The main character, Nicholas Hunt, is an American politician and lobbyist, closely involved with some branches of secret military research including paranormal activities. He is not a hero: as Dukaj himself describes him, he is "a cynical, egoistic bureaucrat, whose main motivation for all of his decisions in his job is, it seems, covering his ass". Currently he has lost an internal power struggle and is assigned to oversee what seems like a dead-end, low-key project. Soon, however, his project starts to gain more importance, as scientists explore some promising theories from the borders of memetics and telepathy, including study of potential lifeforms that would use memes just as we use genes, and develop new sciences like psychomemetics. Suddenly a strange cataclysm takes place, with millions of people worldwide going insane and many densely populated areas becoming a ''no-go'' zone. Is this an alien invasion? A result of military or corporate experiment? A new step in human evolution? Or are we seeing the painful transformation into a post-technological singularity world? Nicholas Hunt is not sure, but he knows one thing: the rat race is going on, and he will do everything he needs to survive.

Black Oceans

Crystal Gregory is a beautiful new teacher at Sunnydale High, who also happens to give Buffy panic fits whenever she''s in the same room as her. Buffy can''t sense anything unusual about the teacher and begins to wonder if she''s losing her mind. But lately, Anya and Michael seem to be getting awfully close to Crystal and would appear to do anything for her. While out for her usual patrol at night, Buffy has two strange encounters; one, a man is completely incinerated by red and lighting and the other being a girl from school who has a burn mark on her neck in the shape of the symbol for infinity. As soon as Giles gets cracking on his books, he finds out that Crystal is in fact Shugra, a powerful primal witch which is trying to activate the source. She needs a coven of 13 willing people to participate in order to draw the proper energy, unfortunately, it seems that Willow is one of those people. Cordelia is nervous about her father''s tax position but does not tell the others. This foreshadows later events. Giles and Joyce are nervous in each other''s company Characters include: Buffy, Joyce, Giles, Xander, Anya, Cordelia, Willow, and Oz

