The Bellagio Caper


Book Description

In The Bellagio Caper, we are reintroduced to Chief Investigator Edward Augustus Fox. Foxs lover, Dr. Alicia Ho, M.D., learns that she has cancer and although pregnant, flees to China, the land of her birth. Fox resigns from the police department to follow her to China. However, he is soon declared persona non grata by the Chinese government and forced to leave China without his family when Fox refuses to accept an investigators job with the Peoples Party to spy on American tourists at the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing. After our protagonist is expelled from China, Fox moves to Las Vegas, Nevada where he accepts the most sought-after law enforcement job in Nevada, that of Chief Investigator with the Nevada Gaming Control Board. In his new position, Fox is responsible for ferreting out the criminals that perpetrate major criminal acts against the casinos, and by association, the good people of the State of Nevada. The television series, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, also entices Fox into accepting a lucrative technical script advisory consultancy contract to ensure that factual forensic realism is incorporated into series scripts, which is crucial to ensure that the acclaimed CBS television series continues to hold its lead against other copycats CSI dramas.




The CityCenter Caper


Book Description

“It was 0310 hours, 3:10 a.m. civilian time, when the Colonel heard someone beginning to stage a pre-dawn assault on their hideout. He had heard them and god damn it, the sorry-ass excuses for sentries that were stationed in the derelict metal sheds around the missile launch silo, should have damn-well heard them too. Instead of the sounds of scorpions and rattle snakes that he was disturbing, scurrying around in the cool sand of the abandoned shed, over his shoulders and into the pockets of his fatigues, he should be hearing the sounds of the stolen Humvees being started up. After his men finished loading them with the military small arms weapons they had been stashing in some of the larger tin sheds that still had insulation on their inner walls and doors. The men had orders to only start the Humvee’s engines after first checking to ensure that they were muffled down as much as possible, so it was possible that the NCO’s in-charge were just being overly cautious. He imagined that the authority’s SWAT teams would head west on a more-or-less straight line toward the gang’s hideout. A determination of how the authorities had zeroed-in on the location of their hideout would be evaluated and dealt with later. He figured the cops would react as most infantry units would, Plan-A, backed-up by a team or so from the GCB, and the way the colonel’s luck was running, probably one or more FBI HRT teams. However, his team would be following Plan-B, to escape and evade, fleeing due south until they hit Highway 159 and following it until they hit Highway 160. There they would split up, the Green team; in their two-wheel capable vehicles, heading northwest as fast as they could go on the road until they got to Pahrump, Nevada, and Blue team; their four-wheelers would double back and ambush the cop’s Zebra team on its right flank, following which they would break off contact and retreat into the inhospitable badlands of the Red Rock Recreation Area.”




Cat in a Quicksilver Caper


Book Description

Midnight Louie, alley-cat extraordinaire and Las Vegas's hairiest, hard-boiled PI, finds himself literally walking a tightrope when a fabulous museum opening at one of Sin City's swankiest casinos is marred by a little thing like death. Louie's loyal roommate, feisty PR freelancer Temple Barr, has snagged the commission of her career: repping the opening exhibition of the Russian Czars' priceless treasures at the New Millennium Hotel, the apex of which is the Czar Alexander Scepter, a priceless jewel-encrusted artifact. Trouble is, the hotel has booked an aerial magic act right above the exhibition. Temple works at a breakneck pace to coordinate this logistical nightmare. Tragedy ensues when a performer dies right above where the collection will be displayed and the police threaten to shut everything down. But the word "no" isn't one heard often in Las Vegas when money is involved and the show (or shows) must go on. Just as things seem to be working perfectly, another performer dies...and the scepter vanishes. The culprits could be international art thieves, Russian mafioso, or Chechen rebels out to embarrass the current Russian government. Or it could be someone else, perhaps someone Temple knows all too well . . . . Temple and Louie both have enemies in the magic act--evil magician Shangri-La and her curare-nailed performing Siamese cat, Hyacinth--and on the ground--ever-suspicious homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina, who's itching to pin the heist and murders on Temple's significant other, ex-magician and sometimes ex-spy Max Kinsella, now oddly AWOL. Worse, as Temple and Louie's separate investigations bring them both close to the truth, it's clear that someone has decided to hang them out to die too. Can fancy footwork and detection save our intrepid duo? Find out in Carole Nelson Douglas's Cat in a Quicksilver Caper. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




Circus of Thieves and the Comeback Caper


Book Description

Shank's Impossible Circus rolls back into town for this hilarious brand new adventure from Will Sutcliffe brought to life by wonderful illustrations from David Tazzyman! And there's about to be double the trouble as dastardly ringmaster Armitage Shank comes face to face with his long lost twin! Urgh, how will the world cope with two Shanks?




