The opening and third sections of the book are narrated in first-person by the protagonist, Helward Mann; the middle part is in third-person. Helward lives in a city called "Earth", a giant structure that is slowly winched along on a set of tracks forever northward. The pulling of the city has been going on long before Helward was born - and although he is puzzled by the need to keep the city constantly moving and its need to reach "the optimum", he nevertheless joins one of the Guilds - the elite that ensure the constant motion and survival of the city. All the inhabitants of the city Earth believe that they are lost a long way from planet Earth, and that one day they will be found and rescued but until then they must go on surviving in the little microcosm they have constructed of planet Earth. The populace of city Earth grow up in crèches and reach adulthood rarely seeing outside its walls. A small exercise area with large walls and a view of the sky above is as much as they see of outside. Even after reaching adulthood, the vast majority never see beyond the confines of the city. A few of the inhabitants - chosen males - are offered positions with the Guildsmen. These are the only inhabitants of the city given access to the outside world, and it is these alone that know the secret of the city. Beyond the walls the true nature of the city is revealed, and the great lengths that must be achieved for its continued survival. Constructed on top of great wheels, the city is slowly winched along railway tracks, moving forever northward. The tracks are constantly reused; as the city moves past one section that part is ripped up, carried to the front of the city and relaid once more. Once the tracks reach a suitable length, giant wheel-pulleys are moved into position and slowly, smoothly - so that no resident of the city realises - the city is dragged along to its new location, and track laying can once again begin in earnest. It is the responsibility of the guildsmen to ensure the movement and survival of the city. Come river, ravine, valley or mountain, the city must never stop its relentless movement, as there had been severe detrimental effects the more the city lagged behind in the ''past''. As directed by Destaine, who was one of the first residents of the city, the best way to achieve the city being near the ''optimum'' is to have a selection of guilds, each responsible for specific jobs. The guilds originally consisted of four: Track Guild, Traction Guild, Future Guild and Bridge-Builders Guild. An additional two were added later on: Barter Guild and Militia Guild. The Track Guild is responsible for the laying and removing of the tracks; the Traction Guild are responsible for the pulling of the city; the Future Guild map out the land ahead of the city to determine the best route for the city; the Bridge-Builders are responsible for ensuring the city can navigate safely across ravines or rivers. As the city moves through its environment it passes by villages and it is the job of the Barter Guild to employ labour to help the Track Guild and to ''invite'' surrogate mothers from poor local native clans, since women in the city tend to bear mostly male offspring. Occasionally some of these villages can be aggressive and it is the Militia Guild''s job to protect the city from them. It turns out that the inhabitants of the city have never left Earth, but that the city was planned hundreds of years ago as a means to exploit a theretofore unknown, localized energy source in preparation for a severe, global energy crisis which caused society to tumble back into poverty and anarchy. Since the ''optimum'' powering the generators of the city moves some meters every day, it was necessary to set the city on tracks to follow it. Over the centuries the city Earth was towed from inner China to the coast of Portugal while the knowledge of the city''s origin was gradually lost. The generator powering the city changes the world for the city dwellers, turning sun and Earth into rotating pseudospheres, with the rims rotating at a speed faster than light. Time varies, going slower in the spikes - the ''future'' - and speeding up rimwards - the dangerous ''past''. The effect also affected metabolism and DNA of the city dwellers to the point of physical dependence to stay near the ''optimum''. The Atlantic ocean, at first thought to be a very large river, is an obstacle no guild is prepared for. The book ends with an unknown future for city Earth, already replete with revolt, shortages and doubt.

The Inverted World

Detective Inspector John Rebus is thrown off a murder inquiry, just days after the brutal death of an Edinburgh art dealer, for throwing a cup of tea at DCS Gill Templer. He is sent to the Scottish Police College for ''retraining'' - this is his ''Last Chance Saloon''. He is put with a team of officers in similar circumstances and together they are given an unsolved case to work on. This turns out to be one in which many of the team are already involved, and they all have their own secrets that they wish to keep hidden. Rebus is asked to act as a go-between for Edinburgh gangster ''Big Ger'' Cafferty, and newly promoted DS Siobhan Clarke, while working the case of the murdered art dealer, is brought closer to Cafferty than she ever expected. As always the cases are all linked and Rebus must use his trusted friends to uncover the truth before the truth uncovers him. The title is a reference to the body-snatchers of the 19th century, who were known as ''resurrectionists'' or ''resurrection men''. sv:Botgörarna (roman)