Prime Evil

Although the novel has one clearly defined plot of action, the narrative is sometimes interrupted by the hero''s reminiscences as well as by his appeals to the fictitious Ukrainian king Olelko the Second. Other non-linear elements include alternative outcomes (endings) and multiple references to famous historical and cultural figures who do not appear directly in the novel. A condensed plot of action follows. The Ukrainian poet Otto von F. wakes up in his Moscow dormitory room. He comes down to take a shower in the basement where he makes love to an unknown Malagasy girl. Returning from the shower to his room, he discovers his three older friends (Yura Holitsyn, Arnold Horobets and Boris Roitman) who talk him into going to a bar with them. At the bar (bar-na-Fonvizina), a dirty disreputable hole teeming with alcoholics and sluts, the four friends consume a large quantity of low-quality beer. Otto pronounces a speech that calls for Ukraine''s separation from Russia, to everyone''s applause. Soon Otto departs because he has an appointment with his colleague Kyryl at Kyryl''s apartment. But before seeing Kyryl he has to buy presents for his friends'' children at the big superstore "Dytiachyi Svit". On the way to the store Otto decides to visit his girlfriend Halya, a snake tamer. At Halya''s he consumes some vodka, makes love to her, and, after getting into fight with her, narrowly escapes, leaving his cloak and audio-cassette with Mike Oldfield''s music behind. He stops by at a cheap and dirty restaurant and narrowly escapes unhurt as it explodes. At "Dytiachyi Svit" he visits a man''s room where he walks past a middle-aged man of Southern or possibly Roma origin whom he at first takes for a homosexual and nicknames "the baron". Soon afterwards he discovers that his wallet has disappeared from his backpack and realizes that only the baron could possibly steal it. The wallet contains some money, but, most importantly, a plane ticket to Kiev which was very hard to obtain. Otto pursues the baron who has just disappeared behind one of the doors that leads to the storage rooms of "Dytiachyi Svit". The wild chase through a maze of basement corridors ends in a brief encounter between the two. The baron is victorious as Otto groans on the floor with an injured leg. The triumphant baron, however, falls through an open sewer hatch by oversight, thus leaving Otto alone in the basement. Otto realizes that the store must be closed by now and all the doors leading to the top must be locked. After some attempts he stumbles across a door that opens but when he steps inside he finds himself inside a tunnel of the Moscow subway. He is soon arrested by armed rat-catchers who promptly deliver him to the hands of KGB, still underground. Otto, himself formerly recruited by KGB, is locked in a cage but is unexpectedly presented to Halya who, as he learns, is another KGB spy. She helps him to get out, and after fooling security guards Otto enters a large hall where a banquet is taking place. This is a celebration of KGB and perhaps some other clandestine governmental organizations. He runs into his old acquaintance, the poet Yezhevikin who also seems to be a KGB agent. Some drinking ensues, and Yezhevikin procures a couple of prostitutes for himself and Otto. But the latter, under the influence of the mix of the alcoholic drinks consumed in the course of the day, is unable to contain himself and rushes to a bathroom where he throws up. In the bathroom he meets an old man who, after some admonition, assists Otto to attend a symposium of the dead. To get there, Otto must wear a mask and he chooses the mask of a clown. Once inside, he sees a number of masked figures who represent the powerful leaders from the Russian history&nbsp;– Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Dzerzhinsky etc. A terrible plot is brewing. A mysterious figure in a black pantyhose pulled over its head announces a plan to amass the power of the Empire at the expense of subjugating other countries (Finland, France, Israel etc.) and turning its citizens into docile slaves. Otto faces a choice&nbsp;– either to sit back and let the plan go ahead, or to do something to defuse it. He borrows a gun from a KGB agent who is demoted as a consequence of Otto''s escape, and shoots the Russian leaders, one by one. They tumble down as sacks stuffed with straw. Then Otto shoots himself. But later he reappears alive and boards a train to Kiev as Moscow is destroyed in a giant flood.

The Moscoviad

Tom Sanders, the head of advanced products manufacturing at DigiCom, expects to be promoted to run the advanced products division after DigiCom''s merger with a publishing house. Instead, his ex-girlfriend, Meredith Johnson, who recently moved to Seattle from the company''s headquarters in Cupertino, California; is given the promotion. Later that day, Meredith calls Tom into her office, ostensibly to discuss an advanced CD-ROM drive. She aggressively tries to resume their relationship, despite Tom''s repeated attempts to resist. When he spurns her sexual advances, Meredith angrily vows to make him pay. The next morning, Tom discovers that Meredith has retaliated by falsely accusing him of sexual harassment. DigiCom president Bob Garvin, fearing that the incident could jeopardize the merger, tells the company''s general counsel, Phil Blackburn, to propose transferring Tom to the company''s Austin facility. However, Tom''s division is due to be spun off as a publicly traded company after the merger, and if he''s transferred, he will lose stock options which would make him a wealthy man. Seemingly out of options, Tom gets in touch with Seattle attorney Louise Fernandez, who agrees to take the case. Tom threatens to sue Meredith and DigiCom for sexual harassment unless Meredith is fired, throwing the merger and his future with the company in jeopardy. During a mediation, Tom discovers that when he called one of his colleagues, John Levin, about the problems with the drive, John''s answering machine recorded the whole incident with Meredith. He and Linda also discover that DigiCom officials have known for some time that Meredith has a history of unwelcome advances toward male coworkers, and yet did nothing to stop it. Confronted with this evidence, DigiCom is forced to agree to a settlement in which Meredith is quietly pushed out and Tom is restored to his former post. That night, Tom gets an email from "A Friend" warning him that all is not normal yet. Later, he overhears Meredith and Phil planning to make it look like Tom is responsible for defects in the CD-ROM project, thereby giving DigiCom an excuse to fire him for incompetence. Tom is unable to access information in the database that would prove his innocence since Meredith has locked him out of the system. Through a prototype of the company''s virtual reality machine, Tom discovers that Meredith changed the quality control specifications at the Malaysian plant manufacturing the drive. These changes, ostensibly to appease Malaysian government demands and cut costs, resulted in the defects. With the help of one of his Malaysian colleagues, Tom obtains enough evidence to turn the tables on Meredith, resulting in her getting fired instead.

