A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. They sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food – and each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. The prose is quintessentially McCarthy: spare, desolate, unemotional, reserved of both unnecessary vocabulary and punctuation (he recognized the necessary evil of periods denoting the end of a sentence. Some contractions are so designated with an apostrophe, some not. Exclamation points are avoided with the same vigilance as would be shown to beanies with propellers). Although most English teachers I've been a captive audience to would consider him Satan incarnate, he still can turn a phrase of almost unbearable beauty

The author of this book about the future, Bill Gates, is the Harvard dropout who founded Microsoft based on his vision of a personal computer on every desk and in every home. Focusing on the so-called “information superhighway”, Gates describes the breathtaking changes that will affect us all, and how emerging technologies will transform human existence in unprecedented ways. Written in a personal style, free of jargon, this book ushers in the world of tomorrow in broad and confident terms. It debunks certain notions that have gained attention in the media, and makes projections grounded in the realities of today. Gates describes how the tools of the future will change the way we make choices about almost everything, from which toaster we buy to who our friends are and how we spend time with them; from how we earn and invest, to where we live and how we protect our families in an increasingly complicated world

Painstakingly honest, this chilling memoir reveals how a teenager became immersed in the bizarre life of legendary porn star John Holmes. Starting with a childhood that molded her perfectly to fall for the seduction of “the king of porn,” this autobiography recounts the perilous road that Dawn Schiller traveled—from drugs and addiction to beatings, arrests, forced prostitution, and being sold to the drug underworld. After living through the horrific Wonderland murders of 1981, she entered protective custody, ran from the FBI, and turned in John Holmes to the police. This is the true story of a young girl’s harrowing escape from one of the most infamous public figures, her struggle to survive, and her recovery from unthinkable abuse

No longer the well-beloved, Louis XV is becoming ever more unpopular – the huge expense of his court and decades of costly warfare having taken their toll. As the discontent grows, Louis seeks refuge in his extravagances and his mistress, the powerful Marquise de Pompadour. Suspicions, plots and rivalry are rife as Louis’s daughters and lovers jostle for his attention and their own standing at Court. Ignoring the unrest in Paris, Louis continues to indulge in frivolities. But how long will Paris stay silent when the death of the Marquise de Pompadour leads to yet another mistress influencing the King?

In the midst of an ongoing interplanetary war between human-colonized worlds and the hostile alien species known as the Deng, one planet chooses to rebel against the sentient BOLO war machines that serve as the primary line of defense against the Deng. Ringo and Evans contribute another tale of military sf to the series of novels featuring the BOLOs originated by sf author Keith Laumer. Despite the general hawkish politics lacing the plot’s subtext, the authors provide a wealth of military action along with a cast of well-developed characters, including a sympathetic BOLO named Sonny. A good choice for series fans and readers of military SF

Three thousand years ago, the first dragonmarks—elaborate patterns on the skin—appeared among the races of Eberron, granting the bearers access to the arcane energies that fill the world. Twelve dragonmarks have existed for millennia. With the powers granted by the dragonmarks, their chosen few bearers have wrought many wonders in the world, forging a society like none ever seen before. But tales survive of a thirteenth dragonmark, lost for thousands of years—the feared Mark of Death. For generations, it has been lost, its power gone from the world.… Until now

Dorothy and her friends follow the enchanted road to Oz and arrive in time for Ozma's birthday party

John Dortmunder as a butler? Well, he’s not really a butler; he’s just playing one at the heavily guarded estate of crooked tycoon Monroe Hall. A corporate pariah surrounded by loot, including a fleet of priceless vintage cars, Hall soon finds his needs—from driving to cooking—eagerly fulfilled by Dortmunder and his gang. Dortmunder’s plan: to change in one fell swoop from loyal servants to merry robbers, and drive off with ill-gotten plunder. There’s just one problem. Monroe Hall has as many enemies as antiques. Before Dortmunder can go from serving to stealing, Hall disappears and the cops are knocking on the door. And after a violent crime is committed, Dortmunder is in the worst place possible. For as everyone knows, whenever there’s mischief in a mansion … the butler always did it!

