In this western in Ralph Compton's USA Today bestselling series, on the Alamosa Trail, anything goes... After the merciless Blizzard of 1886, times are tough, but on the Trailback Ranch, the cowboys are tougher. From horse racing to train robbing, they'll survive on whatever schemes their wits can muster until a job comes their way...And infamous gunslinger Clay Allison needs a few good men to rustle a herd up from Mexico into Colorado across the equally infamous Alamosa. More Than Six Million Ralph Compton Books In Print!

Pilot Pirx is an astronaut, a fresh-faced physical powerhouse, but no genius. His superiors send him on the most dangerous missions, either because he is expendable, or because they trust his bumbling ability to survive in almost any habitat or dilemma. Follow Pirx now through a world of hyper-technology and super-psychology from his early days as a hopelessly inept cadet soloing with a pair of sex-crazed horseflies… to a farside moon station built by bickering madmen… to a chase through space after a deadly sphere of light… to an encounter with a mossy old robot whose programming has slipped

Ben Hope was an elite soldier before his troubles forced him to quit the army. Now he's using his skills to rescue kidnapped children. But when Ben is approached by a millionaire businessman to trace an ancient lost manuscript whose secret could save a dying girl, he finds himself embarking on the strangest mission of his life. With fiendish codes to crack and dangerous enemies in hot pursuit, Ben teams up with Roberta Ryder, a beautiful American scientist. The trail leads them from Paris to the ancient Cathar strongholds of the Languedoc. There lies an astonishing secret which has been hidden through the ages

Mattie, an intelligent automaton skilled in the use of alchemy, finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between gargoyles, the Mechanics, and the Alchemists. With the old order quickly giving way to the new, Mattie discovers powerful and dangerous secrets—secrets that can completely alter the balance of power in the city of Ayona. However, this doesn’t sit well with Loharri, the Mechanic who created Mattie and still has the key to her heart—literally! A steampunk novel of romance, political intrigue, and alchemy, The Alchemy of Stone represents a new and intriguing direction by the author of the critically-acclaimed The Secret History of Moscow

For those readers who enjoy the Dan Brown type of story such as The DaVinci Code, and, Angels and Demons, this is a book I'm sure you will enjoy. Indeed Steve Berry's style is very much like Brown's – short paragraphs, fast-paced, leaving no space in which to get bored. Also, he writes the type of mystery that I personally like. One that gives the reader a lot of real information even if the main subject matter seems a bit far-fetched. Wisely, I think, considering the furor that followed the publication of, The Da Vinci Code, Berry concludes with a writer's note detailing fact from fiction. The subject of this book is the lost great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, once the repository of nearly all of the collected knowledge and wisdom of the civilized world containing over a half million scrolls, maps, books and codices. Works by Euclid the mathematician, Herophiles on medicine, Manetho's writings on the historical Pharaohs and the poems of Callimachus to name a few. The library was sacked and burned about 1500 years ago by invading Muslim forces. Christians did similar things, of course. Look at the Crusaders for instance. The three major religions have all done it down through the ages. What irreplaceable knowledge, writings and art have been lost! According to this story, we find that much of the famous library had been spirited away before the sacking armies reached Alexandria. Stories such as this have been around for years. That, in itself, would be a staggering find but reportedly among the documents is one that would blow the lid off the situation in the Middle East, mainly the conflict between the Palestinians the Israelis. It refers to differing translations of the Jewish Old Testament and involves Saudi Arabia. Cotton Malone, a retired U.S. agent of a section of their Secret Service named The Magellan Billet, is the book's main character. He is separated from his wife, Pam, an agent of the U.S. Department of Justice and shares custody with her of their much loved teenage son, George. The stress of their lifestyles has pushed them apart and it was not an amicable separation especially on Pam's side. Cotton now lives in Copenhagen, Denmark and has established a fine bookshop over the course of a year. The action starts straight off with an enraged Pam turning up on his doorstep early one morning literally screaming that George was kidnapped two days earlier and that it was all Cotton's fault. The kidnappers said that if she contacted the police the boy would die and she was not to fly to Copenhagen for two days. She was then to give Cotton a particular cell phone and wait. A very angry and frightened Cotton awaits the call, while trying to calm down his hysterical wife. Apparently he has access to something called the Alexandra Link, the only one in the world supposedly that does. They want it and will do anything necessary to get it. To Pam the answer is simple. Give them what they want and get George back unharmed. But Cotton can't or won't do this. This Link and the knowledge it would reveal would affect the entire world. The world's three main religions would be shaken to their roots. I am not giving the plot away by saying that the information involves the covenant, between Abraham and the Jewish God, Genesis 13.verses 14-17. While Pam rages on, the call comes, and while Cotton desperately considers what to do, the bookshop beneath them is blown up by rocket fire. This is just to help him make up his mind. They escape over the rooftops and head for the home of their good friend, Henrick Thorveldson. From there the reader is carried along, first to the castle Kronborg Slot also known as Elsinore in Shakespeare's Hamlet, where they are fired on by an assassin and one becomes involved with the highest levels of the U.S. and Middle Eastern governments and the Israeli – Palestine years long conflict. We meet the mysterious Palestinian George Haddad who is a "guardian". But a guardian of what, precisely? It would seem that all was not burned in the destruction of Alexandria and some papers still exist somewhere concerning this conflict. Does he guard this? Eventually Cotton contacts his previous boss, Stephanie Nelle, the head of this Magellan Billet section who he trusts implicitly and informs her of what is happening. She appears to know something of this already but she in turn trusts no one around her even up to the Oval Office. She has discovered that some top files have been breached in Washington to which only very few have the access codes. There is Attorney General Brent Green; Securities Advisor Lawrence Daley; someone called Blue Chair and top agents of many countries including Mossad. And so we are led with Cotton and Pam to monasteries, deserts, mountain retreats, various quests, even Camp David and eventually back to Denmark. Danger is everywhere. How does a book like this end when you know the mystery must endure? Well, you will have to read it, as I cannot give it away. I'm sure you will enjoy it

The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell Justine first published in 1957 Balthazar first published in 1958 Mountolive first published in 1958 Clea first published in 1960

It is 4034 AD. Humanity has made it to the stars. Fassin Taak, a Slow Seer at the Court of the Nasqueron Dwellers, will be fortunate if he makes it to the end of the year. The Nasqueron Dwellers inhabit a gas giant on the outskirts of the galaxy, in a system awaiting its wormhole connection to the rest of civilisation. In the meantime, they are dismissed as decadents living in a state of highly developed barbarism, hoarding data without order, hunting their own young and fighting pointless formal wars. Seconded to a military-religious order he’s barely heard of — part of the baroque hierarchy of the Mercatoria, the latest galactic hegemony — Fassin Taak has to travel again amongst the Dwellers. He is in search of a secret hidden for half a billion years. But with each day that passes a war draws closer — a war that threatens to overwhelm everything and everyone he’s ever known. As complex, turbulent, flamboyant and spectacular as the gas giant on which it is set, the new science fiction novel from Iain M. Banks is space opera on a truly epic scale. Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2005

She was a vision. She was a siren. She was a nightmare. She was dead. Now he needed her to disappear. And he knew just how to make it happen. The Palm Beach elite go to great lengths to protect their own-and their own no longer includes Elena Estes. Once upon a time a child of wealth and privilege, Elena turned her back on that life. Betrayed and disillusioned by those closest to her, she chose the life of an undercover cop, the hunt for justice her own personal passion. Then a tragic, haunting mistake ended her career. Now Elena exists on the fringes of her old life, training horses for a living. But a shocking event is about to draw her back into the painful vortex she's fought so hard to leave behind. First she finds the body-a young woman used, murdered, and dumped in a canal. Not just a victim, but a friend. As Elena delves into her dead friend's secret life, she discovers ties not only to the Russian mob but also to a group of powerful and wealthy Palm Beach bad boys known for giving each other alibis to cover a multitude of sins. A group that includes a man Elena once knew very well-her former fiancé, Bennett Walker, a man she knows has already escaped justice at least once in his life. Finding her friend's killer will put Elena at odds with her old life, with her new lover, and with herself. But she is determined to reveal the truth-a truth that will shock Palm Beach society to its core, and could very well get her killed

Any tool can be put to uses other than the one for which it was made…

Even beings so different as to be almost incomprehensible may have some things in common…

The Carmichael family are leading the fight against the Entities from their mountain ranch. While they search for Prime, the centre of alien intelligence, a quisling in Prague manages to win the Entities’ confidence. But what legacy will the aliens leave behind them when they go?