Disclosure

Holmes is enjoying his retirement in Sussex when one day at the beach, he meets his friend Harold Stackhurst, the headmaster of a nearby preparatory school called The Gables. No sooner have they met than Stackhurst''s science master, Fitzroy McPherson, staggers up to them, obviously in agony and wearing only an overcoat and trousers. He collapses, manages to say something about a "lion''s mane", and then dies. He is observed to have red welts all over his back, administered by a flexible weapon of some kind, for the marks curve over his shoulder and round his ribs. Moments later, Ian Murdoch, a mathematics teacher, comes up behind them. He has not seen the attack, and has only just arrived at the beach from the school. Holmes sees a couple of people far up the beach, but thinks they are much too far away to have had anything to do with McPherson''s death. Likewise, the few fishing boats off the beach are too far out. It emerges that Murdoch and McPherson were friends, but had not always been. Murdoch is an enigmatic fellow with an occasional bad temper. He once threw McPherson''s dog through a plate-glass window, for instance. Despite this, Stackhurst is sure that they were friends. McPherson also had a lover, and on further investigation, it turns out that Maud Bellamy was McPherson''s fiancée. A note confirming a meeting with her was found on McPherson, but it gave no clear details. Holmes goes to look at the lagoon formed by a recent storm that local men have been using as a bathing pond. He sees McPherson''s towel lying there dry and concludes that he never went into the water. Holmes arranges to have the caves and other nooks at the foot of the cliffs searched, expecting that that will turn up nothing and no-one. He is right. Stackhurst and Holmes decide to go and see Miss Bellamy to see whether she can shed any light on this perplexing mystery. Just as they are approaching The Haven, the Bellamys'' house, they see Ian Murdoch emerge. Stackhurst demands to know what he was doing there, and an angry exchange ensues with Murdoch declaring in effect that it was none of Stackhurst''s business. Stackhurst loses his temper and sacks Murdoch on the spot. He storms off to get ready to move out. They visit the Bellamys and find an amazingly beautiful woman in Maud Bellamy, but two most unpleasant men in her father and muscular brother. It seems that they did not approve of the liaison between Maud and McPherson. They do not even find out about the engagement until this meeting, such has been the secrecy of their affair. Maud says that she will help however she can, but it does not seem likely that she can do anything. It emerges, however, that Ian Murdoch was once a potential suitor to Miss Bellamy. Holmes begins to suspect that Murdoch may be responsible for McPherson''s death, out of jealousy. A further mystifying clue presents itself when McPherson''s dog is found dead at the very pool where McPherson met his end. It obviously died in agony, much as its master did. At this point, Holmes begins to suspect something else. The dead man''s dying words, "lion''s mane," have triggered a memory, but he cannot quite call it back to mind. Inspector Bardle of the Sussex Constabulary visits Holmes to ask if there is enough evidence to arrest Ian Murdoch. Holmes is sure that there is not. The case is most incomplete, especially as Murdoch has an alibi. He also could not have singlehandedly overcome McPherson, who was quite strong, despite having heart trouble. The two men also consider McPherson''s wounds. The weals actually looked as though they may have been administered by a hot wire mesh, or perhaps a cat o'' nine tails. Holmes has formed a theory which might explain McPherson''s death and is about to go back to the bathing pond to test it. As he is about to leave, Murdoch arrives, helped in by Stackhurst, who is afraid that Murdoch might be dying; he fainted twice in pain. He has the same wounds on him that McPherson had. In great agony, he calls for brandy, passes out, but finally recovers. At the bathing pond, Holmes spots the murderer: it is a Lion''s Mane Jellyfish (Cyanea capillata), a deadly creature about which Holmes has read. Holmes takes a rock and kills it. He shares the story by John George Wood of an encounter with just such a jellyfish with the other men. Murdoch is exonerated, of course. It turns out that he was acting as a go-between for McPherson and Maud, and did not wish to discuss it with anyone. The story ends on an upbeat note as Stackhurst forgives Murdoch and gives him his job back.

