“I fuss over George when he’s sick and I fuss over him when he’s well. I send him to a play group several days a week to give him intraspecies quality time. I will discuss the state of his bowels with anyone who cares to engage me on the subject. Just when my days of browsing endless rows of overpriced kid’s toys are over, I am browsing endless rows of overpriced doggie toys. And sometimes I buy them, particularly if they have a good squeak.“Like many neophyte dog owners, I’ve gone ...

Darfur, Sudan. 2009. Two doctors employed by NGOs stumble across a strange metallic cylinder, which has been embedded for perhaps millions of years in desert rock. Mystified by the object, they gather four of the world’s leading experts in science and technology a computer scientist, a physicist, a biochemist, and a genetic researcher and head to London to study it thoroughly. The six have barely begun running tests on the cylinder, when they suddenly disappear telling family members not t...

A nation in panic. A teacher accused. O’Keefe faces his toughest case yet.The summer of 1988 is ablaze—not just with heat but with hysteria. As Satanic Panic sweeps the nation, innocent lives hang in the balance.Private detective Peter O’Keefe never expected to be drawn into the storm, but when his daughter’s beloved teacher "Miss Ginny" is accused of unspeakable crimes, he can’t turn away.The case reeks of mass hysteria and hidden agendas, but standing against the ...

"Rudyard Kipling published Stalky & Co. in 1899. Set at an English boarding school in a seaside town on the North Devon coast. (The town, Westward Ho!, is not only unusual in having an exclamation mark, but also in being itself named after a novel, by Charles Kingsley.) The book is a collection of linked short stories, with some information about the eponymous Stalky's later life. Beetle, one of the main trio, is said to be based on Kipling himself, while Stalky may be based on Lionel Duns...