Any Human Heart

      William Boyd
     Any Human Heart

Logan Gonzago Mountstuart, writer, was born in 1906, and died of a heart attack on October 5, 1991, aged 85. William Boyd's novel Any Human Heart is his disjointed autobiography, a massive tome chronicling "my personal rollercoaster"--or rather, "not so much a rollercoaster", but a yo-yo, "a jerking spinning toy in the hands of a maladroit child." From his early childhood in Montevideo, son of an English corned beef executive and his Uraguayan secretary, through his years at a Norfolk public school and Oxford, Mountstuart traces his haphazard development as a writer. Early and easy success is succeeded by a long half-century of mediocrity, disappointments and setbacks, both personal and professional, leading him to multiple failed marriages, internment, alcoholism and abject poverty. Mountstuart's sorry tale is also the story of a British way of life in inexorable decline, as his journey takes in the Bloomsbury set, the General Strike, the Spanish Civil War, 1930s Americans in Paris, wartime espionage, New York avant garde art, even the Baader-Meinhof gang--all with a stellar supporting cast. The most sustained and best moment comes mid-book, as Mountstuart gets caught up in one of Britain's murkier wartime secrets, in the company of the here truly despicable Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Elsewhere author William Boyd occasionally misplaces his tongue too obviously in his cheek--the Wall Street Crash is trailed with truly crashing inelegance--but overall Any Human Heart is a witty, inventive and ultimately moving novel. Boyd succeeds in conjuring not only a compelling 20th century but also, in the hapless Logan Mountstuart, an anti-hero who achieves something approaching passive greatness. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk

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    A Spy Like Me

      Laura Pauling
     A Spy Like Me

Games can be deadly.After dodging bullets on a first date, eighteen-year-old Savvy turns into the accidental spy and falls for a hot assassin in Paris.Eighteen-year-old Savvy Bent expects fireworks on her first date with Malcolm - in Paris! Except over a picnic of sparkling cider and strawberry tarts, a sniper shoots at them. That's only the beginning. From the top of the Eiffel Tower to the depths of the catacombs, Savvy must sneak, deceive, and spy to save her family and friends and figure out whether Malcolm is one of the bad guys or not before she completely falls for him.

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    Night World (R)

      Robert Bloch
     Night World (R)

Robert Bloch, the creator of Psycho, takes you into the inner recesses of the mind of a madman. A man bent on revenge that comes out of the night, grabbing its victims by the throat and giving no quarter. — From the moment Karen Raymond entered the sanatorium, she knew something was terribly wrong. The doctors had been brutally murdered, the patients had escaped. Was she to be the killers next victim?

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    How to Lead a Life of Crime

      Kirsten Miller
     How to Lead a Life of Crime

A meth dealer. A prostitute. A serial killer. Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear. Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class. But then Mandel recruits a fierce new competitor who also happens to be Flick’s old flame. They’ve been told only one of them will make it out of the Mandel Academy. Will they find a way to save each other—or will the school destroy them both?

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    Pronghorns of the Third Reich

      C. J. Box
     Pronghorns of the Third Reich

In frigid Wyoming lies a mystery that stretches back to Nazi Germany. Lyle and Juan wait outside the lawyer’s house in ski masks, pistols hidden behind their backs. Shortly after dawn, Paul Parker, an aged lawyer, and his old dog step into the cold. The thugs kill the dog, and take the lawyer hostage. Parker’s day has started badly and is going to get much worse. Once a fine lawyer, Parker’s enthusiasm has slipped with age, and criminals like Lyle are part of the reason for his disillusionment. Years after they last saw each other in court, Lyle is convinced that Parker owes him something. At gunpoint, Lyle and Juan make Parker lead them to the old Angler ranch, to open up a hidden library whose volumes hold the secret to forgotten riches, and the strangest war profiteering scheme to ever come out of the Great Plains. The Bibliomysteries are a series of short tales about deadly books, by top mystery authors.

