Race Equality and Planning

Sample

K.J. Howe

Kidnap negotiator Thea Paris has spent her entire life with survivor's guilt, following an unspeakable childhood tragedy. At eight years old, she watched, frozen in fear, as her twelve-year-old brother, Nikos, was abducted from their home in Kanzi, Africa. Although he was recovered nine months later, he was never the same after that; worse, Thea discovers that she was supposed to have been the target. This defining experience drives Thea to become one of the top operatives in the field of kidnap-and-ransom consultancy. Nicknamed "Liberata" because she once secured the release of a captive from the Sicilian mob without her client paying a cent, she travels the globe trying to bring hostages home--mostly through negotiation, but occasionally through more forceful means. She is very good at her job.

Sample

Georges Simenon

From amazon.com: "Prewar Paris - where buses still sported outside platforms and every neighborhood its own bistro, policemen took time for human problems, and car fumes hadn't yet smothered the smell of chestnut blossoms - serves as the setting for these seventeen stories, featuring Simenon's legendary Jules Maigret."

Sample

Susanna Jones

The Earthquake Bird (Mysterious Press, 9/01), Susanna Jones' debut, won the 2001 John Creasey Award, bestowed by the Crime Writers' Association in England, for Best First Novel. Foreign rights were sold in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, and Norway. It will be published in trade paperback from Mysterious Press in 3/03. Susanna Jones writes chilling, psychological suspense that will appeal to the same audience that made Nicci French's Killing Me Softly (Warner, 7/99) a bestseller. Susanna Jones studies Japanese Noh theatre as part of her drama degree from London University. She lived and worked in Japan before getting her M.A. in writing from Manchester University.

Sample

James Becket

As an anchor for the Passport News team, the reader is assigned to cover the Tour de France and uncovers a plot to sabotage the twenty-five day race.