The action commences in 1939. Lieutenant-Commander George Ericson, after service in the Merchant Navy, is recalled to the Royal Navy and given command of the fictitious Flower-class corvette HMS Compass Rose, newly built to escort convoys. His officers are mostly new to the Navy, especially the two new Sub-Lieutenants, Lockhart and Ferraby. Only Ericson, and some of the Petty Officers are in any way experienced. Despite these initial disadvantages, the ship and crew work up a routine and gain experience. Bennett, the First Lieutenant, a mean and shirking disciplinarian with a penchant for bullying and canned sausages, snorkers, leaves the ship ostensibly for health reasons, and the junior officers are able to mature, with Lockhart gaining promotion to First Lieutenant. The crew cross the Atlantic many times on escort duty in all kinds of weather, often encountering fierce storms in one of the smallest ships to provide escort services to the Allied convoys. The men endure the ship''s constant rolling and pitching in the huge waves, freezing cold, the strain of maintaining station on the convoy on pitch black nights and the fear that at any second a torpedo from a German U-boat could blow them to oblivion. Somehow the tradition of the Royal Navy and the knowledge of the importance of their work carries them through. They continue the monotonous and dangerous but vital duty of convoy escort and after one particularly difficult convoy they use all their hard won knowledge to sink a German submarine. They are nearly sunk several times until in 1943 they are finally torpedoed and forced to abandon ship. Most of the crew die in the freezing waters, but Ericson, Lockhart, and a few others are rescued the next day. Ericson, now promoted to Commander, and Lockhart, now a Lieutenant-Commander, take command of a new ship, the fictitious River class frigate HMS Saltash. (In the film The Cruel Sea, the ship is called Saltash Castle and is portrayed by a Castle class corvette HMS Portchester Castle, as no River class vessels were available.) The Royal Navy is now finally gaining the upper hand over the U-boats and Saltash adds to the growing number of kills due to Ericson''s determination and patience. When the war ends, the ship returns to port as a guard to several German submarines that have surrendered. A secondary plotline concerns Lockhart''s poignant romance with a beautiful Women''s Royal Naval Service officer.

The Cruel Sea

The previous novel is briefly addressed in the book''s first section "To the Summer Quaternary" with the pretension of being a synopsis Pierce is preparing of book project for possible publication. From here, the shifts abruptly to Pierce''s boyhood, describing his early life with his cousins near the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky. While cleaning the ashes from burning garbage one day, Pierce sees some embers escape, and cause a minor forest fire. His older cousin, Joe Boyd, immediately blames Pierce for the whole incident and frequently arises in conversation for the rest of the novel. As a result of his blame, Joe Boyd often excludes from the secret clubs he forms with his siblings. After the death of Pierce''s Aunt and his cousins'' mother Opal Oliphant, the children are neither homeschooled nor attend school, and Sam Oliphant instead orders a large number of books at a time from the State Library to keep the children busy. Pierce finds great interest in the encyclopedias of mythology and occult, and eventually constructs his own mythology, presenting to his cousins as another secret club called the Invisible College, rival to that of Joe Boyd''s. Sam eventually comes to request for the children a tutor, answered by a local Nun, Sister Mary Philomel, who trains the children in strict traditional Catholicism, despite Sam''s antipathy for religion. For a short period, the children secretly shelter a girl known as Bobby Shaftoe in their home. The plan backfires when Bobby becomes violently ill and eventually infects the other children. At this point, they reveal to Sam their having her in the house. Her father Floyd eventually returns for her. When the children try to visit Bobby at her home, they are terrified by Floyd''s apocalyptic threats. In the Renaissance, Giordano Bruno is revealed to have safely made the journey to England and is living in the household of John Florio. Bruno serves on some diplomatic meetings with Florio, and eventually comes to lecture at Cambridge (nearly missing a performance of Dido, Queen of Carthage). He meets John Dee who, impressed by Bruno''s intellectual daring, invites him to his home. Dee and Edward Kelley abruptly leave England following the supernatural child-like being from the previous novel, Madimi, to the continent eventually to the court of Rudolf II who commissions them to create a Alchemical stone. In the present, Pierce is continuing to work on his book, exploring various systems of thoughts with possible modern applications. At the same time, his neighbour Beau Brachman independently happens upon many of the same topics including Hermeticism, though he interprets each through a strongly New Age influenced approach. Rosie Mucho continues with her separation proceedings from her husband Mike Mucho, coming to trust Mike to care for her daughter Sam for periods of time. Mike is expanding his work from psychotherapy to exploring speculative religious practice with his patients. Rosie is very much distracted with the declining of health of Boney Rassmussen, who is on his own quest to find the Philosopher''s Stone which Fellowes Kraft had, while alive, teased him existed in Prague. In short order, Boney dies leaving a Will containing many impossible requests, including being buried in a private field he did not own. Rosie Mucho confides in Pierce in this time, who comforts her during the funeral proceedings. Eventually Pierce becomes frustrated with his book project, taking a grant Kraft''s foundation had offered him to take a research trip to Prague.