The year is 1896, the place, New York City. On a cold March night New York Times reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned to the East River by his friend and former Harvard classmate Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a psychologist, or "alienist." On the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge, they view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy, a prostitute from one of Manhattan's infamous brothels.         The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- amassing a psychological profile of the man they're looking for based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who has killed before. and will kill again before the hunt is over.         Fast-paced and gripping, infused with a historian's exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded Age and its untarnished underside: verminous tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. Here is a New York during an age when questioning society's belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and mortal consequences.From the Paperback edition

The human race was expanding through the galaxy... and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it...?

Another case for retired governess turned private detective, Miss Silver. After the death of her guardian, Jenny Hill inherits Alington House. But the present owners, distant relations of Jenny, plan to cheat her out of her inheritance

She doesn't want her turn on the catwalk-she'd rather be behind the scenes creating fabulous outfits! So when a famous fashionista discovers Emma's designs and offers her the opportunity of a lifetime-a feature in Madison magazine (squeal!)-Emma sort of, well, panics. She has only one option: to create a secret identity. And so Allegra Biscotti is born. Allegra is worldly, sophisticated, and bold-everything Emma is not. But the pressure is on. And Emma quickly discovers juggling school, a new crush, friends, and a secret identity might not be as glamorous as she thought

The thrilling third book in the No Man’s World series brings the tale of the Battalion of Fusiliers (who vanished from the WW1 battlefield of the Somme and found themselves stranded on an alien world) to a stunning conclusion. Is this really the end of their story? Four months after the Pennine Fusiliers vanished from the Somme, they are still stranded on the alien world. As Lieutenant Everson tries to discover the true intentions of their alien prisoner, he finds he must quell the unrest within his own ranks while helping foment insurrection among the alien Khungarrii. Beyond the trenches, Lance Corporal Atkins and his Black Hand gang are reunited with the ironclad tank, Ivanhoe, and its crew. On the trail of Jeffries, the diabolist they hold responsible for their predicament, they are forced to face the obscene horrors that lie within the massive Croatoan Crater, a place inextricably tied to the history of the alien chatts and native urmen alike. Above it all, Lieutenant Tulliver of the Royal Flying Corp, soars free of the confines of alien gravity, where the true scale of the planet’s mystery is revealed. However, to uncover the truth he must join forces with an unsuspected ally

Three hundred years after the events of the Mistborn trilogy, Scadrial is now on the verge of modernity, with railroads to supplement the canals, electric lighting in the streets and the homes of the wealthy, and the first steel-framed skyscrapers racing for the clouds. Kelsier, Vin, Elend, Sazed, Spook, and the rest are now part of history – or religion. Yet even as science and technology are reaching new heights, the old magics of Allomancy and Feruchemy continue to play a role in this reborn world. Out in the frontier lands known as the Roughs, they are crucial tools for the brave men and women attempting to establish order and justice. One such is Waxillium Ladrian, a rare Twinborn, who can Push on metals with his Allomancy and use Feruchemy to become lighter or heavier at will. After twenty years in the Roughs, Wax has been forced by family tragedy to return to the metropolis of Elendel. Now he must reluctantly put away his guns and assume the duties and dignity incumbent upon the head of a noble house. Or so he thinks, until he learns the hard way that the mansions and elegant tree-lined streets of the city can be even more dangerous than the dusty plains of the Roughs

Coco Chanel invited Paul Morand to visit her in St Moritz at the end of the Second World War when he was given the opportunity to write her memoirs; his notes of their conversations were put away in a drawer and only came to light one year after Chanel's death. Through Morand's transcription of their conversations, Chanel tells us about her friendship with Misia Sert, the men in her life - Boy Capel, the Duke of Westminster, artists such as Diaghilev, her philosophy of fashion and the story behind the legendary Number 5 perfume...The memories of Chanel told in her own words provide vivid sketches and portray the strength of Coco's character, leaving us with an extraordinary insight into Chanel the woman and the woman who created Chanel. Pushkin Collection editions feature a spare, elegant series style and superior, durable components. The Collection is typeset in Monotype Baskerville, litho-printed on Munken Premium White Paper and notch-bound by the independently owned printer TJ International in Padstow. The covers, with French flaps, are printed on Colorplan Pristine White Paper. Both paper and cover board are acid-free and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified

A century ago the pandemic known as The Calamity wiped out most of the population. Illya Oslov’s village is on the brink of starvation. Food supplies are dwindling, and winter is slow to release its grip. The ways of the old world are regarded with fear and superstition. Reading, farming techniques and modern technology have been forgotten. But, Illya believes that the hidden knowledge of the old world holds the only hope for his people’s survival. Now, Illya’s people eke out a meager existence as hunter-gatherers, barely scraping up enough food to sustain themselves, but when Illya discovers an ancient copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac, and learns to read it, he quickly realizes that the wisdom within its pages could save his village, assuming he isn’t banished just for having it. In a tale of greed and intrigue, in a devastated world, Illya must navigate the treacherous waters of knowledge, ignorance, and prejudice. He must form a tenuous alliance with his greatest enemy, putting his very life on the line to become his people’s greatest hope. But, will his newfound knowledge prove to be their salvation? Or will it destroy them all?

A tour de force examination of the historical conflict between Native and Anglo Americans by critically acclaimed author Leslie Marmon Silko, under the hot desert sun of the American Southwest. In this virtuoso symphony of character and culture, Leslie Marmon Silko’s breathtaking novel interweaves ideas and lives, fate and history, passion and conquest in an attempt to re-create the moral history of the Americas as told from the point of view of the conquered, not the conquerors. Touching on issues as disparate as the borderlands drug wars, ecological devastation committed for the benefit of agriculture, and the omnipresence of talking heads on American daytime television, The Almanac of the Dead is fiction on the grand scale, a sweeping epic of displacement, intrigue, and violent redemption

A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky. For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page

 Someone is about to get some Spice in his life. Spice has nothing but the clothes on her back when she returns to Chicago. She's looking for a better life, and that means reuniting with her estranged twin sister, Sugar. She isn't thrilled to find out Sugar's boyfriend is a vampire. But then she meets Eric, once the bottle-cap-glasses wearing nerd next door - now grown into the kind of man she'd love to snuggle with on this cold winter night...and he's offered her his room in Sugar's house. Eric can't believe Spice has returned. He'd given up hope of ever seeing her again, let alone having her stare at him as if he's sex on a stick. But now that all of his fantasies for them are coming true, reality rears her ugly head and Eric must tell Spice his intimate secret; he's actually an Alpha werewolf looking for his mate and he thinks he's found her. Warning: Graphic sexual content

If death comes to a loved one, can we grieve alone? When all around is in ruins, can we confine our lives to one beautiful room constructed out of art, or love, or family ties? And when the words we know prove inadequate, can we turn to the language of birds? In an arty mansion in Milan’s industrial zone, two men are shown one of the last remaining Futurist noise machines — an Intonarumore — and a painful old truth surfaces. A musician travels to three continents to see her siblings before returning to Johannesburg; her home is plundered every night around her as she composes a requiem. A man follows his male lover from London to Berlin’s clubbing scene and on to a ruined castle in which the lover’s family lives. He is looking for an antidote. The protagonists in SJ Naudé’s South African Literary Award-winning short story collection are listening out for answers that cannot be expressed. Offering fresh perspectives on gay, expat and artistic subcultures and tackling the pain of loss head on, Naudé’s stories go fearlessly and tenderly to the heart of our experiences of desire, love and death. SJ Naudé grew up in South Africa, where he studied law. After practicing law in New York and London for many years, he returned to South Africa. The Afrikaans version of The Alphabet of Birds was awarded several prizes, including a South African Literary Award. Naudé currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa

Lucy Maud Montgomery, the creator of Anne of Green Gables, wrote this charming autobiographical memoir in mid-career. It is the most complete account she published of her childhood and early years as a writer. It originally appeared as a series of magazine articles in 1917. "The Alpine Path" refers to her long climb to success. She began in childhood and never wavered in her resolve to become an accomplished professional writer. The remarkable success that came with the publication of Anne of Green Gables (which was rejected by many publishers), its sequels, and her other works, was the result of many years of hard, steady work. All those who have enjoyed the Anne books will be fascinated by this intimate background story by their author. Those who love Prince Edward Island will be delighted by her descriptions of the countryside and its people. No one who reads The Alpine Path can fail to be impressed by the personal appeal of L.M. Montgomery