Resurrection Men

Following the return of the occupied states of Kentucky and Houston to the Confederacy in early 1941, President Jake Featherston breaks his solemn vow and re-militarizes them, essentially declaring war against the United States in act if not in word. US President Al Smith hurries to prepare for war, but his country is sent reeling by the Confederate attack into Ohio on June 22, 1941. The Yankees under General Abner Dowling and Colonel Irving Morrell fight desperately, but by 1942 the Confederate Army has reached the shores of Lake Erie and cut the country in two. Meanwhile, the Mormons in Utah have once again revolted, prompting a swift response from the U.S. Army. A US counterattack in Virginia bogs down, and the Confederates are preparing a second offensive for the summer of 1942 when Al Smith is killed in a bombing raid on the capital city of Philadelphia. A shaken Charlie La Follette is sworn in as President of a nation fighting for its survival. Meanwhile, in the Confederacy, the murderous persecution of Blacks is escalating towards a full-scale genocide, similar to our timeline''s Holocaust. Another hint of things to come is provided when Featherston makes a strategic blunder in rejecting the offer of a physics professor to start research towards producing nuclear weapons, believing that the professor just wants government money to finance an abstruse scientific project - while it is hinted that the US does start a version of the Manhattan Project, located in this case in the state of Washington and overseen by Franklin Roosevelt - in this world an Assistant Secretary of War harboring no presidential ambitions.

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement

The title character is an intelligent robot (named after the mechanical man in the Oz books) who originally works as a domestic servant and house-painter. Unlike other robots, whose behavior is constrained by "asimov circuits"&mdash;a reference to Isaac Asimov''s fictional Three Laws of Robotics, which require robots to protect and serve humans&mdash;Tik-Tok finds that he can do as he pleases, and he secretly commits various hideous crimes for his amusement. After manipulating both robots and humans to cause chaos and bloodshed, Tik-Tok becomes wealthy (partly through health care privatization) and is finally elected Vice President of the United States. The novel gleefully satirizes Asimov''s relatively benign view of how robots would serve humanity, suggesting that the reality would be exactly akin to slavery: robots are worked until they drop and are made the victims of humans'' worst appetites, including rape. It also, like Sladek''s earlier novel Roderick, mocks the notion of the Three Laws of Robotics and suggests that there is no way such complex moral principles could be hard-wired into any intelligent being; Tik-Tok decides that the "asimov circuits" are in fact a collective delusion, or a form of religion, which robots have been tricked into believing. This liberation from tradition, while it makes him a cruel sociopath and nihilist, also provides him with intellectual insight and artistic talent; thus Tik-Tok is an extreme type of Romantic anti-hero. Sladek''s love of word play is apparent: the book contains 26 chapters, and the first word of each chapter begins with a consecutive letter of the alphabet. Also, the first three words of the book are "As I move", a reference to Asimov. The notion of using the faithful robot servant in the Oz books to analyze Asimov''s principles, and to question the social status of robots, was first proposed in the 1978 essay "Tik-Tok and the Three Laws of Robotics" by Paul A. Abrahm and Stuart Kenter in the academic journal Science Fiction Studies, which Sladek may have read.

