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It's late in the fall in Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he is simply trying to tie up some loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on his desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. Rebus discovers that an elite delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, looking to expand its interests. And as Rebus's investigation gains ground, someone brutally assaults a local gangster with whom he has a long history. Has Rebus overstepped his bounds for the last time? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, controversial career, will Rebus even make it that far?
He had been a promising young novelist when he met Drusilla. Their affair was now over, but the slide into violence had just begun.
From AudioFile
One problem with audiobooks is that you can't flip to the end of the book to find out what happens. Nor can you skip pages when the action rattles your nerves. Both these coping techniques would be tempting here as the dramatic narration of Ric Jerrom amplifies the nail-biting effect of Ruth Rendell's prose. Although there's no actual violence, the tension builds as an impoverished British writer becomes captivated--and manipulated--by a beautiful woman who wants him to kill her wealthy husband. It is her seductive voice, so superbly reproduced by the narrator, that casts an increasingly ominous spell. As the plot tightens, the voice gets lower and lower and more and more sinister until, at the end, it has become a sibilant whisper. Pity any timid souls who listen to that voice before bedtime! J.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
Meet Ophelia: a blonde, beautiful high-school senior and long-time girlfriend of Prince Hamlet of Denmark. Her life is dominated not only by her boyfriend's fame and his overbearing family, but also by the paparazzi who hound them wherever they go. As the devastatingly handsome Hamlet spirals into madness after the mysterious death of his father, the King, Ophelia rides out his crazy roller coaster life, and lives to tell about it. In live television interviews, of course.Passion, romance, drama, humor, and tragedy intertwine in this compulsively readable debut novel, told by a strong-willed, modern-day Ophelia.
Former Navy SEAL Max Wright is out of the SEAL Teams forever after being almost killed by an Afghani RPG. He retreats to his former XO's beach house to lick his wounds. He wants to snarl at the world but finds it hard to snarl at his new neighbor, his XO's beautiful goddaughter, Paige Waring, who also comes with a ridiculously likable, totally undisciplined dog.As a plant geneticist, Paige has always been focused on her work, but when she and her dog run into Max, she recognizes the lonely, shattered man behind the rugged exterior. To her mind, sexiness always comes with a white lab coat, not with acres of tanned muscle and a tough mind-set.When Paige's work becomes the target of criminals and she's abducted, Max springs into action. Though still terribly wounded, this tough as nails SEAL goes on his last mission--stopping at nothing to save the woman he loves.
Defying their Black King in order to rally an attack on the peaceful Blue Isle, warrior-prince Rugar and his fearless daughter, Jewel, do not suspect that the islanders, under young prince Nicholas, have prepared to defend themselves.
Years after a political marriage fails to bring peace to the land of Blue Isle, Jewel learns that the son she and her husband have been raising is a changeling and launches a rescue mission in the Shadowlands.
He put words to the memory years later, when he tried to tell people of it. Some doubted he could remember, and others watched him as if stunned by his clarity. But the memory was clear, not as a series of impressions, but as an experience, one he could relive if he closed his eyes and cast his mind backward. An inverse Vision. None of his other memories were as sharp, but they were not as important. Nor were they the first:
Light filled the room. He opened his eyes and felt himself emerge like a man stepping out of the fog. One moment he had been absorbing, feeling, learning--the next he was thinking. The lights clustered near the window, a hundred single points revolving in a circle. The tapestry was up, as if someone were holding it. He turned his head--it was his newest skill--but he saw only the curtained wall of the crib. Voices floated in from the other room--his mother's voice, sweet and familiar, almost a part of himself; and a man's voice--his father's?
His nurse sat near the fireplace, her head tilted back, her bonnet askew. She was snoring softly, a raspy sound that sometimes covered the voices. He could barely see her face over the edge of his crib. It was a friendly face, with gentle wrinkled features, a rounded nose, and a generous mouth. Her eyes were closed, her mouth open, her nostrils fluttering with each inhalation. He reached toward her, but his fingers gripped the soft blanket instead.
