The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories is a science fiction anthology written and edited by Isaac Asimov. Following the usual form for Asimov collections, it consists of eleven short stories and a poem surrounded by commentary describing how each came to be written

In this city, you have to pay attention. In this city, things are happening all the time, all over the place, and you don't have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind. Take this week's tabloids: the face of a dead girl is splashed across the front page. She was found sprawled near a park bench not seven blocks from the police station. Detectives Carella and Brown soon discover the girl has a most unusual past. Meanwhile, the late-night news tracks the exploits of The Cookie Boy, a professional thief who leaves his calling card - a box of chocolate chip cookies - at the scene of each score. And while the detectives of the 87th Precinct are investigating these cases, one of them is being stalked by the man who killed his father. Welcome to the Big Bad City

THERE WAS AN IMPROBABLE MURDER STORY told about the Wolf that had made its way into police lore and then spread quickly from Washington to New York to London and to Moscow. No one knew if it was actually the Wolf. But it was never officially disproved, and it was consistent with other outrageous incidents in the Russian gangster's life

The ninth book in the Alex Cross series Alex Cross' family is in terrible danger – at the same time that his new job with the FBI brings him the scariest case of his career. A team of kidnappers has been snatching successful, upstanding men and women right before their families' eyes – possibly to sell them into slavery. Alex's knowledge of the D.C. streets, together with his unique insights into criminal psychology, make this mindbending case one that only he can solve – if he can just get his colleagues to set aside their staid and outdated methods. With unexpected twists and whiplash surprises, this is another brilliantly irresistible novel from America's bestselling suspense writer

Have yourself a crooked little Christmas with The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries. Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories — many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for — suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural — can be found in these pages. FEATURING: — Unscrupulous Santas — Crimes of Christmases Past and Present — Festive felonies — Deadly puddings — Misdemeanors under the mistletoe — Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe

Otto Penzler rounds up the most cunning, ruthless, criminals in mystery fiction. The best mysteries — whether detective, historical, police procedural, cozy, or comedy-have one thing in common: a memorable culprit. For all the heroes in earnest pursuit, there are malefactors on the loose, determined to outfox their efforts and sow trouble in their wake. These are the rogues and villains who haunt our imaginations, but they often have more in common with their heroic counterparts than we might expect (and, as we shall see, some even moonlight as detectives or do-gooders themselves). The seventy-two handpicked stories in this collection introduce us to the miscreants who have schemed and slashed their way through the mystery canon over the past hundred and fifty years, captivating and confounding readers in the process. MEET DELINQUENT PSYCHES OF ALL STRIPES, INCLUDING gentleman thieves, calculating crooks, fearsome body snatchers, masters of disguise, morally-challenged lawyers, deceitful doctors, heinous hit men. charismatic con men, amoral adventurers, supernatural suspects, deviant detectives, vile villainesses, and cold-blooded killers IN UNFORGETTABLE TALES BY Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, Jack London, L. T. Meade, 0. Henry, Sinclair Lewis, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris, Erle Stanley Gardner, Edward 0. Hoch, David Morrell, Loren D. Estleman, and countless others

PLAYMATE OF THE DAYJack Ryan has a man's fists, a boy's mind, and the cunning of an ex-con. Nancy Hayes has a woman's sleek moves and the instincts of a shark. Now, in a Michigan resort town, a rich man wants Jack gone and Nancy for himself.For Ryan the choice is clear: Nancy's promises of pleasure, her crazy, thrill-seeking schemes of breaking into homes, shooting guns, and maybe stealing a whole lot of money are driving him half mad. But there's one thing Ryan doesn't know yet: his new playmate is planning the deadliest thrill of all.Razor-sharp and wholly unpredictable, The Big Bounce is an Elmore Leonard classic--a sly, beguiling story of a man, a woman, and a nasty little crime