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    Where There's Smoke

      Simon Beckett
     Where There's Smoke

Kate Powell is a successful young businesswoman, but her life feels empty. When she hears of someone who had a baby through artificial insemination, she decides she wants a baby, and advertises for a suitable father. Alex Turner seems perfect, but Kate's plans have devastating consequences.

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    The Four Legendary Kingdoms

      Matthew Reilly
     The Four Legendary Kingdoms

A RUTHLESS KIDNAPPING Jack West Jr and his family are living happily on their remote farm... when Jack is brutally kidnapped and he awakes in an underground cell to find a masked attacker with a knife charging at him. THE GREAT GAMES Jack, it seems, has been chosen – along with a dozen other elite soldiers – to compete in a series of deadly challenges designed to fulfill an ancient ritual. With the fate of the Earth at stake, he will have to traverse diabolical mazes, fight cruel assassins and face unimaginable horrors that will test him like he has never been tested before. TO HELL AND BACK In the process, he will discover the mysterious and powerful group of individuals behind it all: The Four Legendary Kingdoms. He might also discover that he is not the only hero in this place...

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    Red Square

      Martin Cruz Smith
     Red Square

In the summer of 1991, Arkady Renko has returned from exile and is back on the homicide squad in a newly democratic Moscow. When Arkady’s informant, Rudy Rosen, and his underworld bank-on-wheels are consumed in a ball of fire, Arkady finds himself in an investigation that points to the heart of Russia’s decaying infrastructure.

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    Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense

      Joyce Carol Oates
     Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense

Including "The Crawl Space," winner of the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction and a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story Joyce Carol Oates is renowned for her rare ability to "illuminate the mind's most disturbing corners" (Seattle Times). That genius is on full display in her new collection of seven feverishly unsettling works, DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense. In the title story, a precocious eleven-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents Jill climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In "The Drowned Girl," a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student, as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. In "Great Blue Heron," a recent widow grieves inside the confines of her lakefront home and fantasizes about transforming into that great flying predator--unerring and pitiless in the hunt. And in the final story, "Welcome to Friendly Skies," a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe, to a harrowing fate. At the heart of this meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting collection are girls and women confronting the danger around them, and the danger hidden inside their turbulent selves.

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    The Chemistry of Death

      Simon Beckett
     The Chemistry of Death

Three years ago, David Hunter moved to rural Norfolk to escape his life in London, his gritty work in forensics, and a tragedy that nearly destroyed him. Working as a simple country doctor, seeing his lost wife and daughter only in his dreams, David struggles to remain uninvolved when the corpse of a woman is found in the woods, a macabre sign from her killer decorating her body. In one horrifying instant, the quiet summer countryside that had been David’s refuge has turned malevolent—and suddenly there is no place to hide. The village of Manham is tight-knit, far from the beaten path. As a newcomer, Dr. Hunter is immediately a suspect. Once an expert in analyzing human remains, he reluctantly joins the police investigation—and when another woman disappears, it soon becomes personal. Because this time she is someone David knows, someone who has managed to penetrate the icy barrier around his heart. With a killer’s bizarre and twisted methods screaming out to him, with a brooding countryside beset with suspicion, David can feel the darkness gathering around him. For as the clock ticks down on a young woman’s life, David must follow a macabre trail of clues—all the way to its final, horrifying conclusion. From the Hardcover edition.

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    Corsair

      Clive Cussler
     Corsair

For five novels, Clive Cussler has brought readers into the world of the "Oregon," a seemingly dilapidated ship packed with sophisticated equipment, and captained by the rakish, one-legged Juan Cabrillo. And now the "Oregon" and its crew face their biggest challenge yet. Corsairs are pirates, and pirates come in many different varieties. There are the pirates who fought off the Barbary Coast in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the contemporary pirates who infest the waters of Africa and Asia, and the pirates . . . who look like something else. When the U.S. secretary of state's plane crashes while bringing her to a summit meeting in Libya, the CIA, distrusting the Libyans, hire Juan Cabrillo to search for her, and their misgivings are well founded. The crew locates the plane, but the secretary of state has vanished. It turns out Libya's new foreign minister has other plans for the conference, plans that Cabrillo cannot let happen. But what does it all have to do with a two- hundred- year-old naval battle and the centuries-old Islamic scrolls that the Libyans seem so determined to find? The answers will lead him full circle into history, and into another pitched battle on the sea, this time against Islamic terrorists, and with the fate of nations resting on its outcome. ?Readers will burn up the pages following the blazing action and daring exploits of these men and women and their amazing machines, ? writes "Publishers Weekly" of the "Oregon" Files series. And they?ll do it once again, with "Corsair."

