A Monk of Cruta

‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2016 spring-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week evening class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey.The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves.‘The Parcel’ is a collaborative novella written by the attendees of the 2016 spring-term ‘Creative Writing – Intermediate’ ten-week evening class hosted by co-contributor Morgen Bailey.The authors wrote their chapters while knowing only the size, weight and destination address of the parcel, together with the chapters’ starting and ending locations – chosen by the authors themselves. They chose their own characters – the lead of which entitle each chapter – and plot.Morgen then collated the stories and made minor edits to turn each chapter into a cohesive novella before designing the cover and upload the finished package between the final two weeks of the course so all the contributing attendees left the course as published authors!We all hope that you enjoy reading this novella and that it feels seamless to you. We would love to know what you think and would also be very grateful if you left a review as an encouragement for others to read the novella.Thank you again for downloading this eBook – your support is much appreciated.

Isabel Allende-the New York Times bestselling author whose books, including Maya's Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, and Zorro, have sold more than 57 million copies around the world-demonstrates her remarkable literary versatility with this atmospheric, fast-paced mystery involving a brilliant teenage sleuth who must unmask a serial killer in San Francisco The Jackson women, Indiana and Amanda, have always had each other. Yet, while their bond is strong, mother and daughter are as different as night and day. Indiana, a beautiful holistic healer, is a free-spirited bohemian. Long divorced from Amanda's father, she's reluctant to settle down with either of the men who want her-Alan, the wealthy scion of one of San Francisco's elite families, and Ryan, an enigmatic, scarred former Navy SEAL. While her mom looks for the good in people, Amanda is fascinated by the dark side of human nature, like her father, the SFPD's Deputy Chief of Homicide. Brilliant and introverted, the MIT-bound high school senior is a natural-born sleuth addicted to crime novels and Ripper, the online mystery game she plays with her beloved grandfather and friends around the world. When a string of strange murders occurs across the city, Amanda plunges into her own investigation, discovering, before the police do, that the deaths may be connected. But the case becomes all too personal when Indiana suddenly vanishes. Could her mother's disappearance be linked to the serial killer? Now, with her mother's life on the line, the young detective must solve the most complex mystery she's ever faced before it's too late.

Down-and-out drunk Terry Lennox has a problem: his millionaire wife is dead and he needs to get out of LA fast. So he turns to the only friend he can trust: private investigator Philip Marlowe. Marlowe is willing to help a man down on his luck, but later Lennox commits suicide in Mexico and things start to turn nasty. Marlowe is drawn into a sordid crowd of adulterers and alcoholics in LA's Idle Valley, where the rich are suffering one big suntanned hangover. Marlowe is sure Lennox didn't kill his wife, but how many stiffs will turn up before he gets to the truth?

“The reigning King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times), Elmore Leonard first introduced quick-triggered legendary lawman Carl Webster  in the New York Times bestseller, The Hot Kid, and brought him back for an encore Up in Honey’s Room. In Comfort to the Enemy and Other Carl Webster Stories, the loose cannon U.S. marshal struts his stuff once more in three electrifying new tales. Comfort to the Enemy is more indisputable proof that Elmore Leonard is indeed, as Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Shutter Island) puts it, “The greatest crime writer who ever lived.”

Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive collection. As part of our on-going commitment to delivering value to the reader, we have also provided you with a link to a website, where you may download a digital version of this work for free. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. Whilst the books in this collection have not been hand curated, an aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature. As a result of this book being first published many decades ago, it may have occasional imperfections. These imperfections may include poor picture quality, blurred or missing text. While some of these imperfections may have appeared in the original work, others may have resulted from the scanning process that has been applied. However, our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. While some publishers have applied optical character recognition (OCR), this approach has its own drawbacks, which include formatting errors, misspelt words, or the presence of inappropriate characters. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with an experience that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic book, and that the occasional imperfection that it might contain will not detract from the experience.

At forty-eight, Tim Cranmer is a secret servant in a premature retirement to deepest rural England. His Cold War is fought and won, and he is free to devote himself to his stately manor house, his vineyard, and his beautiful young mistress, Emma.

Annabelle Lee isn't lonely during the holidays, how can she be when she's already dead, and everyone knows ghosts definitely don't get lonely. Eerie Thistlebottom, Blue Moon Bay's adorable resident zombie, doesn't agree and decides that this year her bestie in death will not be spending the holidays alone. So she writes up an advertisement. One human wanted. No money, no problem...must do well with spooks. Dante Martin cannot believe that his beautiful, yet kind of silly, twin sister actually answered that ad. Being the dutiful brother he is he goes to help her move on only to discover that the mystery of the haunted shack high up on the hills of Blue Moon Bay does indeed come with a lovely ghost, a jealous ghost dog, and a secret that could threaten to rip apart their holiday magick forever...

Jeffrey Archer, the internationally bestselling author of Honor Among Thieves, As The Crow Flies, and Kane & Abel, now serves up this inventive new collection of a dozen short stories -- with a twist. Cleverly styled, with richly drawn characters and ingeniously plotted story lines, each of the twelve pieces ends with a delightfully unexpected turn of events. An imprisoned man is certain that his supposed murder victim is very much alive....A female driver is pursued relentlessly by a menacing figure in another vehicle....A young artist gets the biggest break of her career....A restless beauty manages the perfect birthday celebration....An escaped Iraqi on Saddam Hussein's death list pays an involuntary visit to his homeland. In each tale, human beings are given an opportunity to seize, a crucial problem to solve, or a danger to avoid. How will they react? How would you? Capping off the collection are two additional rewards. In the final story, Archer offers a choice of four endings. And buried in each story is another diversion -- a red herring which Archer challenges his readers to uncover.

For hundreds of years, the vampire Balthazar has been alone-without allies, without love. When Balthazar agrees to help Skye Tierney, a human girl who once attended Evernight Academy, he has no idea how dangerous it will be. Skye's newfound psychic powers have caught the attention of Redgrave, the cruel, seductive master vampire responsible for murdering Balthazar and his family four centuries ago. Now Redgrave plans to use Skye's powers for his own evil purposes. Balthazar will do whatever it takes to stop Redgrave and exact his long-awaited revenge against his killer. As Skye and Balthazar stand together to fight him, they grow closer-first unwillingly, then undeniably. Balthazar realizes his lonely world could finally be changed by her. . . .

In the heart of the old Soviet Union, a mining tycoon has proclaimed himself czar of Russia. Claiming Romanov ancestry and backed by billions of dollars, he is determined to overthrow the already shaky Russian government-and U.S. opposition doesn't bother him one bit. A little crisis of their own should distract the Americans for a while, and he knows just the thing. . . . Filled with all the hair-raising action and endless imagination that are Cussler's hallmarks, Fire Ice is a dazzling thriller from the grandmaster of adventure fiction.

It was always good to see Butch Roberson, Joe thought—a hard-working, upright local business owner whose daughter was friends with his own. Little did he know that when he talked to Butch that day, the man was about to disappear. He was heading into the mountains to hunt, he said, but instead he was running. Two EPA employees had just been murdered, and all signs pointed to him as the killer. As the manhunt organized itself, Joe heard more of the story—about the tract of land Butch and his wife had bought to build their retirement home on, until the EPA declared it a wetland. About the penalties they charged him when he balked, new ones piling up every day, until the family was torn apart by debt . . . and finally, it seems, the man just cracked. It was an awful story. But was it the whole story? The more Joe looks into it, the more he begins to wonder—and the more he finds himself in the middle of a war he never expected and never wanted. Powerful forces want Butch not just caught, but dead . . . and the same goes for anyone who stands in their way.

Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was born on February 24th, 1848 at Alwington, near Kingston, Canada West (now part of Ontario). Home schooled until 13 when his family moved to England, Grant was to become a highly regarded science writer who branched out to a fiction career and became enormously popular. His work helped propel several genres of fiction and whilst his career was short it was enormously productive. Grant’s scientific background enabled him to root much of his work in a plausibility that was denied to others. He had little fear in challenging a society that treated women as second class citizens and creating best sellers from such works. On October 25th 1899 Grant Allen died at his home in Hindhead, Haslemere, Surrey, England. He died just before finishing Hilda Wade. The novel's final episode, which he dictated to his friend, doctor and neighbour Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from his bed appeared under the appropriate title, The Episode of the Dead Man Who Spoke in 1900.

Ex-con Ray Rhodes’ claim he was framed on weapons and drug charges is only the beginning when former cop Lucky Lucas is reluctantly dragged into an investigation as a family favor. Lucas quickly finds himself mixing with crooked cops, Chinese assassins, and a broken family with a disturbing and dangerous history that leads to blackmail and murder.Scar Tissue is the first novel in a projected series of detective/mysteries in the spirit of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker. Robert “Lucky” Lucas, a fifty year old retired police Detective and widow from Southern California, has relocated in San Francisco to be near his son’s family. As a favor to his daughter-in-law Kathleen, Lucas reluctantly agrees to speak with Ray Rhodes, a childhood friend with prison record who has been arrested on weapons and drug charges, but adamantly proclaims his innocence. During his investigation, Lucas becomes convinced Rhodes is the victim of jealousy and crooked cops, and is trapped in the middle of a disturbing and dangerous family history, a history that will lead to murder and attempt on Lucas’ life. Mark Gummere lives in San Francisco, teaches classes in Cinema Studies, and is a former San Francisco Private Investigator. The second Lucky Lucas novel, The Damage, has just been released, and is also available on Smashwords as a downloadable ebook. The third Lucky Lucas Novel is underway.

Sutherland Saga Part 2. When Lady Margaret Sutherland holds a farewell party on the eve of the Battle of Britain, deceitful events of that night will echo throughout World War II, thereby leading to heinous crimes that will change the lives of those present forever. In the end, not only will the Earldom of Winston be affected, but the course of the entire war will be irrevocably altered.Set against the backdrop of world-changing events of the twentieth century, the Sutherland Saga consists of a sequence of four novels, each of which chronicles one generation of the Earldom of Winston. In Of War and Women, Part 2 of the series, twenty-three year old Trant Sutherland, heir to the Earldom of Winston, is cajoled by his mother, Lady Margaret Sutherland, into hosting a farewell party for the airmen of his flying squadron shortly before the Battle of Britain. During the party Trant is introduced to several intriguing young ladies, including Annabeth Fletcher, herself a member of the peerage. But on that night a deception will occur that will profoundly alter the lives of those present. Later serving with distinction in North Africa, Trant will cross paths with the French ingénue Felicité Delacroix and her fellow Oxford student Maryann, both of whom had been present at the farewell party. And as the war progresses, events of that night will have mounting repercussions, inevitably leading to espionage, incarceration, mayhem, and finally - murder. In the end, not only the Earldom of Winston, but the outcome of the war itself will hinge on the events of that night. But will it be for better or worse, and what of the lives of those women who fought so valiantly for us?