San Francisco ad-man Art Kassel has three seemingly unreachable life goals: to find some woman somewhere who shares his love for all things intellectual, cultural and culinary; to win accolades and awards for creativity in advertising; and to escape the iffy morality of his career by launching the big honking novel he’s been slogging away at forever. Imagine how thrilled he is when all his goals suddenly seem within his grasp. Especially when he comes up with a brilliant campaign for the a...

Welcome to Mordora. It's a dark place with secrets so powerful they trigger a double abduction and a murder. And so toxic that revealing the truth would be worse than the crimes themselves. It begins with a murder that isn’t a murder, followed by a strange double abduction. To Police Detective Jacob Zaag, it feels wrong from the start. Who would kidnap a developmentally disabled teen and his adult sitter? A random grab? A sex crime? Zaag falls hard for Andrea, the boy’s single mom, 30, so ...

The murderer has a perfectly logical reason for his kills. Logical, but insane. Wounded soul and single dad Nick Clayborne uses a radio scanner to listen in on private conversations. It’s virtually his only adult contact. He fills notebooks with what he hears in hopes of an eventual book deal. Then three of those strangers are murdered. Panicking, he reaches out to a long-time favorite he's been listening in on for years. Their connection begins to thaw his frozen heart. But when the polic...

Marc Gregorio wakes up paralyzed. He can’t feel his own body. Accident? Stroke? Did someone slip him an overdose of Botox? The answer, he discovers, is much, much worse. He’s only a copy of Marc, a digital brain without a body, burdened with all Marc’s human memories, but without access to human sensual pleasures. Now he has to find a reason to keep on, um, “living.”Adam the Mindclone meets the real Marc Gregorio--and his new girlfriend Molly Schaeffer. Adam loves her, too. But how...

Nuclear Armageddon is on the BallotThe leading candidate for US President is certain God has chosen him to bring on The Rapture by launching nuclear war. His march to the White House is unstoppable. Journalist Dan Jessup finally unearths the candidate’s virulent past, but if he reveals it, his pregnant wife and son, now being held hostage, will be murdered. Meanwhile, Lt. Greg Pangborn, a tech officer in a rogue military faction, is beta-testing how the US might...

Parents don’t like it when a genetically enhanced chimp is smarter than their own 5th Graders.Some people just have no appreciation for progress. When Darwin, the most famous chimp in the world, entered the 5th Grade, his human brother Scott had mixed feelings. And a band of older kids didn’t like it. Worse, a band of parents decide this walking, reading, thinking and even talking chimp--thanks to a really cool electronic keyboard--has no business attending a pu...

Sometimes there's more at stake in a game of Scrabble than just victory.In this short story, Vera’s marriage has been dead for years. So when she reconnects with a childhood sweetheart, she seizes the chance to re-ignite her heart. But the comedy-of-errors affair she stumbles into leads to unspeakable consequences. Humiliation should have been punishment enough. But the arrival of “good news” during a board game is sending her straight to hell. Yet in the end, she...

Marc Gregorio wakes up paralyzed. He can't feel his own body. Accident? Stroke? Did someone slip him an overdose of Botox? The answer, he discovers, is much, much worse. He's only a copy of Marc, a digital brain without a body, burdened with all Marc's human memories, but without access to human sensual pleasures. Now he has to find a reason to keep on, um, "living." Adam the Mindclone meets the real Marc Gregorio--and his new girlfriend Molly Schaeffer. Adam loves her, too. But h...

Archaeological case studies consider material evidence of religion and ritual in the pre-Columbian Eastern WoodlandsArchaeologists today are interpreting Native American religion and ritual in the distant past in more sophisticated ways, considering new understandings of the ways that Native Americans themselves experienced them. Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief: Materials of Ritual and Religion in Eastern North America broadly considers Native American re...

The beauty bible for a new generation: in this invaluable natural guide, illustrated with black-and-white drawings and thirty-two pages of color photos, internationally acclaimed nutrition and natural beauty expert David Wolfe offers proven strategies designed to improve appearance, vitality, and health from the inside out.Each year, women absorb five pounds of toxins using common beauty products. Wolfe, one of America’s foremost nutrition experts, argues that you shouldn’t have to...

It takes a killer to catch a killer.Charlie Novak's arrangement with his partner Owen is elegant in its simplicity: Owen marries young women, insures them, and when he's away on business, Charlie stages fatal accidents. But when Owen's latest wife is murdered by someone else, an investigation he didn't count on ensues. Now the one murder he didn't commit could unravel all the ones he did. In this twisted psychological noir, the hunter may already be the hu...

Is she in love with a murderer?Seventeen-year-old Margot McClain used to be witty, talented and popular until a boy she toyed with tried to hang himself. Now she knows about wounds that won't heal — and she's spent two years using her sharp tongue to keep everyone at a safe distance.When a lost-looking new kid enrolls at her school, Margot mocks his fake-sounding name. Then she learns "John Smith" is the name the authorities gave him. He can't remember his own — or anything ...