Lincoln Rhyme is back, on the trail of a killer whose weapon of choice cripples New York City with fear.
The weapon is invisible and omnipresent. Without it, modern society grinds to a halt. It is electricity. The killer harnesses and steers huge arc flashes with voltage so high and heat so searing that steel melts and his victims are set afire.
When the first explosion occurs in broad daylight, reducing a city bus to a pile of molten, shrapnel-riddled metal, officials fear terrorism. Rhyme, a world-class forensic criminologist known for his successful apprehension of the most devious criminals, is immediately tapped for the investigation. Long a quadriplegic, he assembles NYPD detective Amelia Sachs and officer Ron Pulaski as his eyes, ears and legs on crime sites, and FBI agent Fred Dellray as his undercover man on the street. As the attacks continue across the city at a sickening pace, and terrifying demand letters begin appearing, the team works desperately against time and with maddeningly little forensic evidence to try to find the killer. Or is it killers . . . ?
Meanwhile, Rhyme is consulting on another high-profile investigation in Mexico with a most coveted quarry in his crosshairs: the hired killer known as the Watchmaker, one of the few criminals to have eluded Rhyme's net.
Juggling two massive investigations against a cruel ticking clock takes a toll on Rhyme's health. Soon Rhyme is fighting on yet another front--and his determination to work despite his physical limitations threatens to drive away his closest allies when he needs them most . . .
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From the book
SITTING IN THE control center of Algonquin Consolidated Power and Light's sprawling complex on the East River in Queens, New York, the morning supervisor frowned at the pulsing red words on his computer screen.
Below them was frozen the exact time: 11:20:20:003 a.m.
He lowered his cardboard coffee cup, blue and white with stiff depictions of Greek athletes on it, and sat up in his creaky swivel chair.
The power company control center employees sat in front of individual workstations, like air traffic controllers. The large room was brightly lit and dominated by a massive flat-screen monitor, reporting on the flow of electricity throughout the power grid known as the Northeastern Interconnection, which provided electrical service in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. The architecture and decor of the control center were quite modern--if the year were 1960.
The supervisor squinted up at the board, which showed the juice arriving from generating plants around the country: steam turbines, reactors and the hydroelectric dam at Niagara Falls. In one tiny portion of the spaghetti depicting these electrical lines, something was wrong. A red circle was flashing.
"What's up?" the supervisor asked. A gray-haired man with a taut belly under his short-sleeved white shirt and thirty years' experience in the electricity business, he was mostly curious. While critical-incident indicator lights came on from time to time, actual critical incidents were very rare.
A young technician replied, "Says we have total breaker separation. MH-Twelve."
Dark, unmanned and grimy, Algonquin Consolidated Substation 12, located in Harlem--the "MH" for Manhattan--was a major area substation. It received 138,000 volts and fed the juice through transformers, which stepped it down to 10 percent of that level, divided it up and sent it on its way.
Additional words now popped onto the big screen, glowing red beneath the time and the stark report of the critical failure.
The supervisor typed on his computer, recalling the days when this work was done with radio and telephone and insulated switches, amid a smell of oil and brass and hot Bakelite. He read the dense, complicated scroll of text. He spoke softly, as if to himself, "The breakers opened? Why? The load's normal."
Another message appeared.
"We've got load rerouting," somebody called unnecessarily.
In the suburbs and countryside the grid is clearly visible--those bare overhead high-tension wires and power poles and service lines running into your house. When a line goes down, there's little difficulty finding and fixing the problem. In many cities, though, like New York, the electricity flows underground, in insulated cables. Because the insulation degrades after time and suffers groundwater damage, resulting in shorts and loss of service, power companies rely on double or even triple redundancy in the grid. When substation MH-12 went down, the computer automatically began filling customer demand by rerouting the juice from other locations.
"No dropouts, no brownouts," another tech called.
Electricity in the grid is like water coming into a house from a single main pipe and flowing out through many open faucets. When one is...
"This shit would be really interesting if we weren't in the middle of it."--Barack Obama, September 2008
In 2008, the presidential election became blockbuster entertainment.
