Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice. Patricia Anne can't imagine why Mary Alice is in such an uproar over her son Ray's new bride. Sunshine Dabbs is Ucute as can be," even if she is a bit unconventional, which should hardly come as a shock to Mary Alicc given that she's the one who raised her boy. But with all her motherly instincts, Mary Alice is sure that this sweet little blonde Barbie doll--who met her son in Bora Bora after she won the trip on Wheel of Fortune--thinks she's found herself a fortune in Ray's hefty wallet. The sisters can't wait to get a look at Sunshine's family, and quite a look it turns out to be. As soon as Meemaw Turkett invites Mary Alice and Patricia Anne into her cozy trailer on the family compound they stumble over a corpse, and Meemaw's best hog butchering knife is stuck in its chest. Meemaw, a Cabbage Patch look-alike and Sunshine's grandmother, guardian, and the family matriarch is shocked to pieces and immediately summons the family to her trailer. Pawpaw, a lovable bearded grump has his own trailer, and their grown kids each enjoy a private home-away-from-home on the five-trailer compound. The discovery of the mysterious body brings in Mary Alice's nemesis, good ol' boy Sheriff Reuse, who, she knows from her experience at the Skoot 'n' Boot, is nothing but trouble. Within minutes, the compound is strewn with a weird collection of friends, neighbors and relatives. There's Meemaw's spooky channeler, ready to give guidance as needed; Sunshine's jilted boyfriend skulking around; a bunch of dogs ready to attack...and Kerrigan, Sunshine's mostly absentee mama, who stars in the kind of video flicks that might even shock Mary Alice.

The drinks are on Sunshine State historian/spree killer Serge A. Storms, who's decided it's high time he got married. So he's motoring down to the Florida Keys -- the ultimate end of the line -- in search of Ms. Right . . .and finding his doped-up basket case bud Coleman along the way. But for Serge, "getting hitched" doesn't necessarily mean "settling down" -- not when South Florida is crawling with slimeballs, swindlers, unrepentant jerks, and annoying bystanders whose ranks need some serious thinning.

Here's the ultimate of ultimates: nine hundred new recipes from Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, the authors of the Ultimate cookbook series. With a quarter million books already in print, their series has followed a simple recipe to success: Give cooks hundreds of solid, basic recipes with thousands of ways to vary them, shake them up, and personalize them so that everyone can be an ultimate cook!With The Ultimate Cook Book, Weinstein and Scarbrough tackle everything from breakfast to barbecue, stir-fries to steaks, chilis to curries, and paellas to puddings. Pick your favorite, cook it as a solid basic, or vary it in hundreds of ways to make the dish your own. You've got years' worth of dishes and a world of cooking experiences ahead of you. What could be more fun?Take chicken, that ubiquitous blank canvas. Roast a whole bird to perfection. Bake it under a salt crust for a dramatic presentation. Roast chicken halves atop winter squash. Prepare a Greek-style casserole with leeks, pine nuts, and raisins. Stuff chicken breasts with a Moroccan-inspired mixture of couscous and spices. There are more than thirty ideas for preparing boneless, skinless chicken breasts. And ten things to do with a leftover roast chicken or that rotisserie bird purchased on the way home. Get the idea?This comprehensive, easy-to-use compendium is the ultimate in inspiration, the ultimate in possibilities. Start your Ultimate cookbook collection today—or round it out with The Ultimate Cook Book.

Ensconced in a lovely tropical villa on idyllic Triggerfish Lane, Jim Davenport anticipates the good life to come. But this isn't living -- it's Florida and the neighborhood is not quite what it seems. It's got overly aggressive Little League parents, drug-free Rastafarians, homicidal hookers, unnatural sex and casual violence. Oh, yes, and there's a psychopathic serial killer-cum-Sunshine-State folklorist named Serge A. Storms living directly across the street. So it's only a matter of time before Jim up and actually kills somebody ...