Перед вами – иной Оруэлл. Не писатель, но – философ, литературный критик и журналист (строго говоря, создатель жанра «новой журналистики»). Человек, творящий подлинно высокую публицистику – и обращающий ее в истинное искусство слова! Эссе Оруэлла всегда умные, изысканно-злые и в чем-то парадоксальные. Сейчас, как и в прошлом, многим они кажутся спорными и «скандальными». Почему? Да потому, что Джордж Оруэлл всегда современен!

“Tip” Marugg’s The Roar of Morning has been widely praised as an intensely personal, often dreamlike literary masterpiece that balances Caribbean mysticism with the magical realism of Latin American fiction while reflecting the Calvinist sensibilities of the region’s Dutch colonial past. The story begins on a tropical Antilles night. A man drinks and awaits the coming dawn with his dogs, thinking he might well commit suicide in “the roar of morning.” While contemplating his possible end, the events of his life on Curaçao and on mainland Venezuela come rushing back to him. Some memories are recent, others distant; all are tormented by the politics of a colonialist “gone native.” He recalls sickness and sexual awakening as well as personal encounters with the extraordinary and unexplained. As the day breaks, he has an apocalyptic vision of a great fire engulfing the entire South American continent. The countdown to Armageddon has begun, in a brilliantly dissolute narrative akin to Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano and the writings of Charles Bukowski

WINNER OF THE 2000 BOOKER PRIZE Even Zenia’s name is enough to provoke the old sense of outrage, of humiliation and confused pain. The truth is that at certain times—early mornings, the middle of the night—she finds it hard to believe that Zenia is really dead.’ Zenia is beautiful, smart and greedy; by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless; a man’s dream and a woman’s nightmare. She is also dead. Just to make absolutely sure Tony, Roz and Charis are there for the funeral. But five years on, as the three women share a sisterly lunch, the impossible happens: ‘with waves of ill will flowing out of her like cosmic radiation’, Zenia is back ... This is the wise, unsettling, drastic story of three women whose lives share a common wound: Zenia, a woman they first met as university students in the sixties. Zenia is smart and beautiful, by turns manipulative, vulnerable—and irresistible. She has entered into their separate lives to ensnare their sympathy, betray their trust, and exploit their weaknesses. Now Zenia, thought dead, has suddenly reappeared. In this richly layered narrative, Atwood skilfully evokes the decades of the past as she retraces three women’s lives, until we are back in the present—where it’s yet to be discovered whether Zenia’s ‘pure, free-wheeling malevolence’ can still wreak havoc. The Robber Bride reports from the farthest reaches of the sex wars and is one of Margaret Atwood’s most intricate and subversive novels yet. Exploring the paradox of female villainy, this tale of three fascinating women is another peerless display of literary virtuosity by the supremely gifted author of Cat's Eye and The Handmaid's Tale. Roz, Charis and Tony all share a wound, and her name is Zenia. Beautiful, smart and hungry, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless, Zenia is the turbulent center of her own neverending saga. She entered their lives in the sixties, when they were in college. Over the three decades since, she has damaged each of them badly, ensnaring their sympathy, betraying their trust, and treating their men as loot. Then Zenia dies, or at any rate the three women—with much relief -- attend her funeral. But as The Robber Bride begins, Roz, Charis and Tony have come together at a trendy restaraunt for their monthly lunch when in walks the seemingly resurrected Zenia...  In this consistently entertaining and profound new novel, Margaret Atwood reports from the farthest reaches of the war between the sexes with her characteristic well-crafted prose, rich and devious humor, and compassion

Вниманию читателей предлагается книга Сидней Джеймса Баундса "The Robot Brains". Каждый абзац текста, на английском языке, снабжен ссылкой на перевод. Книга предназначена для учащихся старший классов школ, лицеев и гимназий, а также для широкого круга лиц, интересующихся английской литературой и совершенствующих свою языковую подготовку. *** По Англии прокатилась волна убийств - жертвы, ведущие ученые, способ убийств одинаков и очень не аппетитен (подробности в тексте). Как всегда, полиция идет неверным путем, за расследование берутся профессор Фокс и капитан Кристиан. Убийцы найдены, "осиное гнездо" растревожено, убийства распространились на весь мир... все оказалось намного сложнее... Как принято, главному герою надо спасти мир