Everyone was watching as the race for the White House unfolded like something from the realm of fiction. The meteoric rise and historic triumph of Barack Obama. The shocking fall of the House of Clinton--and the improbable resurrection of Hillary as Obama's partner and America's face to the world. The mercurial performance of John McCain and the mesmerizing emergence of Sarah Palin.
But despite the wall-to-wall media coverage of this spellbinding drama, remarkably little of the real story behind the headlines has yet been told.
In Game Change, John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, two of the country's leading political reporters, use their unrivaled access to pull back the curtain on the Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Palin campaigns. How did Obama convince himself that, despite the thinness of his résumé, he could somehow beat the odds to become the nation's first African American president?
How did the tumultuous relationship between the Clintons shape--and warp--Hillary's supposedly unstoppable bid? What was behind her husband's furious outbursts and devastating political miscalculations? Why did McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Palin merely painfully out of her depth--or troubled in more serious ways?
Game Change answers those questions and more, laying bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Heilemann and Halperin take us inside the Obama machine, where staffers referred to the candidate as "Black Jesus."
They unearth the quiet conspiracy in the U.S. Senate to prod Obama into the race, driven in part by the fears of senior Democrats that Bill Clinton's personal life might cripple Hillary's presidential prospects. They expose the twisted tale of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, the truth behind the downfall of Rudy Giuliani, and the doubts of those responsible for vetting Palin about her readiness for the Republican ticket-along with the McCain campaign staff 's worries about her fitness for office. And they reveal how, in an emotional late-night phone call, Obama succeeded in wooing Clinton, despite her staunch resistance, to become his secretary of state.
Based on hundreds of interviews with the people who lived the story, Game Change is a reportorial tour de force that reads like a fast-paced novel. Character driven and dialogue rich, replete with extravagantly detailed scenes, this is the occasion-ally shocking, often hilarious, ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.
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It is a society that is, officially, a paradise. Superior to the decadent West, Stalin's Soviet Union is a haven for its citizens, providing for all of their needs: education, health care, security. In exchange, all that is required is their hard work, and their loyalty and faith to the Soviet State. Leo Demidov knows this better than most. A rising, prominent oficer in the State Security force, Leo is a former war hero whose only ambition is to serve his country. To defend this workers' paradise--and to guarantee a secure life for his parents, and for his wife, Raisa--Leo has spent his career guarding against threats to the State. Ideological crimes--crimes of thought, crimes of disloyalty, crimes against the revolution--are forcefully suppressed, without question. And then the impossible happens. A different kind of criminal--a murderer--is on the loose, killing at will. At the same time, Leo finds himself demoted and denounced by his enemies, all but sentenced to death. The only way to salvage what remains of his life is to uncover this criminal. But in a society that is officially paradise, it's a crime against the state to suggest that a murderer--much less a serial killer--is in their midst. To save his life and the lives of his family, Leo must confront the vast resources and reach of the security forces with only Raisa remaining at his side, to find and stop a criminal that the State won't admit even exists.
Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties. But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...A modern Christmas classic, SKIPPING CHRISTMAS is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition.
"Grisham may well be the best American storyteller writing today."
