Michael Kramer

It is the summer of 1944, and nine-year-old Andy Catlett is engrossed in the wide easy countryside near Port William, Kentucky. But sadness, loss, and mystery invade Andy's world on a hot July afternoon when his Uncle Andrew is murdered.

First published in Russian in 1866, "The Gambler", by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, is a gripping narrative of the dangers of gambling. As was common with Dostoyevsky's other writings, he draws upon his own life in a semi-autobiographical way. Dostoyevksy himself suffered from a compulsion to gambling and had to complete "The Gambler" under a strict deadline to pay off his own debts. These first-hand experiences bring a depth of realism to the novel and to...

When Phil Kramer is shot dead on a deserted suburban street in the middle of the night, his wife, Emily, is left with an emptied bank account and a lot of questions.

"Michael Shaeffer is a retired American businessman, living peacefully in England with his aristocratic wife. But her annual summer party brings strangers to their house, and with them, an attempt on Michael's life. He is immediately thrust into action, luring his lethal pursuers to Australia before venturing into the lion's den - the States - to figure out why the mafia is after him - again - and how to stop them. Eddie's Boy jumps between Michael's...

Americans have long debated the cause of the December 7, 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. Many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup, or a failure of U.S. intelligence agencies, or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery-until now. In Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in FDR's White...

"David Loogan's dark past is revealed in this prequel to 'Bad Things Happen' ... On a rainy night in April, a chance encounter on a lonely road draws David into a romance with Jana Fletcher, a beautiful young law student. Jana is an enigma: living in a run-down apartment and sporting a bruise on her cheek that she refuses to explain. David would like to know her secrets, but he lets them lie, until it's too late. When Jana is brutally murdered, the...

The Voyage Begins It starts in a laboratory. A man-made strain of flesh-eating virus. Created by a power-hungry cartel. Capable of turning victims into brain-dead carnivores. Smuggled aboard a cruise ship that's about to set sail. . . The Virus Spreads One by one, the passengers are exposed. A U.S. senator. A young couple. An undercover agent. A beautiful assassin. Some will be infected. Others will survive. But no one will be spared if the outbreak...

When Desert Solitaire was first published in 1968, it became the focus of a nationwide cult. Rude and sensitive. Thought-provoking and mystical. Angry and loving. Both Abbey and this book are all of these and more. Here, the legendary author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Abbey's Road, and many other critically acclaimed books vividly captures the essence of his life during three seasons as a park ranger in southeastern Utah. This is a rare view of a...

"With U.S.-Iran relations at a thirty-year low, Iranian-American writer Hooman Majd dared to take his young family on a year-long sojourn in Tehran. 'The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay' traces their domestic adventures and closely tracks the political drama of a terrible year for Iran's government. It was an "annus horribilis" for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic...

"We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe....