Shaped by Prohibition, the Depression and World War II, Sinatra became the spokesman of urban loneliness. In this tribute, the author draws upon intimate conversations over the course of many year, examining his art and his legend.

"A fantastic read . . . I absolutely loved this book . . . I was hooked." —Amazon reviewer, five starsHer long-lost love is missing—and obsession with the case could save her or sabotage her, in this gripping new suspense by the author of The Woman Next Door. Natalie is single and carefree, fulfilled by her journalism career, but still she can't help but wonder what happened to Owen, the one that got away. When she learns that he's disappeared—and left behind a note that mentions her name—she finds herself pulled back into his life. Compelled by the mystery, her boss encourages her to pursue it, believing it would make a great story. And Natalie's determination knows no bounds . . . Soon she finds herself thrust into a murky world of money, power, and ruthlessness. But just how far will a search for the truth lead her away from home?

'A first class thriller' SUNDAY TRIBUNE———-The body of a teenage girl is found in a Dublin park.She has been brutually stabbed to death. For Dublin's police and politicians, the nightmare is just beginning. The dead girl is the daughter of a high-profile American surgeon who heads the Mercy Hospital's new Heart Foundation.When DS Jim Clarke and his team pick up the trail of a suspect, the pressure is on to close in quickly. America is baying for justice. But do they have the right man?Meanwhile, at the Mercy Hospital Frank Clancy, consultant haematologist, is concerned about two unusual deaths. But when he decides to take a closer look, things take a turn for the worstAnd his life is placed in danger...————READERS LOVE PAUL CARSON'Carson is a great storyteller''Paul Carson had me on the edge of my seat''I enjoy all Paul Carson's books''Carson does not...

Pollyanna is a novel by Eleanor H. Porter. That is a classic of children\'s literature, with the title character\'s name becoming a popular term for someone with the same very optimistic outlook.[1] Also, the subconscious bias towards the positive is often described as the Pollyanna principle. The book was such a success that Porter soon produced a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Eleven more Pollyanna sequels, known as "Glad Books", were later published, most of them written by Elizabeth Borton or Harriet Lummis Smith. Further sequels followed, including Pollyanna Plays the Game by Colleen L. Reece, published in 1997. Plot : The title character is named Pollyanna Whittier, a young orphan who goes to live in the fictional town of Beldingsville, Vermont, with her wealthy but stern and cold spinster Aunt Polly, who does not want to take in Pollyanna but feels it is her duty to her late sister. Pollyanna\'s philosophy of life centers on what she calls "The Glad Game," an optimistic and positive attitude she learned from her father. The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation, no matter how bleak it may be. It originated in an incident one Christmas when Pollyanna, who was hoping for a doll in the missionary barrel, found only a pair of crutches inside. Making the game up on the spot, Pollyanna\'s father taught her to look at the good side of things—in this case, to be glad about the crutches because they didn\'t need to use them. With this philosophy, and her own sunny personality and sincere, sympathetic soul, Pollyanna brings so much gladness to her aunt\'s dispirited New England town that she transforms it into a pleasant place to live.

Amazon.com ReviewLongtime fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, might think that their favorite sleuth met his fate at the hands of Dr. Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Anyone who believes that, however, obviously hasn't read Laurie R. King's delightful series featuring Holmes and his wife(!), Mary Russell. In The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Holmes succumbs to the Oxford scholar's charms; now, in The Moor, fourth in the series, Holmes and Russell are summoned to Devonshire to solve a tin miner's mysterious death. Lonely Dartmoor provides plenty of opportunities for King to both relate the haunting legends of that part of the world and offer some amusing revisions to one of Holmes's most famous cases, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Though Holmes purists might resent the liberties taken with their hero, readers in search of a strong female protagonist, some fascinating local history, and spooky ambience will enjoy The Moor. From School Library JournalYA-The Hound of the Baskervilles is back-or is it? Certainly Sherlock Holmes thought he had sorted the whole matter out some 30 years earlier, but now his lifelong friend, the curmudgeonly Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, calls Holmes to Dartmoor to sort out new sightings and solve an eerie murder. The detective in turn calls for his new wife, who arrives promptly at Baring-Gould's quasi-Elizabethan house, situated on the edge of the oppressive moor. As in the previous books, King chronicles the adventures of a strong young woman who is a wonderful match and foil for a very Conan Doyle-like Sherlock and creates a wonderful sense of time and place. In this case, it is Dartmoor in 1924. The moor becomes a looming presence and as much of a character as Baring-Gould, the local farmers and peasantry, and the new owners of Baskerville Hall. Familiarity with the original tale is not necessary, but those unacquainted with it before reading this book will surely want to go back to it. King has again successfully brought the famous sleuth into the 20th century and provided him with an assistant much more his match than poor Dr. Watson. The plot is thought-provoking, the solution satisfyingly Holmesian, and the whole adventure gratifying. This is definitely a worthy continuation of a hopefully longer series. It's not only an excellent mystery, but also a fine introduction to Holmes and a more-than-adequate survey of the time.-Susan H. Woodcock, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA

Philip Pullman, author of 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, has remarked that "after nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world." This new collection of Rumi stories fills that need.This fresh prose translation of 105 short teaching stories by Rumi, which form the core of the six-volume Masnavi, explores the hidden spiritual aspects of everyday experience. Rumi transforms the seemingly mundane events of daily life into profound Sufi teaching moments. These prose gems open the mystical portal to the world of the ancient mystic.These stories include well-known and popular tales such as "Angel of Death," "The Sufi and His Cheating Wife," "Moses and the Shepherd," "Chickpeas," and "The Greek and Chinese Painters" as well as the less commonly quoted parables: "The Basket Weaver," "The Mud Eater," and "A Sackful of Pebbles."Rumi's voice alternates between playful and authoritative, whether he is telling stories of ordinary lives or...

Available in ebook for the first-time ever! From the award-winning novelist comes a sultry, suspenseful, lush mystery! Tough as nails security expert Annabelle Hardy is beautiful, brilliant, and astonishingly athletic. She can nail any case, and nab any man. Nothing holds her back, not even the silent world where her deafness has trapped her, where the hisses and footsteps of evil are unknown to her. She relies on razor-sharp instincts, and confronts adversity with a stone cold will. Yet, she has never known a killer as slippery as the nuclear assassin. This may be her toughest case ever when murder comes slithering into the steamy Everglades in Miami’s back yard. Nightmarish natural killers -- alligators, cotton mouths, canebrake rattlesnakes -- haunt the lawless nudie bar where Annabelle and her partner in sleuthing, the outrageously theatrical Dave the Monkeyman, are lured in the search for the human killer who uses a nuclear reactor for his high-tech crimes -- and a radioactive corpse turns up in the dazzling topaz pool at the reactor. The task is all the more complicated when Annabelle meets Lon Berlin, the gorgeous and witty scientist who may have found his way through Annabelle's quiet isolation. Annabelle is torn: should she pull a gun on the handsome guy or slide into his inviting muscular arms as they face each other in the midnight blue water of her black marble swimming pool on a hot, hot night in Miami? Everyone's a suspect in this hot and dangerous world...Can Annabelle navigate the dangers or will this be her last case?

Antarctica is the last unconquered continent, a murderous expanse of howling winds, blinding whiteouts and deadly crevasses. On one edge of Antarctica is Wilkes Station. Beneath Wilkes Station is the gate to hell itself... A team of U.S. divers, exploring three thousand feet beneath the ice shelf has vanished. Sending out an SOS, Wilkes draws a rapid deployment team of Marines-and someone else... First comes a horrific firefight. Then comes a plunge into a drowning pool filled with killer whales. Next comes the hard part, as a handful of survivors begin an electrifying, red-hot, non-stop battle of survival across the continent and against wave after wave of elite military assassins-who've all come for one thing: a secret buried deep beneath the ice...

Twenty years after an unspeakable childhood trauma, Detective August Miller suspects that her sister's killer may have re-emerged. If only things were that simple. On a cold morning four days before Christmas, the body of a young woman is found at Lake Needwood in Montgomery County, Maryland. As August investigates, conflicting facts suggest a range of suspects. Fearing the worst, August dives into a mystery that will force her to face a terrible truth that will bring her past to her present.

Dead Man Stalking Shy and reclusive medical student Elaine Ross is warned she might have trouble dating after her only sister is brutally murdered by her brother-in-law, Dirk Stoner. Dirk, a handsome golf pro and the son of a billionaire developer, was convicted and executed amid a media frenzy that rivaled the O.J. Simpson trial. So when Elaine is coerced out to a nightclub and is unsettled by the advances of Jonathan Lewis -- a man whose mannerisms and gestures eerily remind her of Dirk -- she refuses to succumb to her paranoid fears.But Elaine can't conceive of the twisted trail of bribes, blackmail, and murder that Dirk's billionaire father wove in an attempt to save his only son. She isn't aware that an FBI investigation linking the deaths of Dirk's prison doctor and a plastic surgeon has been inexplicably dropped. And Elaine has no way of knowing that the face in her nightmares is carrying a very real torch...for revenge.