OneThe gate was packed with weary travelers, most of them standing and huddled along the walls because the meager allotment of plastic chairs had long since been taken. Every plane that came and went held at least eighty passengers, yet the gate had seats for only a few dozen.There seemed to be a thousand waiting for the 7 p.m. flight to Miami. They were bundled up and heavily laden, and after fighting the traffic and the check-in and the mobs along the concourse they were subdued, as a whole. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest days of the year for air travel, and as they jostled and got pushed farther into the gate many asked themselves, not for the first time, why, exactly, they had chosen this day to fly.The reasons were varied and irrelevant at the moment. Some tried to smile. Some tried to read, but the crush and the noise made it difficult. Others just stared at the floor and waited. Nearby a skinny black Santa Claus clanged an irksome bell and droned out holiday greetings.A small family approached, and when they saw the gate number and the mob they stopped along the edge of the concourse and began their wait. The daughter was young and pretty. Her name was Blair, and she was obviously leaving. Her parents were not. The three gazed at the crowd, and they, too, at that moment, silently asked themselves why they had picked this day to travel.The tears were over, at least most of them. Blair was twenty-three, fresh from graduate school with a handsome resume but not ready for a career. A friend from college was in Africa with the Peace Corps, and this had inspired Blair to dedicate the next two years to helping others. Her assignment was eastern Peru, where she would teach primitive little children how to read. She would live in a lean-to with no plumbing, no electricity, no phone, and she was anxious to begin her journey.The flight would take her to Miami, then to Lima, then by bus for three days into the mountains, into another century. For the first time in her young and sheltered life, Blair would spend Christmas away from home. Her mother clutched her hand and tried to be strong.The good-byes had all been said. "Are you sure this is what you want?" had been asked for the hundredth time.Luther, her father, studied the mob with a scowl on his face. What madness, he said to himself. He had dropped them at the curb, then driven miles to park in a satellite lot. A packed shuttle bus had delivered him back to Departures, and from there he had elbowed his way with his wife and daughter down to this gate. He was sad that Blair was leaving, and he detested the swarming horde of people. He was in a foul mood. Things would get worse for Luther.The harried gate agents came to life and the passengers inched forward. The first announcement was made, the one asking those who needed extra time and those in first class to come forward. The pushing and shoving rose to the next level."I guess we'd better go," Luther said to his daughter, his only child.They hugged again and fought back the tears. Blair smiled and said, "The year will fly by. I'll be home next Christmas."Nora, her mother, bit her lip and nodded and kissed her once more. "Please be careful," she said because she couldn't stop saying it."I'll be fine."They released her and watched helplessly as she joined a long line and inched away, away from them, away from home and security and everything she'd ever known. As she...
On December 5, 1985, the world's most expensive bottle of wine, a 1787 Chateau Lafite, sold at auction at Christie's in London for $156,000. The bottle was believed to have been ordered but never received by Thomas Jefferson for his personal collection, and had been discovered with several other bottles in a bricked up cellar in Paris two centuries later. The winning bidders, the Forbes family, immediately displayed their prize under a spotlight at their Fifth Avenue galleries building, where the bright light shriveled the cork, which fell into the bottle, and the wine quickly turned into the world's most expensive bottle of vinegar.
THE BILLIONAIRE'S VINEGAR is the story of this bottle (and other bottles from the same cache) and the cast of characters whose lives it touched: Thomas Jefferson, in his day America's most prominent oenophile; the Forbes family; German rock promoter-turned-über collector Hardy Rodenstock; Wine Spectator and Cigar Aficionado publisher Marvin Shanken; old-school British auctioneer Michael Broadbent; and others. It also investigates—and answers—the questions surrounding the bottles' apparent disappearance and rediscovery, the longest-running mystery in the modern wine world.
Recently, the story has taken a fascinating twist: relying on newly available scientific methods for evaluating old bottles of wine, a Texas billionaire who also bought one of the Jefferson bottles is now suing Hardy Rodenstock for fraud—and in the process threatens to bring the rare wine world to its knees.
"Part detective story, part wine history, this is one juicy tale....as delicious as a true vintage Lafite."
