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Southsiders:That's All Right

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : Blasted Heath Ltd

Page : 106 pages

File Size : 18,36 MB

Release : 2014-11-05

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 1908688750

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Ray Spalding's had enough of his wife, Paula. He's left his home in Edinburgh's Southside and headed for Belfast. It's safer there. Unknown to Ray, Paula's also had enough of him. She's not going back home. Not now, not ever. Jesse Spalding wakes up one morning to find both his parents gone. And he can't tell anyone or he'll be taken into care. As time passes and bills need paying, all Jesse can rely on are his wits, his friend Archie and his dad's 1950s record collection. Southsiders: That's All Right is the first in a series of powerful short novels that follow the spiralling fortunes of Ray and Jesse, pushing father and son to their limits while they struggle against the odds in the darker shadows of two of Britain's capital cities. "The prose is tightrope taut and the plotting first class ... a tense and thrilling novella" - Crimesquad.com on Mr Suit "Grim, but really good" - Ian Rankin on Smoke Nigel Bird is the author of several novels, novellas and short story collections, including In Loco Parentis, Smoke, Mr Suit and Dirty Old Town.



Family Properties

Author : Beryl Satter

Publisher : Macmillan + ORM

Page : 344 pages

File Size : 16,87 MB

Release : 2010-03-02

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1429952601

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Book Description

Part family story and part urban history, a landmark investigation of segregation and urban decay in Chicago -- and cities across the nation The "promised land" for thousands of Southern blacks, postwar Chicago quickly became the most segregated city in the North, the site of the nation's worst ghettos and the target of Martin Luther King Jr.'s first campaign beyond the South. In this powerful book, Beryl Satter identifies the true causes of the city's black slums and the ruin of urban neighborhoods throughout the country: not, as some have argued, black pathology, the culture of poverty, or white flight, but a widespread and institutionalized system of legal and financial exploitation. In Satter's riveting account of a city in crisis, unscrupulous lawyers, slumlords, and speculators are pitched against religious reformers, community organizers, and an impassioned attorney who launched a crusade against the profiteers—the author's father, Mark J. Satter. At the heart of the struggle stand the black migrants who, having left the South with its legacy of sharecropping, suddenly find themselves caught in a new kind of debt peonage. Satter shows the interlocking forces at work in their oppression: the discriminatory practices of the banking industry; the federal policies that created the country's shameful "dual housing market"; the economic anxieties that fueled white violence; and the tempting profits to be made by preying on the city's most vulnerable population. Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America is a monumental work of history, this tale of racism and real estate, politics and finance, will forever change our understanding of the forces that transformed urban America. "Gripping . . . This painstaking portrayal of the human costs of financial racism is the most important book yet written on the black freedom struggle in the urban North."—David Garrow, The Washington Post



In Loco Parentis

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books

Page : 166 pages

File Size : 16,49 MB

Release : 2018-08-17

Category : Fiction

ISBN :

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Joe Campion is the kind of teacher any child would want for their class. He’s also the kind of teacher who never turns down a drink, a smoke or a lay. When Joe finds out some of his students are suffering abuse, he doesn’t trust the system to take care of it. His impulsive nature, dedication to his pupils and love of women lead him on a long, strange and bloody trip. Praise for IN LOCO PARENTIS: “In Loco Parentis is terrific, start to finish.” —Charlie Stella, author of Tommy Red “Beautiful, painful and excruciatingly brilliant writing.” —McDroll, crime fiction author “A unique voice that sets the writing head and shoulders above and apart.” —Anonymous-9, author of Hard Bite and Bite Harder “The writing is beautiful and spare and by the end I felt a cathartic relief. This story is a roller coaster ride of emotion, but a ride well worth taking.” —Mike Miner, author of Hurt Hawks



My Funny Valentine

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : Down & Out Books

Page : 236 pages

File Size : 27,50 MB

Release : 2020-11-30

Category : Fiction

ISBN :

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Double Dutch loves playing Cupid and for one lucky lady his arrow will be painfully sharp. Only the police can prevent him from hitting his target before Valentine’s Day comes to a close. It’s almost twenty years since the last Double Dutch killing and he’s back with a vengeance. The discovery of his latest victim resurrects ghosts the police hoped they’d laid to rest forever. With Valentine’s Day almost upon them, detectives know they have limited time to avoid another slaying. Follow DI Wilson and his team as they try to locate the killer before he strikes again. My Funny Valentine is the second novel in the highly-praised Rat Pack series.



Smoke

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books

Page : 76 pages

File Size : 32,37 MB

Release : 2018-12-14

Category : Fiction

ISBN :

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Book Description

The Ramsay brothers are keen to move up in the world and get the hell out of town. They gather all their hopes in one basket and set up the Scottish Open dog-fighting tournament. In Leo they have the animal to win it. All they need to complete the plan is a fair wind. Carlo Salvino returns home missing an arm and a leg. He’s keen to win back the affections of his teenage girlfriend and mother of his child. If he can take his revenge on the Ramsays, so much the better. The Hooks, well they’re just a maladjusted family caught up in the middle of it all. A tale of justice, injustice and misunderstanding, Smoke draws its inspiration from characters introduced in a short story first published by Crimespree Magazine and later in The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime Stories 8. Praise for SMOKE: “Grim, but really good.” —Ian Rankin, bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus novels “Highly recommended.”—Thomas Pluck, author of Bad Boy Boogie “It’s the real deal.” —Les Edgerton, author of Adrenline Junkie “Smoke is reminiscent of Allan Guthrie’s Savage Night in the way it cleverly interweaves different strands of the story and its great mixture of colorful characters, absurdest humor and hard-boiled crime.” —Paul D Brazill, author of Last Year’s Man “The pace of Smoke is first-class and a definition of noir itself. The characters are well-rounded, the dialogue top-drawer, the ending a satisfying conclusion to a cracking tale.” —Ian Ayris, author of the John Sissons thrillers “This is a truly great piece of writing with characters that will live long in your mind.” —McDroll, author of Feeling It “Grim, brutal, never pretty but laced with enough black humor and cautious optimism to elevate it above being a bleak and hopeless read.” —Col’s Criminal Library “Gritty, working-class fiction from a hell of a writer.” —Matt Phillips, author of The Bad Kind of Lucky “Horribly compulsive reading.” —Kath Middleton, author of The Sundowners “Smoke is Brit Grit at its very finest. Think in terms of Layer Cake or Snatch.” —Darren Sant, author of Dark Voices