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the beloved Mrs. Murphy mystery series, Rita Mae Brown and her intrepid feline co-author Sneaky Pie Brown return with a charming claw- biting tale starring Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen. Of course prowling faithfully at Harry’s side are the sleuthing cats Mrs. Murphy, ever wise, and Pewter, reliably cranky and always primed with a razor-sharp quip. Fiercely loyal and on the alert, corgi Tee Tucker is also never far behind. This time, Harry and her menagerie throw a wrench into the gears of a killer of grease monkeys. It’s mid-May, and Crozet, Virginia, is heating up fast, or so it seems to Harry. The town’s beloved ex–post mistress is never idle, dividing her time between raising this year’s bounty of crops; taking care of her veterinarian husband, Fair; indulging her passion for classic cars; and adding further to her reputation as a nosy neighbor. It starts when Harry’s dear friend Miranda Hogendobber takes her on a leisurely drive that ends in a narrow drainage ditch. The chaos continues when the Very Reverend Herbert Jones’s Chevy pick-up also abruptly goes kaput. But these vehicular mishaps are nothing compared to the much more distressing state of a mechanic discovered by Harry in a local repair shop: His head’s been bashed in. Despite numerous warnings from her much-loved coterie of friends, human and otherwise, Harry rather quickly surmises that the time has come to pop the hood and conduct her own investigation. Her animal companions see disaster fast approaching but can do little except try their best to protect their foolishly intrepid human. Harry’s race to the truth leads straight to powerful forces determined to avoid scrutiny at any cost—even if it means running Harry Haristeen off the road for good

"A smart, engaging heroine who isn't afraid to get her hands dirty – literally." – Brian Freeman A hit with mystery lovers and gardening fans nationwide, Pushing Up Daisies introduced Paula Holliday, ex-NYC media exec turned Connecticut gardener, in Rosemary Harris's celebrated series debut. Now in The Big Dirt Nap, Paula is back in a second scent-sational thriller. Something stinks to Paula Holliday, and it isn't just the corpse flower, titan arum, named for its off-putting fragrance. When Paula's friend Lucy asks her to tag along on an all-expense-paid junket to the Titans Hotel, it seems like a good idea. Paula even manages to squeeze a few bucks and a byline out of the local paper for writing an article on the titan arum, a rare flower that's just about to bloom and on display at the hotel. But when her friend is unavoidably detained, a would-be suitor is found with a gaping hole in his head, and the corpse flower refuses to bloom, the entire venture starts to seem like less of a good idea. Brimming with wit and wisecracks, The Big Dirt Nap is sure to win rising mystery star Rosemary Harris a whole new slew of ardent fans

Won Hugo Award for Best Novelette in 1959

Collected tales of wonder, danger, and the future, including the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning title story. Tales of the unknown in which a fix-it man crosses into another dimension—and more. Hiram Taine is a handyman who can fix anything. When he isn’t fiddling with his tools, he is roaming through the woods with his dog, Towser, as he has done for as long as he can remember. He likes things that he can understand. But when a new ceiling appears in his basement—a ceiling that appears to have the ability to repair television sets so they’re better than before—he knows he has come up against a mystery that no man can solve. Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, “The Big Front Yard” is a powerful story about what happens when an ordinary man finds reality coming apart around him. Along with the other stories in this collection, it is some of the most lyrical science fiction ever published. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook

Murder was in the air. A cop had killed himself, and every crook in town knew that would be sure to bring on THE BIG HEAT. Why did they fear a dead man? Dave Bannion, homicide sergeant, fought for the answer to that question. He got it... Then the big heat came. The dead man was a police clerk who shot himself for no obvious reason. That was Bannion’s first judgment, until a girl named Lucy presented a quite different picture of the dead man from the one he had shown to the world — and to his fastidious, glacial wife. Bannion’s chief, Lieutenant Wilks, wanted the case closed and speculation ended — quickly and tightly. So did Max Stone and Lagana who held the city in a sinister, underworld grip. Why did they fear a dead man? In this story of grim excitement, pathos and dramatic surprise, one of our foremost mystery writers presents the outstanding murder novel of the season

Sunny Coolidge left her New York City newspaper job to go back to Maine and take care of her ailing father. But there’s not much excitement—or interesting work—in Kittery Harbor. So when Ada Spruance, the town’s elderly cat lady, asks for help finding her supposedly-winning lottery ticket, Sunny agrees. But when she arrives at Ada’s, with a stray tomcat named Shadow tagging along, they discover the poor woman dead at the bottom of her stairs. Was it an accident—or did Ada’s death have to do with that missing lottery ticket, which turns out to be worth six million dollars? Town Constable Will Price suspects the worst. And Sunny’s reporter instincts soon drive her to do some investigating of her own. Even Shadow seems to have a nose for detective work. Following the trail of the purrloined ticket, Sunny and Shadow try to shed some light on a killer’s dark motives—before their own numbers are up