Tik-Tok

The Art of Dreaming describes the steps needed to master control and consciousness of dreams. The Toltecs of Don Juan Matus'' lineage believed that there are seven barriers to awareness, which they termed The Seven Gates of Dreaming. In The Art of Dreaming Castaneda describes extensively how a state called Total Awareness can be achieved by means of dreaming. According to Castaneda there are 7 Gates of Dreaming, or obstacles to awareness, which when overcome yield total awareness. Four of the Gates of Dreaming are discussed in The Art of Dreaming. What follows is not so much a technique in achieving lucidity, but rather the practical application of lucid dreaming. By acting a certain way while dreaming, one can cause psychosomatic changes in one''s being, including an alternate way of dying. What follows is a point-form summary of the philosophy surrounding Toltec dreaming as a way of "Sorcery that is a return to Paradise". * 1st Gate of Dreaming (stabilization of the dreaming body): Arrived at when one perceives one''s hands in a dream. Solved when one is able to shift the focus from the hands to another dream object and return it to the hands, all repeated a few times. Crossed when one is able to induce a state of darkness and a feeling of increased weight while falling asleep. Location in the body – in the area at the base of the V formed by pulling the big and second toes of one foot to the sides. * 2nd Gate of Dreaming (utilizing the dreaming body): Arrived at when one''s dream objects start changing into something else. Solved when one is able to isolate a Scout and follow it to the realm of Inorganic Beings. Crossed when one is able to fall asleep without losing consciousness. It is also referred to the activity of dreaming together with other practitioners. Location in the body – in the inside area of the calf. * 3rd Gate of Dreaming (traveling): Arrived at when one dreams of looking at oneself. Solved when the dreaming and physical bodies become one. Crossed when one is able to control the Dreaming Emissary. Location in the body – at the lowest part of the spinal column. * 4th Gate of Dreaming (seeing): Arrived at when one is able to perceive the energetic essence of every dream item. Solved when one falls asleep in a dream, in the same position in which one has gone to sleep. Crossed when one wakes up in this reality, located not only in the physical but in the energy body.

The Art of Dreaming

The novel starts with a teenage boy called Rajkumar running through the city of Mandalay to find a woman called Ma Cho. He is the last surviving member of his family and comes to Burma from India with a bright entrepreneurial spirit and a hunger for success. Rajkumar''s work as an assistant on Ma Cho''s food stall takes place in the shadow of the Glass Palace, in which King Thibaw and his wife reside with their daughters, the princesses. As the British invasion comes to topple the incumbent regime, everyday citizens of Mandalay are able to enter the enshrined building, and it is then that Rajkumar spots Dolly, one of the princesses'' attendants, and instantly falls in love with her. However, the entire Royal Family and their entourage are quickly extradited by the British and forced into house arrest thousands of miles away on the West coast of India. Whilst Rajkumar''s quickly evolving career begins to take shape with the help of Saya John, a successful teak merchant (Ma Cho''s sometime lover), we are given a glimpse into the awkward beginnings of a new life for King Thebaw and his family as they try to settle into the port town of Ratnagiri, north of Goa. Events conspire to weave Outram House (the name of the residence the British provide to house the family and what remains of their assistants) more firmly into the life of Ratnagiri than had been expected. King Thebaw is revered by the local community, and in time the family come to feel secure and even happy in their new surroundings. The arrival of a new Collector stirs up feelings of resentment towards the colonial regime, but Uma, the Collector''s headstrong wife, is able to help bridge the gap by befriending Dolly. Meanwhile, Rajkumar has been enduring the hardships of the teak trade, having witnessed man and beast working together on an epic scale as elephants transport large volumes of wood down from the forests for sale into the British Empire''s vastly expanding markets. Being the opportunist that he is, Rajkumar starts to make his own way in world after receiving advice from his new friend and colleague Doh Say. Borrowing cash from Saya John, he makes the journey to India to recruit poverty-stricken village-dwellers into the comparatively lucrative (yet undoubtedly perilous) world of early oil-mining in Burma. Having made enough money this way, Rajkumar does what has been his dream for some time: buy a timber-yard of his own, with Doh Say as business partner. Having built a more than modest commercial empire, Rajkumar had one piece of unfinished business: to track down the only girl he''d ever loved, Dolly. Through an Indian connection in Rangoon (Yangon), Rajkumar makes contact with Ratnagiri via Uma, and is accordingly granted an audience with the Collector and his wife over a meal that of course stiffly conforms to colonial best practice. To his surprise, Dolly is present, and after some drama, he finally persuades her to leave the family she has been exiled with, and return with him to Burma as his wife. Saya John prides himself on being able to spot the next big commodity, and on their return to Rangoon, he hands Rajkumar and Dolly a small clump of odd elastic material: rubber. A joining of multi-ethnic families in Calcutta. Life before World War II on a rubber plantation in Malaya by Rajkumar with help of Saya John. The story of the Japanese invasion of Malaya and Burma and the subsequent family losses of lives and properties. Post WWII lives of the scattered families.

