Although this novel is written in the third person, it presents the perspective of a 12-year-old girl, Sade Solaja. Her father, Folarin Solaja, is a journalist, one of the most critical of the corrupt regime. The book opens with her memory of hearing the two shots which ended her mother''s life, a memory which recurs throughout the novel in her thoughts and dreams. Her memories of Nigeria are often set in contrast to her experiences of an alien England, while her mother''s remembered words of wisdom give her comfort and strength. The concentration on Sade''s point of view makes many events seem obscure and confusing, just as she experiences them. After the shooting, Sade''s Uncle Tunde urges her father to send her and her 10-year-old brother Femi to safety in England. They are forced to pack and leave suddenly and secretly. They fly to London posing as the children of a stranger, Mrs Bankole, so they can travel on her passport. When their Uncle Dele fails to collect them at the airport, Mrs Bankole abandons them at Victoria Station. Moneyless and friendless, they wander the streets looking for the art college where their uncle works. They find refuge in a video store, but the owner calls the police, believing them to be vandals. Thus they come to the attention of the authorities. Worried to tell the truth in case it endangers their father, Sade takes refuge in silence and later in half-truths. The children are fostered first by Mrs Graham and later by the Kings, a Jamaican couple whose called Auntie Gracie and Uncle Roy(From Sade''s point of view) whose children have grown up and left. They are sent to different schools. Sade is sent to Avon School where she meets a girl from Somalia, called Mariam whose story is similar to Sade''s. Marcia, Donna and Kevin (Mrs Graham''s son) are bullies and treat Sade very badly at school, putting pressure on her to steal a turquoise lighter from Mariam''s uncle''s store. Femi goes to Greenslades Primary School. They lose contact...... It later emerges that her worried father has entered England illegally to look for them but has been arrested. There is a chance that he will be deported to face certain death in Nigeria, especially as the Nigerian police claim he is wanted for his wife''s murder. Although Iyawo Jenny and Mr Nathan try their hardest to help Sade''s father, things are not working out. Sade braves the freezing night to speak to "Mr. Seven O''Clock", the newscaster she has seen on television, to bring her father''s story to the attention of the British public. The story ends with her father''s release for Christmas, though asylum has yet to be granted. They hope one day they can return safely to Nigeria. Sade misses her grandmother and her former life. To end the book, Beverly Naidoo used Sade''s letter to her grandmother which is very touching.

The Other Side of Truth

A writer called Fernando returns to Medellín after an absence of 30 years. He finds the place transformed into Colombia''s "capital of hate". Fernando meets Alexis, 16 years old, a male prostitute and a hitman - a Medellín child - with whom he falls in love. But their tender love is doomed. Alexis needs no reason to kill: like an Angel of Death he opens fire on anybody who rubs him the wrong way. Fernando and Alexis are bound by an intense passion as they wander from church to church, murder to murder. Alexis explains to Fernando the meanings and symbols of the dangerous world of the Medellín guns, while the author tells the boys the remembrances of his childhood in a Medellín that is not more the one he knew. When Alexis is finally killed by two teenagers on a motorbike, Fernando looks for his killer. He finds Wilmar, another boy who keeps a surprising resemblance with late Alexis, not only in his body but also in his behaviors. Trying to live the same with Wilmar, he is soon informed that he is dating with the killer of Alexis. But he can not kill him, because Wilmar confessed to him that Alexis killed his brother before. Fernando proposed to Wilmar to leave the country. The boy agreed, but when he goes to his home to greet his mother for the last time, he is killed also. Fernando winds up alone in the middle of a city where love seems not possible.

Our Lady of the Assassins

A rainy day in Philadelphia means no baseball; Peter Brown, the child protagonist introduced by Thompson in The Gnome King of Oz, mopes in his attic. He finds the sacks that were full of gold when he brought them back from his previous Oz adventure; and one of those sacks contains an odd gold coin. Toying with the coin and thinking of Oz, he wishes himself back in the magic land &mdash; and suddenly finds himself in the front yard of Jack Pumpkinhead. The sensible thing for Peter to do is to head for the Emerald City; and Jack is ready to act as his guide. This is perhaps not the best arrangement &mdash; and the two quickly get lost in the Quadling Country, where they blunder into Chimneyville and Scare City. By chance, Peter finds that his empty sack will consume objects and creatures that are scooped into its open mouth. The two also happen to obtain the magic dinner bell of Jinnicky the Red Jinn, which supplies Peter with needed provisions. The travelers adopt a third member for their party when they meet the doggerel-spouting Snif the Iffin (he''s a griffin who has lost his "gr-"). The three then encounter the unfortunate Belfaygor, the Baron of Bourne. He has been accidentally cursed with a rapidly-growing beard that he must constantly snip away. Even worse, his fiancée, the princess Shirley Sunshine, has been kidnapped by the local villain, Mogodore the Mighty, the Baron of Baffleburg. Boy, baron, iffin and pumpkinhead set out to remedy this situation, and quickly become enwrapped in complexities involving a Forbidden Flagon and a talkative and abusive Sauce Box. When Mogodore sets out to conquer Oz and actually succeeds in seizing the Emerald City, the travelers have to mount a desperate rescue effort. Eventually Jack, with help from the Red Jinn (here introduced for the first time; his name, Jinnicky, is not revealed until later books), manages to save the day: with the Forbidden Flagon, he reduces Mogodore and his thousand warriors to little beings "no bigger than brownies." The miniaturized aggressors are confined to their homeland, also miniaturized. Snif the Iffin recovers his lost "gr-." Order in Oz is restored, with a great celebratory banquet before Peter is sent home, with thanks, once again.

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

Robert is a young boy who suffers from mathematical anxiety due to his boredom in school. He also experiences recurring dreams—including falling down an endless slide or being eaten by a giant fish—but is interrupted from this sleep habit one night by a small devilesque creature who introduces himself as the Number Devil. Although there are many Number Devils (from Number Heaven), Robert only knows him as the Number Devil before learning of his actual name, Teplotaxl, later in the story. Over the course of twelve dreams, the Number Devil teaches Robert mathematical principles. On the first night, the Number Devil appears to Robert in an oversized world and introduces the number one. The next night, the Number Devil emerges in a forest of trees shaped like "ones" and explains the necessity of the number zero, negative numbers, and introduces hopping, a fictional term to describe exponentiation. On the third night, the Number Devil brings Robert to a cave and reveals how prima-donna numbers (prime numbers) can only be divided by themselves and one without a remainder. Later, on the fourth night, the Number Devil teaches Robert about rutabagas, another fictional term to depict square roots, at a beach. For a time after the fourth night, Robert cannot find the Number Devil in his dreams; later, however, on the fifth night, Robert finds himself at a desert where the Number Devil teaches him about triangular numbers through the use of coconuts. On the sixth night, the Number Devil teaches Robert about the natural occurrence of Fibonacci numbers, which the Number Devil shortens to Bonacci numbers, by counting brown and white rabbits as they reproduce multiple times. By this dream, Robert''s mother has noticed a visible change in Robert''s mathematical interest, and Robert begins going to sleep earlier to encounter the Number Devil. The seventh night brings Robert to a bare, white room, where the Number Devil presents Pascal''s triangle and the patterns that the triangular array displays. On the eighth night, Robert is brought to his classroom at school. The Number Devil arranges Robert''s classmates in multiple ways, teaches him about permutations, and what the Number Devil calls vroom numbers (factorials). On the ninth night, Robert dreams he is in bed, suffering from the flu, when the Number Devil appears next to him. The Number Devil teaches Robert about natural numbers, which the Number Devil calls ordinary numbers, the unusual characteristics of infinite, and infinite series. Robert finds himself at the North Pole, where the Number Devil introduces irrational numbers (unreasonable numbers), as well as aspects of Euclidian geometry, such as vertices (dots) and edges (lines). By the eleventh night, Robert has shown considerable increased interest in mathematics, but questions its validity, to which the Number Devil introduces the concept of mathematical proofs, ending with the Number Devil showing Robert a complicated proof of basic arithmetic. On the twelfth night, Robert and the Number Devil receive an invitation (which names the Number Devil as Teplotaxl) to Number Heaven, as Robert''s time with the Number Devil has finished. At Number Heaven, Robert learns of imaginary numbers, which Teplotaxl describes as imaginative numbers, as well as the Klein bottle. Walking through Number Heaven, Teplotaxl introduces Robert to various famous mathematicians, such as Fibonacci, whom Teplotaxl calls Bonacci, and George Cantor, or Professor Singer. The book ends with Robert in class using his newfound mathematical knowledge.

