On opposing sides, Captain Cordelia Naismith and Admiral Lord Aral Vorkosigan marry and live in aristocratic splendor on his home planet Barrayar. Cordelia agrees with the dying old emperor that the Empire would be better if Aral would serve, but he knows secrets she does not.

So little time...Set in the world of S.M Stirling and Shirley Meier's The Cage, this is the story of Chevenga, master warrior and the greatest ruler his people would ever know. Chevenga knows his destiny from a vision: to preserve his people from barbarian invasions--and he also knows his fate: to die at the hand of an assassin while still young. In his short life Chevenga has much to do, and little time to do it in. If his people cannot freely accept his rulership he must use whatever means are necessary to make them recognize him for what he is.

When vampire detective Jack Fleming is hired by the wealthy Sebastian Pierce to recover a priceless heirloom bracelet, he eyes his reward in Pierce's daughter, an enticing girl with a hot-headed boyfriend. Diamonds and vampires are a girl's best friend

Beneath the Black Palms lurks the other side of living. Los Angeles—the siren, the beast—is the central antagonist within these eleven masterful, stylistically-diverse short stories. Nolan Knight maneuvers the City to destroy with open arms, its warm torments ushered for lonesome dreamers, outcasts, squares, con men and have-nots. A couple on the run fouls-up by taking refuge in a Mid-City roach motel; a gambler scrambles to save his life through a gauntlet of loan sharks; a young gang member's dream of becoming a famous T.V. chef are dashed by turf warfare; these sordid tales and more await. Come for the sunshine, stay for the dread. No one is spared Beneath the Black Palms, the most unforgettable short story collection in recent years. Praise for Nolan Knight: "Knight's slangy prose is a perfect fit for characters whose dreams die slowly or explosively." —Publishers Weekly "The Neon Lights Are Veins is a...

The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect CrimeFive masters of mystery and suspense present their ideas of the perfect murder in a collection of tales by Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald E. Westlake. Reprint.From Publishers WeeklyA man named Tim needs help. Seems his rich wife (whom he married only for her money) plans to cut him out of her will; worse, she is having an affair with his best friend. What Tim needs help with is the perfect murder: he wants to kill his wife and make it look as if the boyfriend did it. Since he is something of a perfectionist, Tim wants this crime "so beautiful in construction and so ingenious in practice that it aspires to the condition of art." Seeking counsel from the experts, Tim writes Block, Caudwell, Hillerman, Lovesey and Westlake, and asks each to design him a blueprint for a fail-safe scheme. Each carefully wrought reply in this droll how-to for the discriminating hitman is a small masterpiece of cunning and deception. Count on Westlake and Block for their usual dark humor; Hillerman for his keen sense of human nature; Caudwell and Lovesey for the wry British perspective. And count on every one of them to be very annoyed to find out that he/she was not the only expert consulted. Westlake, for example, observes of Block's plan of attack: "Not merely kitsch, but sordid kitsch." Devotees of the genre will feast on this smorgasbord of treats. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus ReviewsAn amplified reprint from Harper's magazine in which editor/author Hitt, as the wealthy, unhappily married Tim,'' puckishly asked five mystery writers--Lawrence Block, Sarah Caudwell, Tony Hillerman, Peter Lovesey, and Donald Westlake--to suggest a fabulous, money-no-object, dramatic means of disposing of his philanderingwife'' that would incriminate his cuckolding best friend.'' Surprisingly, Hitt turns out to be the best writer in the group, Westlake the flattest, and Hillerman and Lovesey the funniest. Their schemes? Lovesey resurrects his jellyfish-in-the- Jacuzzi scenario, which has appeared in at least three previous anthologies; Caudwell costumes hers in Scottish kilt and plaid; Block disguises his as a serial slaying (Kill the bitch,'' he says, over and over); Hillerman opts for a confessional twist, a dunk in the tub, and poisoned mushrooms as well; and Westlake creates a double identity so that the murderer can be his own alibi. Then Hitt asks the authors to critique each other's schemes. They gleefully attack him and each other. A hilarious means of introducing readers to the mind-set of the hard-boiled, the cozy, the traditional, the antic, and the glib state of the current mystery masterminds, with Hillerman and Lovesey the standouts. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