A cool breeze touched him tentatively, smelling of rain and the river. The lights parted to let a shadow in. The shadow had the shape of a man, but it was dark and flat and crept across the wall. He put his baby finger in his mouth and sucked, eyes wide, watching the shadow. It slid over the tapestries and across the fireplace until it landed on his nurse's face. Her snoring stopped.
He whimpered, but the shadow did not look at him. Instead, it molded itself against his nurse's features. Her hands moved ever so slightly as if to pull it off, then she began twitching as if she were dreaming. Her eyes remained closed, but her snoring stopped.
His mother's voice penetrated the sudden silence. "You will not give him a common name! He is a Prince in the Black King's line. He needs to be named as such!"
The nurse's breathing became regular. The twitching stopped. Except for the blackness covering her face, she appeared almost normal.
"I thought Fey named their children after the customs of the land they're in." His father's voice.
"Names have to have meaning, Nicholas. They are the secret to power."
"I do not see how your name gives you power, Jewel."
The breeze blew over him again. He peered over his blanket at the window. The lights were no longer revolving. They had formed a straight line from the window to his curtained crib. The lights were beautiful and tiny, the size of his fingertips. They gathered around his crib, twinkling and sparkling. Suddenly he was warm. The air smelled of sunlight.
"I'll agree to the name if you tell me what it means." The voices moved hack and forth, near and away, as if his parents were circling each other in the next room.
"I don't know what it means, Jewel. But it has been in my family for generations."
"I swear"--his mother sounded angry--"it was easier to make the child than it is to name him."
"It was certainly more fun."
He turned to the curtained wall, wishing he could see through it, wishing they would come to him. The lights hovered above him. They were so beautiful. Blue and red and yellow. He pulled his finger out of his mouth and raised it toward the lights.
By accident, he touched a blue light and pulled his hand away with a startled cry. With the smell of sulfur and a bit of smoke, the blue light became a tiny naked woman with thin wings shimmering on her back. Her skin was darker than his, her eyebrows swept up like her wings, and her eyes were as alive as the lights.
"Got him," she said.
His fingers hurt. He sniffled, then looked at his nurse. The shadow still covered her face, and she was still breathing softly. He wanted her to see him. But she slept.
The tiny woman landed on his chest, put her hands on his chin, and looked into his eyes. "Ah," she said. "He's ours, all right."
Her hands tickled his skin. The other lights gathered around her. With a series of pops, they became more winged people, all dark, all graceful and small. The men had thick beards, the women, hair that cascaded over their shoulders.
They landed around him, their bare feet making tiny indentations on the thick blanket. He was too startled to cry. They examined his features, poking at his skin, tugging on his ears, tracing the tiny points.
"He's one of ours," the woman said.
"Skin's light," one of the men said.
"Lighter," another man corrected. Their voices were tiny too, almost like little bells.
In the other room, his mother giggled. He moved at the sound, knocking some of the little people over. He stretched out a hand, reaching for her. She giggled again, deep in her throat.
"Nicholas, it's been just days since the babe."
His father laughed too.
The little people got up. One of the men came very close. He squinted, making his small eyes almost invisible. "Nose is upturned."
"So?" the woman asked, her wings fluttering.
"Our noses are straight."
"He has to have some Islander."
"Rugar said leave him if there is no magic."
The woman put her hands on her hips. "Look at those eyes. Look at how bright they are. Then tell me there's no magic."
"The magic is always stronger when the blood is mixed," said another woman.
In the other room, his mother's laugh grew closer. "Nicholas, let's just see the babe. Maybe we can decide what to call him then."
The little people froze. His hands were still grasping. Outside the protection of the crib, the air was cold. The little people had brought deep warmth with them.
"Stay for a moment," his father said.
"The Healer said--"
"Healers be damned."
The little people waited another moment, then the woman snapped her fingers. "Quickly," she said.
Their wings fluttered, and the group floated above him, as pretty as the lights. He wasn't sure of them. Touching them had hurt, but they were so lovely. So lovely.
