Veteran writers David Cruise and Alison Griffiths paint a vivid portrait of this intrepid woman, who survived a cruelly disfiguring bout with polio as a child and channeled her energy and intellect into her career and marriage -- until she encountered a truck of injured, half-dead horses on her way to work in 1950. Those horses, destined for a pet food rendering plant, launched Johnston into a decades-long campaign against ranchers and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to stop the roundup and slaughter of mustangs. At a time when animal rights was barely a cause and women were still expected to stay at home, Johnston embarked on dangerous vigilante missions to free captured horses and document roundups, and began a highly organized one-woman campaign to raise public awareness of their plight, all while continuing to work and maintain a household.

Johnston's courage, determination, and innovative tactics -- she initiated a children's letter-writing campaign that flooded Congress with more mail than it had received on any issue except the Vietnam War -- pitted her against ranchers and powerful politicians, but eventually won her support and admiration around the world, including the friendship of celebrated children's author Marguerite Henry, who fictionalized her story in a children's novel.

In this absorbing and carefully researched biography, Cruise and Griffiths depict the ups and downs of a remarkable woman's life and mission, reveal her lasting legacy, and capture the romance and magic of the wild horses that inspired her.

ROGER MARIS may be the greatest ballplayer no one really knows. In 1961, the soft-spoken man from the frozen plains of North Dakota enjoyed one of the most amazing seasons in baseball history, when he outslugged his teammate Mickey Mantle to become the game's natural home-run king. It was Mantle himself who said, "Roger was as good a man and as good a ballplayer as there ever was." Yet Maris was vilified by fans and the press and has never received his due from biographers--until now.

Tom Clavin and Danny Peary trace the drama-tic arc of Maris's life, from his boyhood in Fargo through his early pro career in the Cleveland Indians farm program, to his World Series championship years in New York and beyond. At the center is the exciting story of the 1961 season and the ordeal Maris endured as an outsider in Yankee pinstripes, unloved by fans who compared him unfavorably to their heroes Ruth and Mantle, relentlessly attacked by an aggressive press corps who found him cold and inaccessible, and treated miserably by the organization. After the tremendous challenge of breaking Ruth's record was behind him, Maris ultimately regained his love of baseball as a member of the world champion St. Louis Cardinals. And over time, he gained redemption in the eyes of the Yankee faithful.

With research drawn from more than 130 interviews with Maris's teammates, opponents, family, and friends, as well as 16 pages of photos, some of which have never before been seen, this timely and poignant biography sheds light on an iconic figure from baseball's golden era--and establishes the importance of his role in the game's history.

Like many new bird owners, Jenny and Scott Gardiner hoped for a smart, talkative, friendly companion. Instead, as they took on the unexpected task of raising a curmudgeonly wild African gray parrot and a newborn, they learned an important lesson: parrothood is way harder than parenthood.

A gift from Scott's brother who was living in Zaire, Graycie arrived scrawny, pissed-off, and missing a lot of her feathers -- definitely not the Polly-wants-a-cracker type the Gardiners anticipated. Every day became a constant game of chicken with a bird that would do anything to ruffle their feathers. The old adage about not biting the hand that feeds you -- literally -- never applied to Graycie.

But Jenny and Scott learned to adapt as the family grew to three children, a menagerie of dogs and cats, and, of course, Graycie. In this laugh-out-loud funny and touching memoir, Jenny vividly shares the many hazards of parrot ownership, from the endless avian latrine duty and the joyful day the bird learned to mimic the sound of the smoke detector, to the multiple ways a beak can pierce human flesh. Graycie is a court jester, a karaoke partner, an unusual audio record of their family history, and, at times, a nemesis. But most of all, she has taught the family volumes about tolerance, going with the flow, and realizing that you can no sooner make your child fit into a mold than you can turn a wild parrot into a docile house pet. Winging It is an utterly engrossing reminder of the importance of patience, loyalty, and humor when it comes to dealing with even the most unpleasant members of the family.

The key is in learning how to create an authentic new life, and therefore, a different relationship with the partner in the absence of shared romantic love. This relationship allows the possibility of any continuing combined goals, while building and sustaining necessary boundaries and guidelines for new interactions. Weimer shows readers how to deal with shared responsibilities involving children, mutual business interests, the care of family members, and other situations that require both parties to work together in the new space of the relationship. Thriving After Divorce speaks to anyone who has gone through a breakup, providing hope, alternatives, empowerment, and inspiration to find a new way to relate to former situations and relationships that, in the past, could have been fractious.

With the revelation of Iran's secret uranium enrichment facilities, North Korea's brazen testing of missiles and nuclear weapons, and nuclear-endowed Pakistan's descent into instability, the urgency of the nuclear proliferation problem has never been greater. Based on his extensive experience in tracking the illicit nuclear trade as one of the world's foremost proliferation experts, in Peddling Peril David Albright offers a harrowing narrative of the frighteningly large cracks through which nuclear weapons traffi ckers--such as Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan--continue to slip.

Six years after the arrest of Khan, the networks he established continue to thrive, with black markets sprouting up across the globe. The dramatic takedown of the leader of the world's largest and most perilous smuggling network was originally considered a model of savvy detection by intelligence and enforcement agencies, including the CIA and MI6. But, as Albright chronicles, the prosecutions of traffickers that were much anticipated have not come to pass, and Khan himself was released from house arrest in February 2009.

Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea all use statesponsored smuggling networks that easily bypass export regulations and avoid detection. Albright illuminates how these networks have learned many ways to trick suppliers across the globe, including many in the United States, into selling them vital parts, and why, despite the fact that, since 2007, several dozen companies have been indicted--with some pleading guilty--for suspicion of participating in illicit trade, very few prosecutions have been achieved.

Peddling Peril charts the dealings of several of these companies. Albright also reports on the hopeful story of the German company Leybold's decision to become an industry watchdog, and shows how this story reveals just how effective corporate monitoring and government cooperation would be if more serious efforts were made. Concluding with a detailed plan for clamping down tightly on the illicit trade, Albright shows the way forward in the vital mission of freeing the world of this terrifying menace.

What's the right way to parent? Venture into any playground or online message board and you'll find as many opinions as there are adults present. Every subject -- from sleep training to time-outs to pacifiers -- has its supporters and detractors, and every viewpoint can be backed up by a truckload of research and statistics.

It's enough to reduce a new parent to tears, if the 3 a.m. feedings and endless recitations of Goodnight Moon aren't doing that already. Yet there is a way to end the madness, to calm your fears, and to make those precious early years a source of joy for both of you. Ada Calhoun, a young mother herself, infuses Instinctive Parenting with the smart and candid approach that earned Babble an ASME nomination for General Excellence Online and close to two million readers. Her simple yet profound advice: Find what works for you and your family and ditch the anxiety and judgment.