When the garishly grotesque clan of wealthy carpet-sweeper magnate Otto Broadie sweeps down upon Judith McMonigle's Hillside Manor Inn, it looks like there'll be a wild night of drinking, dining, and fortune-telling in the offing. But when their soothsayer-for-hire Madame Gushenka drops dead after someone douses her tea leaves with bug killer, harried hostess Judith and her irrepressible cousin Renie are left to clean up the mess. One of the Brodie bunch would dearly love to sweep the Madame's murder under the rug, however, and that might mean eliminating the nosy Ms. McMonigle as well. But with the help of her one-time beau, policeman Joe Flynn, Judith is determined to rattle the dust off some closeted family skeletons, in order to coax a killer out of hiding before coffee is served.Review"Zany adventures with plots that would make dame Agatha proud."-- "Mystery Lovers Bookshop News About the AuthorMary Richardson Daheim is a Seattle native with a communications degree from the University of Washington. Realizing at an early age that getting published in books with real covers might elude her for years, she worked on daily newspapers and in public relations to help avoid her creditors. She lives in her hometown in a century­old house not unlike Hillside Manor, except for the body count. Daheim is also the author of the Alpine mystery series and the mother of three daughters and grandmother of two granddaughters, all of whom live within shrieking distance.

When Carson Drew's millionaire client Clayton Grove dies of a long illness, his son Matt, missing and presumed dead for many years, suddenly re-appears. When Matt sets his romantic sights on Bess, Nancy is determined to see that the wrong person doesn't inherit the fortune.

Reproduced as graphics that preface narrative sections, the postcards in this novel -- communications between the Blood family and their son Loyal, as well as other personal mail and advertising material -- progressively reveal the insecurity of the rural Bloods in the changing post-war world. Loyal has fled into exile after an accidental killing, but cannot find a haven of rest. The family patriarch, Mink, writes vitriolic letters to local agricultural agents when the real object of his ire is his absent son. Loyal's brother sends off for an artificial arm to replace the one he lost in an accident; his sister answers a mail order ad for a husband. Through the mail, Proulx inventively reveals the inchoate longings of a difficult existence in this winner of the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award.

The Baby-sitters just love little babies. So of course Kristy has the great idea of entering a float in the Stoneybrook Baby Parade. All the girls have to do is round up a bunch of adorable babies like Squirt and Emily, dress them in costumes, and plop them on a float. Easy, right? Wrong. The float looks like a big orange blob, the costumes are hideous, and the babies won't stop crying! S.O.S. - the Baby-sitters' float is about to sink!

Kidnap a dragon? How daring! How *stupid* Cimorene, the princess who refuses to be proper, is back--but where is Kazul the dragon? That's what Cimorene is determined to find out. Luckily--or perhaps not-so-luckily--she's got help: Mendenbar, the not-very-kingly King of the Enchanted Forest, has joined her in her quest. So with the aid of a broken-down magic carpet, a leaky magical sword, and a few buckets of soapy lemon water, they set off across the Enchanted Forest to tackle the dragon-napping and save the King of the Dragons.

In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age.  By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.  Richly layered and disturbing, poignant at times and scathingly witty at others, the stories in *Wilderness Tips* take us into the strange and secret places of the heart and inform the familiar world in which we live with truths that cut to the bone. Contents: True trash -- Hairball -- Isis in darkness -- The bog man -- Death by landscape -- Uncles -- The age of lead -- Weight -- Wilderness tips -- Hack Wednesday.

A century after the great days of moledom described in the great Chronicles, Privet, a lonely female pilgrim from the north, arrives in fabled Duncton Wood. Only old Stour, Master of the Library, realizes the importance of her quest. For Privet seeks an answer to moledom’s final mystery: where and what is the Book of Silence, whose scribe nomole knows, whose content none can guess, whose existence many still doubt? Decades of harmony have passed since the brave moles of Duncton saved moledom’s peaceful Stone followers from the disciples of the evil Word. But now all is not well. Their system has grown sleepy, while moledom is dangerously complacent about the spread of zealots from Caer Caradoc. Led by the sinister Thripp of Blagrove Slide, the Newborns believe that any other way than theirs to the Stone’s Silence is blasphemy and deserves death. As the Caradocian moles gain power, shy Privet, aided by Stour and inspired by the strange and inarticulate Rooster, finds herself the agent of change and renewal in Duncton Wood.