Love & Sleep

Sometime between 1958 and 1962, Leo Runcible, a Liberal Jew, is working in the real estate field. On learning that Walt Dombrosio, Leo''s neighbor, has had a Black visitor to his house in a "lily-white" suburb of Marin County, California, potential purchasers interrogate Runcible about the matter and ultimately incur his wrath over their narrow-minded bigotry. He thereby fails to close the deal and forfeits their friendship and a precious commission as well. But according to Leo''s tortured logic it is Walt who''s at fault for this unforeseen little debacle. So in retaliation Runcible opportunistically reports Dombrosio''s later episode of drunk driving, leading to the loss of the latter''s motor vehicle operator''s license for a period of six months. Walt''s wife Sherry then drives him to and from work every day, eventually landing a job working alongside her husband. Walt, however, being as he is an insecure, misogynistic, manipulating headcase, quits his own position over this incident and continues to fume over it as the weeks and months roll by. He eventually humiliates and manhandles his wife in front of their neighbors as a prelude to forcefully impregnating her with an unwanted child which she unsuccessfully threatens to abort. At the same time, Runcible has found what he believes to be Neanderthal remains in Carquinez, Marin County, and envisages rising property prices due to incipient archaeological interest and the avalanche of media coverage that naturally follows. As it turns out, however, Dombrosio is the culprit who modified and planted the modern human remains there to begin with. They are a legacy of the local ''chuppers'' who developed facial, cranial and spinal deformations as a supposed result of the pollution of the local water supply. The novel ends with Walt Dombrosio, by far the most despicable character of the novel, essentially coming out on top. He discusses his flirtation with bankruptcy, via his purchase of the local substandard water company, with the local grammar school teacher, and he makes himself out as quite the unflinching hero in the process. There is also an extended scene, dovetailing almost imperceptibly into this conversation, in which Dombrosio visualizes his little family several years later after Sherry has presumably given birth to a malformed baby boy due to the possible teratogenic properties of the local water supply.

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

"He" wakes up on a prison ship, and discovers that "he" is a copy. He learns that he is in the body of a notorious killer of women named "Park Lacoch", and that he is very short. At the orientation on Charon, a hot and steamy world of jungles and deserts, he learns that magic works. Magic here means that some individuals can sense, and learn to control, the Warden organism that pervades everything and everyone. It is possible to fool the Wardens into believing they are something else, such as converting a fruit juice to poison, or changing a person into an animal. One''s status depends a lot on how much of the power one can learn to use. Park is singled out early, during the placement interviews the newcomers are getting. He is told that the leadership of the planet is aware that there is a Confederacy Assassin planted on Charon to kill the Lord of Charon, Aeolia Matuze. The agent "Park" is well aware of this, as he is that very agent, just arrived. Fortunately for him, the security interviewer is under the impression that Park''s new girlfriend, Zala, is the Assassin, as she has a genetically created double mind. Park is assigned as a Town Accountant to a town where the authorities believe he will be contacted by a well-organized group of revolutionaries seeking to re-install a former Lord of Charon that Aeolia displaced. After a series of adventures, Park gains much control over the power, and with Zala (aka Kira) and his new girlfriend Darva, assists in an attack on the palace where Aeolia Matuze resides. This attack is a coordinated one, coinciding with the overthrow of the government everywhere, and prompted by Dr. Dumonia of Cerberus, a Confederate plant with many agendas. The attack is successful, but the former Lord of Charon cannot go through with killing Aeolia, who was his ex-wife that he still had feelings for. Aeolia, not as sentimental, kills him. When it seems that all is lost, Kira kills Aeolia, with the tacit approval of Aeolia''s Chief of Security, Yatek Morah, who as it turns out, is really in the employ of the aliens. Yatek having no love for the late Aeolia, is willing to discuss matters with Park, and there is the implication that Park will have a chance to become the new Lord of Charon. The book closes with the Agent in the picket ship being even more affected by this latest experience. He more than ever questions the values and efficacy of the Confederacy, and wishes to delay making a final report because he fears what his government''s response will be. The computer shows that it is more than merely an assistant or partner, by nearly overriding him, and almost not letting him out of the capsule. "Mr. Carroll" manages to convince the computer that he will return, and only wishes to gather the final report from Medusa before making his report to the Confederacy. The saga continues in the fourth and last book of the series, Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail.