The Adventure of the Lion''s Mane

The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, Cytowic describes his chance encounter during a dinner party on February 10, 1980 with MW, the "Man Who Tasted Shapes." Cytowic describes how his host reported that "There aren''t enough points on the chicken!" and how this chance comment led to Cytowic''s investigations of the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia. Early chapters include background information on how the brain is organized, drawn mainly from Paul D. MacLean''s Triune Brain theory. Cytowic describes MW''s synesthesia, noting the consistency of his reports, that such experiences are "generic" and consistent over time. Chapters dealing with more scientific theories, data and experimentation are alternated with autobiographical and more personal chapters describing the historical details of Cytowic''s investigations into synesthesia. In order to explore the biological basis of synesthesia, Cytowic describes experiments in which he tested how MW''s synesthesia was reduced by MW''s daily routine of stimulants such as nicotine and caffeine and depressants such as alcohol. In more intensive investigations of the effects of different psychoactive substances, Cytowic notes that stimulants, including a dose of amphetamine decreased the strength of MW''s synesthesia, while amyl nitrite increased the strength of MW''s synesthesia. For example, MW reports that mint feels like a cool glass column, but that amyl nitrite led him to feel as if he were placing his hand among many glass columns. Cytowic also summarizes work done with functional neuroimaging which showed unusually low cortical activation in MW. Based on these results, Cytowic proposes a theory in which synesthesia is a result of unusual processing in the limbic system and an overall decrease in cortical activation. In later chapters, Cytowic reports on his efforts to make synesthesia more widely known, on the experiences of many other synesthetes who have contacted him, and how synesthesia affects their lives. Cytowic describes how an article about his work on synesthesia in the tabloid The National Enquirer, which are "not known to help one''s career" led to his first contacts with synesthetes beyond MW These personal accounts of synesthesia, described here in more autobiographical style, also form the basis of Cytowic''s more detailed scientific book, Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses. Additionally, Cytowic discusses the links between synesthesia and memory, as first noted in Alexander Luria''s book The Mind of Mnemonist about Solomon Shereshevskii, a Russian mnemonist who also experienced fivefold synesthesia. In the second part of the book, entitled "Essays on the Primacy of Emotion", Cytowic presents a number of his reflections on what the phenomenon of synesthesia means for traditional neuroscientific and neurological practice, how anomalous findings can lead to major scientific discoveries, and the role that emotion plays in our understanding of the world around us.