Suddenly confronted with his own mortality after a routine checkup, eminent psychotherapist Julius Hertzfeld is forced to reexamine his life and work -- and seeks out Philip Slate, a sex addict whom he failed to help some twenty years earlier. Yet Philip claims to be cured -- miraculously transformed by the pessimistic teachings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer -- and is, himself, a philosophical counselor in training. Philips dour, misanthropic stance compels Julius to invite Philip to join his intensive therapy group in exchange for tutoring on Schopenhauer. But with mere months left, life may be far too short to help Philip or to compete with him for the hearts and minds of the group members. And then again, it might be just long enough.

It was the start of a grand adventure in a land of antiquity, a rare opportunity to visit biblical places shrouded in mystery. But in a Jerusalem hotel room a world away from everything she knows, Dinah van der Lyn hears angry voices through the wall, followed by a crash and a brief cry in English...for help! The brutal shattering of an evening's stillness becomes a prelude to terror. Without warning, Dinah has been unwittingly pulled into something unholy transpiring in a sacred city, and she must find answers hidden in the shadows. And she must trust an enigmatic stranger as she races through ancient, twisting streets teeming with secrets and peril, a man who may be leading her to safety...or to her doom.

In her very first novel, award-winning author Nevada Barr reveals another side to her remarkable storytelling prowess with this heart-wrenching yet tender tale of two women whose boundless devotion to each other is continually challenged in nineteenth century America.

Bernie Rhodenbarr is actually trying to earn an honest living. It's been an entire year since he's entered anyone's abode illegally to help himself to their valuables. But now an unscrupulous landlord's threat to increase Bernie's rent by 1,000% is driving the bookseller and reformed burglar back to a life of crime -- though, in all fairness, it's a very short trip. And when the cops wrongly accuse him of stealing a priceless collection of baseball cards, Bernie's stuck with a worthless alibi since he was busy burgling a different apartment at the time . . . one that happened to contain a dead body locked inside a bathroom.So Bernie has a dilemma. He can trade a burglary charge for a murder rap. Or he can shuffle all the cards himself and try to find the joker in the deck -- someone, perhaps, who believes that homicide is the real Great American Pastime.

The revelations on Mars -- a half-million year-old legacy of the vanished star-traveling Builders -- have fed the flames of catastrophic war. A beleaguered United States and its Russian and Japanese allies struggle to hold their own against the indomitable forces of the enemy United Nations. The bloody conflict that has swept over the home planet now rages across the blackness of space -- with the U.S. Marine Corps in the vanguard, leading the charge as always.But Mars is not the sole repository of alien wonders. The Earth's moon hides unsettling mysteries of its own-and dangerous secrets pointing toward an unstoppable threat advancing from somewhere beyond the solar system. And as scientists on both sides ract to utilize technology they have only barely begun to comprehend, the UN makes the opening move in a gambit that could end the hostilities quickly and decisively by bringing about the death of millions...without the aid of alien-inspired weaponry.A bad situation worsens by the nanosecond. And that means it's time to call in the Marines -- to make a life or death stand on the gray shores of Luna.

Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and "the People of the Mountain" from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.

Those hilarious southern sisters, who prove that sibling rivalry never ends, are heading for a vacation at the beach. Mary Alice's flamboyant behavior aside, serious, sensible Patricia Anne looks forward to relaxing at her sister's beachfront condo in Destin, Florida, so she kisses her ever-loving spouse Fred god-bye, reminds him to water the plants and feed the dog, and the girls head south for some fin in the sun. Mary Alice loses no time in making the acquaintance of just about everyone in sight, so watching the sun go down on the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome respite as far as Patricia Anne is concerned. . .until a dead body washes up in the waves and the victim turns out to be one of Mary Alice's newfound friends. With no witnesses t the crime except a few great blue herons, the sisters have no choice but to bypass the clueless police and follow their own instinct to find the killer. Before long they_re on a murky trail of dirty real-estate deals, giant turtle habitats, and a sea of evidence pointing to a mammoth motive for murderer.

