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Title: Abhorsen Author: Garth Nix File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction:Young Adult Description:From Publishers WeeklyAn explosive prologue sets the stage for Nix's riveting continuation of the story begun in Sabriel and Lirael. While newcomers might find the intricate plotting and the rituals of the Charter Magic off-putting at first, Nix rewards their efforts. Returning characters Lirael, former Second Assistant Librarian of the Clayr and now an Abhorsen-in-Waiting (the Abhorsen's birthright and charge [is] to maintain the borders of Life and Death), and her nephew, Prince Sameth, along with Disreputable Dog and the mysterious white cat, Mogget, are ensorcelled in the Abhorsen House by a Dead creature, Chlorr of the Mask, who is in league with the evil necromancer Hedge. They break out to try and rescue Sam's old friend, Nicholas Sayre, who has been tricked by Hedge into digging up Orannis, the Destroyer; if Hedge's plan succeeds, the evil now contained by two separate hemispheres will join and annihilate all life. The grotesque imagery of the Death realm provides a haunting note, which Nix offsets by the brightness of the main characters' quest to defeat the Destroyer. At once an allegory regarding war and peace and a testament to friendship, this thought-provoking fantasy also resolves the true identities of the popular Dog and Mogget characters-and suggests that Nix may still have more tricks up his sleeve. Ages 12-up. 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library JournalGrade 7 Up-The long-awaited confrontation between the evil necromancer Hedge and Abhorsen-in-Waiting Lirael and her nephew Sameth finally takes place in this conclusion to Nix's trilogy. Fans were left hanging at the end of Lirael (HarperCollins, 2001) as they learned that Hedge had magically enslaved a horde of the newly dead and Sam's friend Nick to help him dig up Orannis, a powerful Free Magic being who intended to destroy all life in the Kingdom. Long ago, Orannis had been broken in two and buried deep beneath the earth and Nick has discovered a way to join the two pieces to release him. All the characters from the previous books are here, but Lirael and Sam dominate the action. Lirael is destined to travel into death to find out how Orannis was defeated before and to try to find out how to defeat him once again. The experience leaves her scathed but stronger, and she finds her family, heritage, and her place in the world. Readers discover the real identities of the Disreputable Dog and the cat Mogget but Lirael's mother's actions still remain unsatisfactorily explained. Lirael and Sam have gained confidence in themselves and in their abilities in this title. There are also fewer surprises here, but Nix maintains the nonstop action, imaginative magical descriptions, and high level of violence of the previous titles. It is essential to read the series in order. There is a resolution, but the ending hints that this may not be the last story about the Old Kingdom. Fans will be overjoyed.Sharon Rawlins, Piscataway Public Library, NJ 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Title: A Conspiracy of Paper_ A Novel Author: David Liss File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction:Historical Description:Amazon.com ReviewA fool and his money are soon parted--and nowhere so quickly as in the stock market, it would seem. In David Liss's ambitious first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper, the year is 1719 and the place London, where human greed, apparently, operated then in much the same manner as it does today. Liss focuses his intricate tale of murder, money, and conspiracy on Benjamin Weaver, ex-boxer, self-described protector, guardian, bailiff, constable-for-hire, and thief-taker, and son of a Portuguese Jewish stock-jobber. Weaver's father, from whom he has been estranged, has recently died, the victim of a horse-drawn carriage hit and run. Though his uncle has suggested that the accident wasn't quite so accidental, Benjamin doesn't give the idea much credence: blockquoteI blush to own I rewarded his efforts to seek my opinion with only a formal reply in which I dismissed his ideas as nonsensical. I did so in part because I did not wish to involve myself with my family and in part because I knew that my uncle, for reasons that eluded me, had loved my father and could not accept the senselessness of so random a death. blockquoteBut then Benjamin is hired by two different men to solve two seemingly unrelated cases. One client, Mr. Balfour, claims his own father's unexpected death was made to look like self-murder so that a villain or villains could take his money with impunity, and even suggests there might be a link between Balfour senior's death and that of Weaver's father. His next