Ain’t That a Kick in the Head

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : Down & Out Books

Page : 132 pages

File Size : 18,38 MB

Release : 2021-11-15

Category : Fiction

ISBN :

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Book Description

This year, the fireworks will be red hot… Skates Farrington is a changed man. Gone are the smart suits, the dull meetings and the extra pounds. Nowadays, he gets his thrills at the skate park and from whatever substances his dealers send his way. The only thing missing from his life is his ex-wife. She’s shacked up with a respectable partner in an isolated farm and striving to create the perfect life. Skates is convinced that she will come back to him when she sees his new self, but when attempts to win her heart all over again are thrown back in his face, he decides a little gentle persuasion is in order. Now he can include murder and abduction among his new-found skills. DI Oliver Wilson, leading the investigation, has more than a few things on his mind. The case and imminent arrival of his third child should be at the forefront of his thoughts, but the arrival of a sequence of unusual gifts is making him nervous. The packages are sending him a message, he just can’t work out what they’re trying to say. Ain’t That A Kick In The Head is the explosive follow up to Let It Snow and My Funny Valentine. Praise for AIN’T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD: “Nigel Bird knows his characters inside and out—what they want, how they think, how they grow and how they fail. Ain’t that a Kick in the Head might be his best work yet. A convincing, engrossing portrayal of what life is like for cops and criminals alike.” —Chris Rhatigan, All Due Respect Books publisher “One of my favourite contemporary crime fiction series.” —Colman Keane, Col’s Criminal Library



Let It Snow

Author : Nigel Bird

Publisher : Down & Out Books

Page : 147 pages

File Size : 10,2 MB

Release : 2019-11-11

Category : Fiction

ISBN :

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Police Constable Ernie Shavers is murdered while trying to save the life of a suicidal teenager and everyone wants a piece of the killer. Some are happy to play it by the book, others don’t give a damn whether the rules are smashed to pieces. Whether they’re playing straight or crooked, they may not have long before the killer strikes again. Unfortunately it’s a big city and the current crime wave has thrown them a couple of curve balls to pile on the pressure. At the zoo, a rhino is killed for its horn. With no evidence trail and a broken heart, DS Sue Nolan turns to an old flame, a man who always has his ear to the ground. Gangland boss Johnny Yen is only too happy to help, but only if he can get a little something in return. In the centre of town, the biggest store in the city is robbed by a mannequin. It’s the perfect inside job and the owners of the store know exactly which officer they want on the case, only the officer doesn’t feel quite the same way. If that wasn’t bad enough, record snowfall has created chaos within the police department. It’s going to be one hell of a Christmas. Praise for LET IT SNOW: “You’ll want to spend time with the characters in this book. They’re ordinary people in all their glory and folly. Bird even manages to make one of the most hated characters in fiction (or life—the cop killer—engaging and interesting. Highly recommended, even for those who don’t usually dig police procedurals.” —Chris Rhatigan, Publisher, All Due Respect Books “Let It Snow is an enjoyable fireside treat, though it certainly isn’t sanitised, it’s a warming police procedural for any point in the winter.” —Mal McEwan, Crime Fiction Lover “Bird manages to create more than enough suspense to keep the reader turning pages to find out what happens.” —Charles Salzberg, The Big Thrill Magazine “The tension is well-paced and, as in real life, there’s more than one case running together. Police personnel’s home lives are part of the problem. I found this a really good read.” —Kath Middleton, Ignite





Mark Heffron

Author : Alice Ward Bailey

Publisher :

Page : 376 pages

File Size : 12,63 MB

Release : 1896

Category : Courtship

ISBN :

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Exile Corporation

Author : Mark McClafferty

Publisher : Lulu.com

Page : 476 pages

File Size : 32,1 MB

Release : 2011

Category : Fiction

ISBN : 0956730418

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Book Description

Global warming, famines and natural disasters threaten the world. Seventy six million people are retiring at a rate of ten thousand a day in America. Its social security programs and hospitals are failing, while wrongful death suits are piling up next to dead bodies. The War on Terror rages on. Millionaire playboy, Mark Knoxx, the C.E.O. of Exile Corporation has developed an internet device called HEAVEN: Hospital Evaluation and Authenticated Vitals Encoded Navigator that can provide a real-time diagnosis when it is placed on a patients' wrist. A powerful consortium calling themselves The Firm, get control of HEAVEN because Knoxx has unknowingly developed a cutting-edge weapon. The murder of a drug-dealing thug in Hollywood leads to two L.A.P.D. cops uncovering a plot to murder influential world figures. Following the trail of bodies, can they stay alive long enough to stop the worldwide distribution of HEAVEN. And can Mark Knoxx stay alive long enough to stop The Firm? Heaven only knows.