Nothing in history sounds grander than a trade route, one of those thick bold lines on the statistical maps by which people have exchanged the products of their hands, minds, and sporadically, even hearts. Some of the routes have shaped history, rather than merely reflecting it. Primary among them is the Silk Road, the overland route across Asia that endured for more than 1,000 years as a crossroad from East to West. Here, in this essay by historian David Grace is the story of one of the g...

Gaius Julius Caesar was intelligent, courageous, and connected. For the majority of his adult life, though, he took little advantage of his gifts. Then, in his early forties, he came into his own as an orator, politician, general, writer, and statesman. Caesar dedicated himself to a singular mission: building Rome into an empire over which he would rule. As he realized his grand vision, the world he had created crashed down on him. Friends and foes alike turned against him. A group of cons...

When eight immigrants arrived at the Baltimore Federal Courthouse to be sworn in as citizens they didn't give a thought to the trial next door of five terrorists charged with blowing up a federal building. Baltimore Sun Reporter Mark Shrader did care about that trial. His wife and unborn child had been killed in that explosion, but in spite of his pleas to cover the case he was instead ordered to write a Sunday Supplement article on the new citizens.Then the terrorists escaped thei...

This book contains twenty Science Fiction stories totaling approximately 130,000 words. The first three stories follow Harry Dondero, the first officer of the tramp star freighter, Orion. The topics for these twenty stories cover aliens, time travel, rogue technology and more.Five of the stories were novelettes originally published in Analog Magazine.Three of the stories were written by Hayford Peirce and David Grace (then writing under the "David Alexander" name).

NEW EDITION -- Materially Revised Sept. 2014When the pregnant wife and four-year-old stepdaughter of fading movie star Tom Travis disappeared a massive search was launched. Soon after the body of Travis' wife is discovered only a few miles from where he had been riding his dune buggy on the day she vanished he's arrested and placed on trial for capital murder.Only a few days away from an almost certain guilty verdict Travis' lawyer hires suspended Ex-Deputy D.A. Steve Janso...

After twenty-fives years on the job, NYPD Lieutenant Greg Webster retired to a small Kansas college to teach classes in Criminal Justice. Webster looked forward to the move as a well-deserved rest for himself and his social-worker wife, Carolyn. Unfortunately, before even a year had passed Carolyn was dead, killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident. Though dazed and heartbroken, Greg suspected nothing sinister about her death until, as a class project, one of Webster's students began rese...

Long forgotten by mankind the world "Fane" lies on the outer reaches of explored space. The planet's peculiar electromagnetic fields slowly destroy electronic devices but in compensation they enhance psychic abilities. Over the centuries humans and the aliens with whom they share the planet have evolved into clans of wizards and masters, dullards and incompetents.Grantin, the nephew of a powerful but harsh magician, seems bound for failure in the magical arts. In a last ditch effor...

"Set in the modern day, this straightforward, fast-paced detective novel cages a truly twisted villain.""The reader is thrust into a page-turning, clever narrative that continually morphs from police procedural, thriller, courtroom drama, and gritty evaluation of a serial rapist and killer.""...the relentless pace allows for little introspection.""Grace relishes the accurate and disturbing details, providing top-quality entertainment....""...a relentless sto...

They were never meant to exist.Born of a forbidden union between two ancient bloodlines, three sisters carry the rarest and most dangerous power their world has ever known. Torn apart as children, each has lived unaware of the others-until fate forces their paths to cross on Earth.Kate only wanted a normal life. Larissa only wanted her visions to stop. Milda wanted to belong. But when a shadow from their mother's past hunts them down, the sisters are thrust...

Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Quinn always gets his man – with one exception. The one fugitive Virgil hasn't yet been able to capture is his unstable ex-wife who's run off with Quinn's ten-year-old daughter. For nine long years, while Quinn is tracking down an on-the-run enforcer for a gang of sex traffickers, a bail-jumping kidnapper/rapist, a gang of murdering home-invasion robbers, and an under-the-radar serial killer, Quinn continues his relentless search for his vanished child.He...

Big things always start small. Big steps can surely take an individual further ahead on the path of success, but it's the small steps that count – those were the steps that put the individual on the path in the first place. This is the ideology that has been discussed in this book. The author has studied ants most of his life and has always been fascinated by their relentless effort, never giving up to achieve what they want. He believes there is a lot to be learned from our little friends...

The federal bureaucrat charged with stopping the importation of dangerous materials vanishes only days before enacting a new list of prohibited substances. Homicide detective turned Homeland Security Agent Greg Kane suspects that the HHS employee may have been killed to keep the new list from going into effect, but he has no idea who's behind the crime, which chemical they are so desperate to import, and what they plan to do with it once they've gotten their hands on it.After he di...