Charon: A Dragon at the Gate

The Bottom is a mostly black neighborhood in Ohio, situated in the hills above the mostly white, wealthier community in the town of Medallion. The Bottom first became a community when a master gave it to his former slave. This "gift" was in fact a trick: the master gave the former slave a poor stretch of hilly land, convincing the slave the land was worthwhile by claiming that because it was hilly, it was closer to heaven. The trick, though, led to the growth of a vibrant community. Now the community faces a new threat; wealthy whites have taken a liking to the land, and would like to destroy much of the town in order to build a golf course. Shadrack, a resident of the Bottom, fought in World War I. He returns a shattered man, unable to accept the complexities of the world; he lives on the outskirts of town, attempting to create order in his life. One of his methods involves compartmentalizing his fear of death in a ritual he invents and names National Suicide Day. The town is at first wary of him and his ritual, then, over time, unthinkingly accepts him. Meanwhile, the families of the children Nel and Sula are contrasted. Nel is the product of a family that believes deeply in social conventions; hers is a stable home, though some might characterize it as rigid. Nel is uncertain of the conventional life her mother, Helene, wants for her; these doubts are hammered home when she meets Rochelle, her grandmother and a former prostitute, the only unconventional woman in her family line. Sula''s family is very different: she lives with her grandmother, Eva, and her mother, Hannah, both of whom are seen by the town as eccentric and loose. Their house also serves as a home for three informally adopted boys and a steady stream of boarders. Despite their differences, Sula and Nel become fiercely attached to each other during adolescence. However, a traumatic accident changes everything. One day, Sula playfully swings a neighborhood boy, Chicken Little, around by his hands. When she loses her grip, the boy falls into a nearby river and drowns. They never tell anyone about the accident even though they did not intend to harm the boy. The two girls begin to grow apart. One day Sula''s mother''s dress catches fire and she dies of the burns. Eva, her mother, sees her from the window and jumps out into the garden. After high school, Nel chooses to marry and settles into the conventional role of wife and mother. Sula follows a wildly divergent path and lives a life of fierce independence and total disregard for social conventions. Shortly after Nel''s wedding, Sula leaves the Bottom for a period of 10 years. She has many affairs, some, it is rumored, with white men. However, she finds people following the same boring routines elsewhere, so she returns to the Bottom and to Nel. Upon her return, the town regards Sula as the very personification of evil for her blatant disregard of social conventions. Their hatred in part rests upon Sula''s interracial relationships, but is crystallized when Sula has an affair with Nel''s husband, Jude, who subsequently abandons Nel. Ironically, the community''s labeling of Sula as evil actually improves their own lives. Her presence in the community gives them the impetus to live harmoniously with one another. Nel breaks off her friendship with Sula. Just before Sula dies in 1940, they achieve a half-hearted reconciliation. With Sula''s death, the harmony that had reigned in the town quickly dissolves.

Sula

Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path—Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle''s offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle''s offer to work for the railroad. The young couple get married and have three children, a boy and two girls. Gradually perfecting her household skills, Virginia is able to get by on very little money. When, after many years, Oliver''s first play is put on the stage in New York, his expectations are high. However, the show is a complete failure as the play is far too intellectual and radical for a Broadway audience who wants to be entertained rather than reformed. Reading about the flop in the local newspaper, Virginia for the first time in her life leaves her children, asking her mother to take care of them for a day or two, and takes the night train to New York to be with, and console, her husband—only to be rejected by him, who is in a state of severe depression. When he has recovered from the shock, Oliver makes yet another concession to society and public taste and starts writing "trash". Throughout the years, Virginia leads a vicarious life: She is happy when her husband and children are happy; she makes sure their clothes are in perfect condition while neglecting her own outward appearance; and she is eager to provide for her children the education she herself has been denied. When, at one point, she realizes that the women her age whom she has known since childhood still look quite young while she has aged prematurely, she quickly persuades herself to believe that a life of altruistic subservience is more than worthwhile, that living and acting the way she does is her duty and God''s will. Her father''s sudden if honourable death—he unsuccessfully tries to prevent the lynching of an innocent young African American and is stabbed in the process by an angry and drunken young man—adds to the gloom that starts creeping into her life, especially when she sees that, as a widow, her mother suddenly loses all her will to live. When she dies only a few months after her husband, Virginia has a premonition that her own fate when losing Oliver could be a similar one. Meanwhile Oliver''s first successful play—a trashy one—premières in New York, with some more to follow in quick succession, and, as the money keeps pouring in, the family move into a bigger house in Dinwiddie. They now employ a number of servants, including an African American butler. With the children gone—their son and one daughter are at college, while the other daughter has married a much older widower with two grown-up children and has also flown the nest—and Oliver frequently in New York to supervise the staging of his plays, Virginia''s life becomes increasingly empty. Having "outlived her usefulness", the days seem endless to her, and with all the servants about the house there is absolutely no housework for her to do either. Now in her mid-forties, Virginia for the first time in her life spends Christmas alone at home. The biggest blow, however, is yet to come: When she accompanies Oliver to New York for a première, she finds out to her dismay that he has been betraying her with a famous actress who stars in one of his plays. For the last time summoning up all her courage, she takes a taxi and pays her an unexpected call but immediately realizes when talking to her that she has no chance of winning her husband back. Without many words, Oliver asks her to let him divorce her, but clinging to the only thing she has left in her life—her marriage—she refuses. The novel ends on a somewhat optimistic note when Virginia, again alone in the empty house in Dinwiddie, receives a letter from her son telling her that he is going to leave Oxford before he has completed his two-year course at the university in order to come back and stay with his mother.

Virginia

A murder in 17th-century Oxford is related from the contradictory points of view of four of the characters, all of them unreliable narrators. The setting of the novel is 1663, just after the restoration of the monarchy following the English Civil War, when the authority of King Charles II is not yet settled, and conspiracies abound. Most of the characters are historical figures. Two of the narrators are the mathematician John Wallis and the historian Anthony Wood. Other characters include the philosopher John Locke, the scientists Robert Boyle and Richard Lower, spymaster John Thurloe, and inventor Samuel Morland. The plot is at first centred on the death of Robert Grove but later takes in the conspiracies of John Mordaunt and William Compton (of Compton Wynyates), and the politics of Henry Bennet and Lord Clarendon. Furthermore, the characters that are fictional are nonetheless drawn from real events. The story of Sarah Blundy incorporates that of Anne Greene, while Jack Prestcott is involved in events based on the life of Richard Willis (of the Sealed Knot). The book is an epistolary novel. The accounts are written many years after the events they describe, after Thomas Ken gained his Bishopric but before the death of Henry Bennet. This dates them to 1685, the last year of Charles'' reign. A contrast portrayed in the novel is, on one hand, a philosophy based on ancient and medieval learning, and, on the other, the scientific method that was beginning to be applied in physics, chemistry and medicine.

An Instance of the Fingerpost

Wren Elessedil, a descendant of the legendary Jerle Shannara, was charged by the shade of the Druid Allanon to travel to the distant island of Morrowindl and find the Elves to return them to the Four Lands. The catch was that not one Elf had been seen in the Four Lands for more than a hundred years. No one in the Westlands knew of them---except, finally, the Addershag, who told Wren how to locate one. Tiger Ty, the Wing Rider, carried Wren Ohmsford and her friend Garth to the only clear landing site on the island of Morrowindl, where the Elves might still exist. A Splinterscat, Stresa, and a Tree Squeak, Faun, help her reach the city of Arborlon. The island has become a prison since demons began appearing. Only the magic of the Loden keeps Arborlon safe, but its power is failing, and if the Elves are not returned to the Westland soon, they will not survive. When Wren reached the Elves, she learns of her past and discovers that she is of true Elven blood, because the current Elf Queen, Ellenroh Elessedil, is her maternal grandmother. Nine companions, Aurin Striate, an acquaintance Wren and Garth befriend on their way into the city; Triss, Captain of Home Guard; Cort and Dal, Elven Hunters; Ellenroh Elessedil, current queen of the Elves; Eowen, the queen''s closest friend; Gavilan Elessedil, the queen''s nephew and Wren''s cousin; Wren; and Garth set out on a journey to the Westland. Ellenroh becomes fatally ill, and before she dies, she informs Wren that she is to inherit the Loden and become the Queen of the Elves after Ellenroh, though she was orphaned at birth and raised as a Rover. Upon Ellenroh''s death, Eowen reveals that the demons they are trying to avoid were created as an accident by Elves. She reveals that the elves succeeded in regaining their lost magic and to protect their nation from the Federation they created an army of replica elves, but that they became addicted to the magic and transformed into the demons. Wren leads the company with the Loden, but loses all her companions to the demons, Drakuls, and the Wisteron. Only Wren and Triss, Stresa, and Faun remain when the volcano on the island of Morrowindl erupts, destroying the island. Tiger Ty gathers the small company and flees Morrowindl, where Wren restores Arborlon to its original location in the Westland.