Robots. Androids. Artificial Intelligence. Scientists predict that the “singularity”—the moment when mankind designs the first greater-than-human intelligence—is nearly within our grasp. Believe it or not, truly sentient machines may be a reality within as little as 20 years. Will these “post-human” intelligences be our friends? Our servants? Our rivals? What will we learn from them? What will they learn from us? Will we allow them to lead their own lives? Will they have basic human rights? Will we? Science and society will be forced to address these questions sooner than you think. But science fiction is addressing these questions today. In THE ROBOT CHRONICLES, thirteen of today’s top sci-fi writers explore the approaching collision of humanity and technology

A puzzling case of roboticide sends New York Detective Elijah Baley on an intense search for a murderer. Armed with his own instincts, his quirky logic, and the immutable Three Laws of Robotics, Baley is determined to solve the case. But can anything prepare a simple Earthman for the psychological complexities of a world where a beautiful woman can easily have fallen in love with an all-too-human robot…?

The Rock. Gibraltar. 1966. In a fading colonial house overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, the dead body of a beautiful woman lays dripping in blood. The steel handle of a knife protrudes from her chest, its sharpened tip buried deep within her heart. The Rock. Present day. Detective Sergeant Tamara Sullivan arrives on The Rock on a three-month secondment from the London Metropolitan Police Service. Her reasons for being here are not happy ones and she braces herself for a tedious and wasteful twelve weeks in the sun. After all, murders are rare on the small, prosperous and sun-kissed sovereignty of Gibraltar and catching murderers is what Sullivan does best. It is a talent she shares with her new boss, Chief Inspector Gus Broderick of the Royal Gibraltar Police Force. He's an old-fashioned cop who regards his new colleague with mild disdain. But when a young police constable is found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment, Sullivan and Broderick begin to unravel a dark and dangerous secret that will test their skills and working relationship to the limit

At 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon in 1911, Oskar Johansson is caught in a blast in an industrial accident. The local newspaper reports him dead. But they are mistaken. Because Oskar Johansson is a born survivor. Though crippled, he finds the strength to go on living and working. The Rock Blaster charts his long professional life — his hopes and dreams, sorrows and joys. His relationship with the woman whose love saved him, with the labour movement that gave him a cause to believe in, and with his children, who do not share his ideals. Henning Mankell’s first published novel is steeped in the burning desire for social justice which informed his bestselling crime novels. It is written with scalpel-like precision, at once poetic and insightful in its depiction of a true working-class hero

Brimming with memorable characters and human conflict, rugged high-tech prospectors and boardroom betrayals, The Rock Rats continues the tale of our near-future struggle over the incalculable wealth of the Asteroid Belt. Before it ends, many will die—and many will achieve more than they ever dreamed was possible

I was the fun loving, easy going, different girl—okay, different girls every night—Demon. One look into a pair of violet eyes and all of that changed. She doesn’t even realize how beautiful she is and that makes me want her even more. Realizing that she is just as damaged as I am breaks my heart. Harper is a part of me, my other half. If only she would open her incredible eyes and see how I feel… The Beauty… I knew that I wasn’t Shane Stevenson’s type. Hot rockers don’t go for plain girls like me. Years of my mother telling me just how unbeautiful I am has assured me of that. I have nothing to offer a guy that is so used to hot girls drooling over him. So why is he always there when I turn around? And why does it feel like little needles piercing my heart at the mere thought of him with someone else?

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: The Illustrated Man (Человек в картинках) R Is For Rocket (Р — значит ракета) Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (Сборник ста лучших рассказов)

Relates the story of the German development of missile technology, a new kind of warfare that was extremely valuable to Allied powers during the Cold War but of little value to the Germans during World War II

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: The Illustrated Man (Человек в картинках) R Is For Rocket (Р — значит ракета) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (И грянул гром: 100 рассказов)

When the delightful, daffy Dog Lady of station WZZZ offered to take on the temporary job of traffic reporter, Steve Crow tried to think of reasons to turn Daisy Adams down. Perhaps he knew that sharing the close quarters of a car with her for hours would give the handsome program director no room to resist her quirky charms. He'd always favored low-slung sports cars and high-heeled women, but that was before he fell for a free spirit who caught crooks by accident, loved old people and pets, and had just too many jobs! Loving Daisy turned Steve's life upside down, especially once he adopted Bob, a couch potato masquerading as a huge dog. But was Daisy finally ready to play for keeps?

