Lucas Donovan and Jake Holden are lifelong best friends in Wilson, North Carolina who face change and uncertainty when their parents decide to send them to the local private school. The two find their niche when Lucas's economic mind realizes that they can become suppliers for whatever it is people want-namely a new drug they nickname The Party Starter. As the market increases, so do the stakes, as Lucas and his assembled crew find themselves at odds with rival drug dealers, the police, and t...

Scientists, journalists, novelists, and filmmakers continue to generate narratives of contagion, stories shaped by a tradition of disease discourse that extends to early Greco-Roman literature. Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid developed important conventions of the western plague narrative as a response to the breakdown of the Roman res publica in the mid-first century CE and the reconstitution of stabilized government under the Augustan Principate (31 BCE-14 CE): relying on the metaph...

One man’s crazy is another man’s norm.Inside, eight bizarre stories explore twisted perceptions and challenge conceptions about right and wrong. With a fascinating dive into several unstable minds, the authors examine different avenues for exposing warped cognition and mutilated logic. Each delivers a disquieting glimpse of reality.Reformation by M. Irish Gardner: With a fresh start in life, the last thing freed inmate Todd Jefferson wants to do is live someone else’s, unti...

It’s the near future, and frustration and rage sweep through the alienated American middle class. All signs point to what’s being called “The Second American Revolution,” as “Middies,” incensed by what they see to be a hopelessly corrupt, elitist, and self-perpetuating government, form a secret militia and prepare to oust the “Leets”—as did their forbears at Lexington and Concord more than two centuries ago.Amidst this upheaval, Matt Cooper, investigative reporter for a Florida dai...

Someone is murdering the pilots of America’s 107th Aero Squadron. Someone is diverting military funds to a secret place. Someone who looks, talks, and acts just like everyone else is selling his country to the enemy.That someone must be stopped. But there are those in power who are prepared to block the investigation in order to hide the ugly truth—whatever the human cost. Because what is really happening is far more terrible than anyone has yet dared to imagine.

From the author of The Potsdam Bluff and Tailspin comes a new techno-thriller set in the near future and featuring man-of-action Tom Sweeney.When the secret agent is laid off from his high-level intelligence job due to peace-time Department of Defense budget cuts, he takes the dismissal in stride, planning to enjoy a few months off as a swinging bachelor. But when an old CIA running mate is found murdered in the bathroom of Sweeney’s house, leaving behind a crypti...

The most coveted combat decoration in all Germany, the Blue Max was a symbol of power, fame, and prestige beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.Bruno Stachel is a nobody, a newly recruited junior officer in a First World War combat squadron. But he is determined not to remain a nobody for long. He has his sights on the Blue Max, the most coveted of all German decorations, and he will do anything to get it. From the very moment he shoots down his first plane, everyth...

TURN OFF YOUR PHONE . SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER . SAY GOODBYE TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY.Welcome to Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can’t Put Down.Edited by the grand master of adventure, Clive Cussler, Thriller 2 is packed with over 20 all-new stories from some of the biggest names in fiction, including Jeffery Deaver, David Hewson and R. L. Stine.

An airliner's controls abruptly fail mid-flight over the Atlantic. An oil tanker runs aground in Japan when its navigational system suddenly stops dead. Hospitals everywhere have to abandon their computer databases when patients die after being administered incorrect dosages of their medicine. In the Midwest, a nuclear power plant nearly becomes the next Chernobyl when its cooling systems malfunction.At first, these random computer failures seem like unrelated events. But Jeff Aiken...

In this "powerful and frightening" British thriller, two estranged sisters confront a crime that exposes the nightmares that lurk at the edges of domesticity ( Irish Independent).On a picture-perfect morning in Bath, England, a teenage girl's body is found on the towpath of a canal. Police detective Zoe Benedict is convinced the department head should look beyond the usual domestic motives to solve the brutal murder case. But no one wants to hear any far-f...

Sickos around the world are playing a deadly game, and the body count is climbing.In this thrilling sequel to the Chasing Chinatown trilogy, Agent Abby Kane hunts the mastermind behind the sadistic challenges the only way she knows how: by playing the game and moving up the bloody leaderboard herself.Upon arriving in Bangkok, she discovers a killer is already on the prowl, determined to claim victory. As Abby becomes entangled in this deadly game, the rules suddenly shift...

Your mother hollers that you're going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don't stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don't thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.Only, if it's the last time you'll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you'd stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.But the bus was barreli...