The Glass Palace: A Novel

At the onset of the story, aliens called Hyadeans have established contact and friendly business relations with Earth. They think Earth is fascinating, because it so different from their own bleak, austere culture. Though they are highly interested in studying the planet and its cultures, Hyadeans are far more technologically advanced and have a more accurate knowledge of science. Many humans, also known as Terrans, accept this alien presence; however, there are many who do not trust the Hyadeans and believe they are plotting to take control of Earth. One group that espouses this belief is CounterAction, which the American government lists as a terrorist organization. When a flyer (advanced aircraft) carrying both Hyadean visitors and Terran politicians is shot down, CounterAction is blamed and the Internal Security Service (ISS) is intent on shutting down their organization by any methods necessary. The action follows savvy Roland Cade who gives up his comfortable life when he is pulled into CounterAction. Because he was formerly married to Marie Cade, a political activist who plays a strong role in CounterAction, the ISS uses him to trace her. His mistress, Julia, is secretly an ISS agent, and convinces him to use his contacts with CounterAction to take in her friend, a supposed political dissident. He takes the friend to Chattanooga, where he unexpectedly runs into Marie. Julia''s friend turns out to be an ISS plant and he is forced to flee with Marie; the government believes he is a part of CounterAction because of his wife’s association with the group. They both use their connections to get aid in dodging the government, and these connections form an unlikely bond. CounterAction has been strongly anti-Hyadean, however, they find allies in Cade’s Hyadean friend Vrel and some of his comrades. For much of the story, the action switches between Cade’s group of friends’ attempt to escape capture and the actions of the ISS as more information is revealed. While Cade and his friends learn that states and regions of the country are seceding, the Hyadean officials take over the increasingly impotent government and use military force to subdue resistance. However, a pro-Terran alien interviews Cade and Marie and films footage of Hyadean and government cruelty. This interview gets broadcasted to both different locations on earth and Chryse, the aliens’ planet; many Hyadeans pledge their support and Terrans are given courage to fight for their freedom. The struggle stops being an Earth vs. alien skirmish, and becomes a fight for the rights of both Terran and Hyadean. While Cade, Marie, and their posse travel from country to country to gain new allies and to find shelter, the Hyadean military steps ups its campaign and CounterAction comes under more attacks. They are attacked everywhere they flee, and their Hyadean allies suffer a massive defeat when a Hyadean mission is bombed. Finally, it appears the organization is done for entirely when a formation of giant airships appears. The ships are believed to be both Hyadean and capable of mass destruction. However, the ships belong to a friendly third party of a different alien civilization, the Querl; these aliens have come to help Terrans. CounterAction gets the news that the Hyadean government has just crumpled from popular indigenous support for Earth, and the war is over. New governments form and a stronger, benevolent union between Earth and Chryse begins. Gaysss pipi pene polla boobs esto pasa por confiar en wiki pedia XD

