Former Seattle homicide cop J. P. Beaumont, is learning to enjoy the new realities of retirement--doing morning crossword puzzles by a roaring fireplace; playing frisbee with his new dog; having quiet lunches with his still working wife. But then his past comes calling. When an acquaintance from long ago, Alan Dale, shows up on Beau's doorstep with a newborn infant in hand and asking for help locating his missing daughter, Beau finds himself faced...

An e-original novella from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance, featuring a sneak peek of the next J. P. Beaumont novel, Proof of Life. Since the disbanding of the Special Homicide Investigation Team, J. P. Beaumont's biggest concern is pondering whether he and his wife Mel should finally get a dog. But one voicemail from his old friend Ralph Ames is about to change that. Through Ralph, Beau has become involved in an organization called...

From Michelangelo's experiments with the composition of pigments made by monks in Florence, to Niccol ̤Machiavelli's defense of Florence against Julius's attacking forces bent on restoring the Medicis to power, Ross King presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixtenth-century Italy, as well as uncommon insight into the intersection of art and history.

Wal-Mart is not just the world's largest company--it is the largest company in the history of the world. It is estimated that the company's low prices save American consumers $10 billion a year--but the #1 employer in 37 states has never let a union in the door. Though 70% of Americans now live within a 15-minute drive of a Wal-Mart, we have not even begun to understand the true power of the company. We know about the lawsuits and the labour protests,...

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's accused 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.

"Examines how empathy comes naturally to a great variety of animals, including humans"--

Lawyer Billy Holland of Texas, goes after a town's bully, proving the law is not always on the side of the rich. The villain, a millionaire businessman, has been extorting land from little people

This volume gathers short essays from heroic (or at least well-known) people paying personal tribute to their own heroes.

"In just the last few years an explosion of discoveries - driven by information from the human genome - has empowered researchers to address many long-standing questions about the deep human past. Nicholas Wade has drawn on the new findings to present the first portrait of a special and hitherto mysterious group of human ancestors - the ancestral human population that lived in Africa 50,000 years ago and from whom everyone in the world today is descended."...

Tony Valentine is an expert at spotting cheats. He's tossed them out of gambling casinos from Atlantic City to Las Vegas and Monaco. But though Tony has never met a scam he couldn't crack, his son and partner, Gerry, has just walked into one with a body count. What started with a conman's deathbed confession turns into a deadly Las Vegas grudge match during the world's biggest poker tournament. While Gerry and his shady friends tangle with the Vegas...