Chilling and complex, Nightblind is an extraordinary thriller from Ragnar Jónasson, an undeniable new talent. Ari Thor Arason is a local policeman who has an uneasy relationship with the villagers in an idyllically quiet fishing village in Northern Iceland—where no one locks their doors. The peace of this close-knit community is shattered by a murder. One of Ari’s colleagues is gunned down at point-blank range in the dead of night in a deserted house. With a killer on the loose and the dark Arctic waters closing in, it falls to Ari Thor to piece together a puzzle that involves a new mayor and a psychiatric ward in Reykjavik. It becomes all too clear that tragic events from the past are weaving a sinister spell that may threaten them all.
Melanie, a beautiful young Peace Corps volunteer, is murdered one October night in the Kingdom of Tonga. For young American Charlotte Thornton, the killing sets off an unnerving cascade of questions. Charlotte can't help but wonder if she'll be able to survive and work in the tense postmurder atmosphere. She plunges into her job as a public relations officer for a Tongan noble. But during her off hours, she drinks too much at the Coconut Club and awkwardly tries to adapt her sexually bold inclinations to Polynesian customs. After getting thrown out of a party for cavorting naked with Melanie's ex-lover, she retreats-embarrassed, depressed, and haunted by Melanie's death-to her Tongan family. She then falls in love with Gabriel Bonner, a married Peace Corps psychologist. When Gabriel abruptly leaves and an earthquake rocks the area, Charlotte's life seems as if it is about to collapse. How will she navigate her way through this tropical ordeal, night blind and 9,000 miles away from home? "Night Blind gets under your skin and won't go away, like an old lover returned when you least expect it.The events of this book are so painful and so vivid, so picturesque and so lasting, and its purpose so anti-nostalgic that it almost does the opposite, makes you never want to leave, reminding you of the huge cost of growing up." -Phil Weiss, author of American Taboo
In the space of a few months, Blake Sanders lost his job, his only son to suicide, and his marriage. Mired in drpession and grief, he can only face the world at night, washing dishes and delivering newspapers. A year later, on a cold November night, Blake's world is turned upside down again when an elderly woman on his newspaper route is brutally stabbed to death and Blake is charged with her murder. In a desperate attempt to find the real killer, he learns that his friend had stumbled onto secrets that have been buried beneath Seattle's Capitol Hill for 150 years. Secrets that are now being disturbed by digging for the new light rail tunnel. Secrets that will shake the city's government. Secrets that foreign agents will kill for. On the run from the police and murderers, Blake finds a chance to heal his grief and reclaim his life. but only if he can stay alive long enough to unearth the truth.
The poignant story of Blind Willie Johnson--the legendary Texas musician whose song "Dark Was the Night" was included on the Voyager I space probe's Golden Record Willie Johnson was born in 1897, and from the beginning he loved to sing--and play his cigar box guitar. But his childhood was interrupted when he lost his mother and his sight. How does a blind boy make his way in the world? Fortunately for Willie, the music saved him and brought him back into the light. His powerful voice, combined with the wailing of his slide guitar, moved people. Willie made a name for himself performing on street corners all over Texas. And one day he hit it big when he got a record deal and his songs were played on the radio. Then in 1977, his song--"Dark Was the Night"--was chosen to light up the darkness when it was launched into space on the Voyager I space probe's famous Golden Record. His immortal song was selected for the way it expresses the loneliness humans all feel, while reminding us we're not alone.
Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
1955. Two young couples move to the uninhabited, isolated fjord of Hedinsfjörður. Their stay ends abruptly when one of the women meets her death in mysterious circumstances. The case is never solved. Fifty years later an old photograph comes to light, and it becomes clear that the couples may not have been alone on the fjord after all... In nearby Siglufjörður, young policeman Ari Thór tries to piece together what really happened that fateful night, in a town where no one wants to know, where secrets are a way of life. He’s assisted by Ísrún, a news reporter in Reykjavik, who is investigating an increasingly chilling case of her own. Things take a sinister turn when a child goes missing in broad daylight. With a stalker on the loose, and the town of Siglufjörður in quarantine, the past might just come back to haunt them. Haunting, frightening and complex, Rupture is a dark and atmospheric thriller from one of Iceland’s foremost crime writers. ‘Traditional and beautifully finessed... morally more equivocal than most traditional whodunnits, and it offers alluring glimpses of darker, and infinitely more threatening horizons’ Independent • ‘Jonasson’s books have breathed new life into Nordic noir’ Sunday Express • ‘Bitingly contemporary in setting and tone’ Express • ‘A modern take on an Agatha Christie-style mystery, as twisty as any slalom...’ Ian Rankin • ‘A classic crime story seen through a uniquely Icelandic lens ... first rate and highly recommended’ Lee Child • ‘Chilling, poetic beauty... a must read!’ Peter James • ‘British aficionados of Nordic Noir are familiar with two excellent Icelandic writers, Arnaldur Indridason and Yrsa Sigurdardottir. Here’s a third: Ragnar Jónasson ... the darkness and cold are palpable’ Marcel Berlins, The Times For fans of Trapped, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Agatha Christie and Ann Cleeves
The story of Helen Keller is well-known throughout the world, but few people know of Laura Bridgman. Also blind and deaf, she was the first to break the pattern of early nineteenth-century tradition, learning to read the alphabet and leading the way for others to be freed of their handicaps.
Mike May spent his life crashing through. Blinded at age three, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore May’s vision. It would allow him to drive, to read, to see his children’s faces. But the procedure was filled with gambles, some of them deadly, others beyond May’s wildest dreams. Beautifully written and thrillingly told, Crashing Through is a journey of suspense, daring, romance, and insight into the mysteries of vision and the brain. Robert Kurson gives us a fascinating account of one man’s choice to explore what it means to see–and to truly live. Praise for the National Bestseller Crashing Through: “An incredible human story [told] in gripping fashion . . . a great read.” –Chicago Sun-Times “Inspiring.” –USA Today “[An] astonishing story . . . memorably told . . . May is remarkable. . . . Don’t be surprised if your own vision mists over now and then.” –Chicago Tribune “[A] moving account [of] an extraordinary character.” –People “Terrific . . . [a] genuinely fascinating account of the nature of human vision.” –The Washington Post “Kurson is a man with natural curiosity and one who can feel the excitement life has to offer. One of his great gifts is he makes you feel it, too.” –The Kansas City Star “Propulsive . . . a gripping adventure story.” –Entertainment Weekly NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
