The story of Jonah is sacred to all three Abrahamic faiths and remains a recognizable legend even in the most secularized corners of the West. And yet the maritime prophet's story has been trivialized as a quaint children's tale, his character has been blasted by unsympathetic commentators, and even his alleged tomb has now been destroyed by Islamic State militants who, in 2014, took the city of Mosul on the Nineveh Plains. Now that Nineveh is once again in the grip of tyrannical violence ...

The rarest lost book in history has been found, and stolen all over again, in Paris. Its pursuers include the most diabolical literary criminal in the world, Krisko Krillkin. The man who re-lost the masterpiece, bookseller Chester Quinn, is hopelessly overmatched. Luckily, into his life floats Circe Evans, granddaughter of Paris' most renowned and complacent detective, Homer Evans. Circe assembles a motley, fiercely loyal crew and leads a breakneck dash, strewn with murders, near-murders, ...

Josie Dobbs, sweet sixteen and beautiful, is everybody's angel. Or is she?Police chief Jim Otis, fired from the Chicago Police after an affair with an underage hooker, is a lost cause. Or is he?Josie has secrets nobody in little Hercules, Wisconsin, wants to uncover. Nobody but Jim Otis.In his last month on the job, the lame-duck chief must unravel the dark side of Josie Dobbs, or a young Marine could go to jail — and innocent people might die. Otis wades into a swamp ...

Is GiGi—Biggy's grandmother—a living repository of all past human adventures, or is she a liar? And will she keep shrinking until she disappears forever from the wonderful book-smelling room in her house on Lake StreetGiGi has told Biggy that she's a thousand years old and that she went through the looking glass with Alice. She was a Spanish princess captured off a galleon by Blackbeard and she was a G.I. at the liberation of Auschwitz. She knew the Brothers Grimm and she was with ...

Where the hell is Carrie Crowfoot? Jim Otis, police chief of Hercules, Wis., doesn't know. But he suspects that the disappearance of the popular high-school cheerleader connects somehow to his nemesis, teenage femme fatale, Josie Dobbs. But Josie has left town for college in Philadelphia. How does a scheming seductress in Philly pull off an abduction a thousand miles away? Meanwhile, how can Jim Otis — who does NOT understand women — cope with all the other women in his life? His "trouble"...

Complexity has met its match!Today, every leader and organisation grapples with unprecedented complexity. Some thrive in these situations while the vast majority do not.Now updated for a post-Covid world, David Benjamin and David Komlos share their cutting-edge, highly-engaging step-by-step formula for rapidly cracking incredibly knotty and important challenges, by involving and mobilizing all the right people-no matter where they are-to co-create solutions...

Something is rotten at Hercules High School. Student Heather Sundergard has been caught cheating on the state's most prestigious scholarship exam. One of Heather's teachers, Carol Demeter, has been implicated—and fired by the school board. But Carol happens to be police chief Jim Otis. fiancée. Otis sees the fine hand in this scam of teenage femme fatale Josie Dobbs. But Josie's "back east," in college.Or is she?Jim Otis' struggle to exonerate Carol sends him into ...

Fat Vinny, the most repulsive eighth-grader in the history of Tomah, is in love.He has chosen as the apple of his eye the wrongest girl he could possibly pursue. Worse than that, he has decided to involve in his sexual awakening the only kid on earth whom he can call "friend."Fat Vinny's weird romance, accompanied by disgusting poetry, drags our hero, seventh-grade Benjamin, into a world of sex where he doesn't want to go. He has enough troubles already.Father Finuc...

David Benjamin pays homage to the exuberance of countless untamed boys who grew up in Middle America at mid-century.Whether he's stalking snakes in the bogs of Wisconsin, playing four-kid baseball with his bothersome little brother and two favorite cousins, leaping garbage cans for a beautiful little redheaded girl, or joining Chucky Dutcher for a movie marathon at the Erwin Theater, Benjamin is the kind of precocious ironist who would have found a sidekick in Huck Finn.His...

Burning crosses on lawns and swastikas on Jewish graves?These are outrages wildly out of place in neighborly Hercules, Wis. But when a rash of hate crimes strikes, villagers turn to ex-police chief Jim Otis for help. Trouble is, after a scandal over a high-school cheerleader, Jim's no longer a cop. The crimes spiral beyond the new police chief's control. Suspicion focuses on Norman Klinghofer, who lives quietly in a historic family compound atop Bastard's Bluff. When Norman is fing...

For a kid named Cribbsy, the month of November, 1963, was a private train wreck weeks before JFK undertook his fatal motorcade in Dallas.Cribbsy is tangled in a half-dozen romantic crises. He's hounded by malevolent dwarfs. He's under threat of suspension by a vicious vice-principal. He's at war with his English teacher. Every time he sets foot in the halls, he faces death at the hands of a delusional gridiron gladiator.Cribbsy's trials trace America's loss of innocence. Kenn...

What happens in Vegas ends in Paris. Chip, Bud and Rudy, three nerdy conventioneers who meet annually at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas become so consumed by sexual fantasy in their annual pilgrimage to a North Vegas strip club that they hatch a plot to rid themselves of their wives. They lure their unsatisfactory spouses to the City of Light where they wine them, dine them and and kill all three on the same bloody night. They ve committed the perfect crime... except... Well, t...