Chapter 1Lot 337A hush had come over the West Room. Photographers' flashes strobed the standing-room-only crowd silently, and the lone sound was the crisp voice of the auctioneer. To the world, Michael Broadbent projected a central-casting British cool, but under the bespoke suit, he was practicing a kind of mind control that calmed him in these situations. The trick was to focus narrowly, almost autistically, on numbers: lot number, number of bidders, paddle numbers, bid steps.Even after all these years, he still found it bracingly creative to conjure excitement out of a heap of dirty old bottles. No matter how many of them the fifty-eight-year-old Broadbent might see, he retained his boyish sense of marvel at the longevity of wine. Inert antiques were all very well, but there was magic in old wine--a mysterious and wonderful alchemy in something that could live and change for two hundred years and still be drinkable.Auctioneer was Broadbent's most public role, but it was only one of his distinctions in the wine world. In London he cut a familiar figure, pedaling to work each day on his Dutch ladies' bicycle with basket, legs gunning furiously, a trilby hat perched on his head. Often he was elsewhere, and he kept up a brutal schedule. As founding director of the Christie's wine department, he had spent the last two decades crisscrossing the planet, cataloging the dank and dusty contents of rich men's cellars, tasting tens of thousands of fine wines, and jotting his impressions in slender red hardcover notebooks. Those unassuming scribblings amounted to the most comprehensive diary of wine ever recorded. That diary now consisted of sixty of the Ideal notebooks, and he had collected them in a published tome that was the standard reference on old wines. Under Broadbent's direction, Christie's had largely invented and come to dominate the global market in old and rare wines. While Christie's as a whole was smaller than its great rival, Sotheby's, its wine department was more than twice as big, bringing in 7.3 million the previous season.Broadbent's peers in the trade acknowledged that his palate was the most experienced in the world. His pocket textbook on wine tasting, the definitive work of its kind, was in its eleventh edition, having sold more than 160,000 copies, and had been translated into eight languages. Any collector hosting an event that aspired to any seriousness made sure to invite Broadbent and his famously sensitive nose. When he arrived at a wine gathering, if so much as a trace of woodsmoke or the merest whiff of cigarette ash besmirched the air, Broadbent would scrunch up his nose, and everything would come to a halt while windows and doors were flung open.A lean six feet tall, Broadbent had a fringy sweep of whitening hair, and his smile, distinctly hail-fellow-well-met, was tempered by the cocked eyebrow of a worldly man. He looked more aristocratic than many of the dukes and princes alongside whom he sat on Christie's board of directors.When Broadbent tasted, he would lay his wristwatch next to his little red notebook, so that he could time the wine's changes in the glass. During lulls, if a piano was on hand, he might charm guests with some Brahms, or he might go off by himself to sketch the local scenery.He was happy to opine, at these tastings, on the wines under consideration. He had a knack for putting wine into memorable words. Sometimes he borrowed from literature, describing one wine as "black as Egypt's night." More often, he minted his own rakish descriptions, seeing a woman in every...
The bestselling author of The Surgeon returns—and so does that chilling novel’s diabolical villain. Though held behind bars, Warren Hoyt still haunts a helpless city, seeming to bequeath his evil legacy to a student all-too-diligent . . . and all-too-deadly. Filled with superbly created characters—and the medical and police procedural details that are her trademark—The Apprentice is Tess Gerritsen at her brilliant best. Set in a stunning world where evil is easy to learn and hard to end, this is a thriller by a master who could teach other authors a thing or two.
Already the flies were swarming. Four hours on the hot pavement of South Boston had baked the pulverized flesh, releasing the chemical equivalent of a dinner bell, and the air was alive with buzzing flies. Though what remained of the torso was now covered with a sheet, there was still much exposed tissue for scavengers to feast on. Bits of gray matter and other unidentifiable parts were dispersed in a radius of thirty feet along the street. A skull fragment had landed in a second-story flower box, and clumps of tissue adhered to parked cars. Detective Jane Rizzoli had always possessed a strong stomach,but even she had to pause, eyes closed, fists clenched, angryat herself for this moment of weakness. Don't lose it. Don'tlose it. She was the only female detective in the Boston P.D.homicide unit, and she knew that the pitiless spotlight was alwaystrained on her. Every mistake, every triumph, would benoted by all. Her partner, Barry Frost, had already tossed up hisbreakfast in humiliatingly public view, and he was now sittingwith his head on his knees in their air-conditioned vehicle, waitingfor his stomach to settle. She could not afford to fall victimto nausea. She was the most visible law enforcement officer onthe scene, and from the other side of the police tape the publicstood watching, registering every move she made, every detail ofher appearance. She knew she looked younger than her age ofthirty-four, and she was self-conscious about maintaining an airof authority. What she lacked in height she compensated forwith her direct gaze, her squared shoulders. She had learned theart of dominating a scene, if only through sheer intensity.But this heat was sapping her resolve. She had started offdressed in her usual blazer and slacks and with her hair neatlycombed. Now the blazer was off, her blouse was wrinkled, andthe humidity had frizzed her dark hair into unruly coils. She feltassaulted on all fronts by the smells, the flies, and the piercingsunlight. There was too much to focus on all at once. And allthose eyes were watching her.Loud voices drew her attention. A man in a dress shirt andtie was trying to argue his way past a patrolman."Look, I gotta get to a sales conference, okay? I'm an hourlate as it is. But you've got your goddamn police tape wrappedaround my car, and now you're saying I can't drive it? It's myown friggin' car!""It's a crime scene, sir.""It's an accident!""We haven't determined that yet.""Does it take you guys all day to figure it out? Why don'tyou listen to us? The whole neighborhood heard it happen!"Rizzoli approached the man, whose face was glazed withsweat. It was eleven-thirty and the sun, near its zenith, shonedown like a glaring eye."What, exactly, did you hear, sir?" she asked.He snorted. "Same thing everyone else did.""A loud bang.""Yeah. Around seven-thirty. I was just getting outta theshower. Looked out my window, and there he was, lying on thesidewalk. You can see it's a bad corner. Asshole drivers come flyingaround it like bats outta hell. Must've been a truck hit him.""Did you see a...
Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryan’s early days, in an extraordinary novel of global political drama.
“Smart and likable, Jack Ryan has become one of the best-known characters in contemporary American fiction.” –The Washington Post
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Surgeon and The Apprentice comes a chilling new novel of suspense featuring Boston medical examiner Dr. Maura Isles, on the deadly trail of an anonymous madman who’s committed an unholy crime. . . .
THE SINNER
Not even the icy temperatures of a typical New England winter can match the bone-chilling scene of carnage discovered in the early morning hours at the chapel of Our Lady of Divine Light. Within the sanctuary walls of the cloistered convent, now stained with blood, lie two nuns—one dead, one critically injured—victims of an unspeakably savage attacker. Tess Gerritsen left a successful practice as an internist to raise her children and concentrate on her writing. She gained nationwide acclaim for her first novel of medical suspense, the New York Times bestseller Harvest. She is also the author of the bestsellers Life Support, Bloodstream, Gravity, and The Surgeon and The Apprentice. Tess Gerritsen lives in Maine.
"[Gerritsen] has an imagination that allows her to conjure up depths of human behavior so dark and frightening that she makes Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft seem like goody-two-shoes."
One They called her the Queen of the Dead.Though no one ever said it to her face, Dr. Maura Isles sometimes heard the nickname murmured in her wake as she traveled the grim triangle of her job between courtroom and death scene and morgue. Sometimes she would detect a note of dark sarcasm: Ha ha, there she goes, our Goth goddess, out to collect fresh subjects. Sometimes the whispers held a tremolo of disquiet, like the murmurs of the pious as an unholy stranger passes among them. It was the disquiet of those who could not understand why she chose to walk in Death's footsteps. Does she enjoy it, they wonder? Does the touch of cold flesh, the stench of decay, hold such allure for her that she has turned her back on the living? They think this cannot be normal, and they cast uneasy glances her way, noting details that only reinforce their beliefs that she is an odd duck. The ivory skin, the black hair with its blunt Cleopatra cut. The red slash of lipstick. Who else wears lipstick to a death scene? Most of all, it's her calmness that disturbs them, her coolly regal gaze as she surveys the horrors that they themselves can barely stomach. Unlike them, she does not avert her gaze. Instead she bends close and stares, touches. She sniffs.And later, under bright lights in her autopsy lab, she cuts.She was cutting now, her scalpel slicing through chilled skin, through subcutaneous fat that gleamed a greasy yellow. A man who liked his hamburgers and fries, she thought as she used pruning shears to cut through the ribs and lifted the triangular shield of breastbone the way one opens a cupboard door, to reveal its treasured contents.The heart lay cradled in its spongey bed of lungs. For fifty-nine years, it had pumped blood through the body of Mr. Samuel Knight. It had grown with him, aged with him, transforming, as he had, from the lean muscle of youth to this well-larded flesh. All pumps eventually fail, and so had Mr. Knight's as he'd sat in his Boston hotel room with the TV turned on and a glass of whiskey from the minibar sitting beside him on the nightstand.She did not pause to wonder what his final thoughts might have been, or whether he had felt pain or fear. Though she explored his most intimate recesses, though she flayed open his skin and held his heart in her hands, Mr. Samuel Knight remained a stranger to her, a silent and undemanding one, willingly offering up his secrets. The dead are patient. They do not complain, nor threaten, nor cajole.The dead do not hurt you; only the living do.She worked with serene efficiency, resecting the thoracic viscera, laying the freed heart on the cutting board. Outside, the first snow of December swirled, white flakes whispering against windows and slithering down alleys. But here in the lab, the only sounds were of running water and the hiss of the ventilator fan. Her assistant Yoshima moved in uncanny silence, anticipating her requests, materializing wherever she needed him. They had worked together only a year and a half, yet already they functioned like a single organism, linked by the telepathy of two logical minds. She did not need to ask him to redirect the lamp; it was already done, the light shining down on the dripping heart, a pair of scissors held out and waiting for her to take them.The darkly mottled wall of the right ventricle, and the white apical scar, told her this heart's sad story. An old myocardial infarction, months or even years old, had already destroyed part of the left ventricular wall. Then, sometime in...