They fanned out around him, holding strands as thin as spiderwebs. They flew back and forth, weaving the strands. The woman stood near his head, outside of the strands, clutching a tiny stone to her chest.
"Hurry," she said.
"Nicholas, really." His mother laughed again. "Stop. We can't."
"I know," his father said. "But it's so much nicer than fighting. Maybe we shouldn't call him anything."
"Can you imagine?" she said. "He's a grandfather and his friends all call him 'baby.'"
The strands had formed a piece of white gauze between him and the world. The shadow moved on his nurse's face, lifting away a tiny bit and glancing over its flat shoulder at the flying people.
"Not yet," the woman said.
The shadow flattened out over the nurse once more.
The gauze enveloped him and his blankets. He felt warm and secure. The little people held the edges of the gauze and lifted him from the crib.
He could see the whole room. It was big. His nurse sat in one corner, the shadow over her face, her eyelids moving back and forth. A bed with filmy red curtains sat in the far side of the room, and chairs lined the walls. All the windows were covered with tapestries, and the tapestries were pictures of babies being born, being held, being crowned. Only one window was open--the window the people had come through.
Floating was fun. It felt like being held. He snuggled into his blankets and watched the little woman put the stone on his pillow. Then the door handle turned. The little woman floated above the crib, shooing the others away with her hands. "Hurry!" she whispered. "Hurry!"
"We might wake him up, Jewel," his father said.
"Babies sleep sound."
"Wait," he said. "Let me find out what the name means. Then we can have a real talk. lf it has no meaning, then--"
"Find out who had the name before," she said. "That's important."
They were almost to the window. He had forgotten his mother. He wanted her to float with him. He rolled over, making the little people curse. The net swung precariously. He cried out, a long plaintive wail.
"Shush!" the little man nearest him said.
The shadow lifted off the nurse's face. She snorted, sighed, and sank deeper in sleep. The shadow crawled over the fireplace toward the window.
He cried out again. The nurse stirred and ran a hand over her face. His feet were outside. It was raining, but the drops didn't touch him. They veered away from his feet as if he wore a protective cover.
The nurse's eyes flickered open. "What a dream I had, baby," she said. "What a dream."
He howled. The little people hurried him outside even faster. She went to the crib and looked down. His gaze followed hers. In his bed, another baby lay. Its eyes were open but empty. The nurse brushed her hand on its cheek.
"You're cold, lambkins," she said.
The little woman huddled in the curtain around the crib. She moved her fingers and the baby cooed. The nurse smiled.
He was staring at the baby that had replaced him. It looked like him, but it was not him. It had been a stone a moment before.
"Changeling," he thought, marking not just his first...
Fiasco is a more strongly worded title than you might expect a seasoned military reporter such as Thomas E. Ricks to use, accustomed as he is to the even-handed style of daily newspaper journalism. But Ricks, the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post and the author of the acclaimed account of Marine Corps boot camp, Making the Corps (released in a 10th anniversary edition to accompany the paperback release of Fiasco), has written a thorough and devastating history of the war in Iraq from the planning stages through the continued insurgency in early 2006, and he does not shy away from naming those he finds responsible. His tragic story is divided in two. The first part--the runup to the war and the invasion in 2003--is familiar from books like Cobra II and Plan of Attack, although Ricks uses his many military sources to portray an officer class that was far more skeptical of the war beforehand than generally reported. But the heart of his book is the second half, beginning in August 2003, when, as he writes, the war really began, with the bombing of the Jordanian embassy and the emergence of the insurgency. His strongest critique is that the U.S. military failed to anticipate--and then failed to recognize--the insurgency, and tried to fight it with conventional methods that only fanned its flames. What makes his portrait particularly damning are the dozens of military sources--most of them on record--who join in his critique, and the thousands of pages of internal documents he uses to make his case for a war poorly planned and bravely but blindly fought.