Everyone wants to do what's best for his or her child, yet the fact is there is no universal "best." Whether you start solids at four months or eight, whether you co-sleep or Ferberize, whether Junior's mac'n'cheese is dayglo orange or 100 percent organic matters a lot less than other parenting books -- and other parents -- might have you believe. What does matter is providing the few absolute essentials (love, food, shelter) while teaching your little one how to be a kind, responsible human being. With its compelling mix of entertaining, hilarious fi rsthand accounts and refreshing common sense, Instinctive Parenting will show you how to do that -- and even show you how to retain your sanity, your friends, your sense of humor, and your personal life in the process.

Sean is Justin's best friend, at least Justin thought he was. But lately Sean has been acting differently. Sean's been telling lies, getting into trouble at school, and hanging out with a tougher crowd, even getting into fights. This isn't like Sean at all.

When Justin finally discovers that Sean's been secretly going to visit his father in prison and is dealing with the shame of that, Justin wants to do something to help before his friend spirals further out of control. But what if confronting Sean means Justin loses his very best friend? In the end, he decides it doesn't matter; he's got to man up.

Set in one of New York's most dangerous neighborhoods, Secret Saturdays is an affecting read highlighted by strong characters and an authentic, heartening voice.

"Just once I'd like to have a plan go my way. Is that too much to ask?"

Smart-mouthed P.I. Stella Valocchi is finally in business, with the office and the aggravating employee--former fiancé Jake Carpenter--to prove it. And when a client with a sob story hires them to find her brother, success is one missing man away--until the search becomes hazardous to Stella's life. Threats, gunshots and car chases won't put her off the case. Neither will Jake's insistence that they be full partners--and maybe more. But the closer Stella is to getting her man, the more the case looks like a carefully set trap--and she's the bait....

She'd Traveled To Texas For Two Things: A Real Cowboy And A Baby

And her e-mail buddy, Archer Jefferson, fit the bill. From his jeans to his hat to his crooked smile, the man was more cowboy than Australian stuntwoman Clove Penmire had bargained for--perfect for helping a friend make one little baby. And although she was known as a plain Jane, Clove refused to let her lack of glamour--or the odd twist of her heart when she saw Archer--interfere with her baby-making mission. She'd be the one to love 'em and leave 'em this time...until a makeover and one passionate night changed all her plans!

T he crippled U.S. government and its military forces are giving up the century-long fight against an undead plague. Born of an otherworldly energy fused with a deadly virus, the ravaging hordes of zombified humans and a nimals have no natural enemies. But they do have one supernatural enemy: Death himself.

Descending upon the ghost town of Jefferson Harbor, Louisiana, the Grim Reaper embarks on a bloody campaign to put down the legions that have defied his touch for so long. He will find allies in the city's last survivors, and a nemesis in a man who wants to harness the force driving the zombies--a man who seeks to rebuild America into an empire of the dead.

Hailed as “A MACABRE MASTERPIECE OF POST-APOCALYPTIC ZOMBIE GOODNESS” on the Library of the Living Dead podcast, Empire brings stunning new twists to a shattering and unforgettable scenario of the not-too-distant future.

Jaxon Castille: jaguar shifter, warrior, assassin. He has long hungered for the chance to make his former lover, Libby Jamieson, pay for her deadly betrayal. After three long years he's finally found her. The hunt is over . . .

But the Libby that he finds is not what he expected. She has no memory of their tumultuous affair, of her treachery, of anything beyond her own name. A shadowy and deadly clan has marked them both for death, and in an instant, he game changes: the hunter has become the hunted.

On the run, with the ghosts of their past between them and a dark, desperate hunger quickly reclaiming their bodies and souls, Libby and Jaxon must discover the truth behind the dark forces working against them. Together, they must grab hold of a destiny that has the power to either heal them or destroy them.

But the truth is far more shattering than anyone could imagine . . .

Who killed Dr. Harvey Burdell?

Though there are no witnesses and no clues, fingers point to Emma Cunningham, the refined, pale-skinned widow who managed Burdell’s house and his servants. Rumored to be a black-hearted gold digger with designs on the doctor’s name andfortune, Emma is immediately put under house arrest during a murder investigation. A swift conviction is sure to catapult flamboyant district attorney Abraham Oakey Hall into the mayor’s seat. But one formidable obstacle stands in his way: the defense attorney Henry Clinton. Committed to justice and the law, Clinton will aid the vulnerable widow in her desperate fight to save herself from the gallows.

Set in 1857 New York, this gripping mystery is also a richly detailed excavation of a lost age. Horan vividly re-creates a tumultuous era characterized by a sensationalist press, aggressive new wealth, a booming real-estate market, corruption, racial conflict, economic inequality between men and women, and the erosion of the old codes of behavior. A tale of murder, sex, greed, and politics, this spellbinding narrative transports readers to a time that eerily echoes our own.

-- Russ Hodges, October 3, 1951

On the fiftieth anniversary of "The Shot Heard Round the World," Don DeLillo reassembles in fiction the larger-than-life characters who on October 3, 1951, witnessed Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jackie Gleason is razzing Toots Shor in Leo Durocher's box seats; J. Edgar Hoover, basking in Sinatra's celebrity, is about to be told that the Russians have tested an atomic bomb; and Russ Hodges, raw-throated and excitable, announces the game -- the Giants and the Dodgers at the Polo Grounds in New York. DeLillo's transcendent account of one of the iconic events of the twentieth century is a masterpiece of American sportswriting.

Ruth Rabinowitz believes. She believes that her daughter, Bethany, is a terrific little actress, so they have come to Hollywood, where dreams come true. Ruth’s husband and Bethany’s father, who thinks their quest for stardom is delusional, has been left behind in Seattle.

Joining Bethany Rabinowitz in Hollywood’s often toxic waters are fellow child actors Quinn Reilly, who has been cast adrift by his family and excels only on Hollywood sets; beautiful Allison Addison, who is misled by her powerful need for love; and Laurel Buehl, who brings a desperate secret to LA that makes the stakes impossibly high. As talent managers, agents, coaches, directors, and teachers nurture—and feed on—their ambitions, stars will be made, hearts will be broken, children will grow up, and dreams will both be realized and die.

A breathtaking tale of love, loyalty, and intrigue set in the early days of World War II from the acclaimed New York Times Notable Book author of Soul Catcher, which USA Today hailed as "a marvelous historical novel"

World War II threatens to engulf the globe. The beleaguered Soviets, struggling to hold back the rising German tide, face despair and defeat daily. Yet just as all seems lost, a fearless female sniper named Tat'yana Levchenko gains fame in the Battle of Sevastopol with her remarkable composure and stunning skill. Offering hope in her nation's darkest moments, she becomes a Soviet hero, and word of her beauty and prowess eventually reaches Washington, D.C. Soon, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invites Tat'yana to visit America and tour the country with her.

