250 Document (s)

La 4e de couverture indique : "What was lost in the collapse: almost everything, almost everyone, but there is still such beauty. One snowy night in Toronto famous actor Arthur Leander dies on stage whilst performing the role of a lifetime. That same evening a deadly virus touches down in North America. The world will never be the same again. Twenty years later Kirsten, an actress in the Traveling Symphony, performs Shakespeare in the settlements that have grown up since the collapse. But then her newly hopeful world is threatened. If civilization was lost, what would you preserve ? And how far would you go to protect it ?"

The nation has fallen into mourning after the death of a beloved former first lady. The most powerful people in the world gather in New York for her funeral - then the inconceivable occurs. Billionaires, politicians, and superstars of every kind are suddenly trapped within one man's brilliant and cold-blooded scenario. Detective Michael Bennett - father of ten - is pulled into the fray. As the danger escalates, Michael experiences a devastating loss: after fighting it for many years, his wife has succumbed to a terrible disease. As New York descends into chaos, he faces raising his ten heartbroken children alone - and rescuing thirty-four hostages. Day after day, Bennett confronts the most ruthless man he has ever encountered. As the entire world watches and the tension builds to a searing heat, Bennett has to find a way out - or face responsibility for a deadly debacle.

Trudi Montag is a Zwerg - a dwarf - short, undesirable, different, the plucky but sometimes defeated voice of anyone who has ever tried to fit in. Eventually she learns that being different is a secret that all humans share - from her mother who flees into madness, to her childhood friend Georg whose parents always wanted a girl, and therefore treat him as one, to the Jews Trudi harbours in her cellar when her small town is hit by the lead up to World War II. Ursula Hegi brings us a timeless and unforgettable story in Trudi and a small German town, weaving together a profound tapestry of emotional power, humanity, and truth.

Sandeep is an only child living in a Bombay high-rise and in this book makes two long visits to his extended family in Calcutta. This novel tells the story of the atmosphere in the small house where they live. Chaudhuri writes precisely and carefully trying to capture in the rhythms of his prose the faded happiness of things, the strange, pure remembered moments

When Cindy Decker finds a new-born baby in a rubbish bin, she can't imagine who would commit such a crime. Surely abandoning a baby is the biggest taboo of motherhood? The usual suspects - prostitutes, homeless women and drug abusers - aren't responsible. In fact, the culprit is a woman who appears almost as vulnerable as her own baby. As the case continues, Cindy realises she's in deep - her own life in danger - and there's only one person who can help, her father and boss, Lieutenant Peter Decker. They both know the key to a successful investigation is keeping a cool, professional head, but with a father and daughter detective team, can it ever be anything other than personal?

When Susannah Nelson turned eighteen, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake--and never saw him again. She never saw her brother, Doug, again, either. He died unexpectedly that same year. Now, at fifty, Susannah finds herself regretting the paths not taken. Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy. But she feels there's something missing in her life. Not only that, she's balancing the demands of an aging mother and a temperamental twenty-year-old daughter. Her mother, Vivian, a recent widow, is having difficulty coping and living alone, so Susannah goes home to Colville, Washington. In returning to her parents' house, her girlhood friends and the garden she's always loved, she also returns to the past--and the choices she made back then. What she discovers is that things are not always as they once seemed. Some paths are dead ends. But some gardens remain beautiful....

From bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons comes a bittersweet and finely wrought story of friendship, family, and Charleston society. Left mostly to herself, Emily Parmenter has built a life around the faded plantation where her family raises the legendary Boykin hunting spaniels. It is a narrow world, but to Emily it has magic: deep-sea dolphins who play in Sweetwater Creek; her extraordinary bond with the dogs she trains; her almost mystic communion with her own spaniel, Elvis; the dreaming old Lowcountry itself. Then comes Lulu Foxworth, who has run away from her hectic Charleston debutante season to spend a summer with the quiet marshes and river, and the life-giving dogs. Lulu has a powerful enchantment of her own, and this, along with the dark secret she brings with her, will inevitably blow Emily's magical world apart -- but at a terrible price.

