Machen's "A Double Return" was one of a number of pieces first published in the "St James Gazette», in the year 1890. This was the year in which he turned away from tales set in the past, and began to write more racy fiction set in his own time. «A Double Return» was the most successful of these pieces; Oscar Wilde, then at the height of his own success, predicted that it would «flutter the dovecotes». Even today readers may find this a very adult, perhaps a shocking, story.

Pregnant women play key roles in this bone-chilling fourth novel in Gerritsen's edgy, suspenseful series of thrillers featuring Boston Medical Examiner Maura Isles and Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli. Both of the usually gritty crime fighters are uncharacteristically vulnerable. Rizzoli is carrying her first child, and Isles-divorced and alone at age 40 and suddenly, unsettlingly aware of her biological clock-is experiencing decidedly unspiritual feelings for her priest. As the novel begins, Isles-an adopted child who never knew the identity of her birth parents-is confronted by the corpse of a murdered woman who is apparently her identical twin. Another detective, Rick Ballard, comes forward to say that he knew the victim and is certain her killer is a powerful pharmaceutical baron known to have stalked her. Isles falls for the handsome Ballard, but she isn't convinced by his theory, and she launches an investigation into her sister's past, following the trail to a state correctional facility and a schizophrenic inmate who may be her mother. This opens the cobwebbed pages of a nightmarish family album and leads Isles to a remote cabin in Maine where the long-dead body of a pregnant woman is discovered buried in the woods. The killer, Isles discovers, has been murdering pregnant women for decades, making periodic sweeps of the country. Meanwhile, brief scenes chronicle the diabolical kidnapping of an affluent pregnant housewife who is kept buried in a crude coffin. An electric series of startling twists, the revelation of ghoulishly practical motives and a nail-biting finale make this Gerritsen's best to date.

Multiple-award-winning author Shirley Rousseau Murphy once again brings us Joe Grey and Dulcie, the most cunning set of feline sleuths ever to stick their paws into crime solving.

Always a loner, Charlie Getz never expected to fall in love with anyone, let alone the chief of police of Molena Point, California. So her wedding on a perfect, sunny day is all the more joyous – especially when two of the honored guests are four-footed pals, feline detectives Joe Grey and Dulcie.

However, two unexpected visitors – a young boy and an old man hidden in the shadows – are preparing to bomb the soon-to-be-filledlied church. The lone witness, a small tattercoat kit crouched beneath the oak branches, warns Joe's owner, Clyde; then, with claws and teeth, she stops the two would-be murderers. But the shock of the near disaster that might have killed half the village is only the beginning. The next morning Charlie's good friend, building contractor Ryan Flannery, awakens to find her estranged, philandering husband dead in her garage… and her own gun is missing.

With suspicion falling squarely on Ryan's shoulders, Joe Grey, Dulcie, and Kit use their skills of break-and-enter to prove her innocence. But a stranger's sinister push into her life is as unexpected as the arrival, on the morning of the murder, of a handsome purebred hunting dog, a homeless stray who seems determined to move in with Ryan.

Whatever hateful force has descended on the small seaside village, the three cats are soon paw-deep in a tangle of jealousy, greed, and carefully planned retribution. So they work the case as only cats can, passing information anonymously to the cops, making a heroic feline effort to nail the killer and catch the wedding bomber, and hoping to see the silver hunting dog settled safely into his new home.

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso is a divorced, depressed history teacher. To lift his spirits, a colleague suggests he rent a certain video. Tertuliano watches the film, unimpressed. But during the night, when he is awakened by noises in his apartment, he goes into the living room to find that the VCR is replaying the video. He watches in astonishment as a man who looks exactly like him-or, more specifically, exactly like he did five years before, mustachioed and fuller in the face-appears on the screen. He sleeps badly.

Against his better judgment, Tertuliano decides to pursue his double. As he roots out the man's identity, what begins as a whimsical story becomes a "wonderfully twisted meditation on identity and individuality" (The Boston Globe). Saramago displays his remarkable talent in this haunting tale of appearance versus reality.

