December 9, 2011
When one is born in December, it’s tough to keep your birthday from getting schmushed into the other holidays that have a firm grasp on the month. Thus I drop into a mode each year where I extend celebrating as long as possible. With my birthday falling smack in the middle of the week this year, I kicked off this mission last weekend in Atlanta with a visit to my sister. She’s an amazing artist and jewelry designer, and it’s always a treat to see what she has been creating. Her entire home has hand-crafted pieces that are stunning, and she “does” Christmas around her house with a verve and energy that wowed but did not surprise me.
Editorial Content for Vigilante
Reviewer (text)
VIGILANTE, the final book in the Shane Scully series due to the untimely passing of Stephen J. Cannell in 2010, has the distinction of presenting one of the best opening paragraphs and one of the best closing paragraphs you are likely to encounter in a crime novel this year. Both earn that accolade for entirely different reasons: the first paragraph will intrigue you, suck you in and keep you reading, while the final paragraph… well, it says it all, in just a few words. Read More
Promo
In the last novel by acclaimed producer and New York Times bestselling author Stephen J. Cannell, LAPD detective Shane Scully and his partner Summer Hitchens investigate crime with ties to the sometimes violent world of reality TV.
About the Book
Lita Mendez was a thorn in the LAPD's side. An aggressive police critic and gang activist, she’d filed countless complaints against the department. So when she's found dead in her home, Detective Scully and his partner Hitchens fear the worst: that there's a killer in their ranks.
Outside the crime scene, Nixon Nash and his television crew have set up shop. Nash is the charismatic host of a hit reality show called "Vigilante TV," dedicated to beating the cops at their own game: solving murders before they can. Now he has the murder of Lita Mendez in his sights. He presents the detectives with a choice: either join his team, or prepare for a public takedown.
But Scully knows that Nash isn't the folk-hero he seems. He will do anything in the name of self-promotion. If a detective got in his way, would he be prepared to kill? In this new novel, Scully will have to risk everything save himself and the job he loves.
Editorial Content for London Under
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
Peter Ackroyd's massive, energetic LONDON: A BIOGRAPHY was a huge hit when it was published a decade ago, outlining the strange and fascinating history of this sprawling, ancient city. It was also a huge book, weighing in at over 800 pages. Now Ackroyd follows up that blockbuster with a slim but no less fascinating volume on "the secret history beneath the streets."
"Anyone who reads LONDON UNDER will come away from the book with their own vision of this historic city both deepened and transformed."
Teaser
LONDON UNDER is a short and comprehensive study of everything that goes on underground in London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern tube stations. Spanning throughout history, Peter Ackroyd reveals stories and secrets of this hidden world.
Promo
LONDON UNDER is a short and comprehensive study of everything that goes on underground in London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts and modern tube stations. Spanning throughout history, Peter Ackroyd reveals stories and secrets of this hidden world.
About the Book
LONDON UNDER is a wonderful, atmospheric, imaginative, oozing short study of everything that goes on under London, from original springs and streams and Roman amphitheaters to Victorian sewers, gang hideouts, and modern tube stations. The depths below are hot, warmer than the surface, and this book tunnels down through the geological layers, meeting the creatures, real and fictional, that dwell in darkness --- rats and eels, monsters and ghosts. When the Underground’s Metropolitan Line was opened in 1864, the guards asked for permission to grow beards to protect themselves against the sulfurous fumes, and named their engines after tyrants --- Czar, Kaiser, Mogul --- and even Pluto, god of the underworld.
To go under London is to penetrate history, to enter a hidden world. As Ackroyd puts it, “The vastness of the space, a second earth, elicits sensations of wonder and of terror. It partakes of myth and dream in equal measure.”
