All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye


Book Description

This prize-winning comic thriller takes readers “from high-octane gun antics to kitchen mopping in East Kilbride . . . [in] one beast of a story” (The Guardian, UK). International bestselling author Christopher Brookmyre has been lauded for his dark sense of humor and brilliant suspense plotting. Now his Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize–winning novel follows “his most ambitious heroine yet”: a forty-six-year-old house-proud grandmother (The Guardian, UK). As a teenager, Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo, surrounded by the likes of James Bond. But now her dreams are as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet. Her son Ross, a researcher for a Swiss arms manufacturer, is the one with the exciting life. But lately it’s gotten a bit too exciting. Ross needs to disappear before some shady characters force him to divulge the secrets of his research. And they’re not the only ones desperate to locate him. Ross’s firm has hired a team of security experts, and, headed by the enigmatic Bett, they have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross’s whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect, he is right. But even he is taken aback by her dogged determination to secure her son’s safety. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower, and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life, it’s likely someone is going to lose an eye . . . “Funny, electric and captivating.” —Times (UK)




It's Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye


Book Description

"This collection of stories by Kurt Luchs pursues its comedic quarry with the ruthlessness of a pussycat trying to get out of a cardboard box. Luchs, who has written for august literary organs such as The Onion, The New Yorker, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and even been published by some of them, is an inspired comic writer in the tradition of P.J. Wodehouse, S.J. Perelman, and Woody Allen, for whom not only the world but language itself is a source of constant delight. Even the hilarity he generates is not an end in itself; the convulsing diaphragms of his laughing readers are in his hands a remotely operated musical instrument bridging the woodwind and percussion sections."--Cover




Outlaw Biker:


Book Description

In this no-holds-barred memoir, a legendary biker recounts his life of sex, drugs, rock & roll and lots of broken laws. Here is the true-life story of Richard “Deadeye” Hayes in all its bad-ass, balls-to-the-wall glory. This is a man who stole a machine gun before he was seven and lost his left eye when a good friend shot him in the face. As a member—and then president—of the infamous Los Valientes Motorcycle Club, he broke more laws and had more fun than any six of the coolest guys you know. One of the last true Outlaw Bikers, Deadeye knows what it means to be a man, take shit from no one, and have tattoos that actually say something. Riding, drug dealing, and sending men to the hospital with his bare hands, Deadeye made himself a legend among bikers—all the while making sure his daughters never got mixed up with guys like him. “This may just be the best book ever written by an author who's been shot twice, stabbed once, and bitten by a rattlesnake!” —Geoffrey Leavenworth, author of Isle of Misfortune




The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs


Book Description

Collects more than 1,400 English-language proverbs that arose in the 20th and 21st centuries, organized alphabetically by key words and including information on date of origin, history and meaning.




Every Dead Thing


Book Description

PI Charlie Parker, a former New York policeman, searches for the killer of his wife and daughter. Two women help him, a pretty criminal psychologist and an old Creole woman with psychic vision.




Gogol's Ghost


Book Description

What really happened to Russia following the collapse of the USSR? This book tries to provide some answers by examining aspects of life in St. Petersburg, Russia's second largest city, in the early years of Russia's transformation from a Communist state to a democracy. Rather than offering an account of the political changes that occurred after December 1991, the author uniquely sketches the personal and social dimensions of the "lower depths" of a revolution that produced sweeping changes to the lives of average Russians. Written in an accessible style from the perspective of a historian who lived in St. Petersburg in 1991-92 and subsequent periods, the book brings to life a number of fascinating changes that took place to the state and society. Essays describe changes to the consumer culture and the new landscape of capitalism in St. Petersburg; cultural currents in the city; changing behaviour in public places and the strains placed on the average Petersburger; the lingering tension between old bureaucratic ways and new rules and regulations; and a snapshot of some faces of the younger generation and the ways in which they coped with their new lives.