DOUBLE AGENTS is an explosive spy thriller from #1 Amazon's Bestselling Writer, Ethan Jones, and the fourth novel in his popular Justin Hall series.

The CIA learns that a powerful Chechen terrorist group is plotting a major attack on US soil just as the same group assassinates Russia's Minister of Defense in Moscow. The CIA and the FSB, Russia's internal security service, deeply distrust each other, crippling any CIA efforts to unravel this plot.

Justin Hall and his partner, Carrie O'Conner — two of the Canadian Intelligence Service best operatives — are dispatched to Moscow to secure the FSB's intelligence, which will allow them to discover the plotters. But an FSB spy and a CIA double agent are dead set against this mission.

Justin and Carrie find themselves on the run on treacherous Moscow grounds and are forced to form a shifty alliance with rogue operatives. As loyalties change in the blink of an eye, Justin and Carrie hunt down Chechen militants in their stronghold in Dagestan, to uncover the truth, and to stop the terrorist attack in the US.

This cutting-edge thriller is the hottest page-turner of the winter. Fans of David Baldacci, Vince Flynn, and Brad Thor will love this tensely plotted novel.

Alan McQueen (aka Mac) – the intrepid hero of Golden Serpent and Second Strike – is a tough, true-blue, resourceful Aussie. An intelligence agent, Mac spends a lot of his time doing undercover work in south east Asia.

Double Back sees Mac putting his life on the line fighting dangerous forces who will stop at nothing to sink the independence movement in East Timor.

Fighting the good fight, Mac discovers a plot to use a deadly ethno-bomb which kills only native East Timorese – who don't share the ethnicity of most Indonesians…

Can Mac secure the ethno-bomb before it's too late?

'Golden Serpent is the most accomplished spy-thriller we've seen locally, a discerning read, full of action and a kind of knowing wit.' – The Australian

'Abernethy conjures echoes of Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy and the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child.' – The Weekend Australian

Double Contact is a 1999 science fiction book by author James White and is the last in the Sector General series.

Clinton Lawrence described Double Contact as “in a very positive way, a throwback to an earlier era in science fiction” since it is optimistic and depicts several advanced species working harmoniously. The struggle to build trust and produce a successful first contact is, he thought, as exciting and suspenseful as one could wish for. However Lawrence also noted that the level of characterization was the minimum required to support the plot.

This book has an unusual feature in personal pronoun usage: in most Sector General stories, one human is “he” or “she” (or other grammatical case forms) and one alien is “it”. But, in Double Contact, often in the text the character Prilicla is “he” and a human or a member of any other species is “it”.

Just when Alex thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game – this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other. A spate of elaborate murders in Washington D.C. have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There’s only one thing Alex knows: the killer adores an audience. As victims are made into gruesome spectacles citywide, inducing a media hysteria, it becomes clear to Alex that the man he’s after is a genius of terror – and he’s after fame. The killer has the whole city by its strings – and he’ll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington D.C. has ever seen.

She’s been on her own for a long time, closing her heart to love, because love equals pain. As a sex therapist, she needs to assume a dominant roll with her clients, but as a woman, she’s all submissive.

In Steve and Jeff she’s found the Doms who can take her to every sexual height she’s ever imagined and beyond. But now they want more, and she’s not sure she can give it. It takes one hot night at Inferno with these two men to let her know there’s more to life than just physical release.

The ostensible purpose of a library is to preserve the printed word. But for fifty years our country’s libraries — including the Library of Congress — have been doing just the opposite, destroying hundreds of thousands of historic newspapers and replacing them with microfilm copies that are difficult to read, lack all the color and quality of the original paper and illustrations, and deteriorate with age.

With meticulous detective work and Baker’s well-known explanatory power, Double Fold reveals a secret history of microfilm lobbyists, former CIA agents, and warehouses where priceless archives are destroyed with a machine called a guillotine. Baker argues passionately for preservation, even cashing in his own retirement account to save one important archive — all twenty tons of it. Written the brilliant narrative style that Nicholson Baker fans have come to expect, Double Fold is a persuasive and often devastating book that may turn out to be The Jungle of the American library system.