For the Soviets, Tat'yana's newfound friendship with the wife of the most powerful man in the world is an opportunity to garner public support for a much-needed second front in the war—but it's also a chance to gather information about President Roosevelt's plans. Surrounded by those who would exploit her position, Tat'yana becomes a pawn in a battle for information, and she is forced to question the motivations of everyone she knows, including the American captain who has been assigned as her translator. But as quickly as she rises to fame, Tat'yana vanishes. Did she defect? Was she silenced—and if so, by whom? Decades later, a clever journalist will discover Tat'yana's story . . . and reveal the truth.

In Beautiful Assassin, Michael White delivers a heartrending story of war, betrayal, and a mother's love that can never be extinguished. Lyrical, evocative, and powerfully moving, this is a tale you will not soon forget.

Stoney gave up drinking, but it couldn't save his marriage. Leaving the big house in New Jersey to his wife and kids, he's living in the City—still working the profitable, if not 100 percent legal, angles with his partner, "Fat Tommy Bagadonuts." Then, out of the blue, Stoney's teenage daughter shows up with a problem: an unwanted admirer who needs to be cooled down . . . or eliminated.

But the secrets Marisa's been keeping from her father—like her night job as an exotic dancer—can't compare with those being guarded by the mysterious and violent man who's stalking her: a dangerous enigma with no past and a made-up name. He does, however, have lots of money—which makes him a very tempting mark for Stoney, Tommy, and their young streetwise "apprentice," Tuco. But people who look too closely into this guy's history have a habit of turning up dead.

Sweet Lips, Tennessee . . . Toad Suck, Arkansas . . . Okay, Oklahoma . . . Truth or Consequences, New Mexico . . . Maeve Connelly's epic road trip is taking her through every colorfully named tiny town in America on her way to the far less imaginatively named Los Angeles, California. With her foulmouthed cockatiel, Oliver, her only companion, Maeve's heading way off the beaten track with little money and a load of painful baggage she wants to leave behind. But when her beloved rattletrap, "Elsie," breaks down outside Unknown, Arizona, she finds herself taking a much longer rest stop than she anticipated.

The only mechanic in the vicinity is on an indefinite walkabout, so Maeve's in for the long haul—and she'll need to find two jobs to pay for Elsie's eventual repair. But she's starting to feel strangely at home among the quirky denizens of Unknown—especially around her new bookstore owner boss—so Maeve is seriously considering saying good-bye to Hollywood for good . . . if she can keep her past troubles from coming to light.

From Kerry Reichs, author of The Best Day of Someone Else's Life, comes a poignant and very funny new novel about finding yourself after finding yourself in the middle of nowhere.

In everyone's life, Avrum claimed, there is one grand, undeniable moment that never stops mattering. For Bobo, it was his first glimpse of beautiful Amy Lourie. But, for a wealthy Jewish girl and a Georgia farm boy, the summer had to end, leaving Bobo with the pain of lost love. Nearly forty years later, his children grown and marriage comfortably routine, Bobo comes north once more; there, amidst the haunting hints of Amy's presence, she unexpectedly appears. Nothing has dimmed the passion of their youth, yet two lifetimes and a thousand Catskills sunsets stand between who they were and who they have become. The barriers between them are different now. But mysteriously, miraculously, Bobo reawakens the dream of a love larger than himself....

In the summer of 1948, Noah Locke arrives in the small North Carolina hamlet of Bowerstown, set deep in the Valley of Light. A quiet, simple man and army veteran, Noah is haunted by the horrors he witnessed when his infantry unit liberated Dachau. Wandering the South, he seeks both to escape the past and to find a place to call home.

Noah is initially treated with amusement by the people of Bowerstown -- until he begins fishing. For Noah possesses an almost magical ability with a rod and reel. He soon becomes the talk of the valley and is urged to stay long enough to participate in the annual school fishing contest. He agrees, finding lodging in an abandoned shack by what is known as the Lake of Grief, which the locals believe holds no fish. Noah knows they are wrong; beneath the water is a warrior bass waiting to test Noah's gift. But above the water, Noah's innocence catches the heart of Eleanor Cunningham, whose husband supposedly killed himself after returning from the war. Over the course of a week, Noah will be led into the private lives of the residents of the Valley of Light, will join them as they mourn a tragedy, and will experience a miracle that will guide him home at last.

Uplifting, memorable, and deeply emotional, The Valley of Light is the finest work to date from a brilliant teller of heartfelt tales.

Shortlisted for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize, this "profoundly humane novel" (Vancouver Sun), wrings suspense and humor out of the everyday choices we make, revealing the delicate balance between sacrifice and self-interest, doing good and being good.

Clara Purdy is at a crossroads. At forty-three, she is divorced, living in her late parents' house, and near-ing her twentieth year as a claims adjuster at a local insurance firm. Driving to the bank during her lunch hour, she crashes into a sharp left turn, taking the Gage family in the other car with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara decides to do the right thing. She moves Lorraine's three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house—and then has to cope with the consequences of practical goodness: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love.

What, exactly, does it mean to be good? What do we owe each other in this life, and what do we deserve? Good to a Fault is an ultimately joyful book that digs deep, with leavening humor, into questions of morality, class, and social responsibility. Marina Endicott looks at life and death through the compassionate, humane lens of a born novelist: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance in between.

Dear Reader:

In a previous life, before the time of Plum, I wrote twelve short romance novels. Red-hot screwball comedies, each and every one of them. The romances were originally published between the years 1988 and 1992. All immediately went out of print and could be found only at used bookstores and yard sales.

I'm happy to tell you that those stories have now been re-released by HarperCollins, presented in almost original form. I've done only minor editing to correct some embarrassing bloopers missed the first time around.

Hero at Large was the very first book published. It's about a sexy guy who cooks a potholder in spaghetti sauce and charms a single mom and former world-class ice skater with the promise of a ride on his Zamboni. It's got broken bones, giant turkeys, cantankerous cars, and Aunt Edna.

This was the book that changed my life forever and made me a published author. When Hero finally reached the bookstores, I was almost arrested for loitering in Walden's. I stationed myself in the romance section and wouldn't leave until I saw someone buy my book. It took three days!

Enjoy!

What kind of woman would marry a man she only just met?

The kind with nothing to lose.

Long ago, Evelyn Cross sacrificed her good name, her freedom, and any hope for love. Now, in the remote English countryside, she struggles to survive and avoid the scandal threatening to destroy all she holds dear . . . until a sinfully handsome viscount arrives on her doorstep, offering marriage, salvation, and tempting her with so much more . . .

What kind of man would marry a woman he only just met?

The kind bound by duty.

Fresh from war, Spencer Lockhart returns home to claim his title and right the wrong his cousin perpetrated upon Evelyn Cross. In need of a wife, his marrying her is a small price to pay for duty. But when he meets her, the fiery chit is not what he expects to find in a ruined lady. As desire flares hotly between them, honor is the last thing on his mind . . .

What kind of man and woman would marry when they've only just met?