The Legend That Was Earth

Adam Dalgliesh is brought in to investigate the mysterious death of a famous writer on a remote and inaccessible island off the Cornish coast. Combe Island is a discreet retreat operated by a private trust, where the rich and powerful find peace and quiet. Famed novelist Nathan Oliver, who was born on the island and thus is allowed to visit as he wishes, arrives with his daughter, Miranda and his copy-editor, Dennis Tremlett, who, unbeknownst to Oliver, are having an affair. When he discovers them, Oliver reacts with fury and orders them to leave the island the next day. Several people on the island find Oliver an unpleasant guest. The writer is pressuring the manager of the Combe Island Trust, Rupert Maycroft, to allow him to live in a cottage used by the sole remaining member of the family that owned the island for many years. The manager''s secretary, a disgraced Anglican priest named Adrian Boyde, a recovering alcoholic, was tricked into "falling off the wagon" by Oliver, and many people are disgusted with Oliver for his heartless, evil actions. Oliver is also confronted at dinner by a scientist, Dr. Mark Yelland, who believes himself to be the model for an unpleasant character in Oliver''s upcoming book. The reader is introduced to all the residents of the island, including Jago Tamlyn, the boatman, and Daniel Padgett, a handyman who is planning to leave after the recent death of his mother, who also worked on the island. Oliver is angry at Padgett, who dropped a phial of the author''s blood into the sea while taking it to a doctor on the mainland for some medical tests. The next morning, Oliver is discovered hanging from the island''s historic lighthouse. Dalgliesh and his team arrive to investigate. The pathologist, Dr. Edith Glenister, determines Oliver was throttled to death before a rope was tied around his neck and his body thrown over the side of the lighthouse railing. Dalgliesh learns that a visiting dignitary from Germany, Dr. Raimund Speidel, is the son of a German officer who died under tragic circumstances while visiting the island during World War II. He further learns that Nathan Oliver''s father, Saul, and Jago''s grandfather, Tom, played a role in the man''s death. Dr. Speidel was ill before arriving on Combe Island, and Dalgliesh contracts his illness. Just as the two men are diagnosed with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Dalgliesh discovers that Adrian Boyde has been murdered. Health authorities put the island under quarantine to contain the spread of disease, and all the people on the island are asked by the police to move into Combe House, the main building, to protect them from further attacks. Dalgliesh takes to the sickroom and his colleagues, Kate Miskin and Francis Benton-Smith, are left to work the case. Benton risks his life to climb down a cliff to find the rock used to beat Boyde to death. Surfacing from fever, Dalgleish has a feverish vision that helps him fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Realising that Padgett must have been the murderer, he orders Kate and Francis to search Padgett''s cottage, where they find the phial of Oliver''s blood that he had pretended to lose overboard, a lock of Padgett''s mother''s hair, her and Dan Padgett''s birth certificates, and the destroyed remains of her figurines and a book written by Oliver in which a young girl is seduced by an older man. Oliver was actually Padgett''s father; Padgett wanted the blood for a DNA test to confirm paternity. Padgett killed Oliver in a fit of anger after confronting him in the lighthouse. He killed Adrian Boyde because the priest knew Padgett wasn''t telling the truth about his whereabouts the day Oliver was killed. Before Kate and Francis can arrest Padgett, he takes a young staff member, Millie Tranter, hostage and threatens to throw her from the lighthouse. Kate bravely forces herself through a narrow window so she can unlock the lighthouse door. She and Benton climb to the top, confront Padgett, and Benton convinces him to surrender. Dalgliesh recovers from his illness, and after the break of the investigation and quarantine, he and his lover Emma both overcome their fears about each other''s seeming lack of commitment, and agree to marry. fr:Le Phare (roman)

The Lighthouse

A man wakes in hospital to find he cannot remember anything except that he has something vital to do, connected to the number fifteen. He hears voices outside discussing the unconscious patient - who they say has killed a policeman and will be hanged. He escapes in a stolen car. He is followed, but instead of the police, the car contains a woman who seems to be helping him. She calls him Campion. Also in the car is an old man, Mr Anscombe, who they drop off at his house before continuing to Lee Aubrey''s house, where they are staying. Campion remembers that the woman is called Amanda and thinks she must be his wife, so he is shocked when she tells him she wants to break off their engagement. He does not tell her about his amnesia. Campion receives a letter from Stanislaus Oates telling him to investigage Anscombe - but then Superintendent Hutch arrives and tells them that Anscombe is dead. He takes Campion, the last person to see Anscombe alive, to see the body. Pyne, who had just arrived to visit Aubrey, accompanies them - Campion guesses he must be an old friend and talks to him accordingly but then finds out they only met three days before. Amanda tells Campion that she is falling in love with Lee Aubrey. Then Hutch takes Campion to Bridge, where he smuggles him into the Council Chamber, the headquarters of the Masters of Bridge, built into caves in a hill overlooking the town. Campion finds an agenda for a meeting which mentions Minute Fifteen, and Anscombe''s intended retirement. Exploring further, he finds a vast cavern filled with hundreds of trucks. Next day, Aubrey takes Campion for a tour of the Institute. They meet Mrs Ericson, whose volunteer workers are housed in the Institute grounds - she is clearly infatuated with Aubrey. They also see a researcher who is developing a new, very powerful explosive. Pyne tips Hutch off that Campion might be an impostor. Hutch asks Campion questions to prove his identity, but his mind is blank. He hits Hutch, knocking him out, and drives to Coachingford, the main town in the area. Acting automatically, he goes to a newsagent''s shop. In a back room he meets Lugg, who he does not recognise. Campion tells Lugg about his memory loss and Lugg patches up his injuries - and shows him the basket full of pound notes which he left on his last visit. Then a man with a gun arrives and offers Campion cash to leave town - he runs when he realises it is the real Campion, not a fake. Lugg recognises him as one of many professional criminals who have arrived in town. Amanda summons Campion to a hotel where he meets Miss Anscombe. She gives Campion her brother''s diary, and tells him she believes he was smuggling contraband in the caves under the hill. The hotel is surrounded by both police and criminals, so Campion escapes over the roofs and catches a train to London where he meets Sir Henry Bull. He tells Campion that Minute Fifteen is a war loan, details of which are going to be mailed to every taxpayer in the country. Campion rushes back to Coachingford - he now knows that Pyne must be working with the criminals and believes he is responsible for Anscombe''s murder. But as he gets off the train, he is arrested. Trying to get away from the police station, he is knocked out again. Waking up he has forgotten what happened since his original injury but remembers everything before. He is investigating counterfeit currency being given away to crooks and vagrants. Amanda arrives and he finally puts the two halves of the story together - the trucks are going to be used to distribute vast amounts of forged currency to cause economic crisis. He is left waiting in the police station until Hutch, with a broken jaw, arrives from speaking to Oates, who has been in hospital, unconscious and under guard - he was the prisoner that Campion heard being discussed when he first woke up. When Campion gets to the cave, the trucks are already leaving. He uses the experimental explosive from the Institute to blow them up, killing Pyne and many of his criminal employees. In the debris he finds letters showing that the cash was going to be posted out to poor people disguised as a social security payment - the vast number of envelopes would have been disguised by the letters about the war loan going out on the same day. Campion and Hutch realise Pyne could not have carried out the plan by himself. The mastermind turns out to be Lee Aubrey, who admits what he has done - his idea was to bring down the government and install himself in its place. Amanda and Campion talk - it turns out that Aubrey lost interest once he thought he had made her fall in love with him. They decide to get married the next day.

