I hate the Harlequin boys. Fox, JJ, Chase and Maverick. The four names tattooed onto my heart more permanently than the ink on my skin. Once upon a time, they broke my heart, stole my life and sent me away from everything I'd ever known. But they don't just live in this town anymore, they rule it. And the view here may be beautiful, but the sun, sea and sand hide dark secrets. The gangs. The lies. The violence. It all lurks beneath a veil so thin that once you've seen through it, you can never close your eyes to the truth again. But I don't plan on closing my eyes. I have four devils set in my sights. And this dead girl no longer has anything to lose.
Satan’s Playground chronicles the rise and fall of the tumultuous and lucrative gambling industry that developed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the early twentieth century. As prohibitions against liquor, horse racing, gambling, and prostitution swept the United States, the vice industry flourished in and around Tijuana, to the extent that reformers came to call the town “Satan’s Playground,” unintentionally increasing its licentious allure. The area was dominated by Agua Caliente, a large, elegant gaming resort opened by four entrepreneurial Border Barons (three Americans and one Mexican) in 1928. Diplomats, royalty, film stars, sports celebrities, politicians, patricians, and nouveau-riche capitalists flocked to Agua Caliente’s luxurious complex of casinos, hotels, cabarets, and sports extravaganzas, and to its world-renowned thoroughbred racetrack. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and the boxer Jack Dempsey were among the regular visitors. So were mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, who later cited Agua Caliente as his inspiration for building the first such resort on what became the Las Vegas Strip. Less than a year after Agua Caliente opened, gangsters held up its money-car in transit to a bank in San Diego, killing the courier and a guard and stealing the company money pouch. Paul J. Vanderwood weaves the story of this heist gone wrong, the search for the killers, and their sensational trial into the overall history of the often-chaotic development of Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and Southern California. Drawing on newspaper accounts, police files, court records, personal memoirs, oral histories, and “true detective” magazines, he presents a fascinating portrait of vice and society in the Jazz Age, and he makes a significant contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A Times (UK) Best Book of the Year • From the author of the million-copy-selling Essentialism comes an empowering guide to achieving your goals. It all starts with a simple principle: Not everything has to be so hard. “In a world beset by burnout, Greg McKeown’s work is essential.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of When, Drive, and To Sell Is Human “At a time when fear, uncertainty, and our ever-growing list of responsibilities have come to feel like much too much to handle, Effortless couldn’t be timelier, or more necessary.”—Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play Do you ever feel like: • You’re teetering right on the edge of burnout? • You want to make a higher contribution, but lack the energy? • You’re running faster but not moving closer to your goals? • Everything is so much harder than it used to be? As high achievers, we’ve been conditioned to believe that the path to success is paved with relentless work. That if we want to overachieve, we have to overexert, overthink, and overdo. That if we aren’t perpetually exhausted, we’re not doing enough. But lately, working hard is more exhausting than ever. And the more depleted we get, the more effort it takes to make progress. Stuck in an endless loop of “Zoom, eat, sleep, repeat,” we’re often working twice as hard to achieve half as much. Getting ahead doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it. No matter what challenges or obstacles we face, there is a better way: instead of pushing ourselves harder, we can find an easier path. Effortless offers actionable advice for making the most essential activities the easiest ones, so you can achieve the results you want, without burning out. Effortless teaches you how to: • Turn tedious tasks into enjoyable rituals • Prevent frustration by solving problems before they arise • Set a sustainable pace instead of powering through • Make one-time choices that eliminate many future decisions • Simplify your processes by removing unnecessary steps • Make relationships easier to maintain and manage • And much more The effortless way isn't the lazy way. It's the smart way. It may even be the only way. Not every hard thing in life can be made easy. But we can make it easier to do more of what matters most.
Everyone thought they knew who I was. Well. They thought they had an idea. The truth is, they don’t have a clue, and I’ve worked very hard to keep it that way. My past, my connections, my true identity… Those are all things that belong to me, and me alone. Because if they knew who I actually was, everything would change. And I’ve never been willing to let that happen. But when my adopted families, the Rossis and Brennans, find themselves in an impossible situation, at war with an unidentified stranger who has an unknown number of men, things get serious quickly. The Rossis and Brennans are outnumbered, outgunned, and in trouble, and for the first time in my memory, the Rossi brothers don’t know how to get out of a sticky situation. Quick thinking and luck aren’t going to save them when they’re outmanned. Charm isn’t going to give them the salvation they need. Because they need an army. And they don’t have one. I, however… Well, I do. If I take the chance of going home. If I face not only my father, but also my family and the man I was supposed to marry, but ran out on. Lucien Boudreaux is just as charming as the Rossis and twice as dangerous. He took my virginity. He stole my heart and then broke it. So I broke his right back. And now I’m going back to New Orleans to see whether he’s forgiven me yet. Because the Rossis need me. And when it comes to the Rossis, I’ll do anything it takes to save them. Even if it means facing my past, and the man who might still have a tight enough hold on my heart to change my life. Tell Me is the second in the New York Rogues: Brooks Peterson series, and is a spicy, spooky, suspenseful story full of guns, intrigue, and lost-but-not-forgotten loves who come back to haunt you. This story takes place on the same time as Her Master, the last in the Rossi series.
In the dreams of Bret Harvey, a huge orange fireball has destroyed much of the landscape. It is a desert now, lifeless and filled with broken houses. Food is scarce. To see a human is rare. The Dark Ones, with their childlike voices and fingers like long knives, are constantly pursuing Harvey. Welcome to Serotonia, the very unpleasant world where Harvey's dreams take place. It's a world created by the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) to help Harvey cope with his depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The side effects of the drug cast a spell on his subconscious, creating a sequence of chilling dreams, which he retells in Serotonia. The dreams expose some of the most raw and haunting parts of his psyche. In succession, the dreams tell the story of what is wrong in his life and how Harvey must face it. He returns to Serotonia each night, trying to discover what the Dark Ones really want. Serotonia leads him through a rabbit hole of terror while he tries to find the sense of peace that we all search for and learns how to cope with the darker side of himself.
An intriguing Anthology of Jewish Mystery & Detective Fiction Terence Ball, The Banality of Evil Sandra Levy Ceren, Silver Is Better Than Gold Martin S. Cohen, Death Has Beckoned Richard Fliegel, The Golem of Bronx Park East Michael A. Kahn, Truth in a Plain Brown Wrapper Stuart M. Kaminsky, The Tenth Man Rochelle Krich,Bitter Waters Ronald Levitsky,Thy Brother’s Bloods Lev Raphael, Your Papers, Please Shelley Singer, Reconciling Howard Janice Steinberg, Hospitality in a Dry Country Batya Swift Yasgur, Without a Trace All-new stories from twelve of today’s masters of mystery and detective fiction—sure to delight mystery buffs of all faith traditions, and fans of the award-winning Mystery Midrash: An Anthology of Jewish Mystery & Detective Fiction.