Two masters of the thriller genre break new ground with their first collaboration, introducing two different sets of cops in two different cities, faced with two very different murders. In Santa Fe, Darrel Two Moons and Steve Katz are working the 4pm-2am Special Investigation shift when they're called to the scene of a blunt-force homicide. The victim: a wealthy art dealer with a shady reputation, very few friends and an awful lot of enemies who're not sorry to see him dead. Did he stumble on a burglar stealing a priceless painting, or did someone whose life he'd ruined finally seek revenge? Dorothy Breton and her partner McCain are called to downtown Boston the same night Dorothy found a revolver in her teenage son's backpack. Now her elder son is a witness to the killing of a promising athlete in a shoot-out. At least the evidence is stacked against the obvious culprit – until the autopsy shows the young man didn't die of gunshot wounds, and Dorothy has to dig a lot deeper to find the shocking truth.

The message over the CIA hot-line sent AXE into an uproar. CIA’s top man in Tibet had been killed. His dying words had identified his assassin— “Nick Carter!”

AXE made their own Nick Carter’s briefing short:

1. A fake Killmaster at large in the East meant something explosive in the works, while the obvious lure to trap the super-agent was intriguing but probably of secondary importance.

2. Highest authority wanted the matter investigated and settled, fast!

Within hours, N3 had jumped into Tibet to pick up the trail of his mysterious double. In India the path ran through streets thronged with those seeking the fortune offered in reward for Nick Carter’s arrest. It led to the remote Pakistani border region where Nick found the fuse which, once ignited in India, would set off a holocaust that would destroy all the nations of the East.

After a harrowing experience in Bosnia, war photographer Mitch Coltrane makes a vow. From now on, he will take only those pictures that celebrate life and document hope instead of despair. Then the horrors of his previous assignment return to threaten him, and Coltrane must seek refuge from the present in the past. Having uncovered an old, uncaptioned photograph of a hauntingly beautiful woman, Coltrane sets out to discover who the woman was, and why her photo was hidden in the vault of a world-famous art photographer. Soon he finds himself hopelessly obsessed with the woman in the photograph and slipping into a maze of deception and treachery. Surrounded by illusions of the past and present, Coltrane now must fight for his life in the world capital of make-believe: a decadent and deadly L.A…

In a world where nothing is as it seems, who can you trust?

TESS GERRITSEN'S

Never Say Die

Willy Jane Maitland traveled to Saigon to uncover what had happened to her father, missing in action twenty years ago. Instead she found intrigue – and murder. Only the rumpled and irreverent ex-soldier Guy Barnard seemed willing to help. But as Willy was about to discover, even Guy had his hidden motives, his shocking secrets… and Vietnam was a dangerous place to fall in love.

DEBRA WEBB'S

No Way Back

Michal Arad wanted vengeance when he kidnapped former CIA agent Ami Donovan, claiming she'd posed as his lover to set him up as an assassin. But Ami had amnesia and no way of knowing the truth… until Michal took her in his arms. In spite of her fear, Ami sensed Michal wasn't a ruthless killer, but the man she'd once loved… and the father of her child.

A riveting classic of American crime fiction.

Originally part of a collaborative project with photographer David Goldblatt, Double Negative is a subtle triptych that captures the ordinary life of Neville Lister during South Africa's extraordinary revolution. Ivan Vladislavic lays moments side by side like photographs on a table. He lucidly portrays a city and its many lives through reflections on memory, art, and what we should really be seeking.

Ivan Vladislavic is the author of a number of prize-winning fiction and nonfiction books. He currently lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

One minute, down and out actor Lorenzo Smythe was -- as usual -- in a bar, drinking away his troubles as he watched his career go down the tubes. Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars.

Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake -- failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe's own life was on the line -- for if he wasn't assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!

Lorenzo Smythe, acteur sans emploi, est tout disposé à accepter n’importe quoi. y compris le verre que lui offre un homme qu’il sait cependant venir de l’espace.