The Man Who Tasted Shapes

Having landed on the planet of Espero, the Doctor and Fitz leave Trix in the TARDIS whilst they investigate a distress signal. As she grows bored, Trix decides to leave, but is surprised to find an amnesiac Fitz lying unconscious outside the TARDIS. They find themselves in the path of a wavefront of grey goo, and Fitz surprises Trix by being quite keen to investigate the mystery. The Doctor, meanwhile, has been befriended by Calamee, a member of the planet''s ruling family. The amnesia he has been suffering from has grown worse, and he — like Fitz — has forgotten everything that has happened prior to the start of the novel. He is directed to the home of a mysterious off-worlder named Madam Xing, who restores his most recent memories and confirms that the memories lost (prior to The Burning) have been permanently deleted, rather than merely suppressed. The Doctor refuses to allow Xing to restore the memories by using a viroid unit, but does take the unit with him as he leaves. As he goes, he discovers that he is being observed via anachronistic technology. Fitz and Trix head to the city, and watch as a mob of citizens attack a "night beast" — an unknown creature that has arrived on the planet. Fitz tries to prevent the attack, but is over-powered by the mob, who kill the beast. Fortunately, they are led to safety by a woman named Farine, but Trix wanders away when she sees a young boy watching them. The boy offers her a device that will allow her to disguise herself much more effectively, changing her entire body on a genetic level. Trix takes him up on the offer, only to find that the "device" is actually an alien symbiote named Reo, who takes complete control of her body. Fitz is taken to the palace by Farine, who turns out to be Princess Sensimi of the ruling family. As they head to the cellars to visit a captured night beast, the TARDIS arrives and the Doctor and Calamee step out: the Doctor has been persuaded to warn the authorities about the wavefront. He explains that it is altering living beings on a genetic level, and manages to convince the others to join him in searching for the source of the wavefront. Finding the source, the Doctor and Fitz discover that it is a crashed living spaceship called Tain, a warship from a race called the Makers who are involved in a war with a race called the Oon. Tain had removed the Doctor and Fitz''s memories of finding the ship, but because of a trojan virus in his systems he was unable to do the job properly. The trojan created the night beasts as soldiers against Tain, but he was able to interfere in their development to make them docile. Unfortunately, in his panic he activated the Gaian Wave, a self-defence mechanism that genetically alters the inhabitants of a planet so that they are all genetically part of the ship: its enemies will be unable to defeat it without destroying the entire planet. Trix and Reo find them, and as Tain agrees to sacrifice himself to save the planet, Reo transfers his consciousness into the ship. Trix collapses, her body unable to look after itself without Reo''s control, and Tain manages to link with her and keep her alive. But this leaves the Doctor with a dilemma: if he carries out Tain''s wishes and destroys him to save the planet, Trix will die. Fortunately, Fitz saves the day: remembering that his current body was "remembered" (Interference: Book Two) he advises Tain to do the same. Tain separates himself from the ship in a new body, and destroys Reo''s consciousness inside the ship. Tain then returns his consciousness to the ship, and cures Trix.

Halflife

The story begins before the three-quarters wolf-dog hybrid is born, with two men and their sled dog team on a journey to deliver a coffin to a remote town named Fort McGurry in the higher area of the Yukon Territory, Canada. The men, Bill and Henry, are stalked by a large pack of starving wolves over the course of several days. Finally, after all of their dogs and Bill have been eaten, four more teams find Henry trying to escape from the wolves; the wolf pack scatters when they hear the large group of people coming. The story then follows the pack, which has been robbed of its last prey. When the pack finally manages to bring down a moose, the famine is ended; they eventually split up, and the story now follows a she-wolf and her mate, One Eye. The she-wolf gives birth to a litter of five cubs by the Mackenzie River, and all but one die from hunger. One Eye is killed by a lynx while trying to rob its den for food for the she-wolf and her cub; his mate later discovers his remains near the lynx''s den. The surviving cub and the she-wolf are left to fend for themselves. Shortly after the she-wolf manages to successfully kill all the lynx kittens, prompting the lynx to track her down and a vicious fight breaks out. The she-wolf eventually kills the lynx but suffers severe injury, the lynx carcass is devoured over a period of seven days. The cub comes across five Native Americans one day, and the she-wolf comes to his rescue. One man, Grey Beaver, recognizes the she-wolf as Kiche, his brother''s wolfdog, who left during a famine. Grey Beaver''s brother is dead, so he takes Kiche and her cub, christening the cub White Fang. White Fang has a harsh life in the Indian camp; the current puppy pack, seeing him as a wolf, immediately attack him. He is saved by the Indians, but the pups never accept him, and the leader Lip-lip singles him out for persecution. White Fang grows to become a savage, morose, solitary, and deadly fighter, "the enemy of his kind." When White Fang is five years old, he is taken to Fort Yukon so that Grey Beaver can trade with the gold-hunters. There, he is bought—with several bottles of whiskey—by a dog-fighter, Beauty Smith, who gets Grey Beaver addicted to the alcohol. White Fang defeats all opponents, including several wolves and a lynx, until a bulldog is brought in to fight him. The bulldog manages to get a grip on the skin and fur of White Fang''s neck, and slowly and surely begins to throttle him. White Fang nearly suffocates, but is rescued when a rich, young gold hunter, Weedon Scott, happens by and stops the fight. Scott attempts to tame White Fang and after a long patient effort he succeeds. When Scott attempts to return to California alone, White Fang pursues him, and Scott decides to take the dog with him back home. In Sierra Vista, White Fang must adjust to the laws of the estate. At the end of the book, a murderous criminal, Jim Hall, tries to kill Weedon Scott''s father, Judge Scott, for sentencing him to prison, not knowing that Hall was "railroaded". White Fang kills Hall and is nearly killed himself, but survives. As a result, the women of Scott''s estate name him "The Blessed Wolf", and the story ends with White Fang relaxing in the sun with the puppies he had fathered with the sheep-dog Collie.

