Patrick Lawlor

Why are sheep in the remote Egyptian village of Mehenopolis cutting their own throats? That's the mystery Emperor Justinian inexplicably sends John, his Lord Chamberlain, to Egypt to solve. Mehenopolis is a pilgrim destination, thanks to its ancient shrine to a snake deity. Among the characters John encounters are a pretentious local landowner battling a self-styled magician for control of the lucrative shrine, an exiled heretical cleric, an itinerant...

In Back in Action: An American Soldier's Story of Courage, Faith, and Fortitude, Captain David Rozelle tells the whole gripping story: from the day he had to tell his pregnant wife that he was going to war (Valentine's Day 2003) and deployed tor Operation Iraqi Freedom, to the fateful day four months later when a land mine tore off his right foot-and beyond, through months of agonizing rehabilitation to his final triumphant recertification as "Fit...

My Tank Is Fight! contains a humorous and exciting examination of twenty real inventions from World War II that never saw the light of day. Each entry includes full technical details, a complete development history, in-depth analysis, and a riveting fictionalized account of the invention's success or failure on the battlefield. Dive under the Atlantic in the turreted U-Cruiser, or rule its surface from an aircraft carrier made out of ice. Shred...

It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible that America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing...

A news media frenzy hurled the quiet resort community of Pinehurst, North Carolina, into the national spotlight in 1935 when hotel magnate Ellsworth Statler's adopted daughter was discovered dead early one February morning weeks after her wedding day. A politically charged coroner's inquest failed to determine a definitive cause of death, and the following civil action continued to expose sordid details of the couple's lives. More than half a century...

The disappearance of a twenty-one-year-old woman from a Massachusetts suburb became one of the most discussed crimes of the twentieth century. The discussion intensified when the public learned that Robin Benedict worked as a prostitute in Boston's notorious red-light district, the "Combat Zone," and was linked by a trail of blood to a famous professor from Tufts University. When Robin Benedict vanished, the investigation and media circus that gripped...

Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain, three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece, give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to...

Francesca Crawford is sleeping when the murderer enters her apartment. The door is locked, but the killer is agile, climbing down from the roof, knife in hand. The killer is expert, stabbing Francesca only once, straight through the heart. She doesn't even wake up. John Andera comes to Dan Fortune, the one-armed private investigator, begging him to find justice for Francesca. Andera is a salesman, an ordinary fellow who met the girl--who turns out...

Miles to Go is a frank and intimate exploration of Davis's eccentric working life, drug habits, paranoia, depression, and subsequent recovery. The book delves into the dynamics that made Davis's band work so well together, placing Davis's work in a historic, literary, and musical framework. Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, and a very unlikely Mother Teresa all have walk-on parts in this engaging, intelligent, and often hilarious narrative....

Father Jonathan Morris has seen firsthand how our day-to-day lives are consumed with anxiety and stress as we focus on our failures and troubles while peace feels unattainable. When he rediscovered the Serenity Prayer, he realized that this little prayer can be a powerful road map for our spiritual journey toward God. As he began to share this prayer with others, he saw that living these simple lines became a source of profound peace and happiness:Lord,...