Cette rencontre dans un bar lui vaudra le plus grand rôle de sa carrière : « doubler » John J. Bonforte, le chef de la coalition politico-expansionniste, l’homme le plus aimé, et le plus haï, du Système Solaire !

Mais cela, Lorenzo ne le découvrira qu’enlevé à bord d’un astronef en route pour Mars. Il se voit alors, dans un cauchemar terrible pour un acteur, de simple « doublure » devenir un véritable « double », pris dans la peau de son rôle comme dans un engrenage…

Et entraîné dans un conflit interplanétaire aux conséquences imprévisibles. C’est de son talent d’acteur à s’identifier complétement avec le personnage auquel il ne peut plus échapper, que dépend le sort de neuf planètes.

This gripping novel explores the effects of violence on the journalists and artists who have dedicated themselves to representing it.

In the aftermath of September 11, reeling from the effects of reporting from New York City, two British journalists, a writer, Stephen Sharkey, and a photographer, Ben Frobisher, part ways. Stephen returns to England shattered; he divorces his duplicitous wife and quits his job. Ben follows the war on terror to Afghanistan and is killed.

Stephen retreats to a cottage in the country to write a book about violence, and what he sees as the reporting journalist's or photographer's complicity in it. Ben's widow, Kate, a sculptor, lives nearby, and as she and Stephen learn about each other their world speedily shrinks, in pleasing but also disturbing ways. The sinister events that begin to take place in this small town, so far from the theaters of war Stephen has retreated from, will force him to act instinctively, violently, and to face his most painful revelations about himself.

Это книга является энциклопедией. Эта книга – СПРАВОЧНИК, а не роман.

Лучший способ пользоваться ей – это прочитать ее и определить, что тебе больше всего понравилось, а также все идеи, техники, над которыми ты хотел бы поработать и улучшить. Потом возьми эти части книги и выпиши куда-нибудь или распечатай, чтобы ты мог их периодически просматривать и практиковаться.

WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN?

They died quickly, one after another. First was Joel Caulkins, "Wise Owl" reporter with the New York Classic, murdered just as he was about to name his executioner. Then came Philip Farmington, millionaire and international banker: dead of a poisoned cigar. The list grew daily as each of the victims received a note warning of his impending death, signed by the killer: "Double Z".

Clearly, Double Z was a man of his word… a gamesman with a zest for killing and a homicidal sense of humor. But the only laughter these days was the eerie echo of THE SHADOW, master crimefighter on call for the most challenging case of his career.

Originally published in SHADOW Magazine, Volume II, Number 5, June 1932.

Ce court roman fut publié un mois après Les Pauvres Gens. Il reçut un accueil mitigé dans le public, maints lecteurs se plaignaient de ses longueurs, quelques critiques dénoncèrent une trop nette imitation de Gogol. Cependant Biélinski insistait sur la portée sociale de ce roman et il lui consacra un article dans lequel il caractérisait Goliadkine comme «un de ces hommes prêts à s'offenser, maniaques de leur ambition, que l'on trouve souvent dans les classes moyennes et basses. Il lui semble toujours qu'on le vise par certaines paroles, certains regards, certains gestes, qu'on le circonvient et qu'on trame contre lui des intrigues et des sapes souterraines». Le critique dit même qu'il trouvait dans Le Double «encore plus de talent créateur et de profondeur de pensée que dans Les Pauvres Gens.» Dostoïevski avait l'intention de remanier de fond en comble cette nouvelle, mais n'en a pas eu le temps. Goliadkine devait y devenir un fouriériste faisant partie du cercle de Pétrachevski. Il aurait eu l'ambition de se mettre à la tête d'une révolte et son double aurait été l'espion qui trahirait les révolutionnaires. On peut regretter que ce projet ne se soit pas réalisé. Dostoïevski écrit lui-même, en 1877, dans son Journal d'un Écrivain: «Cette nouvelle ne m'a pas du tout réussi, mais son idée avait été assez claire, et je n'ai jamais introduit une idée plus grave dans la littérature. Cependant la forme de cette nouvelle a très mal réussi.»