Breathtakingly suspenseful and beautifully written, THE HISTORIAN is the story of a young woman plunged into a labyrinth where the secrets of her family's past connect to an inconceivable evil: the dark fifteenth-century reign of Vlad the Impaler and a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive through the ages. The search for the truth becomes an adventure of monumental proportions, taking us from monasteries and dusty libraries to the capitals of Eastern Europe-in a feat of storytelling so rich, so hypnotic, so exciting that it has enthralled listeners around the world.
When Ron Williamson signed with the Oakland A's in 1971, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big-league glory. Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits. He moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.
In 1982, a twenty-one-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were arrested and charged with capital murder.
The prosecution's case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.
If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this audiobook will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.
Chapter 1The rolling hills of southeast Oklahoma stretch from Norman across to Arkansas and show little evidence of the vast deposits of crude oil that were once beneath them. Some old rigs dot the countryside; the active ones churn on, pumping out a few gallons with each slow turn and prompting a passerby to ask if the effort is really worth it. Many have simply given up, and sit motionless amid the fields as corroding reminders of the glory days of gushers and wildcatters and instant fortunes.There are rigs scattered through the farmland around Ada, an old oil town of sixteen thousand with a college and a county courthouse. The rigs are idle, though--the oil is gone. Money is now made in Ada by the hour in factories and feed mills and on pecan farms.Downtown Ada is a busy place. There are no empty or boarded-up buildings on Main Street. The merchants survive, though much of their business has moved to the edge of town. The cafés are crowded at lunch.The Pontotoc County Courthouse is old and cramped and full of lawyers and their clients. Around it is the usual hodgepodge of county buildings and law offices. The jail, a squat, windowless bomb shelter, was for some forgotten reason built on the courthouse lawn. The methamphetamine scourge keeps it full. Main Street ends at the campus of East Central University, home to four thousand students, many of them commuters. The school pumps life into the community with a fresh supply of young people and a faculty that adds some diversity to southeastern Oklahoma. Few things escape the attention of the Ada Evening News, a lively daily that covers the region and works hard to compete with The Oklahoman, the state's largest paper. There's usually world and national news on the front page, then state and regional, then the important items--high school sports, local politics, community calendars, and obituaries.The people of Ada and Pontotoc County are a pleasant blend of small-town southerners and independent westerners. The accent could be from east Texas or Arkansas, with flat i's and other long vowels. It's Chickasaw country. Oklahoma has more Native Americans than any other state, and after a hundred years of mixing many of the white folks have Indian blood. The stigma is fading fast; indeed, there is now pride in the heritage.The Bible Belt runs hard through Ada. The town has fifty churches from a dozen strains of Christianity. They are active places, and not just on Sundays. There is one Catholic church, and one for the Episcopalians, but no temple or synagogue. Most folks are Christians, or claim to be, and belonging to a church is rather expected. A person's social status is often determined by religious affiliation. With sixteen thousand people, Ada is considered large for rural Oklahoma, and it attracts factories and discount stores. Workers and shoppers make the drive from several counties. It is eighty miles south and east of Oklahoma City, and three hours north of Dallas. Everybody knows somebody working or living in Texas. The biggest source of local pride is the quarter-horse "bidness." Some of the best horses are bred by Ada ranchers. And when the Ada High Cougars win another state title in football, the town struts for years. It's a friendly place, filled with people who speak to strangers and always to each other and are anxious to help anyone in need. Kids play on shaded front lawns. Doors are left open during the day. Teenagers cruise...