White Fang

Art crime has received relatively little scholarly attention. And yet it involves a multi-billion dollar legitimate industry, with a conservatively-estimated $6 billion annual criminal profit. (US Department of Justice website) Information and scholarly analysis of art crime is critical to the wide variety of fields involved in the art trade and art preservation, from museums to academia, from auction houses to galleries, from insurance to art law, from policing to security. Since the Second World War, art crime has evolved from a relatively innocuous crime, into the third highest-grossing annual criminal trade worldwide, run primarily by organized crime syndicates, and therefore funding their other enterprises, from the drug and arms trades to terrorism. It is no longer merely the art that is at stake. The book is an interdisciplinary essay collection on the study of art crime, and its effect on all aspects of the art world. Essayists discuss art crime subcategories, including vandalism, iconoclasm, forgery, fraud, peace-time theft, war looting, archaeological looting, smuggling, submarine looting, and ransom. The contributors conclude their analyses with specific practical suggestions to implement in the future.

Art and Crime

On a rainy night in Eastvale, a teenager is found in an alley, smashed over the head with a bottle and then kicked to death. At first it looks like a typical after-hours pub fight gone terribly wrong, but Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Constable Susan Gay quickly learn that the victim, Jason Fox, was a member of a white power organization known as the Albion League. Football-mad Jason, it seems, was very good at his office job–bright, energetic, quick to learn–but was let go because of his racist views. As Banks follows the leads, he comes up with a number of possible suspects: the Pakistani youths Jason had insulted earlier in an Eastvale pub; Jason’s business partner, Mark Wood, and his shady friends; someone in the Albion League itself, someone who resented Jason’s growing power and influence. Or are things even more sinister than they appear? The investigation takes a surprising twist when Banks is mysteriously summoned to Amsterdam, where he is introduced to the bizarre world of cyber-Nazis on the Internet. As the detectives struggle to solve the mystery of Jason’s death, they also battle their own problems. Susan finds herself in a puzzling relationship with a fellow DC, and tensions that have been brewing for some time between Banks and his wife Sandra finally come to a head. Banks also has to face the challenge of working with Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle, a high-flyer who favours a hands-on approach to the job, and who is more concerned with appearances than he is with truth. Just when everything seems cut-and-dried, Banks discovers something that turns the case on its head. Something that might cost him his job.