The Number Devil

Upon landing in the ship''s leaky boat, Riley and his crew began to make repairs to return to the ship, rather than face a desert rescue. The repairs were incomplete when a native armed with a spear arrived, and helped himself to their meager supplies. After filling up his arms with what he could carry off he left and returned with two others also carrying spears. Riley stayed back to distract the Arabs and give his men a chance to escape in the loaded and unfinished boat. They made it, but without Riley, who offered his captors money in exchange for his life. With their agreement, crew member Antonio Michele swam to shore to pay them. At which point Riley ran out into the water to join his men. After Riley was safe in the boat all he could do was watch while an Arab stabbed Michele in the stomach and dragged his body away, which caused Riley tremendous feelings of guilt. As the ship, still aground, was unusable, unable to reach what are now the islands of Cape Verde, the crew decided to sail to the South while hoping for rescue, which did not come. After nine days, out of food and water, they returned to the shore at an isolated beach 200 miles further South, with the realization that they would probably be killed just as quickly as Michele. They reached the shore, which was surrounded by high cliffs. Riley told his men to begin digging for water. He climbed to the top of the cliffs, and found himself staring at the edge of a vast expanse of flat desert. His crew joined him, and together they started to walk inland hoping for rescue by a friendly tribe. But soon they were without hope, enduring 120 degree heat during the day, and freezing temperatures at night. Out of food and water, Riley resolved that they should either accept death, or offer themselves as slaves to the first tribe they encounter, which is exactly what happened. A large gathering of men and camels appeared on the horizon, and the crew approached them. The tribe started to fight among themselves, to determine who would become the slave-owners. The crew became separated when they were taken as slaves by different groups, which then went their own ways. Riley recounts in his memoirs the terrifying days spent in their servitude. After a while, he learned some of the language, and was able to communicate in a rudimentary way. One day during his captivity some Arabs arrived seeking a trade with his master. Riley asked two of them, Seti Hamet and his brother, if they would buy him and his fellow shipmates and bring them to the closest city which was Mogador (now Essaouira), hundreds of miles away to the North. Seti Hamet was moved by Riley''s desire to save his friends and agreed to buy them if Riley would pay him cash and a gun when they arrived at the city. Riley promised that he had a friend there who would pay him upon their safe arrival, which was totally untrue, for Riley knew nobody. Hamet promised to slit his throat if he was lying. When the time came for Riley to write the note, he was terrified. How could he write a note to a perfect stranger, begging him for several hundred dollars? He had no choice. In the note he explained who he was and described his situation. Traveling through the desert caused all to suffer - master and slave alike. There was little food for the already starving American men, and little water for everyone. Amazingly, they traveled the distance to the city - several hundred miles, constantly in fear of marauding hunter tribes. They were especially in fear of a father-in-law of one of the brothers, who was out to settle a dispute. Eventually they arrived at the outskirts, and Hamet took the note into town, which was addressed to the town''s consul. He met a young man in the city, who, it turns out, worked as an assistant to a British merchant who also acted as a kind of consul and agent. Hamet told this man about his "friend" and gave him the note. This consul, William Willshire, was impressed by the sincerity of the note, agreed to pay. They rode out in a group to meet the men as they waited outside the city and Willshire greeted Riley with hugs and tears. Riley sent his remaining men home to America, but stayed behind for just a few days. Seti Hamet, his former master, promised that he would return to the desert to look for the missing crew members. Riley went back to America, and was reunited with his wife and their five children in Connecticut. Two of the missing men were later returned to the States, and Riley heard of two Arabs who were stoned to death out in the desert by marauders. He was convinced that they were his former masters, trying to keep their word.