The kind who could ignite a scandal with just one touch.

Rebecca "Becks" Mansfield has a boyfriend who sets her on the edge, a job catering to the whims of a cartoon vampire, and she's shortly to be a bridesmaid in the fairy-tale wedding from hell. How could this have happened to the brilliant, brash-talking, rising star of marketing? Her three best friends tell her she's "date lazy," settling for the men who require the least effort. Maybe Becks isn't trying hard enough, but the "one" she's looking for isn't the perfect man—it's the perfect job.

Of course, you can't always get what you want—a fact that's about to become crystal clear to Becks Mansfield. But sometimes you get what you need.

In May 2005, Tom Tighe, captain of a forty-five-foot-long sailboat named the Almeisan, and his first mate, Loch Reidy, welcomed three new crewmembers for a five-day voyage from Connecticut across the blue waters of the Gulf Stream to sun-drenched Bermuda. The new crew included forty-six-year-old Kathy Gilchrist, seventy-year-old Ron Burd, and thirty-four-year-old Chris Ferrer. Although Tighe had made the trip forty-eight times, with Reidy accompanying him on twenty of those voyages, the rest of the crew had joined to learn more about offshore sailing.

Four days into the voyage, an enormous storm struck, sweeping two of the crew into the towering sea. The remaining crewmembers managed to stay aboard the vessel as it was slowly torn apart by the rampaging ocean. Overboard! follows the simultaneous desperate struggles of both those still on the boat and those fighting for their lives in the sea.

The Coast Guard, alerted to the Almeisan's distress, rushed to the storm-tossed scene. Their ensuing search and rescue mission proved so spectacularly difficult and dangerous that it was later selected--from among thousands of incidents--as the Guard's search and rescue case of the year. Highly trained helicopter pilots and rescue swimmers alike found themselves in almost as much trouble as those trapped by the ferocious ocean.

By turns tragic, thrilling, and deeply inspiring, Overboard! is a riveting, fast-paced story of death and survival at sea--amazing, unforgettable, and all true.

For Adrienne Martini, and countless others, knitting is the linchpin of sanity. As a working mother of two, Martini wanted a challenge that would make her feel in charge. So she decided to make the Holy Grail of sweaters--her own Mary Tudor, whose mind-numbingly gorgeous pattern is so complicated to knit that its mere mention can hush a roomful of experienced knitters. Created by reclusive designer Alice Starmore, the Mary Tudor can be found only in a rare, out-of-print book of Fair Isle–style patterns, Tudor Roses, and requires a discontinued, irreplaceable yarn. The sweater, Martini explains, "is a knitter's Mount Everest, our curse, and our compulsion. I want one more than I can begin to tell you."

And so she took on the challenge: one year, two needles, and countless knits and purls to conquer Mary Tudor while also taking care of her two kids, two cats, two jobs, and (thankfully) one husband--without unraveling in the process. Along the way, Adrienne investigates the tangled origins of the coveted pattern, inquires into the nature of artistic creation, and details her quest to buy supplies on the knitting black market. As she tries not to pull out her hair along with rows gone wrong, Martini gets guidance from some knitterati, who offer invaluable inspiration as she conquers her fear of Fair Isle. A wooly Julie and Julia, this epic yarn celebrates the profound joys of creating--and aspiring to--remarkable achievements.

The patient is an ascetically pretty 15½-year-old white female. She is intelligent, fearful, extremely anxious, and depressed.Her rage is poorly controlled and inappropriately expressed.

Diagnostic Impression: Program for social recovery in a supportive and structured environment appears favorable.

Life Inside

In 1967, three months before her sixteenth birthday, Mindy Lewis was sent to a state psychiatric hospital by court order. She had been skipping school, smoking pot, and listening to too much Dylan. Her mother, at a loss for what else to do, decided that Mindy remain in state custody until she turned eighteen and became a legal, law-abiding, "healthy" adult.

Life Inside is Mindy's story about her coming-of-age during those tumultuous years. In honest, unflinching prose, she paints a richly textured portrait of her stay on a psychiatric ward -- the close bonds and rivalries among adolescent patients, the politics and routines of institutional life, the extensive use of medication, and the prevalence of life-altering misdiagnoses. But this memoir also takes readers on a journey of recovery as Lewis describes her emergence into adulthood and her struggle to transcend the stigma of institutionalization. Bracingly told, and often terrifying in its truths, Life Inside is a life-affirming memoir that informs as it inspires.

A fascinating exploration of the contents of Agatha Christie's seventy-three private notebooks, including illustrations and two unpublished Poirot stories

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, at age eighty-five, she had become the world's most popular author. With sales of more than two billion copies worldwide, in more than one hundred countries, she had achieved the impossible—more than one book every year since the 1920s, every one a bestseller.

So prolific was Agatha Christie's output—sixty-six crime novels, twenty plays, six romance novels under a pseudonym and more than one hundred and fifty short stories—it was often claimed that she had a photographic memory. Was this true? Or did she resort over those fifty-five years to more mundane methods of working out her ingenious crimes?

Following the death of Agatha's daughter, Rosalind, at the end of 2004, a remarkable legacy was revealed. Unearthed among her affairs at the family home of Greenway were Agatha Christie's private notebooks, seventy-three handwritten volumes of notes, lists and drafts outlining all her plans for her many books, plays and stories. Buried in this treasure trove, all in her unmistakable handwriting, are revelations about her famous books that will fascinate anyone who has ever read or watched an Agatha Christie story.

How did the infamous twist in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd really come about? Which very famous Poirot novel started life as an adventure for Miss Marple? Which books were designed to have completely differ-ent endings, and what were they? What were the plot ideas that she considered but rejected?

Full of details she was too modest to reveal in her own autobiography, this remarkable new book includes a wealth of excerpts and pages reproduced directly from the notebooks and her letters, plus, for the first time, two newly discovered complete Hercule Poirot short stories never before published.

On the morning of January 31, 2009, Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist working in Iran, was forced from her home by four men and secretly detained in Iran's notorious Evin Prison. The intelligence agents who captured her accused her of espionage—a charge she denied. For several days, Saberi was held in solitary confinement, ruthlessly interrogated, and cut off from the outside world. For weeks, neither her family nor her friends knew her whereabouts.

After a sham trial that made headlines around the world, the thirty-one-year-old reporter was sentenced to eight years in prison. But following international pressure by family, friends, colleagues, various governments, and total strangers, she was released on appeal on May 11, 2009. Now Saberi breaks her silence to share the full account of her ordeal, describing in vivid detail the methods that Iranian hard-liners are using to try to intimidate and control many of the country's people.

In this gripping and inspirational true story, Saberi writes movingly of her imprisonment, her trial, her eventual release, and the faith that helped her through it all. Her recollections are interwoven with insights into Iranian society, the Islamic regime, and U.S.-Iran relations, as well as stories of her fellow prisoners—many of whom were jailed for their pursuit of human rights, including freedom of speech, association, and religion. Saberi gains strength and wisdom from her cellmates who support her throughout a grueling hunger strike and remind her of the humanity that remains, even when they are denied the most basic rights.

