English books

Douglas Petersen may be mild-mannered, but behind his reserve lies a sense of humor that, against all odds, seduces beautiful Connie into a second date and eventually into marriage. Now, almost three decades after their relationship first blossomed in London, they live more or less happily in the suburbs with their moody seventeen-year-old son, Albie; then Connie tells him she thinks she wants a divorce. The timing couldn’t be worse. Hoping to encourage her son’s artistic interests, Connie has planned a month-long tour of European capitals, a chance to experience the world’s greatest works of art as a family, and she can’t bring herself to cancel. And maybe going ahead with the original plan is for the best anyway. Douglas is privately convinced that this landmark trip will rekindle the romance in the marriage and might even help him bond with Albie. Narrated from Douglas’s endearingly honest, slyly witty, and at times achingly optimistic point of view, Us is the story of a man trying to rescue his relationship with the woman he loves and learning how to get closer to a son who’s always felt like a stranger.

Amid the dust, death, and chaos of Iraq, an American soldier on a routine patrol is killed by an unseen enemy. It’s a tragedy but not a crime―until it’s linked to the bizarre death of a decorated four-star general who happens to be the dead man’s father…and the son-in-law of history’s most feared and powerful U.S. vice president. Major Vin Cooper of Air Force Special Investigations is the kind of loose cannon no commanding officer can completely control…or survive without. Cooper’s a man whose capacity to absorb grief is matched only by his ability to dish it out. And this case―which will be either his most important or his last―has plenty of both. Scarred by battle and a recent divorce, Cooper answers to no one but his own tough-as-nails female general. She knows there’s no one as relentless, as insubordinate, and as effective in prying out the truth as Cooper―no matter where it leads or who it angers. Reluctantly paired with Special Agent Anna Masters, Cooper begins his search at the scene of a suspicious crash at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. There they uncover a trail of inexplicable “accidental” deaths that leads from the war-torn streets of Baghdad to sex slavery in Latvia and a marriage that began in the White House Rose Garden and disintegrated into bitterness and infidelity. And with every step they take, Cooper and Masters come closer to the shocking truth about the biggest and most murderous lie of all.

The year is 2196. The great Empire of Ice, Chung Kuo, has finally been shaken after more than a century of peace enforced by brutal tyranny. The Minister of the Edict—an official responsible for licensing all technology that could lead to Change—has been assassinated. The seven ruling T’ang struggle to maintain Stasis, even as their mile-high, continent-spanning cities descend into chaos. Amid the chaos, the rebels responsible for the assassination seize the opportunity to effect Change. But the assassination was orchestrated by those far closer to the ruling power, and this betrayal—the first of many—will lead them all into the world-shattering War of Two Directions.

Hell is other people. ' a chilling, page-turning hammer novella by the booker-prize-winning author of vernon god little. The setting: a faded, lonely guesthouse on the essex coast. Outside, it's dark, and very foggy. Inside there's no phone or internet reception, no connection with the outside world. Enter ariel panek, a promising young academic en route from the usa to an important convention in amsterdam. With his plane grounded by fog at stanstead, he has been booked in for the night at the guesthouse. Discombobulated and jetlagged, he falls in with a family who appear to be commemorating an event. But this is no ordinary celebration. And this is no ordinary family. As evening becomes night, panek realises that he has become caught in an insidious web of other people's secrets and lies, a sartrian hell from which for him there may be no escape.

Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane delivers an explosive tale of integrity and vengeance—heralding the long-awaited return of private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from a Boston neighborhood twelve years ago. Desperate pleas for help from the child's aunt led investigators Kenzie and Gennaro to take on the case. The pair risked everything to find the young girl—only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and a broken home. Now Amanda is sixteen—and gone again. A stellar student, brilliant but aloof, she seemed destined to escape her upbringing. Yet Amanda's aunt is once more knocking on Patrick Kenzie's door, fearing the worst for the little girl who has blossomed into a striking, clever young woman—a woman who hasn't been seen in weeks. Haunted by their consciences, Kenzie and Gennaro revisit the case that troubled them the most. Their search leads them into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, a mentally unstable crime boss and his equally demented wife, a priceless, thousand-year-old cross, and a happily homicidal Russian gangster. It's a world in which motives and allegiances constantly shift and mistakes are fatal. In their desperate fight to confront the past and find Amanda McCready, Kenzie and Gennaro will be forced to question if it's possible to do the wrong thing and still be right or to do the right thing and still be wrong. As they face an evil that goes beyond broken families and broken dreams, they discover that the sins of yesterday don't always stay buried and the crimes of today could end their lives.

A New York Times Notable Book Now available with a contemporary look, New York Times bestselling author Dennis Lehane’s Prayers for Rain is a “hard boiled shocker” (New York Times Book Review) and stunning psychological thriller in the fan-favorite Kenzie and Gennaro series, about a master sadist determined to tear Kenzie and Gennaro’s world apart. When Patrick first meets Karen Nichols, she strikes him as a naive woman from a protected upbringing, untouched by tragedy. But six months later Karen commits suicide by leaping from one of Boston’s monuments. Patrick finds himself drawn into a dark mystery, wondering what can alter someone so drastically, so quickly, that suicide seems her only option. Yet Patrick soon suspects that tragic events that befell Karen during the last months of her life―an “accident” that destroyed her fiancé; the loss of her job, her apartment, and eventually her mind―may not have been as random as they first appeared. Enlisting the aid of his ex-partner and ex-flame, Angela Gennaro, as well as that of his friend, the lethally unbalanced Bubba Rogowski, this Boston P.I. enters into a treacherous game of cat-and-mouse with a man who, instead of merely killing his victims, prefers to make them wish they were dead. As Patrick, Angie, and Bubba wage psychological warfare with this brilliant, depraved sociopath, they discover they might be fighting a losing battle against an enemy who is determined to tear their worlds apart.

Arriving on the sun-baked veldt in the middle of the Boer War, the Sixth Doctor is soon involved in the adventures of struggling politician and war correspondent Winston Churchill. Of course, he knows Churchill is destined for great things, but unseen forces seem to be interfering with Winston’s historic career… The Doctor suspects the hidden hand of the Players, mysterious beings who regard human history as little more than a game. With time running out, can the Doctor find the right moves to defeat them? An adventure featuring the Sixth Doctor as played by Colin Baker and his companion Peri