Sufferings in Africa: The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara

The story revolves around the eventual discovery of the American continents by the Yilané, who are searching for new resources and territories for colonization. Being reptiloid and cold-blooded, they target tropical and sub-tropical zones. Eventually, of course, they encounter the humanoids, whom they regard as barely sentient animals. Humans, in their turn, are xenophobically terrified of the Yilané. It is not long before a state of conflict exists between the two species. The central characters are Vaintè, an ambitious Yilané; Stallan, her vicious and obedient adjutant; and Kerrick, a "ustouzou" (the Yilané word for mammal) who is captured by the reptiloids as a boy, and raised as a Yilané. Kerrick eventually escapes to rejoin his own people, ultimately becoming a leader. Another notable Yilanè character is Enge, the leader of a faction of pacifist Yilané who reject the militaristic and violent attitudes of their culture. This group is violently opposed by most other Yilané, especially Vaintè. Enge befriends Kerrick, and acts as his teacher, while he lives with the Yilané.

West of Eden

The story takes the form of a first-person narrative by the protagonist, time-traveling hunter Reginald Rivers, told to Mr. Seligman, a prospective client of his time safari business; Seligman''s contributions to the conversation are omitted, and must be inferred from those of Rivers. Rivers informs the client he is not big enough to hunt the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period, illustrating his point with an extended anecdote from a previous expedition, which forms the main portion of the tale. On the occasion in question, Rivers and his partner Chandra Aiyar conducted two other clients to the past. One of them, Courtney James, was a vain, arrogant and spoiled playboy; the other, August Holtzinger, was a small, timid man recently come into wealth (time safaris are not cheap). Before the journey, they test-fire some guns on the firing range to settle on weapons for each of them. Holtzinger''s small size makes him incapable of effectively handling a heavy-caliber weapon (the recoil knocks him over) and, against his better judgment, Rivers lets Holtzinger travel on the safari with a lighter caliber weapon. James proves unmanageable, shooting at every creature in sight and spoiling Holtzinger''s shots. Ultimately James'' foolishness gets him in real trouble, when he inadvertently empties his rifle over a slumbering Tyrannosaurus, which consequently wakes and makes for him. Holtzinger defends James by shooting the dinosaur, but his gun is not of a heavy enough caliber to kill it, and it is only distracted—towards Holtzinger. Despite the best efforts of Rivers and Aiyar to save Holtzinger, the Tyrannosaurus snaps him up and makes off with him. A furious quarrel with James ensues, he and the guides each blaming the other for their companion''s death. James tries to kill Rivers, but is knocked out by Aiyar. Afterwards he swears revenge. Later, after the expedition has returned to the present, James bribes Professor Prochaska, the scientist operating the time chamber, to send him back to the Cretaceous again—but at a point just prior to the emergence of the safari''s earlier visit. His plan is to shoot Rivers the moment the latter originally came out of the time machine. Since that obviously had not happened, however, the space-time continuum avoids the paradox by spontaneously snapping James back to the present, the forces involved instantly killing him. Rivers then concludes his story, emphasizing Holtzinger''s fate to make his point with Seligman.

A Gun for Dinosaur

"In the Machine", set in mid-to-late 19th Century New York, begins in the aftermath of a wake. Simon, a young man working in a factory had been accidentally sucked into a factory machine which crushed him to death. Due to the poverty present in the lower classes during the Industrial Revolution, Simon''s family sends Lucas, Simon''s disfigured younger brother, to work at the factory in Simon''s place. Lucas has a strange affliction in which he intermittently and uncontrollably spouts the poetry of Walt Whitman''s ''Leaves of Grass'' (Lucas'' favourite book). Walt Whitman was a contemporary of the time and Lucas meets him during the course of the story. Lucas is also concerned Simon has become a ghost and inhabits not only the machine that killed him but all the machines that are becoming commonplace in the city as a result of the Industrial Revolution. This concern leads Lucas to fear for the life of Catherine, Simon''s bereaved girlfriend. Lucas believes Simon''s ghost may try to inhabit the machines at the factory where Catherine works as a seamstress with a view to take Catherine to the afterlife by killing her through the machine''s function. Lucas embarks on a mission to save Catherine by preventing her from going to work. Lucas'' fear of Simon''s ghost is, at the same time, a fear of the Machine and, on a larger scale, the Industrial Revolution in New York City itself. The machines replace humans, even kill them, and the industrial revolution has demeaned the importance of each human individual with its positioning of people as cogs in its own giant machine. In this light, Lucas'' fears and Whitman''s transcendental poetry represent the affirmation of humanity and each individual''s importance.

Specimen Days

The story begins with Prince Dolph lying in his sister, Ivy''s, bed watching her magical tapestry which shows images from the past and present of Xanth. Dolph is the son of King Dor and Queen Irene, and he has the powerful talent of being able to shapeshift, giving him the power to change into any animal he chooses. While watching the images of the magical tapestry Dolph begins to think about the disappearance of the Good Magician Humphrey. Dolph gets so enraptured with the thought of finding the Magician that he eventually asks his father and mother permission to set out on a quest to find the answers. Queen Irene decides that Dolph is at a fine age to set out for a quest, but as long as he takes with him an adult companion. After some debate and arguing over who should accompany Dolph, Dolph suggests that Marrow Bones accompany him. Marrow is a walking, talking skeleton who has the ability to transform his skeletal body into many shapes as long as Dolph gives him a good kick in the tail bone first. Once Dolph and Marrow set out on their journey they realize their first stop must be at the Good Magician Humphrey''s castle to investigate for any clues to his disappearance. Once in the castle Dolph and Marrow find a hidden room that can only be viewed through a clear rock from above. In the hidden room is a message that reads "Skeleton Key to Heaven Cent". Marrow distinguishes that there is a pun in the message, and a Skeleton Key is really an island made of coral. So Dolph and Marrow set out to find the isle and find the Heaven Cent to bring back the Good Magician Humphrey. Throughout Dolph and Marrow''s adventures through the land of Xanth they encounter many different creatures. There are the always rhyming ogres, bone hungry and smelly harpies, the cruel merwomen, and many others. One of the major creatures that come into play in the book are the nagas. The nagas are a snake-human people who have the power to transform into either a full snake, full human, or mixed form. Dolph and Marrow encounter the nagas when trying to get through a goblin kingdom where the goblins are holding Nada, the naga princess, prisoner. After rescuing Nada, Dolph and Marrow return to the naga kingdom, where Dolph, even though too young, becomes unintentionally betrothed to Nada through a naga tradition. Nada joins Dolph and Marrow on their quest to find the Heaven Cent, and their romantic relationship blossoms until Nada reveals to Dolph that she is actually many years older than he is. Although Dolph is taken aback by this information, his love for Nada does not waver and he keeps the betrothal intact. When Dolph, Marrow, and Nada finally find the right island where the Heaven Cent is supposed to be they encounter a magical castle where a maiden has been under a magical sleep for 900 years of a 1000 year sentence. The sleeping maiden is named Electra, and she was put under the sleeping spell because 900 years ago she accidentally activated the Heaven Cent. Dolph kisses the sleeping Electra and awakens her, but to Dolph''s surprise Electra cannot survive unless she marries the person who broke the spell on her. Once the entire party returns to Castle Roogna Dolph is left with the decision about what to do with his two betrothed women. After much debate with both women and the King and Queen, Dolph asks for the test of the roses. Dolph chooses the yellow rose for Electra showing friendship and the red rose for Nada representing love. Electra is the first of the betrothed to attempt the test and she quickly chooses the red rose for Dolph representing love. Nada goes second and tries to pick the red rose, but she cannot because she does not truly love him and she is pricked by a rose. Nada then tries to pick a black rose and commit suicide, but Dolph jumps over to her and stops her. Dolph explains that he loves Nada even though the love is not returned. In the end Dolph remains betrothed to each girl even though the King and Queen do not believe in it, but Dolph and the girls believe that, in the next seven years before Dolph can marry, they will work out all the problems.

