Barriaux has captured an elusive revolutionary leader. The rebel, known by various names, is rumored to have performed miracles throughout the countryside. The General plans to crucify the mysterious man, and the exclusive television rights to the twenty-four-hour reality-TV event have been sold to an American network for $25 million. An allegory that asserts the interconnectedness of our actions and each person’s culpability in world events, Resurrection Blues is a comedic and tragic satire of precarious morals in our media-saturated age.

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    I Want It That Way

      Ann Aguirre
     I Want It That Way

Nadia Conrad has big dreams, and she's determined to make them come true—for her parents' sake as well as her own. But between maintaining her college scholarship and working at the local day care to support herself, she barely has time to think, let alone date. Then she moves into a new apartment and meets the taciturn yet irresistible guy in 1B…. Daniel Tyler has grown up too fast. Becoming a single dad at twenty turned his life upside down—and brought him heartache he can't risk again. Now, as he raises his four-year-old son while balancing a full-time construction management job and night classes, a social life is out of the question. The last thing he wants is for four noisy students to move into the apartment upstairs. But one night, Nadia's and Ty's paths cross, and soon they can't stay away from each other. The timing is all wrong—but love happens when it happens. And you can't know what you truly need until you stand to lose it.

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    London Observed

      Doris Lessing
     London Observed

Published in America as The Real Thing: Stories and Sketches. Across eighteen short stories, Lessing dissects London and its inhabitants with the power for truth and compassion to be expected of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2007. 'During that first year in England, I had a vision of London I cannot recall now … it was a nightmare city that I lived in for a year. Then, one evening, walking across the park, the light welded buildings, trees and scarlet buses into something familiar and beautiful, and I knew myself to be at home.' Lessing’s vision of London – a place of nightmares and wonder – underpins this brilliantly multifaceted collection of stories about the city, seen from a cafe table, a hospital bed, the back seat of a taxi, a hospital casualty department; seen, as always, unflinchingly, and compellingly depicted.

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    Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

      Alison Weir
     Anne Boleyn: A King's Obsession

A novel filled with new insights into the story of Henry VIII’s second—and most infamous—wife, Anne Boleyn. The second book in the epic Six Tudor Queens series, from the acclaimed historian and bestselling author of Katherine of Aragon. It is the spring of 1527. Henry VIII has come to Hever Castle in Kent to pay court to Anne Boleyn. He is desperate to have her. For this mirror of female perfection he will set aside his Queen and all Cardinal Wolsey’s plans for a dynastic French marriage. Anne Boleyn is not so sure. She loathes Wolsey for breaking her betrothal to the Earl of Northumberland’s son, Harry Percy, whom she had loved. She does not welcome the King’s advances; she knows that she can never give him her heart. But hers is an opportunist family. And whether Anne is willing or not, they will risk it all to see their daughter on the throne…

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    Regeneration

      Pat Barker
     Regeneration

Regeneration, one in Pat Barker's series of novels confronting the psychological effects of World War I, focuses on treatment methods during the war and the story of a decorated English officer sent to a military hospital after publicly declaring he will no longer fight. Yet the novel is much more. Written in sparse prose that is shockingly clear -- the descriptions of electronic treatments are particularly harrowing -- it combines real-life characters and events with fictional ones in a work that examines the insanity of war like no other. Barker also weaves in issues of class and politics in this compactly powerful book. Other books in the series include The Eye in the Door and the Booker Award winner The Ghost Road.

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