Between Two Worlds is also a deeply revealing account of this tumultuous country and the ongoing struggle for freedom that is being fought inside Evin Prison and on the streets of Iran. From her heartfelt perspective, Saberi offers a rich, dramatic, and illuminating portrait of Iran as it undergoes a striking, historic transformation.

Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of '70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.

Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-rebellion songs "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise," and "Born to Be Bad," riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.

On the face of it, Currie's is a riveting story of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure music scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the music industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group's rise to fame and their ultimate demise.

Shocking and inspiring, funny and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman's fight to reclaim her life.

Former small-town sheriff Cork O'Connor leads a desperate search-and-rescue mission into the unforgiving Minnesota wilderness in this "gritty, bloody adventure" (Publishers Weekly) from critically acclaimed author William Kent Krueger's award-winning thriller series

The Quetico-Superior Wilderness: more than two million acres of forest, white-water rapids, and uncharted islands on the Canadian/American border. Somewhere in the heart of this unforgiving territory, a young woman named Shiloh -- a country-western singer at the height of her fame -- has disappeared.

Her father arrives in Aurora, Minnesota, to hire former sheriff Cork O'Connor to find his daughter, and Cork joins a search party that includes an ex-con, two FBI agents, and a ten-year-old boy. Others are on Shiloh's trail as well -- men hired not just to find her, but to kill her.

As the expedition ventures deeper into the wilderness, strangers descend on Aurora, threatening to spill blood on the town's snowy streets. Meanwhile, out on the Boundary Waters, winter falls hard. Cork's team of searchers loses contact with civilization, and like the brutal winds of a Minnesota blizzard, death -- violent and sudden -- stalks them.

With precise and atmospheric prose, award-winning author William Kent Krueger "prolongs suspense to the very end" (Publishers Weekly) of this impossible-to-put-down thriller when he unleashes spine-tingling mayhem on a tiny logging town and sends hardscrabble former sheriff Cork O'Connor to investigate....

Not far from Aurora, Minnesota (population 3,752), lies an ancient expanse of great white pines, sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe. When an explosion kills the night watchman at wealthy industrialist Karl Lindstrom's nearby lumber mill, it's obvious where suspicion will fall. Former sheriff Cork O'Connor agrees to help investigate, but he has mixed feelings about the case. For one thing, he is part Anishinaabe. For another, his wife, a lawyer, represents the tribe.

Meanwhile, near Lindstrom's lakeside home, a reclusive shipwreck survivor and his sidekick are harboring their own resentment of the industrialist. And it soon becomes clear to Cork that harmony, both at home and in Aurora, will be on the back burner for some time....

The Library: Only a handful know it exists . . . It holds the world's most astonishing--and terrifying--information . . . But the one book that is the key to the greatest secret of all time . . . is missing.

Former FBI Special Agent Will Piper solved--and survived--the "Doomsday Killer" case . . . and his reward was a forced early retirement. But the shattering truths he learned about the government's most covert operations won't let him rest--and now he's on the trail of a mysterious volume that's been lost for six centuries. This is the book that inspired Shakespeare and the prophecies of Nostradamus, and once Will gets his hands on it, his life will be worth nothing--his death sentence a top priority handed down from the very highest levels of power.

Because there are some truths too dangerous for anyone to know--those that concern the future, world domination . . . and the end of everything.

"God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good."
—Genesis 1:31

As an emergency room doctor, Matthew Sleeth saw a disturbing increase in asthma, autoimmune diseases, cancers, and other environmentally related health issues. Although he considered himself an environmentalist, he lacked the commitment to do anything about it. One slow night in the ER, Sleeth picked up a Gideon's Bible in the waiting room. Although raised in a Christian home, he had long ago abandoned his childhood beliefs. Reading the gospels that night, Sleeth became a Christian, and to his shock, he began to uncover in the Scriptures an enormous wealth of environmental answers that he had been seeking. As a result, his family took an account of their lifestyle, drastically reduced their reliance on electricity and fossil fuels, and began sharing their inspirational journey with others. Here, Sleeth invites you on his family's journey as they realize that one cannot be a Christian without recognizing the Bible's call to care for God's creation.

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is filled with instructions on how we can demonstrate our love for the Creator by caring for the earth. Sleeth leads us on a highly creative journey through Scripture, visiting some of the most important characters in the Bible and discovering what they can teach us about issues such as stewardship, caring for our neighbors, climate change, and pollution. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden teach us the importance of physical work in relation to discovering fulfillment and a sense of human purpose, the prophet Daniel calls us to question our dietary habits, and the story of Noah addresses key issues for life on earth: how do we relate to the Creator, to others in the human community, and to the rest of the natural world? With passion and faith, Sleeth provides a new green lens through which we can read the Bible to discover answers to our biggest questions about the environment and how to care for it.

The host of Food Network's Dinner: Impossible shows busy people how to keep food simple but delicious

Chef Robert Irvine goes where few chefs dare. As the host of Food Network's Dinner: Impossible, he has cooked on a desert island, in an eighteenth-century kitchen, inside an ice hotel, and even for cowpunchers on a cattle drive. In Impossible to Easy, he converts the classical and improvisational kitchen skills he's learned during the past twenty-five years under some of the most challenging conditions into advice to help the home cook achieve mastery in his or her own kitchen.

Irvine shows how to approach ingredients in new and familiar ways, how to plan and execute delicious meals every time, and how to guarantee maximum flavor from every dish. By establishing a few simple organizational, shopping, and storage habits, home cooks can not only get the most out of fresh foods and spices but elevate their everyday meals to a higher level of accomplishment and enjoyment. Here, too, is advice on useful equipment and implements, pantry staples, do-ahead tips, and 111 easy-to-master recipes (many complete with timelines, and half of which are gluten free) that are sure to keep family and friends coming back for more. By separating each process into its constituent parts, anyone can easily create such tasty dishes as Lime-Cured Shrimp and Roasted Corn Chowder, Porcini-Dusted Pork Chops with Cremini Mushrooms and Golden Raisins over Horseradish-Scented Potatoes, Pommes Frites with Chipotle Aioli, Duck Confit with Three-Bean Cassoulet, Windy City Stovetop Pizza, Braised Asian Pear with Roquefort and Sweet Port Wine Dressing, Banana Chocolate-Hazelnut Crepes, and dozens more right in his or her own home.

Lunch Boxes and Snacks is packed with mouthwatering recipes that can boost your child's brainpower, increase energy, and strengthen the immune system. You'll find a wide range of delicious and easy lunch ideas, from Oriental Turkey Wraps, Individual Focaccia Pizzas, and Chicken Superfood Salad to Trail Mix Bars and Fruit on a Stick, that guarantee that your child will be the envy of the cafeteria.