Heaven Cent

Cándido Rincón (33) and América (his pregnant common law wife, 17) are two Mexicans who enter the United States illegally, dreaming of the good life in their own little house somewhere in California. Meanwhile, they are homeless and camping at the bottom of the Topanga Canyon area of Los Angeles, in the hills above Malibu. Another couple, Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, have recently moved into a gated community on top of Topanga, in order to be closer to nature yet be close enough to the city to enjoy those amenities. Kyra is a successful real estate agent while Delaney keeps house, looks after Kyra''s son by her first marriage and writes a regular column for an environmentalist magazine. The two couples'' paths cross unexpectedly when Cándido is hit and injured by Delaney, who is driving his car along the suburban roads near his home. For different reasons, each man prefers not to call the police or an ambulance. Cándido is afraid of being deported and Delaney is afraid of ruining his perfect driving record. Delaney soothes his conscience by giving Cándido "$20 blood money," explaining to Kyra that "He''s a Mexican." From that moment on, the lives of the two couples are constantly influenced by the others. After the accident, Cándido''s problems deepen. At first he can''t work after being injured by the car crash and when he does not find a temporary job at a local work exchange anymore, he unavailingly tries to find one in the city, hoping to save money for an apartment in the North despite the low wages offered. With América, his wife, pregnant, his shame at not being able to get a job and procure a home and food for his family increases, especially when América decides to find some illegal—and possibly dangerous—work herself. At one point in the novel, after Cándido is robbed by some Mexicans in the city, they are forced to go through the trash cans behind a fast-food restaurant so as not to starve. The Mossbachers, Delaney''s family, are also having problems of their own, though of an altogether different nature. Comfortably settled in their new home, in a gated community, they are faced with the cruelty of nature when one of their two pet dogs is killed by a coyote. In addition, the majority of inhabitants of their exclusive estate feel increasingly disturbed and threatened by the presence of—as they see it—potentially criminal, illegal aliens and vote for a wall to be built around the whole estate. Cándido has a stroke of luck when he is given a free turkey at a grocery store by another customer, who has just received it through the store''s Thanksgiving promotion. When Cándido starts roasting the bird back in their shelter, he inadvertently causes a fire which spreads so quickly that even the gated community the Mossbachers live in has to be evacuated. In the midst of the escalating disasters, América gives birth to Socorro, a daughter, whom she suspects might be blind. But the couple has no money to see the doctor. Delaney stalks Candido back to their shack. He carries a gun, but doesn''t intend to kill Candido with it. Meanwhile, America tells Candido about the night when she was raped, as she suspects that the baby''s blindness was caused by venereal disease transmitted by the rapist. Just as she is telling him this, Delaney finds their shack and is about to confront Candido about the forest fire, when the shack is knocked over in a landslide. Candido and America manage to save themselves, but Socorro is drowned in a river. The book ends with Candido helping Delaney out of the river. Time and again in the novel, however, it is hinted at that the real perpetrators can be found inside rather than outside the projected wall: well-to-do people insensitive to the plight of the have-nots.