Norman Mailer was one of the giants of American letters and one of the most celebrated public figures of his time. He was a novelist, journalist, biographer, and filmmaker; a provocateur and passionate observer of his times; and a husband, father, and serial philanderer.

Perhaps nothing characterized Mailer more than his unbounded ambition. He wanted not merely to be the greatest writer of his generation, but a writer great enough to be compared to Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. As Michael Lennon describes, he even had presidential ambitions, although he settled for running for mayor of New York City. He championed personal freedom and civil liberties, calling himself a “left conservative,” and yet he was Enemy #1 of the Women’s Movement. He was as pugnacious in real life as in print, engaging in famous feuds and fights. Although he considered himself first and foremost a novelist, his greatest literary contribution may have been in journalism, where he used his novelistic gifts in tandem with self-revelation to explore the American psyche. In that regard, the subtitle of his Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning Armies of the Night is telling: “History as a Novel, the Novel as History.” He would return to certain subjects obsessively: John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, sex, technology, and the intricate relationship of fame and identity. Michael Lennon’s definitive biography captures Mailer in all his sharp complexities and shows us how he self-consciously invented and reinvented himself throughout his lifetime.

Michael Lennon knew Mailer for thirty-five years, and in writing this biography, he has had the cooperation of Mailer’s late widow, Norris Church, his ex-wives, and all of his children, as well as his sister, Barbara. He also had access to Mailer’s vast, unpublished correspondence and papers, and he interviewed dozens of people who knew Mailer. Norman Mailer: A Double Life gives us the man in full, a remarkable and unique figure in the context of his times.

The Double, written in Dostoevsky’s youth, was a sharp turn away from the realism of his first novel,Poor Folk.The first real expression of his genius,The Doubleis a surprisingly modern hallucinatory nightmare in which a minor official named Goliadkin becomes aware of a mysterious doppelgänger–a man who has his name and his face and who gradually and relentlessly begins to displace him with his friends and colleagues. In the dilemma of this increasingly paranoid hero, Dostoevsky makes vividly concrete the inner disintegration of consciousness that would become a major theme of his work.

Laurel Estabrook works at a homeless shelter in Burlington, Vermont, helping her clients get off the street and into homes. Somewhat reserved, possibly due to being violently attacked while biking alone in college, she’s absorbed by her hobby of photography. Her boss asks her to look at the photographs taken by one of their former clients, and the photos reveal an amazing talent but also suggest links to Laurel ’s own past.

The book is scattered with actual photographs taken by a once-homeless man that inspired the author to consider why someone with incredible talent might become homeless. The Double Bind considers the question of homelessness and mental illness with sensitivity. The fictional photographs described in the novel tell Laurel as much about herself as they do about the photographer, and set her on a path that will change her life. The Great Gatsby plays a prominent role in all of this: Fitzgerald’s characters and plot lines are taken to be true, and affect present-day characters.

Chris Bohjalian has written several successful novels, including previous bestseller and Oprah’s Book Club selection Midwives. In his latest effort, Bohjalian masterfully weaves fact and fiction, writing and photography, sanity and delusion into a tale that’s compelling and lingers in your thoughts. The Double Bind is a must-read.

The delightful new installment in Alexander McCall Smith's beloved and best-selling series finds Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi traveling to the north of Botswana, to the stunning Okavango Delta, to visit a safari lodge where there have been several unexplained and troubling events-including the demise of one of the guests.

When the two ladies of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency arrive at the Okavango Delta, their eyes are opened, as if for the first time, to the natural beauty of their homeland. With teeming wildlife, endless grasslands, and sparkling rivulets of water running in every direction, it is breathtaking.