Life's already much too busy for Rhiow and the other cats of the New York City worldgating maintenance teams. The old, cramped Penn Station is being torn apart and relocated into its big new building, which means that the Penn worldgates have had to be moved too. Everyone's nerves are in shreds, and no one's had enough sleep for a human, let alone a Person. So when Rhiow goes staggering home to her litterbox the morning after the job's done and finds it already occupied by another cat -- who then vanishes -- at first she thinks she's hallucinating. But she's not. When her team is called to Los Angeles to do a minor consult after the city's single worldgate is deranged by a string of earthquakes, Rhiow's "hallucination" reappears bearing a dire message from the past. The messenger, a tom called Hwaith, reveals that similar earthquakes are striking Los Angeles in 1946 -- indicators not only of increasing instability in the San Andreas Fault, but of something far more troubling. Something is trying to subvert the Los Angeles gate to its own purposes. "The Lone Power?" Rhiow asks. "No," Hwaith says. "Something worse. Something from outside." Rhiow and her team find themselves caught up in ever-deepening peril and mystery as they make the dangerous trip back to post-war Los Angeles. Their intervention plunges them headfirst into the glitzy, murky world of 1946 Hollywood, a smoggy film-noir landscape filled with glamourous starlets, flamboyantly corrupt studio heads, wicked, pampered cats with hidden agendas, unsolved murders, snoopy screenwriters, scheming PR flacks, and a shadowy, celebrity-ridden cult dabbling in knowledge better left alone -- knowledge which could destroy their world's present and doom its future, if the dreadful promise of the Year of the Black Jaguar is fulfilled

Los Angeles, 1950. Red crosscurrents: the Commie Scare and a string of brutal mutilation killings. Movieland leftists on a collision course with a grand jury investigating team. A young homicide detective obsessed with capturing a murderer of unparalleled viciousness — even though the price may be horrific self-revelation. Gangsters and cops and fixers and Hollywood grotesques in a noir novel of epic scope and depth. The Big Nowhere is the story of three men caught up in a massive web of ambition, perversion, and deceit. Danny Upshaw is a Sheriff’s deputy stuck with a bunch of snuffs nobody cares about; they’re his chance to make his name as a cop — and to sate his darkest curiosities. Mal Considine is D.A.’s Bureau brass, climbing on the Red Scare bandwagon to advance his career and to gain custody of his adopted son, a child he saved from the horror of postwar Europe. Buzz Meeks — bagman, ex-Narco goon and pimp for Howard Hughes — is fighting Communism for the money. All three men have purchased tickets to a nightmare. The Big Nowhere is dark, brutal, tender and powerful; it is a remarkably vivid portrait of a remarkable time and place. With his best-selling The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy established himself as the modern master of noir fiction; The Big Nowhere establishes him as a major American novelist

It's Easter in Reading — a bad time for eggs — and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself. But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody. And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town…

Who Collects the Collectors? Sam Thornton has had many run-ins with his celestial masters, but he’s always been sure of his own actions. However, when he’s tasked with dispatching the mythical Brethren — a group of former Collectors who have cast off their ties to Hell — is he still working on the side of right? File Under: Urban Fantasy [ Soul Solution | Secret Origins | Flaming Torches | Double Dealing ]

From New York Times bestselling authors Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins — the legend of Caleb York continues as the renowned gunslinger fights to bring justice to the blood-soaked streets of Trinidad, New Mexico. Caleb York has made up his mind and packed his bags. He’ll be on the next stage, bound for San Diego and a new life as a Pinkerton man. But before Caleb can say a proper goodbye to his sweetheart, Willa, a peaceful morning erupts into blazing gunfire. Someone has to bring law and order to the wild little town of Trinidad, even as a band of outlaw brothers rides the vengeance trail and a new cattle baron sets his sights on more land... and on Willa, too. Looks like Caleb will be staying on for a while. With his Colt loaded for justice, and a sheriff’s badge on his chest, Caleb York emerges as a classic Western hero who knows just how to stand up to the deadliest of enemies — and win

The Big Sleep was an instant success when first published in 1939. It centers around a paralyzed California millionaire with two psychopathic daughters; he involves Marlowe in a case of blackmail that turns into murder

