Hit the jackpot with stories from Michael Connelly, Laura Lippman, Walter Mosley, Alexander McCall Smith, and more superstars of mystery.In "One Dollar Jackpot," Michael Connelly's curmudgeonly Harry Bosch finds himself going toe-to-toe with a professional poker player. Jeffery Deaver offers up "Bump," a tale of a has-been actor trying to make it big by hustling cards. "Hardly Knew Her" by Laura Lippmann showcases a young woman learning about bluffing the hard way, ...

Africa needs power - to grow its economies and enhance the welfare of its people. Power for all is still a long distance away - two thirds of the population remains without electricity and enterprises rank electricity as a top constraint to doing business. This sub-optimal situation coexists while vast energy resources remain untapped. One solution to harness these resources could be to tap into the concept of anchor load. Mining industry lends itself to the concept of anchor load as it ne...

The stories brought together in Foreigners, Drunks and Babies cast the slanting light of a poet's sensibility on the Imperial Academy of an ancient Eastern empire; detail the musical education of a northern realist parish priest and his sons; travel through the West of Ireland with a couple facing various extinctions; spy on the shadowy private life of a Cold War warrior; engage in hand-to-hand fighting with a classroom full of Soviet teachers; follow the adventures of an Italian girl visi...

A murder from the past is brought to light in this gripping short story in the New York Times–bestselling Inspector Banks series.Acclaimed by Michael Connelly as "a man for all seasons," Inspector Alan Banks is among the best-loved characters in contemporary fiction. And now Banks confronts one of the most puzzling cases of his career—when a tourist claims that several decades earlier, in a previous life, he witnessed a murder committed nearby.Bank...

The new series of Spellmount Military Memoirs provides rare and sought-after texts for the collector of classic historical works, together with rigorously selected personal narratives never before in print – destined to become classics in their own right. Llewelyn Alberic Emilius Price-Davies was awarded the Victoria Cross when serving with the King's Royal Rifle Corps during the Second Boer War. He went on to serve as Divisional Corps liasion officer in 1914-15, his corre...

A serial killer stalks women in northern England in this psychological thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author of the Inspector Banks series.On a balmy June night, Kirsten, a young university student, is strolling home through a silent moonlit park when she is viciously attacked.When she awakens in the hospital, she has no recollection of that brutal night. But then slowly, painfully, details reveal themselves—dreams of two figures, one whi...

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Advances in Visual Informatics, IVIC 2025, held in Guangzhou, China in November 12-13, 2025.The 36 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 69 submissions.They are grouped into the following topics: Keynote; Modeling and Simulation; Mixed Reality and Human-Computer Interaction; Intelligent Data Analytics; Applied AI; Visual Informatics Applications.

Hospitality and tourism is the second largest industry in the world and is a driver of job growth and economic prosperity, accounting for 1 in 10 jobs worldwide. As such, the marketing of hospitality and tourism is a fast developing field, influenced by the latest advances in sustainability and social marketing as well as a new generation of consumers.Gen Z individuals and Gen Alphas are the future employees and consumers of this industry. They do not only shape new consumption pat...

Peter Robinson and Peter Cox embark on a thoughtful exploration of the rich and diverse history of the British hospitality industry. From the earliest Roman establishments to the refined hotels of today, they detail how historical events, cultural shifts, and technological advancements have continually reshaped the hospitality experience.Beginning in ancient times, the Romans introduced public lodging and communal bathing to Britain, setting the stage for future hospitality service...

Written by a practising poet and novelist who has close experience of the subject matter and has published creative work in the areas being examined, Sexual Violence and Literary Art is a wide-ranging study, covering carefully selected works from Ovid through Shakespeare to Pope, Richardson, Shelley, Hardy, Nabokov and beyond. It addresses the necessary complicity of any representation in what is represented, by examining ways in which canonical male writers have attempted to evok...

Britain has a rich Cold War heritage and here its significant historical and cultural aspects are explored. Adopting a chronological approach, key events, technologies and social impacts are detailed through the many sites, collections and artefacts that are accessible to the public. Peter Robinson and Milka Ivanova take readers on a journey of discovery, from the secret bunker at Kelvedon Hatch to the Nuclear Missile Storage Facility at RAF Barnham, where local people believed monkeys wer...

"God is not withholding wealth from you. He's waiting for you to become the vessel that can carry it."Have you ever wondered why the floodgates of abundance seem locked, even though your prayers are constant, your dreams massive, and your hunger deep?It's not about the money. It's about the man.Wine & Weight isn't just another book on finances—it's a divine confrontation. A soul-shaking conversation between you and God, guided by a...