In Lunch Boxes and Snacks you will find:

• Inspirations for hot meals that can be packed in a thermos for winter days
• Quick recipes that can be prepared in advance and kept in the fridge or freezer
• Tips to get your child involved in the lunch-making process
• Helpful hints on packing your child's lunch box so that food stays safe to eat

With Annabel's help, even the busiest parents can easily pack a healthy and tasty lunch that their child will look forward to eating.

Death becomes you, and it's just another fact of life explored in Cause of Death, a revealing abundance of startling data, false perceptions, bizarre fallacies, and some totally unexpected statistics about how, why, when, and where we all bite the dust, check out, buy the farm, kick the bucket, and all those other euphemisms for perishing after falling out of bed (roughly 1,800 fitful sleepers a year). It also answers questions most people never even consider (but should):

Do crocodiles kill more people than alligators?

Are we more prone to commit suicide or murder?

How many still die from leprosy?

Does salmonella have anything to do with salmon?

Can the condition of your toenails predict your mortality?

What's the connection between kitty litter and brain damage?

Has irony ever killed anyone?*

Disease, accidents, occupational hazards, poisons, plagues, infections, murder, fauna and fungi, insect bites, war, and even bison. What's the most popular killer of the decade? The rarest? How many deaths per year by age? Gender? Location? Time of day? Stupidity? All this and more in a book you really shouldn't be living without.

* Yes! While experimenting with the safe preservation of food in snow, Sir Francis Bacon caught a cold and died.

A secret list of the desires of Lady Olivia Rathbourne:

1. Disregard convention
2. Follow my heart
3. Bed the Earl of Wyldewood

A decade ago, Olivia had expected to marry the Earl of Wyldewood, only to have happiness stolen from her before his ring could be placed upon her finger. Now he stands before her, as proud and arrogant and handsome as ever, vowing to rescue her. Well, he's got some nerve urning up after all these years. Where was he when she needed him?

As for the earl, scandal has never touched him nor has impropriety ever besmirched his name. But his penchant for doing the expected does have his family calling him, well, dull. Isn't it time to flaunt society's conventions and do what he's always wanted? And first on his list: Olivia in his bed—with or without a wedding.

A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at a gentlemen's club.

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried—and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.

But to dance every dance, to steal a midnight kiss—to do those things, Callie will need a willing partner. Someone who knows everything about rule-breaking. Someone like Gabriel St. John, the Marquess of Ralston—charming and devastatingly handsome, his wicked reputation matched only by his sinful smile.

If she's not careful, she'll break the most important rule of all—the one that says that pleasure-seekers should never fall hopelessly, desperately in love . . .

Their voices explode over the airwaves -- with names like Mike and the Mad Dog, the Stinkin' Genius, Hacksaw, and JT the Brick. They broadcast in drive time and downtime, from rush hour to the dead of night. And yet, millions of fans tune in around the clock to hear their favorite larger-than-life radio personalities rant, rave, critique, predict, and mix it up with callers -- the dedicated fans of sports talk radio.

Never before has this cloistered world opened its doors to a no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes, full-access look at itself. Noted journalist (and fan) Alan Eisenstock embarks on a journey through the American sports radio landscape and gives readers a front-row seat -- from breakfast at the kitchen table of Eddie Andelman, Boston's godfather of sports radio, to the WFAN commissary with Mike and the Mad Dog in New York; from the plush home game room of Chicago's hot dog-vendor?turned-#1 DJ Mike North to the empty 3 AM studio parking garage with nationally syndicated JT the Brick. Eisenstock goes into the studios, homes, and lives of these and many other of America's hottest and most-listened-to sports talk hosts.

Filled with hilarious and entertaining tales of what makes these hosts tick -- as well as the unbelievable stories of how they got where they are today -- Sports Talk paints a picture the fans never see. Eisenstock shows us the blood, sweat, and tears of program directors with their reputations on the line; hosts searching for career security; and station managers who are always eyeing the bottom line. And, of course, there are stories of the rabid, obsessed, and off-the-wall fans. Whether you're a sports fan or a sports talk junkie, you'll be hooked from the first page.

A comprehensive look at 300 of the most financially and/or critically successful motion pictures of all time—many made despite seemingly insurmountable economic, cultural, and political challenges—set against the prevailing production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, and technology trends of each decade in movie business history.

In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding fifty-nine games—more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series.

Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War—a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.

It is the tale, too, of the woman Radbourn loved, Carrie Stanhope, the alluring proprietress of a boarding-house with shady overtones, a married lady who was said to have personally known every man in the National League.

Wonderfully entertaining, Fifty-nine in '84 is an indelible portrait of a legendary player and a fascinating, little-known era of the national pastime.

Tired of feeling like your sex life has become boring? Frustrated that your sex drive isn't what it used to be? Do you really understand what your body needs to be sexually satisfied?

If you are like most women, figuring out exactly how to spice up your sex life can feel intimidating. Patty Brisben is here to help you learn the secrets behind your body's sexuality and revitalize your intimate relationship with your partner. As the founder of Pure Romance™, the nation's leading in-home party company specializing in romance and relationship enhancement products, Patty has been keeping women's sexual secrets for years. And now she wants to help you. She knows that it can be hard to get accurate, honest, compassionate answers to your most private of questions, but she also knows that if you give up on your sexuality, you're turning your back on an essential part of life.

The first step toward living your best sexual life is learning how to truly tune in to your body's sexual health, its needs, and all the factors that may be inhibiting you from feeling pleasure and sensation. Like no sex educator before, Patty finally offers information that will teach you how to overcome your insecurities, understand your libido, and learn the ins and outs of orgasm.

Once you reconnect with your sexual self, then you can let your partner in on the fun. With Patty's step-by-step guidelines, you can transform your intimate relationship, infusing it with novelty, passion, and pleasure. You will find tips that have helped thousands of women find the right lubricant, introduce a bedroom accessory to their relationship, and expand their notions of orgasm, intercourse, and massage. Using Patty's time-tested techniques, you and your partner will reconnect and reignite your relationship -- forever!

Throughout Pure Romance Between the Sheets, Patty answers questions from real women, covering the full range of common sexual concerns, from the connection between birth control and sex drive to how common medications can impact arousal, and why lubricants and other enhancement products can literally resuscitate sexual desire and pleasure.

Pure Romance Between the Sheets will give you the knowledge and confidence to live the fuller, healthier, and more sexually satisfying life that you deserve.

Women today are crazy busy. And they want to be beautiful!

Beauty can be overwhelming. Walk by any cosmetics counter or into any drugstore and you're suddenly surrounded by thousands of products promising to make you look younger, fuller, lusher, thicker, and just about every other "er" you can think of. It sounds too good to be true and most of it is. But who has the time to navigate though all the beauty myths out there (or even her own makeup bag!) to find the tricks that will help you be your most beautiful? Is it really that hard to look and feel your best?