The King of Torts
Clay Carter has been at the office of the public defender too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week. As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession's newest king of torts...
The Last Juror
In 1970, one of Mississippi's more colorful weekly newspapers went bankrupt. The future of the paper looked grim until a young mother was brutally raped and murdered by a member of the notorious Padgitt family. The murderer, Danny Padgitt, was tried before a packed courthouse, and the trial came to a startling end when the defendant threatened revenge against the jurors if they convicted him. Nevertheless, they found him guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But in Mississippi in 1970, "life" didn't necessarily mean "life," and nine years later Padgitt was paroled. He returned to Ford County, and the retribution began.
A Timely Gift From the Author of Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson, M.D.
Dr. Spencer Johnson’s stories of timeless, simple truths have changed the work and lives of millions of readers around the world. Now comes an insightful new tale of inspiration and practical guidance for these turbulent times.
The Present
The Present is the best gift you can receive because it makes you happy and successful!
Whether it means …
The Gift that Makes You Happy and Successful at Work and in Life
For over two decades, Spencer Johnson has been inspiring and entertaining millions with his simple yet insightful stories of work and life that speak directly to the heart and soul.
The Present is an engaging story of a young man’s journey to adulthood, and his search for The Present, a mysterious and elusive gift he first hears about from a great old man. This Present, according to the old man, is “the best present a person can receive.”
Later, when the young boy becomes a young man, disillusioned with his work and his life, he returns to ask the old man, once again, to help him find The Present. The old man responds, “Only you have the power to find The Present for yourself.” So the young man embarks on a tireless search for this magical gift that holds the secret to his personal happiness and business success. It is only after the young man has searched high and low and given up his relentless pursuit that he relaxes and discovers The Present—and all of the promises it offers.
The Present will help you focus on what will make you happy and successful in your work and in your personal life. Like the young man, you may find that it is the best gift you can ever give yourself.
Before the StoryLate one afternoon, Bill Green received an urgent phone call from Liz Michaels, who he used to work with. She had heard Bill was experiencing great success, and she got right to the point, "Could I meet with you soon?" she asked. He thought he heard strain in her voice. Bill said yes and rearranged his schedule so they could meet for lunch the next day. When Liz entered the restaurant, he noticed how tired she looked. After some small talk and ordering their meals, Liz told him, "I have Harrison's job now.""Congratulations," Bill said. "I'm not surprised you've been promoted.""Thanks, but the problems are mounting," she admitted. "A lot has changed since you were with us. We have fewer people, but more work. There never seems to be enough time to get everything done - at work or at home. "And I'm just not enjoying life as much as I'd like to."By the way, Bill," she added, changing the subject, "you look good.""I am good," he said. "I'm enjoying my work and life more. It's a nice change for me!""Oh?" she said. "Did your job change?"Bill laughed. "No, but if feels like it. It all came together about a year ago." "What happened?" Liz wanted to know. Bill began, "Remember how hard I used to push myself and others to get good results? And how much time and effort it took us to get things done?" Liz laughed. "I remember all too well."Bill smiled, as though amused by his old behavior. "Well I've learned a few things. And so have many other people in my department. We're getting better results, faster and with less stress."And to top it off, I'm enjoying life more.""What's happened?" Liz asked. "If I told you, you probably wouldn't believe it.""Try me," she replied. He paused and then said, "I heard a story from a good friend of mine. It turned out to be a real gift. In fact, the story is called The Present.""What is it about?" Liz inquired."It's a story about a young man who discovers a way to live and work that makes him happier and more successful."After I heard it, I thought a lot about the story and how I could benefit from using it. I started using what I learned, first at work and then later in my personal life. It had a big impact on me, and others began to notice. "Like the young man in the story, I'm happier now, and I'm doing better.""How?" Liz asked. "In what way?""Well, I now concentrate better on what I am doing. I learn more from what happens, and I'm able to plan better. I can focus now on getting the more important things done, without taking so long to do them.""You got all that out of one story?" Liz seemed amazed. "Well that's what I got out of the story. Different people get different things from The Present, depending on where they are in their work or life when they hear it. Of course, some people just don't get it at all. "The story is a practical parable," Bill continued. "So it's not just what's in the story. It's what you take out of it that gives it value."Liz asked, "Can you tell it to...
