Discover hundreds of entertaining and often hilarious etymological journeys, by the bestselling author of Can Holding in a Fart Kill You? English is filled with curious, intriguing and bizarre phrases. This book reveals the surprising, captivating and even hilarious origins behind 400 of them, including: • Read between the Lines • Cat Got Your Tongue? • Put a Sock in It • Close, but No Cigar • Bring Home the Bacon • Caught Red-Handed • Under the Weather • Raining Cats and Dogs Perfect for trivia and language lovers alike, this entertaining collection is the ultimate guide to understanding these baffling mini mysteries of the English language.
It’s nine o’clock the morning after his father’s funeral, and Ezra Jones already knows it’s going to be a bad day. He wakes up hungover, sore, and covered in blood. Then it gets worse: the handsome and compelling Callum Dawson shows up on his doorstep claiming Ezra’s been turned into a werewolf. Ezra wants to be skeptical, but the evidence is hard to ignore. Ezra doesn’t have a lot of time to get used to the rules Alpha Callum imposes—or the way his body responds to Callum’s dominance—as he’s busily working for the CDC to help uncover the origins of a lycan epidemic. When the sexual tension finally breaks, Ezra barely has time to enjoy it, because a new danger threatens. Someone wants Ezra for their own unscrupulous purposes and will do anything to get him.
Did pawing at too many women get a dog handler shot dead? A twist-filled mystery that “will charm dog fanciers and cozy fans.”—Publishers Weekly The dog days of summer have just begun, and Melanie Travis is looking forward to savoring them. And where better to enjoy herself than at her Aunt Peg’s Fourth of July barbecue? It sounds ideal, until an uninvited guest proves that even the laziest dog day of the year can suddenly turn vicious. Melanie knew someone should have kept Barry Turk on a short leash. The star poodle handler and ladykiller had a habit of chicanery that bred contempt in the dog show circuit, particularly among its female members. But when Barry is shot dead in his own driveway, even Melanie is stunned at how unsporting the competition can get. Soon Melanie is investigating a litter of suspects, which includes Barry’s ruthless young assistant, her hot-tempered boyfriend, a Blue Ribbon judge with a grudge, and even Barry’s last lover, Alicia. Now, as Melanie digs for clues deep under Connecticut’s well-groomed surface, she finds herself sniffing around in the killer’s own backyard, and counts herself lucky to have the animal instincts to keep herself alive. “A good choice for dog aficionados.”—Library Journal
Hair of the Dog sees Dan Mahoney and fiancée Elaine Linden traveling to Florida for his next investigation, where five insured racing greyhounds supposedly died in a kennel fire. But circumstances are suspicious right from the start. Who is the dead body at the kennel entrance, and how is it possible the knife sticking out of his back is not the cause of death? Dan spends his time gathering evidence and chasing leads, while Elaine starts her training as a private investigator. Adding to the mix, Dan's mother, Maggie, decides to move to Florida in her retirement years and meets a suave new boyfriend. Another mystery arises when the two seniors take off on a last-minute cruise. Dan and Elaine find themselves tracking bad guys from several sectors as the clues come together in this complex story set in the high-stakes world of dog racing and millionaire investors. Praise for Susan Slater’s Dan Mahoney series: “Flash Flood is just what it sounds like—a fresh, surprising, adrenaline-rush whitewater ride. It’s also funny. Susan Slater can flat-out write.” —Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author “Slater’s excellent sequel to Flash Flood takes insurance investigator Dan Mahoney to tiny Wagon Mound, New Mexico … Readers will be glad they’re along for the ride.”— Publishers Weekly (starred review) “There’ll be much, much more, with whispers of everything from alien experiments to voodoo, before Slater closes out this lively, surprising case, first of a series.” – Kirkus Reviews “Dan Mahoney is an appealingly resilient character, a welcome addition to the roster of sleuths that make the Southwest a hotbed of current mystery fiction.” —Publishers Weekly
From one of the world's leading bartenders, award-winning mixologist, and author of The Complete Home Bartender's Guide comes the answer, once and for all, to the question, "How to get rid of a hangover?" Within the pages of this unique drink recipe book, you'll find hangover remedies, including non-alcoholic options, as well as an entire chapter on how to prevent a hangover in the first place. You wake up, head spinning, stomach churning, wishing you were dead. You have a hangover—and celebrated bartender Salvatore Calabrese is here to help. In the leading bartending book for the morning after, Calabrese explains why we get hangovers and how to avoid them, temper them, and heal them the morning after. To do this, the cocktail “Maestro” shares his secret drink recipes to lessen the pounding in your head, from the Apothecary, Bartender’s Breakfast, and Corpse Reviver to the Spirit Lifter, Suffering Bastard, and Wake-Up Call. If you can’t stomach the thought of more booze, try one of the non-alcoholic drink recipes, including the Cleanser Cocktail, Dale DeGroff’s Macho Gazpacho, or a Virgin Mary. Packed with insightful quotes, expert advice, and a generous dose of humor, Hair of the Dog provides a handy hangover scale to judge your level of suffering, a three-day detox program, and a collection of herbal remedies. With the Maestro’s help, you’ll be back on your feet in no time! This is a must-shake companion to Calabrese’s bestselling bartender bible, The Complete Home Bartender’s Guide.
