A charity murder game at a Devon house turns into the real thing… Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fête, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot for his expert assistance. Instinctively, she senses that something sinister is about to happen… Beware – nobody is quite what they seem!

Hercule Poirot is determined to solve an old husband and wife double murder that is still an open verdict… Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. Here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies – a husband and wife – shot dead. But who had killed whom? Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into the past and discovers that ‘old sin leave long shadows’.

There’s more than petty theft going on in a London youth hostel… An outbreak of kleptomania at a student hostel was not normally the sort of crime that aroused Hercule Poirot’s interest. But when he saw the list of stolen and vandalized items – including a stethoscope, some old flannel trousers, a box of chocolates, a slashed rucksack and a diamond ring found in a bowl of soup – he congratulated the warden, Mrs Hubbard, on a ‘unique and beautiful problem’. The list made absolutely no sense at all. But, reasoned Poirot, if this was merely a petty thief at work, why was everyone at the hostel so frightened?

A young woman investigates an accidental death at a London tube station, and finds herself of a ship bound for South Africa… Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her – and finds her immediately at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Anne is present on the platform when a thin man, reeking of mothballs, loses his balance and is electocuted on the rails. The Scotland Yard verdict is accidental death. But Anne is not satisfied. After all, who was the man in the brown suit who examined the body? And why did he race off, leaving a cryptic message behind: ‘17-122 Kilmorden Castle’?

From the award-winning author of Space Mutts comes the second otterly chaotic title! Part of the Awesome Animals range – the funniest fiction staring the wildest wildlife! There’s a new family on the river… the beavers. And they’re ruining everything for the Otters. The beavers’ big fat dam has blocked up the river and worse… it’s stopped their supply of delicious crayfish! Something must be done! It seems like things can’t get any worse for our otters until they discover a mountain lion has also moved in. Can the riverside families overcome their differences to scare off this hungry-looking foe?

The lives of four very different women have been shaped—and battered—by one charming man. . . .Ireland's debonair politician Paddy de Courcy—the "John F. Kennedy Jr. of Dublin"—has captured tabloid headlines and the imagination of his country with his charm and charisma. But the crushed hearts he's left behind him reveal more about his character than his winning, votegetting smile. Lola, Grace, Marnie, and Alicia have all suffered from his selfishness and cruelty. But with Paddy's political star ascending, the time is finally ripe for redemption . . . and perhaps a bit of revenge.

After catching her husband having an affair and being fired from her job, Maggie Walsh suddenly finds her perfectly organized existence has become a perfect mess. She decides, for the first time in her life, to do something daring -- and flees to her best friend, Emily, in the faraway wonderland of Los Angeles. In this mecca of tanned, beautiful bodies, unsvelte, uncool Maggie is decidedly a fish out of water. Yet, overnight, she's mixing with film folk, pitching *s, even experimenting with sex -- and discovering that the end of a marriage is not the end of the world.

Bestselling author Marian Keyes has delighted readers with the lives, loves, and foibles of the irrepressible Walsh sisters and their eccentric mammy. In this Life in the Big Apple is perfect for Anna. She has the best job in the world, a lovely apartment, and great friends. Then one morning, she wakes up in her mammy's house in Dublin with stitches in her face, a dislocated knee, hands smashed up, and no memory at all of what happened. As soon as she's able, Anna's flying back to Manhattan, mystified but determined to find out how her life turned upside down. As her past slowly begins coming back to her, she sets out on an outrageous quest—involving lilies, psychics, mediums, and anyone who can point her in the right direction. Marrying life's darker bits with wild humor and tender wit, Anybody Out Thereis a strange and wonderfully charming look at love here and ever after.

Lisa EdwardsThis Prada-wearing magazine editor thinks her life is over when her "fabulous" new job turns out to be a deportation to Dublin to launch Colleen magazine. The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell?Ashling KennedyAshling, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasinglyaware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriendand a waistline.Clodagh "Princess" KellyAshling's best friend, Clodagh, lives the domestic dream in a suburban castle.So why, lately, has she had the recurring urge to kiss a frog -- or sleep with afrog, if truth be told?As these three women search for love, success, and happiness, they willdiscover that if you let things simmer under the surface for too long, sooneror later they'll boil over.Discover the Keyes to a Great Read!

A handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman… Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his ‘counting house’ when he suffered an agonising and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals. Yet, it was the incident in the parlour which confirmed Jane Marple’s suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme…

The very first collection of superb short stories featuring Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings… First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly chaep flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room… a million dollar bond robbery… the curse of a pharoah’s tomb… a jewel robbery by the sea… the abduction of a Prime Minister… the disappearance of a banker… a phone call from a dying man… and, finally, the mystery of the missing willl. What links these fascinating cases? Only the brilliant deductive powers of Hercule Poirot!

A captivating novel of love and intrigue. Everyone expected Isabella Charteris, beautiful, sheltered and aristocratic, to marry her cousin Rupert when he came back from the War. It would have been such a suitable marriage. How strange then that John Gabriel, an ambitious and ruthless war hero, should appear in her life. For Isabella, the price of love would mean abandoning her dreams of home and happiness forever. For Gabriel, it would destroy his chance of a career and all his ambitions… Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart, six bittersweet and very personal novels, as compelling and memorable as the best of her work.

A classic novel of desire and jealousy. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love for each other finally win through? Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart, six bittersweet and very personal novels, as compelling and memorable as the best of her work.

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. In 1914 the world changed. Europe’s great powers were dragged, one by one, into a war by Serbian conflict which affected very few of them directly. At least it would resemble the short sharp battles of the previous century, many thought – fought with military bands, horsemen, and swift victories. But 1914 proved to be different, a watershed, as old notions of war were trampled in the mud. ‘1914: History in an Hour’ is the indispensable overview of the year that marked the end of the Belle ?poque and the shocking birth of modern mechanised warfare. It became a war of unimaginable horror, fought with terrifying new weapons that produced death on an industrial scale, a war that involved so many nations and reached into the fabric of their societies. 1914 shaped the First World War, and the years beyond.

Over 100 effective recipes to help you design, implement, and manage the software-defined and massively scalable Ceph storage systemAbout This BookImplement a Ceph cluster successfully and gain deep insights into its best practicesHarness the abilities of experienced storage administrators and architects, and run your own software-defined storage systemThis comprehensive, step-by-step guide will show you how to build and manage Ceph storage in production environmentWho This Book Is ForThis book is aimed at storage and cloud system engineers, system administrators, and technical architects who are interested in building software-defined storage solutions to power their cloud and virtual infrastructure. If you have basic knowledge of GNU/Linux and storage systems, with no experience of software defined storage solutions and Ceph, but eager to learn this book is for you.What You Will LearnUnderstand, install, configure, and manage the Ceph storage systemGet to grips with performance tuning and benchmarking, and gain practical tips to run Ceph in productionIntegrate Ceph with OpenStack Cinder, Glance, and nova componentsDeep dive into Ceph object storage, including s3, swift, and keystone integrationBuild a Dropbox-like file sync and share service and Ceph federated gateway setupGain hands-on experience with Calamari and VSM for cluster monitoringFamiliarize yourself with Ceph operations such as maintenance, monitoring, and troubleshootingUnderstand advanced topics including erasure coding, CRUSH map, cache pool, and system maintenanceIn DetailCeph is a unified, distributed storage system designed for excellent performance, reliability, and scalability. This cutting-edge technology has been transforming the storage industry, and is evolving rapidly as a leader in software-defined storage space, extending full support to cloud platforms such as Openstack and Cloudstack, including virtualization platforms. It is the most popular storage backend for Openstack, public, and private clouds, so is the first choice for a storage solution. Ceph is backed by RedHat and is developed by a thriving open source community of individual developers as well as several companies across the globe.This book takes you from a basic knowledge of Ceph to an expert understanding of the most advanced features, walking you through building up a production-grade Ceph storage cluster and helping you develop all the skills you need to plan, deploy, and effectively manage your Ceph cluster. Beginning with the basics, you’ll create a Ceph cluster, followed by block, object, and file storage provisioning. Next, you’ll get a step-by-step tutorial on integrating it with OpenStack and building a Dropbox-like object storage solution. We’ll also take a look at federated architecture and CephFS, and you’ll dive into Calamari and VSM for monitoring the Ceph environment. You’ll develop expert knowledge on troubleshooting and benchmarking your Ceph storage cluster. Finally, you’ll get to grips with the best practices to operate Ceph in a production environment.Style and approach This step-by-step guide is filled with practical tutorials, making complex scenarios easy to understand.