Two men of words...One seeking only peace. The other, violence.
Tate Collier, once one of the country's finest trial lawyers, is trying to forget his past. Now a divorced gentleman fanner, land developer, and community advocate in rural Virginia, he's regrouping from some disastrous mistakes in the realms of love and the law. But controversy -- and danger -- seem to have an unerring hold on Tate. And even as he struggles to regroup, his alter ego is plotting his demise.
Aaron Matthews, a brilliant psychologist, has turned his talents away from curing patients to far deadlier goals. He's targeted Tate, his ex-wife, Bett, and their estranged daughter Megan for unspeakable revenge. Matthews, ruthless and hell-bent, will destroy anything that inhibits his plans. When their daughter disappears, Tate and Bett reunite in a desperate, heart-pounding attempt to find her, and to stop Matthews, a psychopath whose gift of a glib tongue and talent for coercion are as dangerous as knives and guns.
Featuring an urgent race against the clock, gripping details of psychological manipulation, and the brilliant twists and turns that are trademark Deaver. Speaking in Tongues delivers the punch that has made this author a bestseller. It will leave you speechless.
Author's Note
You are not mistaken as you turn to the next page and find Chapter 12.
The chapters of this book are in reverse order and are to be read that way for reasons that will become evident upon your journey.
Chapter 12
July 28,9:22 p.m.
The dark-haired man slid the exotic, custom-made Peacemaker across the table. With a frame of polished bronze with gold accents, its ivory grip inlaid with precious stones, it was unlike any other weapon produced in the nineteenth century, a six-shooter crafted in 1886 that had been lost to time, forgotten by history, spoken of in collectors' circles as myth.
As with many of the finest pistols of the day, intricate etchings appeared along the stock and seven-and-a-half-inch barrel. But these etchings were unique -- religious texts drawn from the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah, expertly rendered in an elegant calligraphy: The gate that leads to damnation is wide -- To hell you shall be gathered together -- Yet ye bring wrath -- Darkness which may be felt -- Whoever offers violence to you, offer you the like violence to him. The sayings were rendered in English, Latin, and Arabic, as if the gun were a weapon of God designed to strike down the sinner.
Crafted for Murad V, the thirty-seventh sultan of the Ottoman Empire, it had supposedly disappeared from existence in August 1876 when he was deposed for insanity after only ninety-three days of rule.
"Dual action," the man said as he picked up the weapon in his gloved hand. "You don't see many like this. In fact, I dare say this is one of a kind."
Ethan Dance handled the gun with reverence, as if it were a newborn baby. His sleepy, bloodshot eyes scanned the intricacies of the weapon, his latex-encased finger running about the gunmetal and gold in appreciation of the Colt pistol's craftsmanship. He finally laid it down and reached into the pocket of his wrinkled blue blazer.
"Looks like the same religious fervor was scratched into the ammunition." Dance laid a bullet on the table, silver, forty-five caliber. It, too, was etched, the casing wrapped in a flowing Arabic script. "There were five left in the cylinder. They're silver, you know, not sure why, its not like there were werewolves running around Istanbul in 1876. Then again, the pistol was designed for a madman."
Nicholas Quinn sat across from Dance, silently looking at the weapon. He could smell the fresh oil on its workings, a hint of sulfur residue in its chamber.
"What does something like this cost? Fifty, one hundred thousand?" Dance picked it up again, rolled out the cylinder, spinning it like a western lawman. "This gun was just a rumor, no record of ownership for 130 years. Where do you find something like this? On the antique market, black market, the hush-hush just-between-us market?"
Nick sat there in silence, his mind spinning.
The door opened, and a gray-haired man in a blue suit poked his head in. "Need you for a second, Dance."
Dance threw up his hands. "Kind of got some stuff going on."
"Well, life sucks out loud. With the plane crash, it's the two of us, Shannon, and Manz for the whole place. So unless you want to get back down to that field and start sorting through mangled bodies of women and children, you'll get your ass out here."
Dance slammed the cylinder back up into the gun, spun it once for effect, and held it up, looking down the barrel as if he were aiming at...