The Elf Queen of Shannara

Young Nicolas Poussin, as yet unknown, visits the painter Porbus in his workshop. He is accompanied by the old master Frenhofer who comments expertly on the large tableau that Porbus has just finished. The painting is of Mary of Egypt, and while Frenhofer sings her praises, he hints that the work seems unfinished. With some slight touches of the paintbrush, Frenhofer transforms Porbus'' painting such that Mary the Egyptian appears to come alive before their very eyes. Although Frenhofer has mastered his technique, he admits that he has been unable to find a suitable model for his own masterpiece, La Belle noiseuse, on which he has been working for ten years. This future masterpiece, that no one has yet seen, is to be the portrait of Catherine Lescault. Poussin offers his own lover, Gilette, as a potential model. Gilette''s beauty is so great that it inspires Frenhofer to finish his project quickly. Poussin and Porbus come to admire the painting, but all they can see is part of a foot that has been lost in a swirl of colors. Their disappointment drives Frenhofer to madness, and he destroys the painting and kills himself.

Le Chef-d''œuvre inconnu

A regular Naval officer in the Pacific theater is assigned to command an operation to seize a group of strategic islands from the Japanese. The attack on Pearl Harbor catches the United States Navy unawares. They include Captain Rockwell Torrey, commanding a heavy cruiser known only as Old Swayback (an obvious reference to the U.S.S. Salt Lake City - CA-25), which is off the Hawaiian coast near Pearl Harbor, running another set of exercises in a long string of them. Lieutenant (juniot grade) William "Mac" McConnell is assigned as Officer of the Day aboard the destroyer, USS Cassiday, tied up in a shallower channel of the harbor, not all that far from Battleship Row. When the attack comes, Lieutenant McConnell takes his ship out of the harbor, leaving his captain and executive officer behind, and eventually joins a scratch task group assembled around Torrey''s cruiser. Torrey leads his task group on a seek-out-and-destroy mission. When the ships approach the end of their fuel, Torrey orders them to steer a straight course. That makes the group vulnerable to attack. A Japanese sub scores two torpedo hits on Old Swayback before Cassiday can sink the sub with depth charges. Back at Pearl Harbor, Torrey is relieved of his command and faces a Board of Inquiry that could lead to a Court-Martial, but when Admiral Chester Nimitz arrives to take command in the Pacific theater, he makes sure that Torrey will have a position on his planning staff. Torrey''s officers scatter to various points in the Pacific theater, with his old exec, Paul Eddington, assigned to an unrewarding post at an old Free French base on the island of Toulebonne. Torrey drifts into a romance with a Navy nurse named Maggie Haynes; this romance is interrupted only briefly by the alert ordered during the Battle of Midway. Eventually, Torrey and his roommate, Captain Egan Powell, USNR, are invited to dinner at Nimitz''s house, where Nimitz personally presents Torrey with the pair of Rear Admiral (lower half) stars Nimitz had worn before taking command as CinCPAC and announces that he is to go into the Pacific theater to take personal command of an operation, called Mesquite, that has ground to a halt because of the inept micro-management by the area commander. Torrey lands on the island of Gavabutu, about three hundred miles west of Toulebonne (where the area commander is headquartered), and immediately makes the area commander his enemy by planning an operation to drive the Japanese off Gavabutu immediately. This operation succeeds, and Torrey turns his attention to his next target: Levu-Vana, a much sought-after island having a central plain large enough to build runways for B-17 bombers. He learns that the Japanese want to stay on Levu-Vana. Torrey''s repeated attempts to get more materiel for his mission end in failure, largely because the Navy is sending most of its heavy tonnage to the Solomon Islands to support General Douglas MacArthur. Torrey presses on anyway; during the battle, enemy fire sinks his ship, and falling wreckage strikes him and knocks him unconscious. He wakes up aboard a hospital ship under the care of his lover, Maggie Haynes, initially believing that he has lost the battle and sacrificed his ships to no good purpose, until the general commanding his landing forces informs him that he is in control of Levu-Vana, that Torrey''s battle was a success, and that no less than Admiral Ernest King has praised him highly for his efforts. Torrey submits to the ministrations of Maggie Haynes—who, in the last scene, prepares to shave his face using his prized seven-blade set of German straight razors, which his rescuers preserved and returned to him.

