Nancy Drew meets The Devil Wears Prada in the first title of a new mystery series for girls. MODEL UNDERCOVER introduces teen-sleuth Axelle Anderson, who seizes the opportunity to go undercover as a model during Paris Fashion week to uncover the truth about a top designer's disappearance—and clear her uber-fashionista Aunt's name. Axelle Anderson doesn't care about fashion, in spite of her pushy fashionista aunt, Venetia. All Axelle wants to do in life is solve mysteries. But when top fashion designer Belle La Lune goes missing and Aunt Venetia becomes a prime suspect, Axelle must go undercover as a model to bring the truth into the spotlight. Who knew modeling could be such a dangerous game?
A new mystery thrusts Axelle back into the world of high fashion—this time on her home turf! Posing as a model gets Axelle the kinds of connections that make her the fashion elite's go-to detective. Her newest case? The attack on famous fashion photographer Gavin Tempest that's left him in the hospital. The police may have ruled it a mugging, but Gavin's sister has special intel for Axelle that points to something more sinister...and when clues start pointing to people in high places, things get dicey for Axelle. Because fashion isn't the only thing that's killer in this case... Discover Axelle's other fashionably fearsome mysteries: Model Undercover: Paris Model Undercover: New York
The last thing hot new model Axelle expects to find at a photo shoot is a top stylist dead on set. But as a high-heeled, runway-ready secret sleuth, she's just the girl to solve this murder mystery. With gorgeous Sebastian by her side, Axelle plunges into a world of dirty rumours, sparkling jewels and high-speed chases to track a ruthless killer. Could this be Axelle's most dangerous investigation yet?
This fascinating work offers the untold true story of the highly decorated FBI agent who goes deep undercover to bring down one of La Cosa Nostra's most notorious crime families.
In this first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, Leilani Nishime traces the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian Americans. Nishime's perceptive readings of popular media--movies, television shows, magazine articles, and artwork--indicate how and why the viewing public often fails to identify multiracial Asian Americans. Using actor Keanu Reeves and the Matrix trilogy, golfer Tiger Woods as examples, Nishime suggests that this failure is tied to gender, sexuality, and post-racial politics. Also considering alternative images such as reality TV star Kimora Lee Simmons, the television show Battlestar Galactica, and the artwork of Kip Fulbeck, this incisive study offers nuanced interpretations that open the door to a new and productive understanding of race in America.
The instant New York Times bestseller and companion book to the PBS series. “Absolutely brilliant . . . A necessary and moving work.” —Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., author of Begin Again “Engaging. . . . In Gates’s telling, the Black church shines bright even as the nation itself moves uncertainly through the gloaming, seeking justice on earth—as it is in heaven.” —Jon Meacham, New York Times Book Review From the New York Times bestselling author of Stony the Road and The Black Box, and one of our most important voices on the African American experience, comes a powerful new history of the Black church as a foundation of Black life and a driving force in the larger freedom struggle in America. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity—an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today’s political landscape. At road’s end, and after Gates’s distinctive meditation on the churches of his childhood, we emerge with a new understanding of the importance of African American religion to the larger national narrative—as a center of resistance to slavery and white supremacy, as a magnet for political mobilization, as an incubator of musical and oratorical talent that would transform the culture, and as a crucible for working through the Black community’s most critical personal and social issues. In a country that has historically afforded its citizens from the African diaspora tragically few safe spaces, the Black Church has always been more than a sanctuary. This fact was never lost on white supremacists: from the earliest days of slavery, when enslaved people were allowed to worship at all, their meetinghouses were subject to surveillance and destruction. Long after slavery’s formal eradication, church burnings and bombings by anti-Black racists continued, a hallmark of the violent effort to suppress the African American struggle for equality. The past often isn’t even past—Dylann Roof committed his slaughter in the Mother Emanuel AME Church 193 years after it was first burned down by white citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, following a thwarted slave rebellion. But as Gates brilliantly shows, the Black church has never been only one thing. Its story lies at the heart of the Black political struggle, and it has produced many of the Black community’s most notable leaders. At the same time, some churches and denominations have eschewed political engagement and exemplified practices of exclusion and intolerance that have caused polarization and pain. Those tensions remain today, as a rising generation demands freedom and dignity for all within and beyond their communities, regardless of race, sex, or gender. Still, as a source of faith and refuge, spiritual sustenance and struggle against society’s darkest forces, the Black Church has been central, as this enthralling history makes vividly clear.
This compelling nonfiction work takes the reader into a convoluted eight month infiltration of a group of squalid criminals trafficking in wildlife by two undercover game wardens. Latham doesn't hold back on the language in this book nor does he downplay the vile acts that occurred against both the human and wildlife victims in this twisted tale. If you think poachers are just a bunch of good old boys out for a bit of meat, this true story is bound to reshape your opinion. Books written about undercover wildlife trafficking investigations are rare --this one will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Learn how to use R to turn raw data into insight, knowledge, and understanding. This book introduces you to R, RStudio, and the tidyverse, a collection of R packages designed to work together to make data science fast, fluent, and fun. Suitable for readers with no previous programming experience, R for Data Science is designed to get you doing data science as quickly as possible. Authors Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund guide you through the steps of importing, wrangling, exploring, and modeling your data and communicating the results. You'll get a complete, big-picture understanding of the data science cycle, along with basic tools you need to manage the details. Each section of the book is paired with exercises to help you practice what you've learned along the way. You'll learn how to: Wrangle—transform your datasets into a form convenient for analysis Program—learn powerful R tools for solving data problems with greater clarity and ease Explore—examine your data, generate hypotheses, and quickly test them Model—provide a low-dimensional summary that captures true "signals" in your dataset Communicate—learn R Markdown for integrating prose, code, and results
Despite the recent rapid growth in machine learning and predictive analytics, many of the statistical questions that are faced by researchers and practitioners still involve explaining why something is happening. Regression analysis is the best ‘swiss army knife’ we have for answering these kinds of questions. This book is a learning resource on inferential statistics and regression analysis. It teaches how to do a wide range of statistical analyses in both R and in Python, ranging from simple hypothesis testing to advanced multivariate modelling. Although it is primarily focused on examples related to the analysis of people and talent, the methods easily transfer to any discipline. The book hits a ‘sweet spot’ where there is just enough mathematical theory to support a strong understanding of the methods, but with a step-by-step guide and easily reproducible examples and code, so that the methods can be put into practice immediately. This makes the book accessible to a wide readership, from public and private sector analysts and practitioners to students and researchers. Key Features: 16 accompanying datasets across a wide range of contexts (e.g. academic, corporate, sports, marketing) Clear step-by-step instructions on executing the analyses Clear guidance on how to interpret results Primary instruction in R but added sections for Python coders Discussion exercises and data exercises for each of the main chapters Final chapter of practice material and datasets ideal for class homework or project work.