Random Acts of Malice


Book Description

Random Acts of Malice features a selection of the wickedest (and funniest) articles from the last five years of Happy Woman Magazine. Featuring work by some of the best satirists on the planet: Sharon Grehan, Elizabeth Hanes, Elaine Langlois, Pamela Monk, Jessica Becht, Mike Boone, Crystal Click, Christina Delia, Stephen James, Meredith Litt, Susan Shoemaker, Diane Sokoloski, Sarah Szucs, and Julie Ward... Can you afford NOT to buy this book? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Congratulations on your very fine judgment! The Best of Happy Woman Magazine is just what the title suggests - the very best of the award winning website Happy Woman Magazine.com. Inside you will find miles and miles - well, actually if each page is laid end to end you will have approximately 2914 inches of humour, which is a lot. To all of the people who have slaved away for the past five years making Happy Woman Magazine the blazing success that it is (you know who you are!) without a word of thanks or praise, and to all the loyal readers and fans, I would like to take this opportunity to say "You're welcome!" -Sharon Grehan -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Random Acts of Malice and Happy Woman Magazine are parody publications, so don't come crying to us if someone accidentally took out your liver or you starved to death on our diet. The interviews are not real and the jury is still out on the interviewer's status.




The John Connolly Collection #1


Book Description

In Volume I of this special collectors’ edition, visit the terrifying world of John Connolly’s #1 internationally bestselling thrillers: Every Dead Thing, Dark Hollow, and The Killing Kind. EVERY DEAD THING Haunted by the unsolved slayings of his wife and young daughter, and tormented by his sense of guilt, former NYPD detective Charlie Parker is a man consumed by violence, regret, and the desire for revenge. But when his ex-partner asks him to track down a missing girl, Parker embarks on an odyssey that leads him to the heart of organized crime; to an old black woman who dwells by a Louisiana swamp and hears the voices of the dead; to cellars of torture and murder; and to a serial killer unlike any other, an artist who uses the human body as his canvas and takes faces as his prize, the killer known only as the Traveling Man. DARK HOLLOW Haunted by the murder of his wife and daughter, former New York police detective Charlie Parker retreats home to Scarborough, Maine, to rebuild his shattered life. But his return awakens old ghosts, drawing him into the manhunt for the killer of yet another mother and child. The obvious suspect is the young woman's violent ex-husband. But there is another possibility—a mythical figure who lurks deep in the dark hollow of Parker's own past, a figure that has haunted his family for generations: the monster known as Caleb Kyle.... THE KILLING KIND When the discovery of a mass grave in northern Maine reveals the grim truth behind the disappearance of a religious community, Charlie Parker is drawn into vicious conflict with a group of zealots intent on tracking down a relic that could link them to the slaughter. Haunted by the ghost of a small boy and tormented by the demonic killer known as Mr. Pudd, Parker is forced to fight for his lover, his friends...and his very soul.




Tough Jews


Book Description

Award-winning writer Rich Cohen excavates the real stories behind the legend of infamous criminal enforcers Murder, Inc. and contemplates the question: Where did the tough Jews go? In 1930s Brooklyn, there lived a breed of men who now exist only in legend and in the memories of a few old-timers: Jewish gangsters, fearless thugs with nicknames like Kid Twist Reles and Pittsburgh Phil Strauss. Growing up in Brownsville, they made their way from street fights to underworld power, becoming the execution squad for a national crime syndicate. Murder Inc. did for organized crime what Henry Ford did for the automobile, and Tough Jews is the first in-depth portrait of these men, a thrilling glimpse at the muscle that made possible the success of gangster statesmen such as Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, and Lucky Luciano. For Rich Cohen, who grew up in suburban Illinois in the 1980s taunted by the stereotype of Jews as book-reading rule followers, the very idea of the Jewish gangster was a relief; for once, a Jew in jail did not have to be a white collar criminal. With a clear eye and a comic sensibility, Cohen looks beyond the blood and ultimately encounters each of these ruthless killers’ matzo-ball heart. Tough Jews shows what can happen when a member of the tribe combines brains, heart, and a dangerous determination never to back down.