Robot evolution has advanced to the point that intelligent robots have liberated themselves from servitude, defending themselves from servitude, defending themselves against the humans who work to exterminate them using super-machines. The ultimate hope of the most powerfully intelligent robots lies in the attainment of human consciousness. And they are willing to steal men’s souls if they must, to get this final elusive quality for themselves. Only one free robot, Jasperodus, has been granted true consciousness—a soul—by his maker, now long dead. Brought into the soul research project by force, Jasperodus faces a moral dilemma: to release his secret and bring about the final downfall of humanity to a new race of super-robots, or to keep his own kind forever from the light of consciousness. And the mechanized armies of the humans press ever forward, seeking the robot hideout

Nero Wolfe has always considered murder slightly illegal, but in the three stories in this volume It becomes something far worse — a personal affront. He is in fact, “ruffled beyond the bounds of tolerance” — three times For usually murder takes place at a decent distance from his presence, and now in succession violent death arrives (with the blinis and sour cream) at a dinner for gourmets attended by Wolfe himself, one body comes to the famous West 35th Street address by taxi, and a third murder takes place at a luncheon party where Nero and Archie have gone to partake of some blue grouse. Altogether, these three situations are really intolerable, and Wolfe is forced to work his brain even faster, and Archie’s feet and fists even harder, than ever before. Nero Wolfe, embroiled with a passel of rodeo riders at a penthouse party, must determine who knotted the noose around a sunburned neck in the case of The Rodeo Murder

Living among the Sachakan rebels, Lorkin does his best to learn about them and their unique magic. But the Traitors are reluctant to trade their knowledge for the Healing they so desperately want, and while he assumes they fear revealing their existence to the world, there are hints they have bigger plans. Sonea searches for the rogue, knowing that Cery cannot avoid assassination forever, but the rouge’s influence over the city’s underworld is far greater than she feared. His only weakness is the loss of his mother, now locked away in the Lookout. In Sachaka, Dannyl has lost the respect of the Sachakan elite for letting Lorkin join the Traitors. The Ashaki’s attention has shifted, instead, to the new Elyne Ambassador, a man Dannyl knows all too well. And in the University, two female novices are about to remind the Guild that sometimes their greatest enemy is found within

К юбилею создания легендарной группы! Rolling Stones представляет новую книгу, которая станет идеальным подарком для верных поклонников группы. Песни, которые стали историей, музыка, которая знакома каждому. Взгляд изнутри — это уникальная возможность оказаться в закулисье вместе с Миком Джаггером, Китом Ричардсом, Чарли Уоттсом и Роном Вудом. Увидеть все глазами счастливчика Доминика Ламблена, который провел 40 лет рука об руку с группой. Сумасшествие в концертном зале «Олимпия» в 60-х, декадентские турне 70-х, туры в поддержку легендарных альбомов «Exile On Main Street» и «Some Girls» — Ламблен видел абсолютно все! Более 100 уникальных, ранее не публиковавшихся фото из архива автора и ранее не рассказанные истории из личной жизни музыкантов. Он был везде: в отеле с Брайаном Джонсом, сочиняющим новые хиты, с Миком Джаггером в ресторанчике в пригороде Парижа и даже на теннисном корте с Китом Ричардсом. Книга, буквально пропитанная атмосферой «Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll», захватывает вас с первой страницы. Легкость и ироничность подачи придает рассказу вид дружеской беседы. Будто по секрету автор рассказывает разные авантюрные истории с концертов, записей, анекдоты из жизни музыкантов. Он не утаил ничего. Его откровенность подкупает, а насыщенный жизненный опыт затягивает нас в глубь истории, заставляя пролистывать страницу за страницей, проживая легенду. Входит в десятку самых ожидаемых книг этого года