Not anymore! Carmindy, the makeup artist on TLC's hit show What Not to Wear, is opening her beauty treasure chest and sharing more than 600 beauty tips and secrets she's learned on the show and during her years as a makeup artist across the globe. Try these tips from Carmindy:

• Blackheads be gone! Elmer's Glue is just as good as a pore strip for removing blackheads from your nose.
• Forgot to pack your eyeliner? In a pinch, mascara can pull double duty as eyeliner. Use a brush to pick up a little color from the mascara wand and smudge it into the lash line.
• Can't get that last bit of blush to come off? Swipe a cotton ball dipped in mineral oil across stubborn makeup. It will melt off.
• Traumatized by age spots that just won't go away? Put lemon juice on age spots at night to help fade them. But never apply lemon juice to the skin right before sun exposure.

Are you simply "pregnant" . . . or a Hot Mom to Be?

A Hot Mom to Be is confident and empowered. She's a woman who meets the needs of her family but refuses to get lost in the madness of motherhood. And she will never sacrifice her sense of style or self.

Founder of the Hot Moms Club, and monthly "Mommywood" columnist for Pregnancy magazine, Jessica Denay is on the pulse of Hollywood mom trends and baby products. The Hot Moms Club has coordinated nurseries and hosted star-studded baby showers for dozens of celebrities including Brooke and Charlie Sheen, Trista Sutter, Alison Sweeney, Ana Ortiz, and Angie Everhart to name a few. And now Jessica Denay offers the very best advice, products, and stories for moms-to-be everywhere. Wise and funny, helpful and hip, The Hot Mom to Be Handbook contains a wealth of information on:

• Avoiding McSteamy or McDreamy ob-gyns
• Working the perks of pregnancy—and playing the "I've Gotta Pee" card to your best advantage
• Bump on a Budget—money saving tips that won't cramp your style
• Creating decoy baby names and coping with Dad's "Post-Party" Depression
• Earth-friendly tips for the Eco-Minded Mama . . . and more!

Chock-full of Hot Mom bare necessities—as well as $tuff to Drool Over sections—here's how to do it, how to strut it, and where to buy it.

Plus thousands of dollars' worth of discounts inside!

• They keep things that bother them to themselves.

• They deny that unpleasant events occur.

• They fear letting people know them.

• They have difficulty interacting with their parents, spouses, or children.

• They have a strong fear of criticism.

• They are often angry.

In Silent Sons, Dr. Robert Ackerman, a silent son himself, examines the problems that commonly confront silent sons, keeping them from experiencing the full range of human emotions. In a compassionate and hopeful voice, the author defines the silent son and examines the impact of parents, particularly fathers, on these men and shows how their dysfunctional upbringing affects their present relationships, especially with women.

By putting aside anger, finding peace with one's self, and looking for support from other silent sons, Dr. Ackerman feels every man can realize his full potential and become a well balanced, healthy survivor.

Now is the time to become the guy that you have always wanted to be! Get Strong! is the first guide to not only getting in shape, but also getting your life in gear. Fitness motivator Jake Steinfeld, better known to the world as "Body by Jake," helps you learn the basic steps to a more confident, more powerful, and healthier life. From bicep curls to life evaluations, Jake takes a whole new look at how to make it through your teenage years, and not just as another peg on the totem pole, but as the Big Man on Campus.

Chock-full of real-life tales from Jake's own youth and descriptions and illustrations of exercises to get yourself in shape, Get Strong! is the plan you need to become strong and confident. So get off your buttissimo and get down to business, because as Jake says, "I want you to build the most impressive physique that you thought possible with this book, but I also want you to build an impressive future." By following the steps outlined in Get Strong!, you will achieve just that.

A portion of the proceeds of Get Strong! will go to the Don't Quit! Foundation.

Dewey Marriss is stuck in the middle of a crunch.

He never guessed that the gas pumps would run dry the same week he promised to manage the family's bicycle-repair business. Suddenly everyone needs a bike. And nobody wants to wait.

Meanwhile, the crunch has stranded Dewey's parents far up north with an empty fuel tank and no way home. It's up to Dewey and his older sister, Lil, to look after their younger siblings and run the bike shop all on their own.

Each day Dewey and his siblings feel their parents' absence more and more. The Marriss Bike Barn is busier than ever. And just when he is starting to feel crunched himself, Dewey discovers that bike parts are missing from the shop. He's sure he knows who's responsible—or does he? Will exposing the thief only make more trouble for Dewey and his siblings?

Award-winning author Leslie Connor has created another timely family story infused with humor and hope.

Georgia knows what it means to keep secrets. She knows how to ignore things. She knows that some things are better left unsaid. . . . Or are they?

When Georgia and her best friend, Riley, travel along with nine other suburban Pennsylvania kids to Anapra, a squatters' village in the heat-flattened border city of Juarez, Mexico, secrets seem to percolate and threaten both a friendship and a life. Certainties unravel. Reality changes. And Georgia is left to figure out who she is outside the world she's always known.

Beth Kephart paints a world filled with emotion, longing, and the hot Mexican sun.

Emily is . . .

1. A mad scientist

2. A cat lover

3. A mural painter

4. A golem builder

5. A virtuo-spastic guitarist

6. A wicked skater

7. A wily troublemaker

8. A poltergeist tamer

9. A mystery solver

10. A master prankster

11. An eXtreme procrastinator

12. A happy loner

13. A unique individual

. . . and now there are two of her.

Barack Obama and his radical team of self-professed socialists, fringe activists, and others are trying to remake the American way of life. They have used their new Democratic majority to launch an alarming assault on our capitalist system—while abandoning the war on terror, undermining our national security, and weakening our position in the eyes of our enemies. The "candidate of change" is threatening to change our country irreparably, and for the worse—if we don't act to stop him now.

Sean Hannity has been sounding the alarms about Obama and his agenda from the start. Now—in his first new book in six years—he issues a stirring call to action. Hannity surveys all the major Obama players—from the president's affiliation with radical theology to his advisers' history of Marxist activism, repression of the media, support for leftist dictators, and worse. He exposes their resulting campaign to dismantle the American free-market system and forfeit our national sovereignty. But he draws on the examples of Ronald Reagan and the GOP's Contract with America to show how conservatives can unite behind this country's most cherished principles and act now to get America back on the right track—while we still can.

As dazzling and action packed as the best novels of James Rollins, George MacDonald Fraser, and Steve Berry, The Barbary Pirates will have readers cheering for William Dietrich and his dashing hero, Ethan Gage!

