The streets of Philadelphia are blistering in the summer heat the homicide rate is soaring & the nights belong to the mad. Detectives Kevin Byrne & Jessica Balzano are prowling the streets with a growing sense of unease. Where next will evil rear its ugly head? When a series of seemingly unrelated crimes shatter the restless silence of the city their worst fears are confirmed. A beautiful secretary is slashed to death in a grimy motel shower. A street hustler brutally murdered with a chainsaw. Piece by piece a strange & sickening puzzle presents itself: someone is meticulously recreating Hollywood's most well-known & horrifying murder scenes capturing them on film & inserting the clips into videos
- for an unsuspecting public to find. While Kevin Byrne begins furtive investigations of his own Jessica Balzano goes undercover to work the steaming back alleys of Philadelphia entering a violent world of underground film pornography & seedy nightclubs hidden to all but the initiated. Discovering that none of The Actor's victims are as innocent as they appear to be the two detectives arrive at a terrifying reality: They are not just chasing a homicide suspect. They are stalking evil itself.. .
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Graffiti & tattoos are now firmly entrenched as mainstream art forms. Over the past few decades these raw products of street culture have converged into a distinctive visual aesthetic documented for the first time in this compelling & inspirational book. Famed graffiti tattoo artist Kaves & tattoo historian Billy Burke introduce one by one the masters of graffiti tattoo art their personal stories & their diverse handiwork. Each chapter contains an in-depth profile a personal statement & fascinating photos of studios & clients. Readers will learn about the skin graffiti" process view brilliant "flash" drawings (design sketches for patrons to choose from) & come away with a new understanding of & appreciation for an art form that transforms the human body into the ultimate canvas for self-expression." ...

Maleeka suffers every day from the taunts of the other kids in her class. If theyre not getting at her about her embarrassing home-made clothes or her good grades at school its about her dark black skin
- a deeper shade than any of theirs. When a new teacher whose face is blotched with a startling white patch starts at their school Maleeka can see there is bound to be trouble for her too. But the new teachers attitude surprises Maleeka. Miss Saunders loves the skin shes in. Can Maleeka too? A deeply involving novel that will draw readers into Maleekas world & let them see it through her eyes.
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Kit Livingstone encounters his great-grandfather in a deserted London alley. Surprisingly as Cosimo long since disappeared thought dead. He urges Kit to join him on a quest through time & space in search of a strange map made by another intrepid explorer. Fearful of being trapped in the intersections between worlds & times this traveller from an early age had devised an intricate code a roadmap of symbols & tattooed it on his own skin. Now the race is on to find the Skin Map. Against his better judgement & rationality it is drawn into the hunt. But Kit & Cosimo are not the only ones searching for it. & their murderous rivals will stop at nothing to unlock its secrets...a prize beyond imagining. Taking in its sweep London Oxford Prague China & Egypt between the 17th & 21st centuries The Skin map is the first of the five volume Bright Empires series: a multi-dimensional time-bending fantasy of the highest order from a master storyteller. ...

Lena Adams has spent her life struggling to forget her childhood in Reece the small town which nearly destroyed her. She's made a new life for herself as a police detective in Heartsdale a hundred miles away
- but nothing could prepare her for the violence which explodes when she is forced to return. A vicious murder leaves a young woman incinerated beyond recognition. & Lena is the only suspect. When Heartsdale police chief Jeffrey Tolliver Lena's boss receives word that his detective has been arrested he has no choice but to go to Lena's aid
- taking with him his wife medical examiner Sara Linton. But soon after their arrival a second victim is found. The town closes ranks. & both Jeffrey & Sara find themselves entangled in a horrifying underground world of bigotry & rage
- a violent world which shocks even them. But can they discover the truth before the killer strikes again?


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The sensational new novel featuring vampire-hunting heroine Anita Blake Anita Blake's reputation has taken some hits. Not on the work front where she has the highest kill count of all the legal vampire executioners in the country but on the personal front. No one seems to trust a woman who sleeps with the monsters. Still when a vampire serial killer sends her a head from Las Vegas Anita has to warn Sin City's local authorities what they're dealing with. Only it's worse than she thought. Several officers & one executioner have been slain
- paranormal style... Anita heads to Las Vegas where she's joined by three other federal marshals including the ruthless Edward hiding behind his mild-mannered persona. It's a good thing Edward always has her back because when she gets close to the bodies Anita senses 'tiger' too strongly to ignore it. The were-tigers are very powerful which means the odds of her rubbing someone important up the wrong way just got a lot higher...
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To the remote planet Spatterjay come three travellers with very different missions. Janer is directed there by the hornet Hive-mind; Erlin comes to find the sea captain who can teach her to live; & Keech
- dead for seven hundred years
- has unfinished business with a notorious criminal. Spatterjay is a watery world where the human population inhabits the safety of the Dome & only the quasi-immortal hoopers are safe outside amidst a fearful range of voracious life-forms. Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop himself & monitor Keech cannot rest until he can bring this legendary renegade to justice for atrocious crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars. Keech does not realise that Hoop's body is running free on an island wilderness while his living head is confined in a box on an Old Captain's ships. Nor does he know that the most brutal Prador of all is about to pay a visit intent on wiping out all evidence of his wartime atrocities. Which means major hell is about to erupt in this chaotic waterscape.

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Terrorists strike at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival in Quintin Jardines fantastic second novel in the highly popular Bob Skinner series. An explosion rocks Princes Street in the midst of the Edinburgh Festival. Responsibility is claimed by a group supposedly demanding political separation from Britain but as atrocities escalate Skinner realises this is no gang of fanatics but a highly professional team. But the Fighters havent reckoned with Assistant Chief Constable Bob Skinner head of the Edinburgh CID & security adviser to Secretary of State Alan Ballantyne... ...

Skinner faces the greatest most personal tests of his career in this gripping crime thriller. Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner could be forgiven for thinking not only that someone up there doesnt like him but that someone down here is out to get him. Suffering the strain of a marriage on the rocks the last thing he needs is for his private life to be plastered across the front pages of a sleazy tabloid. To make matters worse two brutal murders & new allegations about Skinner himself make simultaneous headlines. Unless he can clear his name & uncover the secret behind the series of brutal crimes he stands to lose everything: his family his career & even his life & liberty. ...

Skinner must help a criminal in order to catch a killer in this sixth novel in the bestselling Edinburgh crime series. When an Edinburgh car showroom is torched leaving a charred body among the burnt-out luxury cars Deputy Chief Constable Bob Skinner wonders if a life of crime has finally caught up with one of the citys most elusive villains. But the corpse turns out not to be that of Jackie Charles the owner of the showroom but his wife Carole. Skinner now finds himself on the same side as his old enemy in the search for the killer... ...