The Roman Hat Mystery has been chosen from more than 100 selected manuscripts to represent the Stokes contribution to the mysterio-detective literature of 1929. Because we believe it to be in a class by itself we are publishing no other detective novel this season. Following no hackneyed formula, conveying to the public an entirely new experience in this popular type of fiction, The Roman Hat Mystery offers a foolproof plot of fascinating complexity, a theatrically romantic setting and a most ingenious deductive pattern that is plausible, gripping throughout and wholly original in weave. The essential clue is a missing silk tophat. On the surface it appears to be of minor significance, yet about this elusive thread the entire amazing tale revolves. The reader is given every fact necessary to the solution; and yet we challenge your most ardent amateur criminologists to deduce the startling dénouement. Not only in plot but in protagonist does this novel offer something “different.” You will like the old snuff-taking Inspector, Richard Queen, a shrewd and human manhunter; you will more than like his son Ellery, whose keen intellect dominates every situation. A brilliant analyst, a convincing maker of miracles, Ellery Queen bids fair to join that immortal group to which Sherlock Holmes, Lupin and few others belong

The last in the bestselling trilogy – the drama of a grand duchess and the peasant who determines her fate As the Russia of Nicholas and Alexandra rushes toward catastrophe, the Grand Duchess Elisavyeta is ensconced in the lavish and magnificent Romanov court. In the same city, but worlds apart, Pavel is a simple village man in search of a better life. When his young wife, Shura, is shot and killed by tsarist soldiers during a political demonstration, Pavel dedicates his life to overthrowing the Romanovs. Pavel's underground group assassinates Elisavyeta's husband, the grand duke, changing her life forever. Grief-stricken, the grand duchess gives up her wealth and becomes a nun dedicated to the poor people of Russia. When revolution finally sweeps in, Elisavyeta is the last Romanov captured, ripped from her abbey in the middle of the night and shuttled to Siberia. It is here, in a distant wood on a moonlit night, that Pavel is left to decide her fate. The Romanov Bride is Alexander's fullest and most engaging book yet. Combining stunning writing with a keen talent for storytelling, Alexander uncovers more compelling Romanov drama and intrigue for his many readers and all fans of historical fiction

A NEW NOVEL OF ALTERNATE HISTORY FROM MASTER OF MILITARY SF TOM KRATMAN, JUSTIN WATSON, AND KACEY EZELL. As WWI comes to a close a German general, an escaped prisoner of war, and the crew of an airship converge to effect THE ROMANOV RESCUE. Can there be a world without communism? Mankind’s history is bound up in the fabric of fate, a strong cloth, tough and closely woven. It is the beginning of 1918, the last year of the greatest war in human history, to date. All the belligerents stagger on their feet. Starvation is an ever present reality, while disease waits in the wings. In Russia, no longer a belligerent but, instead, rapidly descending into civil war and chaos, a lone family—Father, Mother, four beautiful young girls, and a brave but sickly boy—await their own fate, shivering and hungry in the dark, hoping and praying for salvation. Their relatives in England have turned their backs. The guards set over them do little but torment them. They look Heavenward, but God doesn’t answer. They know they’re a threat to the new regime, a threat that will, in time, be eliminated. But even the strongest fabric has flaws. An escaped prisoner of war, caught, injured, and punished, but still highly capable, might be one. An airship, returned and at loose ends after a failed mission to Africa might be another. A German general, taking a wrong turn on his nightly walk and suddenly coming face to face with the reality of the monster rising in the east, would be a third. Follow, then, as the general gives the orders, the prisoner of war raises the men from among his fellows, and the airship launches itself forward, to contest fate, to tear the fabric of time, and to effect The Romanov Rescue. About the Carrera series:

During World War II, a Russian refugee spies for the United States Since the great upheaval of November 1917, Alex Denilov has known nothing but war. In the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution, he fought for the old imperial order. When the Reds won out, he fled west, finding work in every war that followed. Now, in 1941, he trains paratroopers in the American Southwest, helping the US Army prepare for the coming war. But Uncle Sam has bigger plans for him. The army transfers Alex to special services, where he is reunited with old colleagues from the civil war. The group shares combat skills, knowledge of the Russian language, and an intense hatred of Communists. Their mission is to assassinate Stalin. But inside this group of killers, a traitor lurks, ready to kill Alex before he attempts to save Russia from itself

In this searching and courageous work, Ayn Rand cuts through the haze of sentimentality and vague thinking that surrounds the subject of art. For the first time a precise definition is given to art, and a careful analysis made of its nature. With the uncompromising honesty Ayn Rand’s millions of readers have come to expect, the author presents a devastating case against both naturalistic and abstract art—and explains the force that drives her to write, and the goals she strives to attain. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place as a keystone book in the towering intellectual edifice raised by one of the most remarkable writers and thinkers of our age

The young Brahman Samar has come to the holy city of Benares to complete his education and take a civil service exam. But in this city redolent of timeworn customs, where pilgrims bathe in the sacred Ganges and breathe in smoke from burning ghats along the shore, Samar is offered entirely different perspectives on his country from the people he encounters. More than illustrating the clash of cultures, Mishra presents the universal truth that our desire for the other is our most painful joy

A mysterious murder on a flying express train, a wily Italian, a charming woman caught in the meshes of circumstantial evidence, a chivalrous Englishman, and a police force with a keen nose for the wrong clue, are the ingredients from which Major Griffiths has concocted a clever, up-to-date detective story

Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, THE ROOKIE is a story that combines the intense gridiron action of "Any Given Sunday" with the space opera style of "Star Wars" and the criminal underworld of "The Godfather." Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assassinated. Follow the story of Quentin Barnes, a 19-year-old quarterback prodigy that has been raised all his life to hate, and kill, those aliens. Quentin must deal with his racism and learn to lead, or he'll wind up just another stat in the column marked "killed on the field."

Funny, clever, surreal, and thought-provoking, this Kafka-esque masterpiece introduces the unforgettable Bjorn, an exceptionally meticulous office worker striving to live life on his own terms. Bjorn is a compulsive, exacting bureaucrat who discovers a secret room at the government office where he works-a secret room that no one else in his office will acknowledge. When Bjorn is in his room, what his coworkers see is him standing by the wall and staring off into space looking dazed, relaxed, and decidedly creepy. Bjorn's bizarre behavior eventually leads his coworkers to try to have him fired, but Bjorn will turn the tables on them with help from his secret room. Author Jonas Karlsson doesn't leave a word out of place in this brilliant, bizarre, delightful take on how far we will go-in a world ruled by conformity-to live an individual and examined life

“I never set foot in J’s bedroom. . I presume that even J’s mother rarely set foot in there and only in genuine emergencies, perhaps because not even she was protected by the awe that he held for her. He wouldn’t let anything touch his mother, but that wouldn’t necessarily have stopped him from touching her breasts. . Even though I spent a lot of time in my grandmother’s house as a child, I can’t picture J’s room at all. I don’t know where the bed was, though there must have been one, and I don’t have a clue what else could have been in there. I simply can’t picture it. Venturing in there during the years of the stench would have been hell. I would have died of disgust. . Today, it’s my study. I’ve always written novels in there, but until now it had never occurred to me to write about my mentally-impaired-at-birth uncle J. About him and his room. About the house and the street. And about my family. And our gravestones. And the Wetterau, which is the whole world. . “ With brilliant irony, Andreas Maier describes his uncle J’s fraught detachment from the real world and the life of small-town Germany in the years after World War II. The Room is both a memoir and a novel, the first installment of an epic family saga, and a love-letter to an unknowable soul

Roland Ford — once a cop, then a marine, now a private investigator — is good at finding people. But when he’s asked to locate Air Force veteran Clay Hickman, he realizes he’s been drawn into something deep and dark. He knows war, having served as a Marine in first Fallujah; he also knows personal pain, as only two years have passed since his wife, Justine, died. What he doesn’t know is why a shroud of secrecy hangs over the disappearance of Clay Hickman — and why he’s getting a different story from everyone involved. To begin with, there’s Sequoia, the teenage woman who helped Clay escape; she’s smart enough to fend off Ford’s questions but impetuous enough to be on the run with an armed man. Then there’s Paige Hulet, Clay’s doctor, who clearly cares deeply for his welfare but is impossible to read, even as she inspires in Ford the first desire he has felt since his wife’s death. And there’s Briggs Spencer, the proprietor of the mental institution who is as enigmatic as he is brash, and ambitious to the point of being ruthless. What could Clay possibly know to make this search so desperate? What began as just a job becomes a life-or-death obsession for Ford, pitting him against immensely powerful and treacherous people and forcing him to contend with chilling questions about truth, justice, and the American way