Swashbuckling American explorer and ladies' man Ethan Gage has seen his fair share of danger, having braved the sands of Egypt, the perils of the Atlantic Ocean, and the harsh wilderness of early America. Once more, he finds himself in a desperate race—this time with the Barbary Pirates, a powerful band of Muslim outlaws from North Africa. Also after Ethan is his nemesis—and former lover—Aurora Somerset, member of a dangerous sect called the Egyptian Rite. The prize is the Mirror of Archimedes, an ancient superweapon that, according to legend, once burned a Roman fleet with its power. In 1802, this death ray could tip the balance of power in the Mediterranean, and Ethan must stop the pirates from using it against the American, English, and French fleets.

From the salons and brothels of the Palais Royal of Paris, where the quest for information about his lost love Astiza involves real-life scientists and engineers—including inventor Robert Fulton—Ethan must travel at Napoleon's behest to the canals of Venice, the caves of Santorini, the dungeons of Tripoli, and finally to treachery on the high seas in the Mediterranean.

Can Ethan rescue Astiza without betraying the cause of his own United States? Can he save the two-year-old son he only recently discovered he had without allowing the Egyptian Rite to finally dominate the world? And when the sun rises on the Mirror of Archimedes, will everything Ethan cares about be set afire?

Delivering the fast-paced adventure, uncanny wit, and page-turning historical excitement that readers have come to expect from the masterful William Dietrich, The Barbary Pirates is Ethan Gage at his winningest, most hilarious, and most death defying.

From a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (The New Yorker) comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land.

Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and Christianity—both firm in the belief that they were at God's work—fought for dominion of the Holy Land, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars: the Crusades.

For the first time, this book tells the story of that epic struggle from the perspective of both Christians and Muslims. A vivid and fast-paced narrative history, it exposes the full horror, passion, and barbaric grandeur of the Crusading era, leading us into a world of legendary champions—such as Richard the Lionheart and Saladin—shadowy Assassins, poet-warriors, and pious visionaries; across the desert sands of Egypt to the verdant forests of Lebanon; and through the ancient cities of Constantinople, Cairo, and Damascus.

Drawing on painstaking original research and an intimate knowledge of the Near East, Thomas Asbridge uncovers what drove Muslims and Christians alike to embrace the ideals of jihad and crusade, revealing how these holy wars reshaped the medieval world and why they continue to influence events today.

Biography

H. G. Stratmann is back with a story completely different from his recent series, while David W. Goldman, a newcomer who made a considerable splash with his first couple of stories here, returns with his first new one in much too long. The rest of the fiction line-up covers a wide spectrum with entries from Lee Goodloe, Walter L. Kleine, David D. Levine, and Rick Cook.

The fact article, by Stella Fitzgibbons, MD, sounds as science-fictional as anything else in the issue, but it's actually about things with which you may come (at least figuratively) face-to-face on your next hospital visit. It's called "Robots Don't Leave Scars: What's New in Medical Robotics?"

CONTENTS
Reader's Department: EDITORIAL: GROWING PAINS by Stanley Schmidt
Reader's Department: IN TIMES TO COME
Novelette: PAGE TURNER by Rajnar Vajra
Poetry: SKIPPY THE ROBOT by David Livingstone Clink
Science Fact: ROBOTS DON'T LEAVE SCARS: WHAT'S NEW IN MEDICAL ROBOTICS? by Stella Fitzgibbons, MD
Novelette: HANGING BY A THREAD by Lee Goodloe
Novelette: A TALENT FOR VANESSA by David W. Goldman
Department: BIOLOG: DAVID W. GOLDMAN by Richard A. Lovett
Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: THE ICE MAN COMETH: THE ICY RESERVOIRS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM by John G. Cramer
Probability Zero: QUARK SOUP by Bond Elam
Novelette: FISHING HOLE by Rick Cook
Novelette: TEACHING THE PIG TO SING by David D. Levine
Novelette: THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED by H.G. Stratmann
Novelette: FARALLON WOMAN by Walter L. Kleine
Reader's Department: THE REFERENCE LIBRARY by Don Sakers
Reader's Department: BRASS TACKS
Reader's Department: UPCOMING EVENTS by Anthony Lewis

ALSO IN APRIL/MAY
Barry B. Longyear returns with an incredibly detailed and compelling account of what might have happened during the last frantic moments of Hitler, deep in his Berlin bunker, surrounded by "Alten Kameraden"; Sara Genge revisits the future-world of her recent story, "Shoes-to-Run," with "Malick Pan," the boy who refuses to grow up, despite the havoc he may wreak with a few errant nanomachines; Molly Gloss presents a tale of the "Unforeseen" that puts health-care debates in perspective: what if it was up to your insurance company to decide if you should be brought back from the dead? Tim McDaniel taxes the limits of this Next Issue page with a yarn about a man scientist's lament, "They Laughed at Me in Vienna, and Again in Prague, and Then in Belfast, and Don't Forget Hanoi! But I'll Show Them! I'll Show Them All, I Tell You!"--you'll be laughing, too, we promise. Robert Reed channels both Hemingway and On the Beach with his latest apocalypse drama, "Pretty to Think So"; Eugene Fischer makes his Asimov's print debut with the affecting story of a group of near-future refugees stranded in international waters, homeless and "Adrift."

OUR REGULAR FEATURES
Robert Silverberg's Reflections continues his insightful thoughts about fiction writing in "Showing and Telling II"; Norman Spinrad explores various "Third World Worlds" in "On Books"; plus an array of poetry you're sure to enjoy.

CONTENTS
Department: GUEST EDITORIAL: B-SIDE MENTALITY by Brian Bieniowski
Department: REFLECTIONS: SHOWING AND TELLING II by Robert Silverberg
Poetry: KITCHEN DEITIES by Ruth Berman
Novella: THE UNION OF SOIL AND SKY by Gregory Norman Bossert
Short Story: UNFORESEEN by Molly Gloss Department: NEXT ISSUE
Short Story: ADRIFT by Eugene Fischer
Poetry: MARTIAN OPAL by Ruth Berman
Short Story: THEY LAUGHED AT ME IN VIENNA, AND AGAIN IN PRAGUE, AND THEN IN BELFAST, AND DON'T FORGET HANOI! BUT I'LL SHOW THEM! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL, I TELL YOU! by Tim McDaniel
Novella: MINDBAND by Pamela Sargent
Short Story: MALICK PAN by Sara Genge
Novelette: ALTEN KAMERADEN by Barry B. Longyear
Short Story: PRETTY TO THINK SO by Robert Reed
Novella: JACKIE'S-BOY by Steven Popkes
Department: ON BOOKS: THIRD WORLD WORLDS by Norman Spinrad
Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss

"Piper in the Woods" (1953): Earth maintained an important garrison on Asteroid Y-3. Now suddenly it was imperiled with a biological impossibility -- men becoming plants!

"The Gun" (1953): Nothing moved or stirred. Everything was silent, dead. Only the gun showed signs of life ... and the trespassers had wrecked that for all time. The return journey to pick up the treasure would be a cinch ... they smiled.

"The Skull" (1953): Conger agreed to kill a stranger he had never seen. But he would make no mistakes because he had the stranger's skull under his arm.