How could I not go? A year ago, I heard from a friend who had been on mission trips to Zambia many times. She had talked to a pastor there who had alcoholics coming into his church and wanted to know what he should do. My friend called me, knowing I was in recovery. I went online to find a meeting. Realizing that the nearest one was over fifty miles away and very few people there have cars, I decided to prepare materials for them on how to start a meeting. I went to my recovery group meetings at my church and got funding to buy books to send. I packed up the books, included notes on how to run a meeting, and merrily sent off the package to Africa. The package got stuck in customs and never arrived. Four months went by. I was very disappointed. Months later, out of the clear blue, I heard this distinct message from God, I didnt want you to send books. I wanted to send you. I did not want to go to Africa, but I knew in that moment I would go. Not only was I in Zambia talking to women about alcoholism on the day I got sober exactly ten years prior; I was speaking on the hour I got sober. God was very specific about where I should be on that day. Not in a million years did I think that I would be talking to people in Africa ten years later about staying soberI was just trying to stop drinking for that day in 2004! While there in Zambia, I got to visit that pastor and sit across from him in his dirt floor church talking about his meeting for alcoholics. I realized that God had taken me halfway around the world to encourage this one manand that was enough. My purpose now is to carry this message to other people who struggle with addiction as I have struggled in the past and to let them know there is a solution and there is hope. My hope is that this book encourages you and lifts you on your recovery journey.
A Canadian mobster gets his day in court in this comic crime novel by the author of The Weird World of Wes Beattie. Cranky beyond his years, Canadian lawyer Sidney Grant has a loathing for social hypocrisies and a fondness for poking at them. And his smart-alecky new bride June feels much the same way. Now both are brimming with indignation when Vince Lamberti gets blamed for the murder of a rich old lady. It’s not that Vince is exactly innocent. He is, after all, a mobster. But the facts of the case against him don’t add up. And no matter how many people would like them to keep their mouths shut, Sidney and June simply can’t abide bad math.
When it comes to love, everyone is compromised The murder scene looks depressingly ordinary at first; a home-invasion shooting of a real-estate agent. But Detective Erin O’Reilly has a nose for trouble, and this case smells all wrong. It’s bad enough that the victim is tied to several sleazy property deals, but the worst of it is the sole witness to the crime; the dead man’s girlfriend is Lieutenant Webb’s ex-wife. Erin is no stranger to personal complications, but Webb’s entanglements threaten to derail the whole investigation. With her commanding officer compromised, she and her K-9 Rolf will have to take the lead as they try to tear open a case involving street thugs, car thieves, a shady trainer of fighting dogs, and a paranoid white-collar guy in way over his head. It’s shaping up to be an ugly dogfight in the streets of Brooklyn.
Gil Mason is a simple guy with complex problems. Cross Phillip Marlow with Ceasar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, and you create a new bread of private eye: courage of a pitbull, heart of a Labrador. The second book in the Gil Mason series. Gil and Max are hired by a high-ranking politician to find a kidnapped little girl. But things take a deadly twist when the kidnapper turns out to be an assassin for a sect of the notorious Bloods street gang. The action is fast and the characters real as Gil races from Aurora to Chicago, fighting villains and time, praying that he can save the child and unravel the strange reasons for her abduction, all while keeping his K9 partner Max from eating him.
Hair of the Dog is a profanity-free collection of poems, observations, and short stories drawn from the mind of an old romantic seeking to revisit occurrences that influenced his current outlook on life. Each item reveals a common but often forgotten aspect of human nature. It presents the author’s keen awareness of his youth and the infatuation for a new adventure, the uncertainty of a new love, and how emptiness flows from rejection like cold liquid to the loins. Focusing on the mundane, like a sip of coffee from a porcelain cup or our natural tendency to flirt, it drives home the isolation of the elderly and a hospice couple’s struggle to remember the courtship dance of youth. It’s profanity free, granny approved, and parent endorsed! It’s intriguing, insightful, and delightful! It’s poetry from an old man’s mind! These are stepping-stones of emotion and are best if read aloud.