The paperback edition of Fiasco includes a new postscript in which Ricks looks back on the year since the book's release, a year in which the intensity and frequency of attacks on American soldiers only increased and in which Ricks's challenging account became accepted as conventional wisdom, with many of the dissident officers in his story given the reins of leadership, although Ricks still finds the prospects for the conflict grim. --Tom Nissley
A Fiasco, a Year Later
With the paperback release of Thomas Ricks's Fiasco, a year after the book became a #1 New York Times bestseller and an influential force in transforming the public perception (and the perception within the military and the civilian government as well) of the war in Iraq, we asked Ricks in the questions below to look back on the book and the year of conflict that have followed. On our page for the hardcover edition of Fiasco you can see our earlier Q&A with Ricks, and you can also see two lists he prepared for Amazon customers: his choices for the 10 books for understanding Iraq that aren't about Iraq, a collection of studies of counterinsurgency warfare that became surprisingly popular last year as soldiers and civilians tried to understand the nature of the new conflict, and, as a glimpse into his writing process, a playlist of the music he listened to while writing and researching the book.
Amazon.com: When we spoke with you a year ago, you said that you thought you were done going back to Baghdad. But that dateline is still showing up in your reports. How have things changed in the city over the past year?
Thomas E. Ricks: Yes, I had promised my wife that I wouldn’t go back. Iraq was taking a toll on both of us--I think my trips of four to six weeks were harder on her than on me.
But I found I couldn't stay away. The Iraq war is the most important event of our time, I think, and will remain a major news story for years to come. And I felt like everything I had done for the last 15 years--from deployments I'd covered to books and military manuals I’d read (and written)--had prepared me to cover this event better than most reporters. So I made a deal with my wife that I would go back to Iraq but would no longer do the riskiest things, such as go on combat patrols or on convoys. I used to have a rule that I would only take the risks necessary to "get the story." Now I don't take even those risks if I can see them, even if that means missing part of a story. Also, I try to keep my trips much shorter.
How is Baghdad different? It is still a chaotic mess. But it doesn't feel quite as Hobbesian as it did in early 2006. That said, it also feels a bit like a pause--with the so-called "surge," Uncle Sam has put all his chips on the table, and the other players are waiting a bit to see how that plays out.
Amazon.com: One of the remarkable things over the past year for a reader of Fiasco has been how much of what your book recommends has, apparently, been taken to heart by the military and civilian leadership. As you write in your new postscript to the paperback edition, the war has been "turned over to the dissidents." General David Petraeus, who was one of the first to put classic counterinsurgency tactics to use in Iraq, is now the top American commander there, and he has surrounded himself with others with similar views. What was that transformation like on the inside?
Ricks: I was really struck when I was out in Baghdad two months ago at how different the American military felt. I used to hate going into the Green Zone because of all the unreal happy talk I'd hear. It was a relief to leave the place, even if being outside it (and contrary to popular myth, most reporters do live outside it) was more dangerous.
There is a new realism in the U.S. military. In May, I was getting a briefing from one official in the Green Zone and I thought, "Wow, not only does this briefing strike me as accurate, it also is better said than I could do." That feeling was a real change from the old days.
The other thing that struck me was the number of copies I saw of Fiasco as I knocked around Iraq. When I started writing it, the title was controversial. Now generals say things to me like, "Got it, understand it, agree with it." I am told that the Army War College is making the book required reading this fall.
Amazon.com: And what are its prospects at this late date?
Ricks: The question remains, Is it too little too late? It took the U.S. military four years to get the strategy right in Iraq--that is, to understand that their goal should be to protect the people. By that time, the American people and the Iraqi people both had lost of lot of patience. (And by that time, the Iraq war had lasted longer than American participation in World War II.) Also, it isn't clear that we have enough troops to really implement this new strategy of protecting the people. In some parts of Baghdad where U.S. troops now have outposts, the streets are quieter. Yet we're seeing more violence on the outskirts of Baghdad. And the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk make me nervous. I am keeping an eye on them this summer and fall.
The thing to watch in Iraq is whether we see more tribes making common cause with the U.S. and the Iraqi government. How long will it last? And what does it mean in the long term for Iraq? Is it the beginning of a major change, or just a prelude to a big civil war?
Amazon.com: You've been a student of the culture of the military for years. How has the war affected the state of the American military: the redeployments, the state of Guard and Reserves troops and the regular Army and Marines, and the relationship to civilian leadership?
Ricks: I think there is general agreement that there is a huge strain on the military. Essentially, one percent of the nation--soldiers and their families--is carrying the burden. We are now sending soldiers back for their third year-long tours. We've never tried to fight a lengthy ground war overseas with an all-volunteer force. Nor have we ever tried to occupy an Arab country.
What the long-term effect is on the military will depend in part on how the war ends for us, and for Iraq. But I think it isn't going to be good. Today I was talking to a retired officer and asked him what he was hearing from his friends in Iraq about troop morale. "It's broken," he said. Meanwhile, he said, soldiers he knows who are back home from Iraq "wonder why they were there." Not everyone is as morose as this officer, but the trend isn't good.
Amazon.com: You quote Gen. Anthony Zinni in your postscript as saying the U.S. is "drifting toward containment" in Iraq. What does containment of what will likely remain a very hot conflict look like? You've written in your postscript and elsewhere that you think we are only in act III of a Shakespearean tragedy. I wouldn't describe Shakespeare's fifth acts as particularly well contained.
Ricks: I agree with you. Containment would mean some sort of stepping back from the war, probably beginning by halving the American military presence. You'd probably still have U.S. troops inside Iraq, but disengaged from daily fighting. Their goals would be negative ones: prevent genocide, prevent al Qaeda from being able to operate in Iraq, and prevent the war from spreading to outside Iraq. (This was laid out well in a recent study by James Miller and Shawn Brimley, readable at http://www.cnas.org/en/cms/?368.)
Containment probably would be a messy and demoralizing mission. No one signs up in the U.S. military to stand by as innocents are slaughtered in nearby cities. Yet that might be the case if we did indeed move to this stance and a full-blown civil war (or a couple) ensued. And there surely would be refugees from such fighting. Either they would go to neighboring countries, and perhaps destabilize them, or we would set up "refugee catchment" areas, as another study, by the Brookings Institute, proposed. The open-ended task of guarding those new refugee camps likely would fall to U.S. troops.
The more you look at Iraq, the more worrisome it gets. As I noted in the new postscript in the paperback edition, many strategic experts I talk to believe that the consequences of the Iraq war are going to be worse for the United States than was the fallout from the Vietnam War.
Amazon.com: A year and a half is a long time, but let's say that we have a Democratic president in January 2009: President Clinton, or Gore, or Obama. What prospect would a change in administration have for a new strategic opening? Or would the new president likely wind up like Nixon in Vietnam, owning a war he or she didn't begin?
Ricks: Not such a long time. President Bush has made his major decisions on Iraq. Troop levels are going to have to come down next year, because we don't have replacements on the shelf. So the three big questions for the U.S. government are going to be: How many troops will be withdrawn, what will be the mission of those who remain, and how long will they stay? Those questions are going to be answered by the next president, not this one.
My gut feeling is the latter: I think we are going to have troops in Iraq through 2009, and probably for a few years beyond that. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if U.S. troops were there in 15 years. But as I say in Fiasco, that's kind of a best-case scenario.
SUMMARY:
The mysterious legacy of defense attorney Andy Carpenter's late father has made him a rich man--22 million dollars rich, to be exact. But as Andy relaxes in his office, imagining ways to spend his money, he has an unexpected visitor: a stranger who confesses to decapitating and burning a man--cooly relying on the confidentiality of attorney-client privilege. When an innocent man is charged with the crime, Andy decides to take on the case. But the case becomes personal when, in a stunning development, Andy's client is exonerated and his girlfriend, Laurie Collins, is accused of the crime. When the man who originally confessed to the murder turns up dead, Andy realizes that this is much bigger than one crime. Who committed the murders? Who framed Laurie? In the case of his life, Andy must prove Laurie's innocence in this thrilling mystery from the always inventive David Rosenfelt.- Open and Shut (Mysterious Press, 5/02) was a Mystery Guild(R) Featured Alternate. Bulgarian, French, and German rights to the book were sold before publication. Its 5/03 mass market release will tie in with the hardcover release of First Degree.- David Rosenfelt writes legal mysteries with the same authority and sense of drama that has ensured the success of Robert B. Parker, Robert Crais, and Harlan Coben.