customer is Sir Owen Nettleton, an aristocrat who is keen to recover some highly confidential papers that were stolen from him while he cavorted with a prostitute. Weaver takes on the first case with some reluctance, the second with more enthusiasm. In the end, both converge, leading him back to his family even as they take him deep into the underbelly of London's financial markets. Liss seems right at home in the world he's created, whether describing the company manners of wealthy Jewish merchants at home or the inner workings of Exchange Alley--the 18th-century version of Wall Street. His London is a dank and filthy place, almost lawless but for the scant protection offered by such rogues as Jonathan Wilde, the sinister head of a gang of thieves who profits by selling back to their owners items stolen by his own men. Though better connected socially, the investors involved with the shady South Sea Company have equally larcenous hearts, and Liss does an admirable job of leading the reader through the intricacies of stock trading, bond selling, and insider trading with as little fuss, muss, and confusion as possible. What really makes the book come alive, however, are the details of 18th-century life--from the boxing matches our hero once participated in to the coffee houses, gin joints, and brothels where he trolls for clues. And then there is the matter of Weaver's Jewishness, the prejudices of the society he lives in, and his struggle to come to terms with his own ethnicity. A Conspiracy of Paper weaves all these themes together in a manner reminiscent of the long, gossipy novels of Henry Fielding and Laurence Stern. Indeed, Liss manages to suggest the prose style of those authors while keeping his own, less convoluted style. This is one conspiracy guaranteed to succeed. --Alix WilberFrom Publishers WeeklyThis remarkably accomplished first novel, by a young man still completing his doctoral dissertation at Columbia, has a great deal going on. It is at once a penetrating study of the beginnings of stock speculation and the retreat from a mineral-based currency in early 18th-century London, a sympathetic look at the life of a Jew in that time and place and a vision of the struggle between the Bank of England and the upstart South Sea Company to become the repository of the nation's fiscal faith. If all that sounds daunting, it is above all a headlong adventure yarn full of dastardly villains, brawls, wenches and as commanding a hero as has graced a novel in some time. He is Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish former boxer who had once abandoned his family, and virtually his faith, too, for a life on the fringes of criminal society as a kind of freelance bailiff who brings debtors to book for their creditors. When his uncherished father dies suddenly, however, and he has reason to suspect the apparent accident was actually murder, he plunges himself into a hunt for those responsible, and in the process changes his life. With his native cunning and his brawling skills, he soon finds himself deeply embroiled with the villainous Jonathan Wild, thief-taker par excellence, who has institutionalized criminal mayhem. He also becomes the pawn of some powerful financial giants lurking in the shadows (much like the corporate villains in contemporary thrillers), comes to suspect his glamorous cousin Miriam of actions unbecoming a lady and employs the wiles of his philosophical Scottish friend Elias to decode the mysterious ways of finance and the laws of probability. The period detail is authentic but never obtrusive; the dialogue is a marvel of courtly locution masking murderous bluntness; and the plot, though devious in the extreme, never becomes opaque. It seems clear that Weaver is being set up as a series hero, which can only be good news for lovers of the best in dashing historical fiction. Agent, Liz Darhansoff. (Feb.) br 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Title: Masters of Noir_ Volume One Author: Various File Type: Mobi Subject:Fiction:Detective Description:meta charset=utf-8span Apple-style-span verdana, serif small h3 productDescriptionSource (51, 51, 51) 1.23em normal 0.75em margin-right 0.375em -15px clear both div productDescriptionWrapper margin-right 1em A walk on the wild side! In this series of collections of gritty Noir and Hardboiled stories, you’ll find some of the best writers of the craft writing in their prime. The following stories are included in this first volume of Masters of Noir IDENTITY UNKNOWN by JONATHAN CRAIG, THE GIRL BEHIND THE HEDGE by MICKEY SPILLANE, CARRERAS WOMAN by ED McBAIN writing as RICHARD MARSTEN, BUTCHER by RICHARD S. PRATHER, LOOK DEATH IN THE EYE by LAWRENCE BLOCK, ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON by GIL BREWER, FRAME by FRANK KANE, DOUBLE by BRUNO FISCHER, and AS I LIE DEAD by FLETCHER FLORA.span