In this, the final volume in the Max Brown Tetralogy (+1), Sally and Max Brown encounter the inconveniences that accompany advancing age: declining health, concern over diminished appeal, a loss of optimism – and sometimes hope. These challenges pale, however, when they go in pursuit of the most ruthless and unprincipled criminals on earth: recruiters and surgeons who harvest and sell human organs. Set against the backdrop of honor crimes against women, Sally and Max fight to stay alive and protect the victims of honor crimes from further attack. The action takes place in Switzerland and Jordan. Sally, for the first time in the series, is a co-narrator.
Maxwell Smythe Brown IV is a smart-ass by design. To counter the ridicule his fancy name attracted, Brown the child became the point person in pranks, taunts, and mischief that kept him in hot water with teachers, principals, clerics and coaches. As he grew older, he added irreverence to mischievousness and his circle of victims and antagonists expanded to include military commanders, bosses and colleagues. When his clever speech and picaresque ways help him win the hand of a stunningly beautiful woman, it goes wrong; she’s dismally unsuited for marriage and makes his life miserable. There are occasional bright spots: his disregard for authority and convention helps him survive the Vietnam war. But his inability to keep his mouth shut and his fly zipped costs him his university sinecure and he’s exiled to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Three hundred years earlier the great Moghul Khan Shaista abruptly abandoned his post in the same city. The Khan’s youngest and favorite daughter had succumbed to disease and the grief stricken Khan fled the country, but not – it is believed – before burying a treasure as a memorial to her short life.For three centuries fortune hunters have searched for the rumored treasure but Brown has an advantage. As an accessory to a pretentious name he’s taken on a pretentious hobby: collecting antiquarian maps. Initially unaware of the importance of the information on one of his old maps, Brown sets in motion events that bring him closer to the treasure, but also attract the competitive attention of six brutal castoffs of an Indian intelligence service. Before the dust settles, two men have been beheaded, another skinned, a bystander strangled and two more fatally shot. With wit and irreverence, the book chronicles the journey of a man whose outward self-assurance and brashness mask wavering self-regard. As Brown acknowledges, it’s a full time job keeping up appearances. But he’s not without depth. A continuing theme is his quest for the true nature of a compassionate God who, paradoxically, presides over a universe of undeniable evil.Throughout, Professor Brown is our acerbic guide to: an unholy war, college campuses in the 70’s, a university exhibiting signs of tenure-induced rigor mortis, a Thai brothel, the watering holes of Europe, and life in the bottom-most percentile of the third world. This edition (Cutting to the Chase) is an abridged version of the original book. Several readers said they would like to move more rapidly through the character development sections to the fast-paced thriller when Max takes up the treasure hunt in earnest (and the corpses stack up). Out of respect for that feedback, the novel was extensively revised to provide this – a more conventional – thriller.
Some people can’t stay out of trouble. Happily married, the parents of two precocious nine-year old girls, and comfortably off, Max and Sally Brown should have it easy. Not yet; that’s where the little girls come in. The twins maneuver their parents into a dangerous treasure hunt through abandoned gold mines. As Max forewarns, “the closer you get to the treasure the more competitors show up, some of whom don’t play by the rules.” The competitors in this case are seven Klansmen who believe that the object of the treasure hunt, a large cache of Confederate gold, is theirs to finance a second rebellion. Set in northern Georgia, the couple combat bears, snakes, and the Klan to protect those they love. Their most cunning and committed adversaries, though, turn out to be their own children.
Smartass sociology professor Maxwell Smythe Brown IV thought he had it made. He had lots of money, a wonderful woman, Sally, and no responsibilities. There were, however, some loose ends left over from his earlier exploits – namely the four surviving and vicious outcasts of Indian Intelligence whom Max had beaten to the treasure of a Moghul Khan. Max had killed one assassin and Sally had killed the leader. But the bad guys just keep coming back. Set on a small island off the coast of Holland, this, the second installment chronicling Brown’s travails, finds him questioning his value and his values. Drawing on rusty skills, he tries to protect himself and those he loves from a determined and vengeful gang who torture and behead for sport.
Fourteen years after their (mis)adventures in the US Max and Sally are comfortably settled in Geneva and both wondering if their lives of comfort and privilege don’t require they make a contribution. They find token employment with the CIA. This converts to an assignment to uncover the source of counterfeit drugs in Southeast Asia that are killing thousands. Unprepared, and overly zealous, their every effort seems to result in the death of a friend or acquaintance. The trail leads to remnants of the Khmers Rouges – the quintessence of evil – in western Cambodia. The battle is waged on elephant back, in a Thai brothel, in Cambodian minefields, and in Khmers Rouges strongholds. Sally is wounded and Max is forced to carry on alone. Obsessed with the existence of evil since childhood, Max discovers an unwelcome source of barbarity: within himself
In the tradition of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, a wise and fascinating book that shows us how “we can make deadlines work for us instead of the other way around” (The Wall Street Journal). Perfectionists and procrastinators alike agree—it’s natural to dread a deadline. Whether you are completing a masterpiece or just checking off an overwhelming to-do list, the ticking clock signals despair. Christopher Cox knows the panic of the looming deadline all too well—as a magazine editor, he has spent years overseeing writers and journalists who couldn’t meet a deadline to save their lives. After putting in a few too many late nights in the newsroom, he became determined to learn the secret of managing deadlines. He set off to observe nine different organizations as they approached a high-pressure deadline. Along the way, Cox made an even greater discovery: these experts didn’t just meet their big deadlines—they became more focused, productive, and creative in the process. An entertaining blend of “behavioral science, psychological theory, and academic studies with compelling storytelling and descriptive case studies” (Financial Times), The Deadline Effect reveals the time-management strategies these teams used to guarantee success while staying on schedule: a restaurant opening for the first time, a ski resort covering an entire mountain in snow, a farm growing enough lilies in time for Easter, and more. Cox explains how to use deadlines to our advantage, the dynamics of teams and customers, and techniques for using deadlines to make better, more effective decisions.