'Talk about stranger than fiction. Selwyn Raab tells riveting, true tales of the fabled mob figures. It's 'The Godfather' annotated - a classic piece of reporting by a man who knows the bloody, brutal, corrupt territory.' - Mike Wallace, '60 Minutes'
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"Talk about stranger than fiction. Selwyn Raab tells riveting, true tales of the fabled mob figures. It's 'The Godfather' annotated -- a classic piece of reporting by a man who knows the bloody, brutal, corrupt territory." -- Mike Wallace, '60 Minutes' This extensively researched account of the fabled New York mob figures we alternately despise and glamorize provides the most comprehensive history of the city's criminal empires that have intimidated, killed and fleeced Americans and confounded law enforcement for over 100 years. From their New York headquarters, the Bonnano, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese crime 'familes' have created a vast domain with outposts along the East Coast, Florida, California and Las Vegas. With influence over everything from the price of fruit and vegetables, waterfront commerce in America's largest port, the construction industry, local and national government, the FBI, even refuse collection and the heroin trade, the Cosa Nostra's hold on everyday life is unprecedented. Selwyn Raab has managed to persuade mafiosi and their helpmates to talk candidly for the first time, and he unravels their mysterious codes and culture to elucidate the art of surviving in a volatile criminal environment. In the light of the success of John Dickie's bestselling 'Cosa Nostra' and the enduring allure of the Mafia in pop culture ('The Sopranos', 'The Godfather Returns'), this fascinating and definitive work is at once a history of the world's most sophisticated and lucrative underworld phenomena and an investigation into the pillage of New York's richest city and region. Selwyn Raab not only reveals where the bodies are buried, he brings them back to life.
Kathy Reichs — #1 «New York Times» bestselling author and producer of the FOX television hit «Bones» — returns with a riveting new novel set in Charlotte, North Carolina, featuring America’s favorite forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan. Just as 200,000 fans are pouring into town for Race Week, a body is found in a barrel of asphalt next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. The next day, a NASCAR crew member comes to Temperance Brennan’s office at the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner to share a devastating story. Twelve years earlier, Wayne Gamble’s sister, Cindi, then a high school senior and aspiring racer, disappeared along with her boyfriend, Cale Lovette. Lovette kept company with a group of right-wing extremists known as the Patriot Posse. Could the body be Cindi’s? Or Cale’s? At the time of their disappearance, the FBI joined the investigation, only to terminate it weeks later. Was there a cover-up? As Tempe juggles multiple…
"* 'A gripping, highly charged adventure.' - Waterstone's Books Quarterly * 'Fast paced action thriller that hits all the right spots.' - The Bookseller * '...Gripping, highly charged adventure.' - Nicola Hayes, Waterstones Books Quarterly"
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Ben’s on a trip to London to meet his mum. But an accident at the Thames Barrier, combined with a tidal surge and a dramatic thunderstorm – and suddenly his trip turns into something totally different as the Barrier is breached and London is flooded. With streets underwater, communications down, rats pouring up out of the sewers and thousands of people in a state of panic, survival becomes a key issue. But as Ben tries to get across London to meet his mother, little does he know that two terrorists have a similar rendezvous . . .
A fabulous, evocative, romantic new historical novel by bestselling Celia Rees Violetta and Feste have come to London to rescue the holy relics taken from the church in Illyria by the evil Malvolio. Their journey has been long and their adventures many, but it is not until they meet the playwright William Shakespeare that they get to tell the entire story from beginning to end! But where will this remarkable tale ultimately lead Violetta and her companion? And will they manage to save themselves, and the relics from the very evil intentions of Malvolio.
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