From internationally bestselling author Bernard Cornwell comes the eagerly anticipated sequel in his acclaimed Grail Quest series, in which a young archer sets out to avenge his family's honor on the battlefields of the Hundred Years' War and winds up on a quest for the Holy Grail.1347: a year of war and unrest. England's army is fighting in France, and its absence encourages the Scots to invade the old enemy. Thomas of Hookton, sent back to England to follow an ancient trail that suggests his family once owned the Holy Grail, instead becomes embroiled in the savage fight when the Scots come to Durham. Out of the horror he finds a new companion for the quest but also discovers a new and sinister enemy in a Dominican Inquisitor.All Europe wants the grail. Many may doubt it even exists, but no one would willingly allow an enemy to find Christendom's most precious relic, and Thomas finds himself in a murderous race with the Inquisitor and with Guy de Vexille, the mysterious black rider who murdered Thomas's father (in The Archer's Tale).Thomas appears to have an advantage in the race. His father bequeathed him a mysterious notebook that confirms the grail's existence and offers clues to where the relic might be hidden. But his rivals, inspired by a fanatical religious fervor, have their own advantage—the torture chamber of the Inquisition. Thomas, seeking help to decipher the book's cryptic pages, is delivered instead to his worst enemies.He finds refuge in Brittany, with Jeanette, the Countess of Armorica, but fate will not let him rest. He is thrust into one of the bloodiest and most desperate fights of the Hundred Years' War, the Battle of la Roche-Derrien, and amid the flames, arrows, and butchery of that night, he faces his enemies again.

The year is 878. Uhtred, the dispossessed son of a Northumbrian lord, has helped the Saxons of Wessex defeat the invading Danes. Now, finally free of his allegiance to the victorious, ungrateful King Alfred, he is heading home to rescue his stepsister, a prisoner of Kjartan the Cruel in the formidable Danish stronghold of Dunholm. Uhtred's best hope is his sword, Serpent-Breath, for his only allies are Hild, a West Saxon nun fleeing her calling, and Guthred, a slave who believes himself king. Rebellion, chaos, fear, and betrayal await them in the north, forcing Uhtred to turn once more, reluctantly, to the liege he formerly served in battle and blood: Alfred the Great.

Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn't make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious d.a. about police corruption. Now he'saccused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn't think Broadfield's a killer, but the cops aren't about to help the unlicensed p.i. prove it -- and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way.

Gold is the final and crowning achievement of the fifty-year career of science fiction's transcendent genius, the world-famous author who defined the field of science fiction for its practitioners, its millions of readers, and the world at large.The first section contains stories that range from the humorous to the profound, at the heart of which is the title story, "Gold," a moving and revealing drama about a writer who gambles everything on a chance at immortality: a gamble Asimov himself made -- and won. The second section contains the grand master's ruminations on the SF genre itself. And the final section is comprised of Asimov's thoughts on the craft and writing of science fiction.

Nothing can prepare criminal attorney Bennie Rosato for her new client, Alice Connolly, who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to her and tells her, "Pleased to meet you. I'm your twin." But Bennie grew up an only child. She doesn't have a twin. Or does sheBennie takes on the woman's defense in a murder case and plunges into the mystery of the murder—as well as the secret of her own identity. Not until the verdict is in will she finally learn the truth.

It is a secret that has been hidden for more than a half century. . . . The clues have been scattered across the globe. Now someone has begun to piece them together—and the future of the world depends on his being stopped in time.In Maryland, a vicious gang breaks into the National Cryptologic Museum and steals a Nazi Enigma machine. In a London hospital, an Auschwitz survivor is murdered in his bed, his killers making off with a macabre trophy—his severed left arm. In Prague, a seemingly worthless painting is stolen from a synagogue. Three cities. Three puzzling thefts. Could there possibly be a connection?When former art thief Tom Kirk is first asked to investigate, the Prague theft certainly seems unremarkable enough—until the stolen painting turns up alongside the amputated human arm. As Tom digs deeper into the past, both items appear to be elements in an elaborate trail of clues laid down in the dying days of the Third Reich by a secret order of SS knights—clues that stretch from the remote mountains of Idaho to the snowy streets of St. Petersburg and ultimately lead to a fabled treasure lost in the ashes of war.Spurred on by the sinister light of the Black Sun emblem, ghosts from his past, and the poisonous manipulations of a deadly enemy, Tom finds himself trapped in a situation where the greatest prize of all is life itself—and not just his own. . . .

