They're a mercenary elite who'll take on any job-the more murderously spectacular the better — if the price is right. But their ultimate purpose isn't wealth; it's power in its most raw and devastating form. They call themselves the Law of the Lion. Their base is the treacherous jungle of Central America. And they hold no loyalty to any cause but their own. They're the most awesome terror army the world has ever faced — and challenging them on their own turf is like diving into a pool of blood in shark-filled waters. Only Nick Carter would try it. Only Nick Carter could win.

In Great Buddha Gym for All Mens and Womens, author Sallie Tisdale so richly evokes her pilgrimage to the four vital sites related to Buddha Shakyamuni's life and enlightenment that the reader feels as if she's tripping alongside Tisdale every crowded, colorful, and sensuous step of the way. The challenges of travel in modern India are daunting. The ancient sites are overrun with tourists and seekers. Merchants hawking spiritual goods are everywhere. And yet, miraculously, despite the chaos, the great teachings of the Buddha come shining through.Sallie Tisdale is the author of seven books, including Talk Dirty to Me and The Best Thing I Ever Tasted, a finalist for a James Beard Award. Her memoir Stepping Westward was one of the 100 Notable Books of the West.Tisdale's essays have appeared in such publications as Harper's, Threepenny Review, the New Yorker, and Esquire. She is the 2013 recipient of the Regional Arts and Culture Council Literary Fellowship. She has received...

A compelling first novel which centres on a young woman and the emotional legacy left by her father's death; two widows, his mistress and his wife. Charissa finds herself torn between the two. At 25 yrs, Charissa has her life under control – until her father dies and in his dying hour extracts a promise from her to visit his weekend mistress. Since her early teenage years Charissa has been helplessly caught up in the conspiracy of silence verging on denial surrounding her father's mistress. Far from the seductress Charissa had imagined, Flora turns out to be a self-contained , down-to-earth country woman in her fifties to whom she finds herself unexpectedly drawn. Like her father, she too begins to deceive her repressed, conventional mother by paying increasingly frequent visits to Flora 's West Country home. As the relationship between herself and Flora blossoms, Charissa starts to unravel her emotional past and, with the help of Flora's attractive neighbour Andrew, to overcome...

At a time when six-year-old Abbie needs love and security, her mother goes to the hospital and never returns. Still distraught, Abbie is passed to whoever will have her. Her new step mother subjects her to unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological torture and delivers her to local paedophiles in the entertainment business. During her single minded pursuit of fame Abbie's step mother stops at nothing, beating and prostituting her own children.This is the story of Abbie's struggle to survive, the grim details of child abuse of the worst kind all told from the perspective of a little girl.As a teenager Abbie is uncontrollable. A Modette during the 80's revival, she finds a love of scooters, rebellion and gang life on the wild side. Dulling her pain with alcohol, drugs and promiscuity at a very young age, Abbie loses control and becomes well known to the local police. Not one person can get through to her because she has no fear, no self respect, no morals or self...

Like England's Charles II, the Ottoman Empire took “an unconscionable time dying." Since the seventeenth century, observers had been predicting the collapse of this so-called Sick Man of Europe, yet it survived all its rivals. As late as 1910, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents. Unlike the Romanovs, Habsburgs, or Hohenzollerns, the House of Osman, which had allied itself with the Kaiser, was still recognized as an imperial dynasty during the peace conference following World War I.The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire offers a provocative view of the empire's decline, from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate by Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in 1922 during a revolutionary upsurge in Turkish national pride. The narrative contains instances of violent revolt and bloody reprisals, such as the massacres of Armenians in 1896, and other “ethnic episodes" in Crete and Macedonia. More generally, it emphasizes recurring...

Grieving the death of his ex-lover, Detective Inspector Tom Mariner has taken two weeks' leave to recuperate, seeking peace and solitude in a remote corner of Wales. The last thing he imagined was to find himself caught up in a murder investigation - with himself as the prime suspect. But when his walking holiday is interrupted by the discovery of a dead body, Tom discovers that there are a number of disturbing secrets being kept behind the closed doors of the ancient stone farmhouses that populate the region.

There are some places in the world where humans quite simply should not go. Not just haunted places, but sites where ancient forces still hold sway. We can recognize such locations by the responses they evoke within us—that feeling we call "the creeps." But just where are these places, and why do they terrify us?In The World's Creepiest Places, Dr. Curran visits some of these sites, looking at their history and traditions and exploring the creepy feeling they evoke in people who have been there. His travels range widely—from his native Ireland and through the empty deserts of the Middle East, to the misty hills of Tibet and back through Europe to America. He's not only looking for ghosts, but also for sinister people, vampires, the living dead, doorways to other worlds—even venturing close to the Gates of Hell itself! This is not just a ghostly travel book. It's for those who want to explore the weird, out-of-the-way locations of our planet and test the...