The Tortilla Curtain

Jack Dawson is a New York Detective dealing with a variety of situations in his life. His wife Linda has recently died, and that leaves him the sole caretaker for his two children Penny and Davey. Aside from missing his wife very much; he is confronted by an especially brutal string of murders of Mafia criminals. These murders are both grisly and unearthly, seemingly done by animals, although forensics cannot determine any living creature that would simply tear a victim to pieces without actually eating anything. Finally, his partner Rebecca is a woman that does not share his approach to this crimewave. Dawson believes that there may be supernatural or magical factors in the killings, while Rebecca believes this to be absurd. Dawson''s instincts are seldom wrong; and although he can''t deny the initial absurdity of some kind of magic, alternative explanations are disappearing quickly. In truth these denizens are called forth from hell by a bocor(an evil sorcerer of voodoo). Because of their small size Carver Hampton came to the conclusion that this were just minor devils and the hole to hell is not yet big enough to grant access to greater demons. Though these denizens have different appearance they have similar characteristics such as a number of very sharp claws and teeth and the eyes the color of hot silver. At the end of the novel where Jack is about to arrest Lavelle, he was surprised to see that the pit where this demons pass through has gone so big that it has engulfed the shed where it is concealed. Numerous tentacles have sprouted from the pit and dragged Lavelle to hell. When Jack sees this he comes to the conclusion that this was just a mere finger of a greater evil that was about to come. When holy water doesn''t stop the pit from growing, Jack uses his blood from the wound inflicted by a tentacle to stop the pit. He fears that if he fails, he will be forced to sacrifice himself into the pit. The novel ends with all the denizens turning to mud and Jack hearing Rebecca say "I love you Jack" in thin air.

Darkfall

The story takes place in January 1964. After the events described in "The China Doll", six AXE agents based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, have been found mutilated and murdered in a short space of time. Nick Carter (undercover as shady millionaire businessman Robert Milbank) accompanied by fellow agent Rosalind Adler (posing as Milbank’s mistress, Rosita Montez) are sent to investigate. Carter (as Milbank) uses his apparent wealth and influence to enter the higher social circles in Rio de Janeiro and quickly meets socialite Carla Langley – wife of one of the missing agents. Next, posing as American journalist, Michael Nolan, Carter interviews the wife of Joao de Santos, a local investigative reporter, and another of the missing agents. Meanwhile, Agent Adler investigates the background of missing agent Carlos Brenha, assistant curator at a local museum. As a result of their probing, a seedy nightclub quickly becomes the focus of attention. In the club’s basement, Carter discovers a cache of illegal weapons imported from China. Carter is knocked out and imprisoned in the club basement. The ringleader is revealed to be Carla Langley who is working for communist China to import illegal arms and execute minor spies in the hope that a special agent (i.e. Carter) would be sent to investigate and whom they intend to torture and kill to extract valuable information. Carter is tied to a rack and beaten but manages to escape. Rosalind Adler arrives in the nick of time and overpowers the guards with a non-lethal gas bomb (nicknamed Pepito). Carter executes the club owner and second-in-command (Luis Silveiro) and is about to do the same to Carla Langley when he discovers the gas bomb has rendered her an insane, gibbering wreck. He leaves her screaming in the night.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Other Side of Truth

By Beverley Naidoo

Our Lady of the Assassins

By Fernando Vallejo

Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz

By Ruth Plumly Thompson

The Number Devil

By Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Sufferings in Africa: The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara

By James Riley

West of Eden

By Harry Harrison

A Gun for Dinosaur

By L. Sprague de Camp

Specimen Days

By Michael Cunningham

Heaven Cent

By Piers Anthony

The Tortilla Curtain

By T. Coraghessan Boyle

Darkfall

By Dean Koontz

Checkmate in Rio

No Author Listed