But they can't help being drawn into a world filled with other wildlife: rival safari operators, discontented guides, grumpy hippopotamuses. On top of that, the date has still not been set for Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti's wedding, and it's safe to say that Mma Makutsi is beginning to grow a bit impatient. And to top it all off, the impossible has happened: one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's apprentices has gotten married… Of course none of this defeats the indomitable Precious Ramotswe. Good sense, kindness, and copious quantities of red bush tea carry the day. As they always do.

They are the most valuable coins on earth…

Only a handful still exist, each one worth millions…

Now they have vanished from an impenetrable fortress… and the killings have begun.

Somehow, impossibly, someone has invaded Fort Knox and stolen five of the world's last remaining Double Eagles — the $20 gold coin ordered destroyed by President Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Now, one has resurfaced during an autopsy in France — in the stomach of a murdered priest.

Disgraced FBI agent Jennifer Browne needs to recover the priceless coins to resuscitate her stalled career — and her investigation is pointing her toward Tom Kirk, a brilliant international art thief who wants to get out of the game. But Kirk's only chance for freedom — and survival — is to find the missing coins, joining Browne, an unlikely ally, on a breakneck race across the globe and into the lethal heart of a shocking conspiracy of greed and power… and death.

A man is pushed from a cliff; a woman is missing after a bike ride; an elderly man is washed ashore.

The friends are closer than most – too close, some might say. Every year they leave their cosy suburban neighbourhood to go on holiday together to a remote Swedish island. But this year, their holiday won't go as expected. A terrible series of tragedies will unfold, seemingly random, all somehow connected.

Detective Superintendent Anders Knutas will have to look into the friends' tangled pasts to find the truth. What malevolent force has followed them to the island? Or was it amongst them all along? Even the closest friends don't share everything…

Chet Logan, known as the Axe Killer, escapes from custody while being escorted to jail. Disguised as a police officer, he meets up with movie writer Perry Weston and persuades him to drive to Weston’s remote fishing lodge. Once there, and somewhat to Weston’s surprise, Logan agrees to talk about his life and how he came to murder six people.

The police become suspicious and put a watch on the lodge. Then Weston’s wayward wife visits him and promises a fresh start. Logan wants money and a chance to start again...

Can either of them deliver or will Weston and Logan share a double funeral?

История превращения человека в Бога с одновременным разоблачением бессмысленности данного процесса, демонстрирующая монструозность любой попытки преодолеть свою природу. Одновременно рассматриваются различные аспекты существования миров разных возможностей: миры без любви и без свободы, миры боли и миры чувственных удовольствий, миры абсолютной свободы от всего, миры богов и черт знает чего, — и в каждом из них главное — это оставаться тем, кто ты есть, не изменять самому себе.

…Я жду выноса тела Жозе Матиаса – Жозе Матиаса де Албукерке, племянника виконта де Гармилде… – такой изысканный молодой человек, белокурый, как пшеничный колос, с закрученными вверх усами странствующего рыцаря и слабо очерченным безвольным ртом. Истинный дворянин, с утонченным и строгим вкусом. И пытливым умом, одержимым важнейшими идеями века и таким острым, что постиг мою «Защиту гегельянской философии». Этот образ Жозе Матиаса относится к 1865 году, так как последний раз я столкнулся с ним морозным январским вечером в одном из подъездов па улице Сан-Бенто; он был одет в медового цвета изорванный на локтях сюртук, дрожал от холода, и от него отвратительно пахло водкой…

Жозе Моуринью – один из самых харизматичных и противоречивых профессионалов в современном футболе, с именем которого связаны не только многочисленные победы, но и многочисленные скандалы. Автор книги – главный футбольный обозреватель «Ньюс оф зе уорлд» и главный спортивный корреспондент «Сан» – друг Моуринью и его биограф. Он представляет читателю Жозе настоящего – такого, каким его знают лишь немногие близкие друзья и родные. Р. Бизли также позволяет заглянуть за кулисы самых знаменитых клубов, знакомит с подробностями непростых отношений Моуринью с Романом Абрамовичем, Рафаэлем Бенитесом и тренером «Арсенала» Арсеном Венгером и объясняет, почему легендарный футбольный тренер всегда ставит семью и друзей выше футбола…