Classic Batten--on the rocks Jazz. Cocaine. Vietnamese triads. Dope-dealing yuppie lawyers. Jack Batten's got them all in his second mystery novel starring Crang, the unconventional criminal lawyer with a taste for straight vodka and a nose for trouble. This time out Crang is hired by his buddy Dave Goddard, a sax player whose playing style is from the fifties, but whose unwitting involvement in a complex coke-smuggling ring is pure eighties. Crang's friendly offer to help Dave find out who is tailing him takes a reluctant sleuth into a series of unlikely locales: behind the scenes at Toronto's oh-so-chic film festival; into a triad-run afterhours boozecan; and into the gang's inner sanctum, the office of Big Bam, the ring's genial but deadly kingpin. No one could ever accuse Crang of being a superhero, but with his usual mixture of innate cool and naive enthusiasm he brings the villains to justice and readers to the end of a cleverly entertaining romp that leavesAbout the AuthorJack Batten, after a brief and unhappy career as a lawyer, has been a very happy Toronto freelance writer for many years. He has written thirty five books including four crime novels featuring Crang, the unorthodox criminal lawyer who has a bad habit of stumbling on murders that need his personal attention. Batten reviewed jaz for The Globe and Mail for several years, reviewed movies on CBC Radio for twenty-five-years, and now reviews crime novels for The Toronto Star. Not Surprisingly, jazz, movies and crime turn up frequently in Crang's life. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Fenk's face was the color of a Santa Claus suit. His mouth was slack, and his eyes popped in a way that made the irises seem smaller and the white parts larger. He didn't look as bad-tempered in death as in life. He looked scared. The cord must have hurt like hell."Oh my God.""What the matter?" James asked, holding position at the door."Nothing that's part of your job," I answered James.I opened the saxophone case. No strap. I looked back at Fenk. The strap was buried in his neck, the strap that held Dave Goddard's saxophone when he played it.

Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Italian Renaissance, this alternate history takes place in a world where faith-based magic exists In Damiano, our hero is Damiano Dalstrego. He is a wizard's son, an alchemist, and the heir to dark magics. But he is also an innocent, a young scholar and musician befriended by the Archangel Raphael, who instructs him in the lute. To save his beloved city from war, Damiano leaves his cloistered life and sets out on a pilgrimage, seeking the aid of the powerful sorceress Saara as he walks the narrow path between light and shadow, accompanied only by his talking dog. But his road is filled with betrayal, disillusionment, and death, and Damiano is forced to confront his dark heritage, unleashing the hellish force of his awesome powers to protect those he loves. In Damiano's Lute, shattered by the demonic fury of his dark powers, Damiano Delstrego has forsaken his magical heritage to live as a mortal man....

Godwin follows his brash and brittle satire, Waiting for the Galactic Bus , with an all-out attack on evangelists. Elaborating on Galactic 's premise that intelligent life on Earth resulted from the caprices of two bored, alien schoolboys, Barion and Coyul, this sequel proposes an afterlife vaguely modeled on Christian visions of heaven and hell. Preacher Lance Candor throws a bomb at Coyul, whom many humans suppose to be the Devil. The ensuing trial becomes a media event, a circus of demagoguery and a forum for Godwin's mouthpieces to argue that any intrusion of the church into affairs of state violates the freedoms granted by the American Constitution. Godwin's tart humor resonates through his burgeoning cast of caricatures and celebrity walk-ons: a barely disguised L. Ron Hubbard is incarnated as an answering machine; Dorothy Parker ghost-writes the autobiography of a Tammy Bakker stand-in; and prosecutor Abraham Lincoln, incognito here as Joshua Speed (and described as "an ugly Henry Fonda"), calls Jesus as an expert witness.

The stunning sequel to The Pride of Lions!In a novel that sizzles with passionate intrigue and breathtaking romance, Marsha Canham whisks the reader back to war-torn Scotland as a legendary warrior fights for the two things most precious to any man: his country and the woman he loves.She was born an Englishwoman, but he made her a Scot, pledged to fight for her beloved husband--even against the country of her birth.Catherine Ashbrooke Cameron had committed the unpardonable sin of falling in love with her husband--a Scottish spy she married in her English home. Now, as she raced to the Highlands, into the strong, tender arms of Alexander Cameron, the innocent English beauty would learn the passions of war--and the price of love . . . .He fought to keep her safe as he battled the English enemy--and betrayal from within.Alexander Cameron was a man with a price on his head and enemies to burn. Love had made the legendary warrior...

Special Author’s Cut Updated Edition Originally Published as a Silhouette Intimate MomentsReviews: "Will give a lift to your day and steam up your nights..." Romantic TimesAwards: RWA Golden Heart Award WinnerCameron Smith, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, was not the kind of businessman who personally dealt with violently emerging third world countries, yet that’s where he found himself.Acasia Jones, a hostage retrieval expert, had known Cameron since they were teenagers. Their friendship had been accidental and immediate and love quickly followed. But fate had steered them apart, and only now, 16 years later, did it force them back together in the midst of machine gun fire and a race for survival in the South American rainforest. Would he understand her life choices and the terrifying experiences on which they were based? Would she allow him to bridge her protective barriers? Or would their love remain elusive… like WATER FROM THE MOON?

Teresa Danville, raised in Costa Rica by her “black sheep” father, presents a challenge to the diplomatic skills of Sir Andrew Graylin. Niece of an English duke, Teresa was not raised to London society, but to wielding pistols and overseeing a coffee plantation household. Bringing this exotic beauty (along with her brother and her parrot) to civilization gets the previously affianced Sir Andrew in deep trouble. Regency Romance by Carola Dunn; originally published by Walker

Solip:System begins shortly before the ending of Hardwired and continues beyond that point. In Solip:System, the main character is the computer personality Reno (a minor character in Hardwired). The author intended that this book would provide a link between Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind.

He was the last man...Suzannah Lightfoot was alone in the world, without a job or the means to support herself. So when Guy Bowers-Bentinck came to the rescue, she had to accept his help.Guy was hardly a knight in shining armor. He was arrogant, infuriating and bad tempered! He was also difficult to avoid. Even worse, he seemed to have assumed that Suzannah was about to join the ranks of all those females wanting to marry him. What was a girl to do? Make a run for it?

In Glasgow one summer evening a young woman is frightened ... longing for the darkness which she can clutch to her like a comfort blanket.The man who will kill her when he sees her is in the city somewhere. She knows this because she has seen his car cruising in the grid system, and she knows he knows where to find her because she stands every evening in an alley off Blythswood Street. The woman is just twenty-one years old. It is her death that will trigger P Division’s latest investigation. She was found at l0.00pm, the knife still in her throat. She was a heroin addict and had the words `I belong to Dino' tattooed on her groin. They were the only clues. Yet as the police interviewed anyone in any way connected with her, combed the area, collated evidence, they began to build up a picture of the dead girl, her associates, family, lifestyle, which led to the arrest of a vicious murderer who had killed and would kill again.

From Publishers WeeklyBiological anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detectivemost recently featured in the Edgar-winning Old Bones heads down to the Yucatan to the archeological dig of Tlaloc, where five years previously he had been witness to the theft, by the project leader, of a priceless Mayan codex. After the scandal, the Mexican government closed the dig for several years but is now allowing work to resume under the direction of Gideon's old friend and mentor, Abe Goldstein. When Gideon and his wife, Julie, arrive to study some old bones, some recent remains make their appearance. A freelance reporter who is writing a sensational series on the dig and the theft is shot. Then the codex and a body are found under a rock fall; the victim turns out to be the main suspect. Most of the members of the current expedition, amateurs working without pay, are now under suspicion. While Gideon renews his friendship with the testy inspector of the Yucatan police, copes with an ancient Mayan curse and exercises his artful detective powers, he comes close to being killed himself. Elkins provides another delightful, semiserious romp through science and an exotic police culture. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalReturning to the site of an archaeological dig at Tlaloc on the Yucutan Peninsula, physical anthropologist Gideon Oliver is confronted with mysterious events from the distant and not-so-distant past as well as the present. Closed five years earlier amid scandal when the then project director apparently absconded with a priceless Mayan codex, the dig had recently resumed only to disclose some unauthorized excavation and an ancient curse, the details of which are being methodically fulfilled in graphic detail. Oliver and his wife, Julie, join forces with the local police to uncover the truth about what happened five years ago and its connection with the current problem. A well-written effort, perfect for an evening's entertainment.- Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Nebula Best Novellette nominee (1990)

Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood “Ish” Williams, Emma, and the community they founded. The survivors live off the remains of the old world, while learning to adapt to the new. Along the way they are forced to make tough decisions and choose what kind of civilization they will rebuild. Earth Abides won the inaugural International Fantasy Award in 1951. It was included in Locus Magazine’s list of best All Time Science Fiction in 1987 and 1998 and was a nominee to be entered into the Prometheus Hall of Fame. In November 1950, it was adapted for the CBS radio program Escape as a two-part drama starring John Dehner. The book earned much praise from James Sallis, writing in the Boston Globe: FB2Library.Elements.CiteItem

FREEDOM’S GAMBLE For nearly a century, a wasted and savaged America has struggled to rise from the radioactive ashes of a Russian thermonuclear sneak attack. And one man has led the desperate fight to free a once-great nation from the enslaving clutches of the brutal Red Army invaders. He is Ted Rockson—the Doomsday Warrior! Killov, the insane leader of the KGB, is alive and planning the final annihilation of America. To achieve his terrifying goal, the Soviet death-monger enlists the aid of an overwhelming horde of Libyan cultists, determined to destroy the U.S. . . . or die! America’s last hope lies with the Doomsday Warrior, as Rockson and a handful of FreeFighters race to the heart of the Dark Continent for an explosive African showdown. But even with the help of an entire force of Bombassa warriors, Rockson’s taking an incredible gamble by facing the lion in its own den. For a jungle defeat for the forces of freedom could set the entire nuclear-blasted world on fire! DOOMSDAY WARRIOR

When an Earth ship enters a star system that should have been devoid of life, the crew discovers millions of aliens living in small space habitats. And if these strange creatures manage to steal Earth's faster-than-light drive technology, they will make Machiavelli look like a kindergartner. **