Dead Right

The story starts in 1885, Grimsby, England. Marianne is the illegitimate daughter of a once wealthy English woman and a Danish father, who left her mother not knowing that she was pregnant, and promising to return to England one day. Marianne''s mother is dangerously ill and on her deathbed, gives Marianne some money, telling her to search for her father in Denmark. Marianne''s mother dies, poor and friendless, living in squalid surroundings in Grimsby. And so Marianne starts the perilous journey to Skagen, Denmark to find her father. The journey is long and hard, and finally she arrives at Skagen, now penniless and destitute, and foreign, unable to speak Danish, only to find that her father, Lars Christensen, has been dead for years! So that was the reason why he did not return for her mother! Marianne is stranded in Skagen with nowhere to go, and so is forced to stay with a poor fisherman''s family as a servant. They live in a horribly dirty house with grime on the walls and windows, where the children are covered with lice, the mother suffers from post-natal depression, the father is a drunk and they have barely enough food to live on. Nevertheless, Marianne works and lives there in exchange for a little bit of food and lodging. Marianne is afraid to tell anyone of her birth, fearing that they will despise and ridicule her, as everyone did in London. However, she befriends a girl called Hannah, who is also an illegitimate child. She is surprised at how everyone in Skagen accepts Hannah into society and does not seem to mind about her origin. She is still afraid to tell anyone, even Hannah, about her birth, though. She discovers that her father had a brother, who still resides in Skagen! So now she has an uncle! She contemplates on telling him about her existence, however, she decides against it on finding that he has a reputation for being a very strict man. She is afraid that he will despise her birth, even though they are family. She becomes close friends with his son, and grows to treat him like a cousin, although he himself is unaware that they are related. She falls in love with a young fisherman named Peter, but her love for painting and rumours about her friendship with a French painter, separates them. They come together again at the end, and Peter proposes. She accepts but, saying she wants to carry on learning to paint. She is also reunited with her father, who was really the man she thought was her uncle.

Between Two Seas

The Russian soldier Grischa escapes from a German prison camp and attempts to return to the family home. After his escape he becomes involved with a group of outlaws, including a young woman, Babka, who dresses as a man and has been prematurely aged by her traumatic experiences. Grischa and Babka become lovers. When he leaves, she gives him the identity tag of a former lover, Bjuscheff, so that if he gets caught he will be mistaken for a deserter and not be sent back to the prison camp. She follows him at a distance in case he ever needs her help. Grischa is eventually captured. Being illiterate, he does not realise that calling himself Bjuscheff worsens his plight, as he has been unable to read the notices saying that all deserters must hand themselves in to the occupying German army within three days or face execution as spies. Only when he is condemned to death does he realise what has happened, and he reveals his true identity. The local German authorities send for his former prison guards, and having confirmed his true identity, they send for advice to Schieffenzahn, the chief administrator on the eastern Front. Schieffenzahn orders that the original error must be ignored, for the sake of discipline. Grischa is therefore sentenced to be shot. There follows a power struggle between the local military authorities and the administrators. The old general sees it as a point of honour not to give in to Schieffenzahn''s order. Although he fails to convince Schieffenzahn face to face, the latter thinks better of it afterwards and rescinds the execution order. However, a heavy snowfall has brought down the communication wires, and the telegram of reprieve is never sent. In the meantime, Babka hatches a plan to poison the prison guards, whilst Lieutenant Winfried, the general''s nephew, tries to find alternative ways of getting Grischa out of prison. Both plans fail because Grischa himself is tired of the struggle and refuses to leave, preferring to face execution rather than continue as a pawn in the larger game. The book is a satire, focusing on the way in which innocent men are sacrificed in war, one irony being that the authorities spend more time and energy on the niceties of Grischa''s case than they do on trying to save their own soldiers from their fate.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Black Oceans

By Jacek Dukaj

Prime Evil

By Diana G. Gallagher

The Moscoviad

No Author Listed

Disclosure

By Michael Crichton

The Adventure of the Lion's Mane

By Arthur Conan Doyle

The Man Who Tasted Shapes

By Richard Cytowic

Halflife

By Mark Michalowski

White Fang

By Jack London

Art and Crime

No Author Listed

Dead Right

By Peter Robinson

Between Two Seas

No Author Listed

The Case of Sergeant Grischa

No Author Listed