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    Sister, Missing

      Sophie McKenzie
     Sister, Missing

It's two years after the events of Girl, Missing and life is not getting any easier for sixteen-year-old Lauren, as exam pressure and a recent family tragedy take their toll. Lauren's birth mother takes Lauren and her two sisters on holiday in the hope that some time together will help, but a few days into the holiday one of the sisters disappears, under circumstances very similar to those in which Lauren was taken years before. Can Lauren save her sister, and stop the nightmare happening all over again?

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    Tick Tock

      James Patterson
     Tick Tock

A bomb set in one of New York's busiest places is discovered before it explodes. But relief turns to terror when the police realize it is just a warning of greater devastation to come. The city calls on Detective Michael Bennett, pulling him away from a seaside vacation with his ten adopted children and their beloved nanny, Mary Catherine--leaving his entire family open to attack. Bennett enlists the help of a former colleague, FBI Agent Emily Parker. His affection for Emily grows into attraction and then something stronger, and his relationship with Mary Catherine takes an unexpected turn. Another horrifying crime leads Bennett to a shocking discovery that exposes the killer's pattern--and the earth-shattering enormity of his plan.

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    When Eagles Burn (Maddox Book #1)

      Jack Hayes
     When Eagles Burn (Maddox Book #1)

September 1944. A V2 lands with horrifying precision, aimed to kill Churchill. Germany has developed missiles capable of targeted, long-range assassinations. Veteran of the SOE, Captain Maddox, is sent behind enemy lines to Finland to halt production. But between the local Finns, Red Army and Nazis, this may be his deadliest mission ever. Worse, he suspects there's a traitor on his team.September 1944.Germany is being pushed back across Europe but the war is not yet won. A fanatical group within the Nazi hierarchy is determined to do whatever is necessary to tip the balance in the Fatherland's favour.Their plan? Pinpoint guided V2 rockets.From across the seas, the Nazis will be able to hit a specific location with a large enough warhead to guarantee precision assassinations.Their first target: Winston Churchill.Captain Maddox is a veteran of Britain's Special Operations Executive.He is sent behind enemy lines to Finland thwart this new menace.But finding and stopping the Germans is just the first problem among many. Will the local Finns, battling Soviet Russia, greet him as friend or foe? And what of the Red Army, who want the technology for themselves?Worse still, Maddox quickly realises not everyone on his team wants him to make it through the war alive."When Eagles Burn" is the electrifying first book in the Maddox series. A fast-paced thriller in the style of Alistair MacLean, Jack Higgins and Clive Cussler."Another masterful thriller from Jack Hayes. A precision guided bomb explodes in London, throwing the British high command into disarray. But the threat comes not from Nazi Germany but from the trackless wastes and endless winter night of occupied Finland. A team of hand-picked soldiers is parachuted into the area with the most specific instructions and one simple objective. But facing the armed might of both the Nazis and the Red Army isn't their only problem – they have a traitor in their ranks, a man with his own very different agenda. A gripping tale of heroism and treachery." -- James Becker, author of "The Lost Testament""A cracking read!" -- Roger Hurn, author of "Business is Murder""A thriller in a class of its own!" -- Matt Lynn, author of the "Black Ops" series.

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    The Bad Place

      Dean Koontz
     The Bad Place

Frank Pollard is afraid to fall asleep. Every morning when he awakes, he discovers something strange--like blood on his hands--a bizarre mystery that tortures his soul. Two investigators have been hired to follow the haunted man. But only one person--a young man with Down's Syndrome--can imagine where their journeys might end. That terrible place from which no one ever returns.

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