Harm''s Way

The Wicker Man novelisation follows the plot of the film closely, but also expands upon the original story, incorporating additional backstory and new material that would have been unable to fit in the film. Some of the novel''s scenes were originally shot for the film, but were cut to reduce running time and have not been seen since the loss of the film negative. For example, the character of Lord Summerisle''s gillie is restored, and the reader learns of Howie''s interest in bird-watching. The novelisation reveals that Sergeant Neil Howie had originally attempted to become a priest, but that he was daunted by the prospect of preaching the minority faith of Episcopalianism in the staunchly Presbyterian Scottish Highlands. Howie''s relationship with his fiancée, Mary Bannock, is explored in greater detail. Allan Brown writes that Howie''s arguments with Lord Summerisle have more impact in the novel than they did in the film, as the casting of Christopher Lee, who is associated with many villainous roles, made it difficult for the film''s audience to trust Lord Summerisle or consider his arguments seriously. In the novel, "the battle is more ambivalent, more unsettling – and, in the end, perhaps more in keeping with the treacherous moral landscape Shaffer initially envisioned." The novel expands upon the film''s ending. The film ended with Howie being burnt to death as a sacrificial offering inside the Wicker Man; while the novel does include this scene, it also features an additional epilogue where Howie''s seaplane is spotted on May Day, suggesting that he may have survived somehow.

The Wicker Man

Reacher and a female assistant named Lieutenant Summer travel to inform Mrs. Kramer of her husband''s death. However, when they arrive, it turns out the house has been broken into and Mrs. Kramer has been murdered with a crowbar. Reacher goes to a bar across the street from the motel to find out who the hooker was, and creates some trouble when he gets into a fight with the owner, shattering his knee. Afterwards, the motel receptionist informs Reacher that he heard a military vehicle leaving after Kramer''s death, and Reacher concludes that the woman Kramer was with is a female officer. The book introduces General Vassell and Colonel Coomer, and later their errand boy, Major Marshall. It becomes clear that they are hiding something, related to an agenda for a meeting that was in Kramer''s briefcase. Two soldiers named Carbone and Brubaker are murdered soon afterward. It turns out that Carbone filed a complaint against Reacher, his first in a sixteen-year career, for assaulting the bar owner. This puts Reacher under a cloud of suspicion. Reacher, in a talk with the Chief of Staff, finds out that with the collapse of Soviet communism that the military at large is worried about its inevitable downsizing, and in particular the different branches are having a power struggle. Reacher realises that Vassell, Coomer, and Marshall killed Carbone, by sneaking Marshall into the base in the car trunk. This is proven when investigation of the car finds Marshall''s fingerprints as well as large quantities of blood in the trunk. Reacher arrests Vassell and Coomer for conspiracy to commit homicide. He makes the mistake of traveling alone to a firing range in the Mojave Desert to arrest Marshall. Marshall is hiding out in a bunker, also armed. A firefight ensues, during which Marshall calls his tank squadron, practicing nearby, to fire rounds on their position. Under cover of the incoming tank shells, and realizing that time is short, Reacher sneaks into the bunker and shoots and wounds Marshall. Escaping in his Humvee, he drives the wounded Marshall to a military hospital. Reacher finds the missing agenda. It turns out that it was a plan to ensure that Armored Branch, the military the conspirators worked for, avoided being reduced. The agenda was a plan to assassinate eighteen prominent individuals in the army, one already killed. Vassell, Coomer, and Marshall plead guilty as charged in exchange for life imprisonment, avoiding the death penalty which was threatened. Reacher pleads guilty to the brutality charge that had been brought by Carbone, and is demoted to Captain, but has cleared his conscience.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Cruel Sea

By Nicholas Monsarrat

Love & Sleep

By John Crowley

The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike

By Philip K. Dick

Charon: A Dragon at the Gate

By Jack L. Chalker

Sula

By Toni Morrison

Virginia

By Ellen Glasgow

An Instance of the Fingerpost

By Iain Pears

The Elf Queen of Shannara

By Terry Brooks

Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu

By Honoré de Balzac

Harm's Way

By James Bassett

The Wicker Man

By Robin Hardy

The Enemy

By Lee Child