Traitor''s Purse

The novel begins with the death of a nun, Sister Miriam, who apparently starved herself to death in a ruined tower, known as the ''Tower of Ivory'', which adjoins the grounds of the Convent of the Blessed Eleanor, a nunnery and an all-girls school. The tower has specific significance to the order, as it was the original convent building. The tower and the ancient history of the order are recorded in the Treasury of the Blessed Eleanor, a manuscript which is referenced throughout the story. Though it is never stated explicitly, Blessed Eleanor is presumed to be Eleanor of Aquitaine, the once Queen of England. Television reporter Jemima Shore is an old school friend of Sister Miriam, who was also known as Rosabelle Powerstock and was heiress to "the Powers fortune", one of the largest fortunes in Britain. Jemima is invited back to the convent by Reverend Mother Ancilla, where she uncovers a number of mysteries, including the suggestion that Miriam, whose family owned the convent lands, may have written a second will bequeathing them away from the Order, and into the hands of another charity. The tension builds when the girls at the convent school tell Jemima that the Black Nun - a malevolent faceless spectre reputed to appear whenever a death is about to take place within the grounds - was seen just prior to Sister Miriam''s death, and has been sighted again.

Quiet as a Nun

The novel focuses on the McDonald family, who live a hand-to-mouth existence following their abandonment by paterfamilias, the feckless Rory McDonald. Into their lives comes Brendan Courtney O’Brien, scion of a wealthy Irish family, who has fallen in love with the eldest of the McDonald children, Erika. Despite his background, Brendan has even less money than the McDonalds. As the black sheep of his family, he has lived a peripatetic life and scrapes a living buying and selling on the black market. Through Brendan''s eyes we meet a succession of apparently aimless losers who hang around the decrepit hair-dressing salon which is the McDonald''s only source of income. Erika''s younger brother, Jimmy, is something of a rebel, always getting into trouble. Eventually, his desperate mother sends him to a boarding school from which he escapes at the first opportunity. He wanders the byroads of rural Ireland before being recaptured. Soon, Brendan and Erika''s wedding takes place, followed by a reception in McDonald''s salon. As Brendan surveys the guests, all relatives or friends of his new bride, he imagines how his own estranged family would see them. Brendan and Erika set up home in a boarding house run by a malicious old landlady. In a bid to escape the grinding poverty in which they languish, the young couple join a travelling circus. Erika becomes a fortune-teller and Brendan sells small bottles of perfume to which he has added astrological predictions. Meanwhile, young Jimmy has run away again and, serendipitously, ends up in the same circus in which his sister and brother-in-law are working. The three meet just as Jimmy is about to receive retribution from a hot-dog man whose wares he has stolen. Brendan rescues him and all three return to Dublin. Erika''s mother has sold the hairdressing salon and is about to leave for England with her younger son. Brendan and Erika decide to join her, with Jimmy in tow. The novel ends just as their ship is leaving the dockside. However, one of the party is missing. Jimmy has decided to stay in Ireland and, as the ship sails out into Dublin Bay, he watches from the pier before turning to find his own destiny somewhere in "the far hills".

