Amazon.com ReviewFinancial chicanery is Stephen Frey's forte, and in his newest thriller (following The Insider and The Day Trader), he sets up one of the world's richest men and a young bank executive, who's trying to wrest custody of her son from her well-connected ex-husband, in a sting operation to expose blatant racism in the mortgage practices of a big Virginia financial institution. Angela Day, whose African American college roommate died in her arms after a racially motivated attack, is a gutsy and appealing woman whose life is turned upside down when she gets involved with Jake Lawrence, a billionaire with his own reasons for wanting to expose the corruption at the core of the bank that employs her. When he offers her the chance to get her son back, she plunges into a world of double-dealing where nothing and no one are what they seem and everyone's motives are suspect. Some of the coincidences strain credulity, and the characters are too one-dimensional to care about, but Frey makes the most of his convoluted plot and wraps up the details with an unexpected love story. --Jane AdamsFrom Publishers WeeklyVeteran financial thriller writer Frey (Trust Fund; Day Trader; etc.) returns with another novel of greed and intrigue set in the back corridors of finance. Angela Day, an up-from-the-trailer-park young executive on the fast track at Sumter Bank in Richmond, Va., is summoned to a Tetons hideaway, lair of the reclusive and powerful moneyman Jake Lawrence. Lawrence wants Day to help him take over Sumter Bank and oust Day's boss, chairman Bob Dudley. There is no love lost between Day and the despicable racist Dudley, who schemes to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods by denying them loans; helping Lawrence would mean lots of money and a golden career for Day. But it also puts her life in danger, and she finds herself carelessly used as a pawn by both men. Toss in a muckraking black reporter friend of Day's, whose presence stirs her guilt over the horrific death of a black schoolmate at a college frat party, and a cowboyish bodyguard (complete with ten-gallon hat and pocket flask), and you have the makings of a television movie. Frey is best describing the internecine workings of financial institutions and those who manipulate them, but it's hard to spin an exciting yarn out of mortgage applications, especially when a stereotyped cast of hopeful black homeowners is pitted against nasty Southern good ol' boys. Frey's unremarkable prose ("How could humans be so awful? Why couldn't they just get along?") doesn't help. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Welcome to Pride Street, where corgis run, men are in love, and mystery lurks just around the corner! There's trouble among the mums and lilies at Pride Street's favorite florist. The flower shop cat, Sapphire, has gone missing! Sure, show cat Sapphire is snooty and aloof, but she's also part of the neighborhood, and ill equipped for life on the streets. Danger lurks everywhere. The Pride Street animals are in an uproar, wondering who is next, and the trouble isn't over yet. There's a cat show to get through, and sinister plot to unravel, and something that's looking a lot like catnapping—and not the good kind—and maybe even murder. With the help of their humans and animal friends, corgi detectives Marsha and Klaus are on the case! The Pride Street Paranormal Cozy Mysteries are packed with cute dogs, quirky characters, and more color than a drag queen's makeup case. Filled with cozy...

The War of the Spider Queen explodes!From the burning sands of Anauroch to the limitless labyrinth of the Underdark, an epic quest for the very essence of the Spider Queen takes one startling turn after another. Powerful forces are at work to find answers to where Lolth has gone. She may return as something greater than she was, or she may have gone from her drow children forever, leaving them to their own devices in a chilling Condemnation...

*"Sometimes I wonder....Can a ghost find you, if she wants to?"* An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal, Second Glance begins in current-day Vermont, where an old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it\'s a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there\'s nothing spiritual about the property. Enter Ross Wakeman, a suicidal drifter who has put himself in mortal danger time and again. He\'s driven his car off a bridge into a lake. He\'s been mugged in New York City and struck by lightning in a calm country field. Yet despite his best efforts, life clings to him and pulls him ever deeper into the empty existence he cannot bear since his fiancée\'s death in a car crash eight years ago. Ross now lives only for the moment he might once again encounter the woman he loves. But in Comtosook, the only discovery Ross can lay claim to is that of Lia Beaumont, a skittish, mysterious woman who, like Ross, is on a search for something beyond the boundary separating life and death. Thus begins Jodi Picoult\'s enthralling and ultimately astonishing story of love, fate, and a crime of passion. Hailed by critics as a "master" storyteller (Washington Post), Picoult once again "pushes herself, and consequently the reader, to think about the unthinkable" *(Denver Post). Second Glance,* her eeriest and most engrossing work yet, delves into a virtually unknown chapter of American history -- Vermont\'s eugenics project of the 1920s and 30s -- to provide a compelling study of the things that come back to haunt us -- literally and figuratively. Do we love across time, or in spite of it?

Just why do humpback whales sing? That\'s the question that has marine behavioral biologist Nate Quinn and his crew poking, charting, recording, and photographing very big, wet, gray marine mammals. Until the extraordinary day when a whale lifts its tail into the air to display a cryptic message spelled out in foot-high letters: Bite me.Trouble is, Nate\'s beginning to wonder if he hasn\'t spent just a little too much time in the sun. \'Cause no one else on his team saw a thing -- not his longtime partner, Clay Demodocus; not their saucy young research assistant; not even the spliff-puffing white-boy Rastaman Kona (né Preston Applebaum). But later, when a roll of film returns from the lab missing the crucial tail shot -- and his research facility is trashed -- Nate realizes something very fishy indeed is going on.By turns witty, irreverent, fascinating, puzzling, and surprising, Fluke is Christopher Moore at his outrageous best.

Arriving home, warrior Andrew Ross discovered his castle ravaged by fire, his father and all who lived within its walls dead. Yet alive amidst the carnage was a woman with the face of an angel who claimed to have special powers. Had Andrew's enemy sent her to destroy him--or could she do as she claimed and wield her magic to uncover his enemy? Gwenellen Drummond had always struggled to control the mystical powers that ran in her family--until a spell gone awry brought her to the aid of a fierce Highland laird out for vengeance, and her true gift was revealed. But would she win Andrew's love and trust in time to save his clan...and his shattered soul?

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

His name is Myhr—rhymes with purr!—he's half-man, half-cat, and all-adventure, traveling the multi-verse with Terrin, a twisted wizard who's into techno-raves and obscene T-shirt art. Displaced from Earth by a travel spell gone bad, they're heading home, bouncing from one bizarre planet after another. Their latest hasty escape has landed them on a world with a lethal magic problem. While Myhr sings Beatle tunes for their supper, Terrin tries to get them an astral Plane road map - only there's a catch. All the magic has vanished from Rumpock City, along with nearly all the magicians, the catastrophe linked to an uncanny black fog that rolls through town each night. Trying to pick up clues, Myhr is picked up himself by the gorgeous lady Filima, a devious and not-so-very-bereaved widow in need of a fall-cat. It's up to Myhr to find where the magic went before Terrin's own powers are drained dry, leaving him worse than dead and the rest of the planet going to Hell in an express-mail handbasket.

Inquisitive twelve-year-old Alexa Daley is spending another summer in the walled town of Bridewell. This year, she is set on solving the mystery of what lies beyond the walls. Legend says the walls were built to keep out an unnamed evil that lurks in the forests and The Dark Hills. But what exactly is it that the townspeople are so afraid of? As Alexa begins to unravel the truth, pushing beyond the protective barrier she's lived behind all her life, she discovers a strange and ancient enchantment -- and exposes a danger that could destroy everything she holds dear.