Using the unique methods revealed in this book, readers can cast and interpret the I Ching instantly, without countless hours of study and practice. This book deciphers the meanings of I Ching's trigams and hexagrams in easy-to-understand language, offering explanations that are relevant to contemporary society.

In this long-anticipated, groundbreaking guide to building a portfolio, acclaimed stock pickers and Internet pioneers David and Tom Gardner lay bare the simple philosophy that they have used to help millions of grateful individual investors outfox the professionals on Wall Street. The research, the stories, and the results that underpin this book stem from the revolutionary and wildly successful "Motley Fool Million Dollar Portfolio"" a one-of-a-kind Web experiment in which individual investors follow along as Motley Fool co-founder Tom Gardner invests and manages $1 million of The Motley Fool's own money. In page after page of sound, sensible investment advice, readers are offered a rare glimpse into the inner workings of The Motley Fool machine and offered a first-class education in building, growing, and defending an individual portfolio, one investment strategy at a time. From learning to think like an investor to finding a first stock, from dividend investing to blue-chip bargains to small-cap treasures, from international investing to community-based online tools that are revolutionizing stock selection and asset allocation, this book takes the reader through the essential strategies for building any portfolio no matter how small its start or how big its ambitions.

The Collins College Outline for College Chemistry is a comprehensive guide to the fundamental concepts behind chemical reactions, bonding, equilibria, and thermodynamics, with topics ranging from simple chemical measurements and the basics of atoms and molecules to entropy, electrochemistry, and nuclear chemistry. Fully revised and updated by Dr. Steven Boone, College Chemistry includes practical "test yourself" sections with answers and complete explanations at the end of each chapter. Also included are essential vocabulary definitions and sample exercises, as well as detailed images, charts, and diagrams.The Collins College Outlines are a completely revised, in-depth series of study guides for all areas of study, including the Humanities, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Science, Language, History, and Business. Featuring the most up-to-date information, each book is written by a seasoned professor in the field and focuses on a simplified and general overview of the subject for college students and, where appropriate, Advanced Placement students. Each Collins College Outline is fully integrated with the major curriculum for its subject and is a perfect supplement for any standard textbook.

Alan Wall is an internationally acclaimed novelist and short story writer. His works have been published in eleven countries and translated into nine languages. He holds an MA in English from Oxford University, and is currently programme leader of the Creative Writing course at the University of Chester. His reviews and essays appear in a number of publications, including the Spectator, the Guardian, and the Literary Review..

"There it was, hanging in the sky above the school: the blazing green skull with a serpent tongue, the mark Death Eaters left behind whenever they had entered a building … wherever they had murdered …"When Dumbledore arrives at Privet Drive one summer night to collect Harry Potter, his wand hand is blackened and shrivelled, but he does not reveal why. Secrets and suspicion are spreading through the wizarding world, and Hogwarts itself is not safe. Harry is convinced that Malfoy bears the Dark Mark: there is a Death Eater amongst them. Harry will need powerful magic and true friends as he explores Voldemort's darkest secrets, and Dumbledore prepares him to face his destiny ...

Want to take your business English to the next level? Most textbooks teach the same things; presentations, speaking on the phone etc. This is great at the beginning, but if you are going to succeed, you’ll need more. You need to be able to walk into any business situation and feel seriously confident. That is why I wrote this book; to help you go from good to great. To really master business English. Learn: 90 essential words and phrases that will give you an edge in the business world. Improve by using examples: We have included many examples, so you can get a real feel for how to use these business words and phrases. Master: the language in the following essential business English topics. General business English. Start-ups. Online business. Finance. This book is the perfect stepping stone from ‘textbook’ business English to the ‘real’ language that will help you excel in the business world. If you are ready to truly advance, press the buy button and get started today.