Detective Inspector Tom Mariner investigates a suspected arson attack and a missing bridegroom in this latest intriguing mystery. When an elderly man dies in a house fire, the investigating officers are left baffled as to whether the blaze was accidental or started deliberately. If arson, was it a random attack - or part of a personal vendetta? It's not the first time the Shah family has been targeted. At the same time, DI Mariner is searching for a missing bridegroom who has vanished two weeks before his wedding. A case of cold feet? Or is there something more sinister behind his disappearance? Two seemingly unrelated investigations - but there is more to each case than meets the eye. And when a second body is found, events take a decidedly darker turn.

The latest thriller from the author of number one bestseller Strike BackFormer SAS Captain Will Jackson is a man with nothing to lose. A veteran of the most dangerous missions the Regiment could throw at him, his life was torn apart the day a terrorist attack killed his family. Now he leads a life of grief-stricken obscurity, the world of warfare nothing but a distant memory.People higher up the chain of command have other plans, however. They're in a mess of their own making, and unless they sort it out, thousands of innocent people will pay the price. And so they make Jackson an offer he can't refuse. An offer that will take him straight back into a brutal theatre of war.Only one person can help prevent the disaster that is waiting to happen, and that person is being held by the Taliban insurgency in the depths of a harsh Afghanistan winter. As Will reluctantly prepares to undertake this final mission, he does so in the knowledge that it will stop a...

Discover Africa by bicycle in book one of a delightful children's adaptation of Alastair Humphrey's journey around the world. In this charming caricature of Alastair Humphreys’ infamous circumnavigation of the world on his bike, children are swept along with the character of Tom, an adventurous boy who feels there must be more to life than school. The first part of The Boy Who Biked the World follows Tom leaving England, cycling through Europe and all the way through Africa to the tip of South Africa. Along the way, young readers are introduced not only to the various fascinating landscapes he passes through, but also to the various people who so happily embrace him as he traveled on his journey. With engaging illustrations and journal entries throughout, this book provides an immersive experience for any young adventurer.

Seduction of the Minotaur is an example of Anaïs Nin’s most mature and cohesive fiction. The central character, Lillian, arrives in an exotically primitive Mexico from New York, in part to forget her crumbling marriage and to find flow in her life after years of stasis. She befriends Dr. Hernandez, who, like Lillian, is also trying to forget, to escape, which he does with violence, shocking Lillian into facing her inner demon, the “Minotaur.” Critic Oliver Evans says of Seduction of the Minotaur : “Its symbolism is the most complicated of any of Miss Nin’s longer works… and at the same time it makes more concessions…to the tradition of the realistic novel: the result is a work of unusual richness.” Consider this passage: “It was the time of the year when everyone’s attention was focused on the moon. ‘The first terrestrial body to be explored will undoubtedly be the moon.’ Yet how little we know about human beings, thought Lillian. All the telescopes are focused on the distant. No one is willing to turn his vision inward… Such obsession with reaching the moon, because they have failed to reach each other, each a solitary planet!” Seduction of the Minotaur reveals Nin’s struggle for self-awareness through her character Lillian. In a setting that is sumptuously described, with fully developed characters, the plot involves the dichotomy between civilization and the primitive, the dark and bright sides of human nature, with a conclusion that is classic Nin: enlightenment. ( Seduction of the Minotaur was originally published as Solar Barque in 1958)

From acclaimed writer George Zebrowski, a tale of urban terrorWhat do you tell yourself when impossible things begin to happen? What can you say? You're a police detective, but maybe you're just not good enough and that's what you have to admit, whether you like it or not. You see evidence of things that can't be real, but you just don't observe well enough to explain it in any natural way. Can you ask rational questions and still be crazy? Does it help any that you know your mind is gone? You're trapped in a black comedy with a beautiful but fatal woman right out of an old poem by Keats, hoping to wake up from the nightmare, even if on a cold hillside - as long as you wake up sane.Detective William Benek is faced with an impossible crime; bodies are turning up without their brains, and without any indication of how the organs were removed. His only lead - an attractive woman - becomes more than a lead, and then drives him into a world of terror, where his sanity is questioned and he must stop a monster he can barely comprehend.Listed as a Best Book of 2009 by EDGE/Boston