Pete Quint finds a hot market for air conditioning

What initally looks like a small time midwinter break-in, leads to something much bigger – a million dollar siege of a floating casino on the frozen Mississippi River. But the temperature is rising and the heat is on Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman… Following hard on the heels of the bestselling Eleven Days and The Known Dead, Donald Harstad really hits his stride with The Big Thaw, an irresistible big thriller with a Fargo-like atmosphere.The dead of winter has hit the heartland. It's thirty below zero and all anyone has to look forward to in Nation County, Iowa is an evening's entertainment aboard a floating casino docked a short drive away on the Mississippi River. With his friend and partner Hester Gorse pulling security duty on the Beauregard, it's left to Deputy Sheriff Carl Houseman to keep Nation County criminals in check. In Carl's experience, though, crime takes a holiday when the mercury falls. But the men lying low at a nearby compound have much bigger plans. They're waiting for a break in the weather to pull off a masterful million-dollar siege of the state's biggest economic asset. And Hester, trapped on the Beauregard, is directly in the line of fire. While desperately trying to maintain his control of the investigation, Carl has to plan for disaster relief, lobby the FBI for a team of SWAT sharpshooters, hold the media at bay, and save Hester's life before the temperature rises for the big thaw…

Things couldn't be going better for Troy White. The Atlanta Falcons' football genius is at the top of his game, helping the team get to the playoffs. Agents and lawyers are knocking on his door with big-money offers for the upcoming season. And his own football team has just won the Georgia State Championship! Troy's celebrating with his friends at linebacker Seth Halloway's mansion when another lawyer comes knocking – and he says, "I think I'm your father." In that instant, Troy's life is changed. Powerfully charged from start to finish, this is an amazing portrayal of Troy's struggle to make his lifetime dreams of being with his father come true. Filled with page-turning excitement as a high-stakes deal increases the clash of family tension, The Big Time is an unforgettable experience

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) is best known as a fantasy writer, but his achievements and influence are also considerable in the horror and science fiction fields. One of his major SF works is the Change War series, about rival time-traveling armies locked in a bitter, age-old war for control of existence; the battles frequently alter the course of human history. The most important work of Leiber's Change War series is the Hugo Award-winning novel The Big Time, in which doctors, entertainers, and wounded soldiers find themselves treacherously trapped with an activated atomic bomb inside the Place, a room existing outside of space-time. It's not one of Leiber's strongest novels: the cutesy-girlish narrative voice is unconvincing, while the demands of describing time travel and time paradoxes inevitably strain the prose. But The Big Time is a tense, claustrophobic SF mystery, and possibly the ultimate locked-room whodunit. Won Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1958

If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it ... it is much too good for anyone else!

From a recent (4/29/99) interview: Lomax: Above, you said that you were "no damn good at writing short stories".What about these days? Do you think you will write exclusively in the longform? Oh, and what's the deal with the Big U. Will that ever see printagain? Stephenson: I still find short stories very difficult to write, and I admirepeople who can do that. At the moment, novels are working for me and so Ithink I'll stick with them. Concerning the Big U… It is an okay novel,but I'm in no hurry to put it back into the world. There is a lot of othergood stuff that people could be reading

The author of The Good Earth tells a poignant story about two boys whose friendship and courage help them survive an overwhelming tragedy. On a mountainside in Japan, two boys enjoy a humble life governed by age-old customs. Jiya belongs to a family of fishermen; his best friend, Kino, farms rice. But when a neighboring volcano erupts and a tidal wave swallows their village — including Jiya’s family — life as they know it is changed forever. The orphaned Jiya must learn to come to terms with his grief. Now facing a profoundly different life than the one he’d always taken for granted, he must decide on a new way forward. Written with graceful simplicity, The Big Wave won the Children’s Book Award of the Child Study Association of America when it was first released

Book two in the Lovers on the Fringe series. Andy Lohani is in a serious funk. The Yeti shifter is looking for love, or at least some loving, and when he meets Jenna Durham one dark night, sparks fly. She’s beautiful, sexy and hot for him. Getting her in his bed is job one. Unfortunately, she’s Normal and he’s really…not. Accountant Jenna Durham doesn’t believe her brother’s crazy theories about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. But she agrees to check out a bar in northern Pennsylvania where her brother says Bigfoot hangs out. At least she’s getting an expenses-paid weekend away. When Jenna meets seven-foot, blond and blue-eyed hunk Andy, she realizes she owes her brother one hell of an apology. Because she has a huge crush on the Abominable Snowman. And what he can do between the sheets is not something a girl could soon forget. But if she wants to keep him, she might have to give up her Normal life for one on the Fringe…

A sporting preparation to the intelligent mystery fan: don't open this door when you want to play fair with the most original pair of detectives of years — and will keep the secret that is going to make detective-story history — the secret of The Bigger They Come

Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize, the Edmund White Award, and the California Book Award, Lori Ostlund’s “heartbreaking and wonderful” (Pulitzer Prize — winning author Richard Russo) debut collection of stories about men and women confronting the unmapped and unexpected. In Lori Ostlund’s award-winning debut collection, people seeking escape from situations at home venture out into a world that they find is just as complicated and troubled as the one they left behind. In prose highlighted by both satire and poignant observation, The Bigness of the World contains characters that represent a different sort of everyman — men and women who poke fun at ideological rigidity while holding fast to good grammar and manners, people seeking connections in a world that seems increasingly foreign. In “Upon Completion of Baldness,” a young woman shaves her head for a part in a movie in Hong Kong that will help her escape life with her lover in Albuquerque. In “All Boy,” a young logophile encounters the limits of language when he finds he prefers the comfort of a dark closet over the struggle to make friends at school. In “Dr. Deneau’s Punishment,” a math teacher leaving New York for Minnesota as a means of punishing himself engages in an unsettling method of discipline. In “Bed Death,” a couple travels Malaysia to teach only to find their relationship crumbling as they are accepted in their new environment. And in “Idyllic Little Bali,” a group of Americans gather around a pool in Java to discuss their brushes with fame and end up witnessing a man’s fatal flight from his wife. “Ostlund constantly delights the reader with the subtlety of her insights as well as the carefulness of her prose” (San Francisco Chronicle), revealing that wherever you are in the world, where you came from is never far away. “Each piece is sublime” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, this was the first thriller set in the world money market that was written by an actual financial expert. Paul Erdman’s fast-paced, suspenseful story centers on a billion-dollar, top-secret coup intended to protect the U.S. dollar. In settings that range from Washington, D.C., to London, Paris, Moscow, and Beirut, a cast of memorable characters enact a plot that brings the world to the brink of the biggest financial explosion in history

“Part detective story, part wine history, this is one juicy tale, even for those with no interest in the fruit of the vine…. As delicious as a true vintage Lafite.” It was the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold. In 1985, at a heated auction by Christie’s of London, a 1787 bottle of Château Lafite Bordeaux—one of a cache of bottles unearthed in a bricked-up Paris cellar and supposedly owned by Thomas Jefferson—went for $156,000 to a member of the Forbes family. The discoverer of the bottle was pop-band manager turned wine collector Hardy Rodenstock, who had a knack for finding extremely old and exquisite wines. But rumors about the bottle soon arose. Why wouldn’t Rodenstock reveal the exact location where it had been found? Was it part of a smuggled Nazi hoard? Or did his reticence conceal an even darker secret? It would take more than two decades for those questions to be answered and involve a gallery of intriguing players—among them Michael Broadbent, the bicycle-riding British auctioneer who speaks of wines as if they are women and staked his reputation on the record-setting sale; Serena Sutcliffe, Broadbent’s elegant archrival, whose palate is covered by a hefty insurance policy; and Bill Koch, the extravagant Florida tycoon bent on exposing the truth about Rodenstock. Pursuing the story from Monticello to London to Zurich to Munich and beyond, Benjamin Wallace also offers a mesmerizing history of wine, complete with vivid accounts of subterranean European laboratories where old vintages are dated and of Jefferson’s colorful, wine-soaked days in France, where he literally drank up the culture. Suspenseful, witty, and thrillingly strange, The Billionaire’s Vinegar is the vintage tale of what could be the most elaborate con since the Hitler diaries. It is also the debut of an exceptionally powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction

Scrambling to save her family's company, Emma McKinley was shocked when billionaire hotel magnate Alex Garrison tossed her a lifeline- baited with an heirloom engagement ring and a pre-nup an inch thick. It was a textbook marriage of convenience: he calls off her creditors; she gives him half her company. But the elaborate game of make-believe soon became more intoxicating than either of them expected. Could a marriage built on a lie withstand the test of true passion?

A whopping ten-million-dollar inheritance should have been Carolina Daniels's dream come true. Instead, the money brought nothing but vultures looking for their share of the wealth. Fortunately for her, the generous gift also came with a rescuer: sexy billionaire Maguire Cochran. Instinct told Maguire that the generous inheritance his father had given Carolina for saving his son would send her running for help. His plan? To be her "knight in shining armor" and show her how to toughen up. Whisking her off for a luxurious getaway – complete with a romantic dinner or two – was all part of the arrangement. But letting the considerate, passionate schoolteacher give him a lesson in love – and transform his heart – was not…

The rise and rise of the Bin Laden family is one of the great stories of the twentieth century; its repercussions have already deeply marked the twenty-first. Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth. Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine- stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it. The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends