Adult

In 1962, two students meet one evening during their senior year at Harvard --- Ed, a Jewish kid on scholarship, and Hugh, a Boston Brahmin with the world at his feet. Ed is ambitious and girl-crazy, while Hugh pines for the one girl he's ever loved. An immediate, intense friendship is sparked that night between these two opposites, which ends just as abruptly, several years later, although only one of them understands why.

Summer brings good business to Annie Darling’s mystery bookstore, Death on Demand, as tourists swarm in, searching for the latest beach read. But July 4th brings its own mystery as first one and then another islander disappears. Annie and her husband, Max, soon find themselves following a twisted trail marked by adultery, blackmail and betrayal as they pursue a cold-blooded killer in the dog days of summer.

Eight-year-old Havaa watches as Russian soldiers abduct her father, accusing him of aiding Chechen rebels. She and her friend, Akhmed, seek refuge at the abandoned hospital where the sole remaining doctor, Sonja Rabina, treats the wounded while mourning her missing sister. Over the course of five extraordinary days, Sonja's world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weave together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate.

Mike Hammer accompanies a conservative politician to Moscow on a fact-finding mission. Arrested and imprisoned by the KGB on a bogus charge, he quickly escapes, creating an international incident by getting into a fire fight with Russian agents. On his stateside return, the government is none too happy with Hammer. Russia is insisting upon his return to stand charges, and various government agencies are following him. A question dogs our hero: why him?

Along the Mississippi River, in a Depression-era stadium, young prospects from all over the world compete for a chance to move up through the baseball ranks to the major leagues. Award-winning essayist Lucas Mann turns his eye on the players, the coaches, the fans, the radio announcer, the town, and finally on himself, a young man raised on baseball, driven to know what still draws him to the stadium.

From Templar Knights to Mexican drug cartels and everywhere in between, young journalist Adam Blackwood digs into the mysterious death of the world’s foremost Templar historian and unearths an ancient evil that threatens to consume both him and all those around him.

In 2008, a counter-terrorist operation was mounted by an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, so secret even the Minister’s personal secretary, Toby Bell, was not cleared for it. In 2011, a disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be --- or a ruthlessly covered-up human tragedy? Toby might have the answer, and he must choose between his conscience and his duty.

This comprehensive manual covers the methods, technologies, thought processes and judgments that a director must use throughout the fascinating process of making a film. The core of the book is the human, psychological and technical knowledge that every director needs, the enduring elements of the craft that remain vital.