The Far Hills

The book starts with Jack McEvoy, a crime reporter for the Rocky Mountain News ("Death is my beat"), relating how the news of his brother Sean''s suicide was broken to him. Sean was a homicide detective with the Denver Police, who was found dead in his car in a remote parking lot. A one-sentence suicide note was found in the car with him, and it seemed impossible that someone else could have killed him. McEvoy, though, is reluctant to accept that his brother had succumbed to depression resulting from his investigations, even though the last one was particularly brutal: Theresa Lofton, a young college student, who was found in a park in two pieces. After much investigation on his own, including retracing his brother''s investigation into the Lofton case, Jack concludes that his brother''s death was simply made to look like a suicide by a serial killer. By focusing on homicide detectives who committed suicide in a similar fashion and left a one-sentence note quoting the works of Edgar Allan Poe (as Sean''s did), Jack finds three clear matches to his brother''s death. When the FBI finally realizes that he is on to something and attempts to block him from further access, he is able to trade his knowledge of the other deaths (one of which the FBI had not uncovered) for a role with the FBI investigative team headed by Robert Backus, the son of a famous agent within the bureau who has been overshadowed by his father''s legend. Assigned the duty of handling him is agent Rachel Walling, one of Backus'' main proteges, and the two of them become personally involved. The FBI nicknames the serial killer "The Poet" due to his use of Poe''s lines with the victims. As the case focuses on an Internet network of pedophiles and one in particular (William Gladden), McEvoy is taken along on the operation to arrest Gladden, who is suspicious of the set-up and kills the FBI agent trying to arrest him, Gordon Thorson (Walling''s ex-husband). McEvoy ends up killing Gladden himself while being held hostage. However, Gladden''s comments about his brother''s death lead McEvoy to believe that Gladden was not the killer, even though the case has been officially closed. He then finds evidence that the killings had a connection to the FBI and identifies a phone call to the FBI from Thorson''s room that he links to a "boasting" fax sent to the bureau by The Poet. Since McEvoy knew that Walling had sent Thorson on a fake errand to buy condoms during the time the fax was sent, he suspects Walling of being The Poet and of posting to the pedophile network under the name "Eidolon", another Poe reference. He then learns that Walling''s father, a cop, had committed suicide when she was a teenager ... and had been suspected by the investigating officers of molesting Rachel over a period of time. Since pedophiles tend to have been abused as children, McEvoy becomes worried enough to tell Backus of his suspicions. Backus tells McEvoy that they''ll set a trap for Walling and then takes him to a remote location—where Backus drugs McEvoy into nonresistance. He admits that he himself is both Eidolon and The Poet, because the room mistakenly billed to Thorson was actually the one in which he stayed. He admits to all of the deaths and to his setup of Gladden as the "fall guy" for the murders. As Backus prepares to sodomize and then kill McEvoy, Walling (who was suspicious because of messages that she had received from both men) shows up and eventually saves McEvoy''s life by knocking Backus out the window and down a long hill. Later the police find a body, however it is left open if this is Backus. Meanwhile, as the facts of the case become known, Walling''s judgment is called into question due to her personal relationship with McEvoy and her professional relationship with Backus. A tabloid publishes a photo of McEvoy and Walling together. However, because McEvoy suspected her, Walling ends their relationship and takes a leave to Italy. McEvoy then takes a leave from his paper to write a book about the events, although Walling explains to him that the book will forever taint the FBI because of Backus.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Inverted World

By Christopher Priest

Resurrection Men

By Ian Rankin

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement

By Harry Turtledove

Tik-Tok

By John Sladek

The Art of Dreaming

By Carlos Castaneda

The Glass Palace: A Novel

By Amitav Ghosh

The Legend That Was Earth

By James P. Hogan

The Lighthouse

By P. D. James

Traitor's Purse

By Margery Allingham

Quiet as a Nun

No Author Listed

The Far Hills

By Brian Cleeve

The Poet

By Michael Connelly