San Francisco Noir 2

San Francisco Noir 2

Peter Maravelis

Fiction / Short Stories / Mystery

Classic reprints from: Ambrose Bierce, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Jack London, Dashiell Hammett, Fletcher Flora, Bill Pronzini, Joe Gores, Janet Dawson, Oscar Peñaranda, Seth Morgan, Craig Clevenger, and others.Peter Maravelis is a native San Franciscan with a life-long involvement in the art and literary scenes. He programs the events calendar at City Lights Bookstore and is editor of the first volume of San Francisco Noir. He’s been known to occasionally moonlight with private investigators.From Publishers WeeklyThis classics entry in Akashic's noir anthology series boasts an impressive roster of names, including such standard authors as Mark Twain, Jack London, Ambrose Bierce and Dashiell Hammett. Unsurprisingly, Hammett, one of the fathers of American hard-boiled fiction, supplies the best story, The Scorched Face, which sets his Continental Op on the trail of two missing women. Marcia Muller's Deceptions makes good use of the Golden Gate Bridge's appeal to potential suicides in a short but gripping exploit of her series PI, Sharon McCone. Readers looking for lesser-known talent will welcome Janet Dawson's Invisible Time, which presents a grim view of life on the streets for two young people. Don Herron's gritty Knives in the Dark, with its Chandler-like plot line, convincingly depicts Prohibition-era tough guys. As usual, the overall caliber of the writing in this reprint volume is superior to the average all-original book in the series. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the AuthorPeter Maravelis is a native San Franciscan with a life-long involvement in the art and literary scenes. He programs the events calendar at City Lights Bookstore and is editor of the first volume of San Francisco Noir. He?s been known to occasionally moonlight with PIs. He was the editor of the first volume of San Francisco Noir.
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Alligator Playground

Alligator Playground

Alan Sillitoe

Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

From one of England's greatest living writers comes a new collection of exquisitely formed stories set in life's great playground.Relationships -- clandestine and legitimate -- are the theme: boorish chaps and their stalwart women ululate and hum; marriages and infidelities tick-tock and tick over; Fitzrovian passion flares; strong men turn to drink. Love, sex, loss, are captured in Mr Sillitoe's inimitable style.As well as the general theme of the union of the sexes, we have inspired insights into birth, boyhood, bereavement and aloneness in a collection of perfectly narrated observations, in which the reader participates in each extraordinary experience.
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Kings: Chaos Book 5.5

Kings: Chaos Book 5.5

Claire Farrell

Science Fiction & Fantasy / Young Adult / Short Stories

Set between books five and six in the Chaos series, Kings is a brief look into the lives of Drake and Brendan.After sealing the rift, Drake hears word of his wife’s sickness only to find that the cause is exactly what unites his enemies against him.Brendan’s journey across unexplored waters is only beginning, and if he finds what he’s looking for, he’ll owe a determined woman a throne by his side. But can he do it?Whatever course of action is taken next, they will change their world.
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The Doctor's House

The Doctor's House

Ann Beattie

Literature & Fiction / Short Stories

An ear for language of the highest order, profound compassion for characters, an eye for the smallest shifts in the cultural landscape, and a preternatural understanding of motivation and behavior -- Ann Beattie's renowned storytelling abilities, for which she won the 2000 PEN/Bernard Malamud Prize, are on dazzling display in The Doctor's House.We open this novel to a woman's account of her brother's sexual appetites and his betrayals of his lovers, which he has a need to confess to his sister. Nina, a reclusive copy editor, should have better things to do than to track Andrew's escapades. Since her husband's tragic death, she has become solitary and defensive -- and as compulsive about her brother as he is about sex.When the first movement ends, the melody is taken up by their mother. New shadows and new light fall on Nina's account as painful secrets of life in the house of their father, the doctor's house, emerge. In the dramatic third movement, the brother gives ...
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Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down

Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down

Anne Valente

Short Stories / Magical Realism / Fiction

The lives of four teenagers are capsized by a shocking school shooting and its aftermath in this powerful debut novel, a coming-of-age story with the haunting power of Station Eleven and the bittersweet poignancy of Everything I Never Told You.As members of the yearbook committee, Nick, Zola, Matt, and Christina are eager to capture all the memorable moments of their junior year at Lewis and Clark High School—the plays and football games, dances and fund-drives, teachers and classes that are the epicenter of their teenage lives. But how do you document a horrific tragedy—a deadly school shooting by a classmate? Struggling to comprehend this cataclysmic event—and propelled by a sense of responsibility to the town, their parents, and their school—these four "lucky" survivors vow to honor the memories of those lost, and also, the memories forgotten in the shadow of violence. But the shooting is only the first inexplicable trauma to rock their...
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Seeking the Balance

Seeking the Balance

A. R. Moler

Romance / M M Romance / Short Stories

Previously published with a different coverLt. Cameron Bradshaw is an adrenaline junkie. You have to be to be a navy fighter pilot. It would never occur to him that his new lover, Dr. Mason Flynn, would think buying a new motorcycle to replace the one that was destroyed in his near fatal accident, was an insanely stupid idea. A vicious argument, an opportunity to cheat and some mistaken assumptions lead to worry and stress between the two men. A dying patient and assignment in Boston leads Cam and Mason to making choices that are both uncomfortable and difficult.As Mason tries to come to terms with the concept of a patient he cannot save, seeing an old lover, and realizing that Cam Bradshaw's love for him may run deeper and stronger than he dared to hope all weave together into Mason working toward learning when it's time to let go of old fears.
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