'I pushed her back into the house without saying anything shut the door. We stood looking at each other inside. She dropped her hand slowly & tried to smile. Then all expression went out of her white face & it looked as intelligent as the bottom of a shoe box...I lit my cigarette puffed it slowly for a moment & then asked: What are you doing here?" Before creating Philip Marlowe Raymond Chandler perfected the hardboiled private detective story in the pages of " Blask Mask" magazine
- tough spare tales of gumshoes & murder laced with a weary lyricism & deadpan laconic wit. " Killer in the Rain" is vintage Chandler the groundwork for his classic first novel " The Big Sleep"."
...

Cambridge 1354. Christmas approaches & the town is gripped by the worst blizzards in living memory. As the physician Matthew Bartholomew struggles to help the poorer citizens cope with freezing temperatures his colleagues prepare for the festivities. The weather has trapped many travellers in the town including Matthews erstwhile love Philippa. She & her wealthy husband are invited to Michaelhouse for the main feast & Matthew is horrified that he does not immediately recognise the over-weight sulky woman who once stole his heart. In some ways he is relieved to accept Brother Michaels orders to identify a man found dead apparently from exposure in a nearby church but the success of his mission brings him closer to Philippas circle for the man was her husbands servant. & then the husband himself is dead victim of an accident on the treacherous ice of the fens
- or was it a more sinister death somehow linked to the death of one of his business rivals months earlier in London? Susanna Gregory again brings medieval Cambridge to rich & vibrant life in a beautifully crafted mystery.
...

Kakuro is the latest Japanese puzzle craze for all those who thought they had reached the limit in logic puzzles. Kakuro is all about numbers & like su doku it is solved by using logic with absolutely no guesswork. However Kakuro takes puzzling a step further: it requires simple arithmetic skills as well as reasoning. But don't worry if maths isn't your strong point. While some of the logic relies on you being able to add up the sums only ever involve a few single digits & the totals in this book are never more than 45. You don't need to be a maths whiz nor do you need to have a calculator handy. You will have no difficulty in doing the sums in your head. As with the incredibly addictive su doku the fun in doing kakuro is working out the logic that gets you from the starting position to the single solved grid of digits. So if you're bored with su doku
- kakuro is the next logical step.. .
...

With a lucrative job great marriage & a beautiful house Bill Moore is a man with a plan. Its all working out just fine until the day he finds a card left on his desk printed with just one word: MODIFIED. From that moment his life begins to change
- at first barely noticeably then in more & more disturbing ways. Bill soon finds out in the most terrifying way that he has become the subject of a dark & deadly game.. .and that he has no choice but to fight back.
...

Arimnestos is a farm boy when war breaks out between the citizens of his native Plataea & their overbearing neighbours Thebes. Standing in the battle line for the first time alongside his father & brother he shares in a famous & unlikely victory. But after being knocked unconscious in the melee he awakes not a hero but a slave. Betrayed by his jealous & cowardly cousin the freedom he fought for has now vanished & he becomes the property of a rich citizen. So begins an epic journey from slavery that takes the young Arimnestos through a world poised on the brink of an epic confrontation as the emerging civilization of the Greeks starts to flex its muscles against the established empire of the Persians. As he tries to make his fortune & revenge himself on the man who disinherited him Arimnestos discovers that he has a talent that pays well in this new violent world
- for like his hero Achilles he is a killer of men.
...

For the most varied range of sudoku puzzles with the widest range of difficulty available anywhere look no further than the Observer"s " Killer Sudoku". Combining elements of sudoku & kakuro these headscratchers will test the skills of even the most practised sudoku fan. This collection contains 150 previously unpublished puzzles of varying levels of difficulty so whether youre new to the Killer Sudoku grid or are a seasoned solver looking for a challenge this book will keep you occupied. Be warned though
- some of these puzzles are so fiendishly difficult they may well keep you up all night."
...

Sudoku for the brave of heart! Sharp-minded solvers willing to venture into dangerous puzzle territory will find satisfaction navigating these killer sudoku. Each one looks like a regular sudoku but with a challenging twist: there are also additional boxes surrounding sets of squares. Those boxes contain tiny numbers that tell you the sum of the digits inside the box. Its a brain-stretching variation that will delight sudoku fans everywhere. ...

A fifteen-year-old boy firebombs a building as he listens to Vivaldis Winter Concerto splicing behind a red hot R n B track. A veteran musician is found dead in an alley with the pulse of an old time reggae classic playing in his pocket. Rap sensation Lord Tribulation discovers his new found stardom threatened when he finds himself in the middle of both incidents. His music is accused of inciting the firebombing & the dead musician is his father. With the beat of the media & government blasting down his neck LTs search for the truth about his fathers death takes him back to an old flame & on a retro trail to 1976. A time when music was politics & politics was music. A time when the heat-drenched streets of Notting Hill burst into open rebellion. A time that as LT gets closer to the truth could lead straight to his own murder.. . ...

Dubbed The mutilator by the media the original killer had murdered seven women one man & a child each of them tortured & dismembered their bodies staged & the signature of a yellow rose left at the crime scene; all within the space of seven days. On the seventh day however with the murderous decapitation of the child the killer was cornered by police & subsequently killed. Now on the seventh anniversary of the first murder detective Benjamin Miller & old flame D.C.I Meg Rainer are confronted with what appears to be a copycat killer & are in a race against time to track him down before he kills again;- each murder more brutal than the last & each clue leading to an unexpected turn of events forcing Ben & Meg to put aside their differences & work together to bring an end to the heinous murders the body count quickly rising before finally at the end of it all it is their own lives that are on the line. ...

As we humans have explored the worlds oceans & exploited them for tourism & recreation we have found ourselves coming into contact with more & more sharks. & the outcome can be fatal. From the Seychelles to South Africa & Australia to North America tourists divers & surfers have seemingly found themselves under increased threat from unprovoked shark attacks. Fatal attacks have occurred in locations that were previously thought to be safe & in late 2010 the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh was rocked by an incredible five shark attacks in a matter of weeks. But are sharks really ruthless vicious killers or are they simply reacting to humans invading their habitat? Has the number of shark attacks increased in recent years? What can be done to prevent shark attacks? All these questions & more are answered in this fascinating book. ...