Dame Muriel Spark delivers a delightfully alarming novel, full of high society and low cunning. One October evening five posh London couples gather for a dinner party, enjoying "the pheasant (flambe in cognac as it is)" and waiting for the imminent arrival of the late-coming guest Hilda Damien, who has been unavoidably detained due to the fact that she is being murdered at this very moment... "Symposium" was applauded by "Time" magazine for the "sinister elegance" of Muriel Spark's "medium of light but lethal comedy." Mixed in are a Monet, a mad uncle, some unconventional nuns, and a burglary ring run by a rent-a-butler. Symposium stars a perfectly evil young woman (a classic sweet-faced hair-raising Sparkian horror) who has married rich Hilda's son by hook or by crook, hooking him at the fruit counter of Harrod's. There is also spiritual conversation-- and the Bordeaux is superb. "The prevailing mood is urbane: the wine is poured, the talk continues, and all the time the ice on which the protagonists' world rests is being thinned from beneath, by boiling emotions and ugly motives...

Sue Grafton ups the ante for private investigator Kinsey Millhone like never before in this "taut, terrifying, transfixing"* #1 New York Times bestselling mystery in the Alphabet series. Kinsey Millhone's elderly neighbor, Gus Vronsky, may have been the original inspiration for the term "Grumpy Gus." A miser and a hoarder, Gus is so crotchety that after he takes a bad fall, his only living relative is anxious to find someone to take care of him and get back home as soon as she can. To help, Kinsey runs a check on the applicant, Solana Rojas. Social security, driver's license, nursing certification: It all checks out. And it sounds like she did a good job for her former employers. So Kinsey gives her the thumbs-up, figuring Gus will be the ideal assignment for this diligent, experienced caregiver. And the real Solana Rojas was indeed an excellent caregiver. But the woman who has stolen her identity is not, and for her, Gus will be the ideal victim... "The best and strongest book in the series...Solana is one of the most evil, calculating characters Grafton has created."--*USA Today

Reflecting the experience of Native Americans caught in the midst of personal and cultural turmoil, a new collection of short fiction by the award-winning author of Reservation Blues includes such works as "The Life and Times of Estelle Walks Above," "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," and "Do You Know Where I Am?"

At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora's box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voice -- those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal -- that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment. A gripping emotional drama with the pace of a thriller, Anita Shreve's Testimony explores the dark impulses that sway the lives of seeming innocents, and the ways in which our best intentions can lead to our worst transgressions.

`The problem was Megan had just taken the second half of her ecstasy when her father called with the news' Nineteen-year-old university student Megan Thompson is beautiful, cool, clever and sexy - the kind of girl boys fall in love with. She's mostly steered clear of family life since the death of her younger brother. That is until the day she hears her mother, Diana, has been found floating face down in their swimming pool. Diana, as Director of the Center for Reproductive Choice, was a national figure who inspired passions and made enemies. Detective Huck Berlin is brought in to investigate the case when it becomes clear that Diana was murdered. Several people have quarrelled with Diana on that fateful day, not least Frank, her husband of twenty years, and her wayward child. Now father and daughter are thrown together in an unexpected twist of family life. Set in a small town in Colorado, The Abortionist's Daughter is an utterly compelling novel of family secrets, dark passion and, ultimately, catharsis for those whose lives have become so strangely entwined.

Cotton Malone retired from the high-risk world of elite operatives for the U.S. State Department to lead the low-key life of a rare-book dealer. But his quiet existence is shattered when he receives an anonymous e-mail: You have something I want. Youre the only person on earth who knows where to find it. Go get it. You have 72 hours. If I dont hear from you, you will be childless. His horrified ex-wife confirms that the threat is real: Their teenage son has been kidnapped. When Malones Copenhagen bookshop is burned to the ground, it becomes brutally clear that those responsible will stop at nothing to get what they want. And what they want is nothing less than the lost Library of Alexandria. A cradle of ideas-historical, philosophical, literary, scientific, and religious-the Library of Alexandria was unparalleled in the world. But fifteen hundred years ago, it vanished into the mists of myth and legend-its vast bounty of wisdom coveted ever since by scholars, fortune hunters, and those who believe its untold secrets hold the key to ultimate power. Now a cartel of wealthy international moguls, bent on altering the course of history, is desperate to breach the librarys hallowed halls-and only Malone possesses the information they need to succeed. At stake is an explosive ancient document with the potential not only to change the destiny of the Middle East but to shake the worlds three major religions to their very foundations. Pursued by a lethal mercenary, Malone crosses the globe in search of answers. His quest will lead him to England and Portugal, even to the highest levels of American government-and the shattering outcome, deep in the Sinai desert, will haveworldwide repercussions.

In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town's water supply, causing the worst cancer cluster in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided? The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice. The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave listeners unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again.

Disregarding local gossip that pegs her as an eccentric, sixty-five-year-old Nantucket widow Nan skinny-dips in unattended pools and steals her neighbors' flowers before her dwindling funds force her to take in boarders, a change that brings new friends and an unexpected visitor. 150,000 first printing.

Alex Cross's first case since joining the FBI has his new colleagues perplexed. Across the country, men and women are kidnapped in broad daylight and then disappear completely. These people are not being taken for ransom, Alex realizes. They are being bought and sold. And it seems The Wolf is the master criminal behind this terrible trade and who is bringing a new reign of terror to organized crime. Even as he admires the FBI's vast resources, Alex grows impatient with the Bureau's clumsiness and caution when it is time to move. A lone wolf himself, he has to go out on his own in order to track his new prey and try to rescue some of the victims while they are still alive. As the case boils over, Alex is in hot water at home, too. His ex-fiancee, Christine Johnson, comes back into his life -- and not for the reasons Alex might have hoped. Full of the unexpected twists and heartrending surprises that James Patterson delivers better than any suspense writer alive, The Big Bad Wolf is an unforgettable thriller from the 'master of the suspense genre' (Sunday Telegraph).

He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets. There are a few clues. A frame of microfilm surgically implanted beneath the flesh of his hip. Evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face. Strange things that he says in his delirium -- maybe code words. Initial: "J.B." And a number on the film negative that leads to a Swiss bank account, a fortune of four million dollars, and, at last, a name: Jason Bourne. But now he is marked for death, caught in a maddening puzzle, racing for survival through the deep layers of his buried past into a bizarre world of murderous conspirators -- led by Carlos, the world's most dangerous assassin. And no one can help Jason Bourne but the woman who once wanted to escape him.

Trumble is a minimum security federal prison, home to the usual assortment of relatively harmless criminals - drue dealers, bank robbers, swindlers, embezzlers, tax evaders, and three former judges who call themselves The Brethren.They meet each day in the law library where they handle cases for other inmates, practise law without a licence, and sometimes dispense jailhouse justice. And they spend hours writing letters. They are fine-tuning a mail scam, and it's starting to really work. The money is pouring in. Then their little scam goes awry. It ensnares the wrong victim, a powerful man on the outside, a man with dangerous friends, and The Brethren's days of quietly marking time are over.[Source : 4e de couv.]

In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world's most sophisticated satellite surveillance system. Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive--there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?

Victor Baxter is a young boy when a secretive stranger known simply as "the Captain" takes him from his boarding school to live in London. Victor becomes the surrogate son and companion of a woman named Liza, who renames him "Jim" and depends on him for any news about the world outside their door. Raised in these odd yet touching circumstances, Jim is never quite sure of Liza's relationship to the Captain, who is often away on mysterious errands. It is not until Jim reaches manhood that he confronts the Captain and learns the shocking truth about the man, his allegiances, and the nature of love. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by John Auchard.