The Purloined Encryption Caper


Book Description

Five renegade NATO intelligence officers sent by their governments to the U.S. to steal industrial secrets from government and hi-tech companies secretly conspire to sell technologies they acquire to rogue nations for personal profit. All have high-level contacts in European and Middle Eastern governments and criminal networks. They soon involve several U.S. government employees as information sources enabling the group to steal patent applications and hi-tech data. Planning to be married, Rachel Brown resigns from the CIA after successful tours in Germany and Hong Kong. However, her pilot fianc crashes en route to San Francisco for the wedding. With the help of a childhood friend, currently a powerful U.S. senators aide, she returns to Washington and joins a lobbying firm representing several small high technology companies. She meets and becomes involved with the conspirators at Capitol Hill social events. She is of intense interest to them, especially after she becomes romantically involved with Jason Conrad, a client and CEO of a California hi-tech company involved in developing cutting edge encryption software and biometrics--areas of major interest to the NATO conspirators. Her liaison with Jason gets complicated when her former lover, a college friend of Jasons and international journalist, reenters her life and wants to revive their old affair. Through her past contacts, she alerts the CIA and FBI of the European groups intrigues and, together with Jason, cooperates with the government to try and thwart the foreign agents whose ruthless schemes involve murder, kidnapping and blackmail. The action moves from Washington to West Virginia, San Francisco, Paris and Belgium as Rachel becomes more enmeshed in the nefarious schemes and intrigues. Her progress from innocence to the world of espionage and betrayal reflects the complexity of modern life for this young professional woman.




The Bugatti Capers


Book Description

Angelo’s business in Newark is being squeezed by a local mob, the Paneladros. His own indiscretions do not help. His wife’s religious confession conducted in a priest’s own private residence further add to his troubles. The constant draining from Angelo’s cash registers drives him to despair. He thinks of alternative means of riches lying across the Atlantic away from the prying eyes of the local hoodlums. Based on hot intelligence hacked out of Rome and supplied by Giacomo, he sets on an action plan to acquire ownership of a London Car Dealership. By deceit, and force if need be. He assigns his four star general and faithful henchman - Johnny ‘4 Fingers’ Bristow - to carry out the complex task. Using a French high-fashion model and a brand new car, Angelo lures this old retired but slowly fading English playboy gentleman now living in Modena and driving a Maserati. The predator: Jaqueline du Bois. The prey: Frank Costanzo. The car: a Bugatti. Most of this drama takes place in Italy ... where else could one exploit the depths of culture, immerse oneself in colourful characters, and feel a part in tough and romantic one-on-one conversations that would keep you captivated, entertained, and at times laughing heartily.




Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007


Book Description

The most-trusted film critic in America." --USA Today Roger Ebert actually likes movies. It's a refreshing trait in a critic, and not as prevalent as you'd expect." --Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle America's favorite movie critic assesses the year's films from Brokeback Mountain to Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007 is perfect for film aficionados the world over. Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2007 includes every review by Ebert written in the 30 months from January 2004 through June 2006-about 650 in all. Also included in the Yearbook, which is about 65 percent new every year, are: * Interviews with newsmakers such as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Terrence Howard, Stephen Spielberg, Ang Lee, and Heath Ledger, Nicolas Cage, and more. * All the new questions and answers from his Questions for the Movie Answer Man columns. * Daily film festival coverage from Cannes, Toronto, Sundance, and Telluride. *Essays on film issues and tributes to actors and directors who died during the year.




The Malaria Capers: Tales of Parasites and People


Book Description

"Reads like a murder mystery…[Desowitz] writes with uncommon lucidity and verse, leaving the reader with a vivid understanding of malaria and other tropical diseases, and the ways in which culture, climate and politics have affected their spread and containment." —New York Times Why, Robert S. Desowitz asks, has biotechnical research on malaria produced so little when it had promised so much? An expert in tropical diseases, Desowtiz searches for answers in this provocative book.




The Best Laid Plans


Book Description

The Best Laid Plans includes an accessible group of essays that will meet the needs of students and scholars in film and media studies by offering new insights into an important and neglected area in genre criticism.




Shakespeare Is Missing


Book Description

Shakespeare Is Missing is a pair of tales with crossing arcs. The first begins in 1605. A man and woman carry on an illicit tryst in the Crown Inn, Oxford, England. The lovers are married; not, of course, to each other. A child is born of their clandestine affair. The man, whose reputation as a playwright and poet is growing throughout his country, is William Shakespeare. The woman is Jane Davenant, the wife of the inns proprietor, who sleeps peacefully one fl oor below. Jane will later be known as The Dark Lady of Shakespearean legend. The second tale, set in 2010, moves eastward across America then on to England. Its antagonist seeks vengeance against the Bard, foreshadowed by poems, which pathetically mimic Shakespeares style. The vengeance begins with thefts and vandalism of the Bards works in San Francisco and Las Vegas, then escalates from an assault in Milwaukee to explosive mayhem and murder at Washington DCs venerated Folger Shakespeare Library. To solve these crimes, Ovid Kent, a former DEA operative, now a rare book dealer, is hired by a billionaire English fi nancier and owner of the worlds largest private collection of Shakespeareana, an expected target of the mayhem. Ovid is aided throughout by the frequently evanescing Will Shakespeare himself. The storylines have their dramatic nexus in Oxford, in the very room of the very inn where the fi rst tale began. There, the stunning climax plays itself out in a breath-holding scene between Ovid, Will Shakespeare and the antagonist