Matt Scudder is finally leading a comfortable life. The crime rate's down and the stock market's up. Gentrification's prettying-up the old neighborhood. The New York streets don't look so mean anymore.Then all hell breaks loose.Scudder quickly discovers the spruced-up sidewalks are as mean as ever, dark and gritty and stained with blood. He's living in a world where the past is a minefield, the present is a war zone, and the future's an open question. It's a world where nothing is certain and nobody's safe, a random universe where no one's survival can be taken for granted. Not even his own.A world where everybody dies.

Off the coast of Indonesia, an American cargo ship has been seized by terrorists, its captain kidnapped and its crew mercilessly slaughtered. In Washington, a peace-loving President's refusal to punish the transgressors has enraged the sitting Congress, led by a wrathful Speaker of the House.An ambitious young congressional assistant, Jim Dillon has discovered a time bomb hidden away in America's Constitution—a provision that could be used to wrest power from the Chief Executive, a long-forgotten law that could incite a devastating constitutional crisis . . . and plunge the country into chaos.Now, as a battle group steams toward a fateful confrontation in the Java Sea—commissioned by Congress and opposed by the President—Dillon finds himself in the center of a firestorm that rages from the highest court in the land to the killing fields half a world away. Suddenly there is much more at stake than the life of a single surviving hostage and a superpower's military credibility—as a great nation prepares for war . . . against itself.

One phone call from a concerned neighbor has inadvertently led police to Terence Payne, the elusive serial killer known only as "Chameleon." Now Payne is in custody, perhaps dying, and a long nightmare appears to be over at last. But is it?For Alan Banks—currently head of the local police force—too many questions remain unanswered at the chamber of horrors the press will dub the "House of Payne." Because the darkness has not yet lifted, the casualties are still mounting . . . and there are still monsters loose in the world.Showcasing the dark forces of human nature, master of suspense Peter Robinson is at the height of his storytelling powers in a novel that will leave readers guessing until the final page.

The legend of King Arthur has been told many times—but never with the strength and resonance, passion and richness granted it in Stephen R. Lawhead's masterfulPendragon CycleDrought, plague, and war have left the Isle of the Mighty battered and its heart, the beloved Arthur, grievously injured—until a secret relic is brought before the dying KIng; a Holy Grail that heals his wounds and restores his vigor.But soon evil enters the royal court in the guise of a beautiful maiden; a soulless, malevolent force capable of seducing the King's loyal champion, confounding the sage whom some call Merlin, and carrying the sacred Grail—and Arthur's adored Queen—off into the dark unknown. And now Arthur faces the greatest challenge of his sovererignty: a quest of recovery that must lead the noble liege through realms of magic and the undead, on a trail that winds inexorably toward a grim confrontation with his most foul nemesis . . . and his destiny.Drought, plague and war have left the Isle of Mighty battered and its heart, the beloved Arthur, grievously injured. But, astonishingly, the High King lives—his wounds healed and vigor restored by a sacred and secret relic: the Holy Grail.At Ynys Avallach, a dying Arthur was miraculously renewed. And now, in this time of rampant disease and death, the great king wants to share the Grail's curative powers with all who require it. A shrine will be built to house the holy treasure—and Arthur's fabled Kingdom of Summer will at long last come to be.But evil has entered the royal court in the guise of a beautiful maiden. Unbeknownst to Arthur, to his devoted warriors, to his adored Gwenhwyvar. . .even to the bard Myrddrin, the sage Emrys whom some have called "Merlin," malevolent forces, soulless and cunning, seduce the King's most loyal champion. And in an unthinkable unguarded moment, the Grail is carried off, vanishing somewhere into the dark unknown.Now Arthur faces the greatest challenge of his sovereig.