The novel opens with the civilian Dr. Catherine Halsey and Lieutenant Jacob Keyes traveling to meet John, a six-year-old boy. Dr. Halsey reveals to Keyes that John is one of 150 children who possess rare genetic markers making them suitable for conscription into the SPARTAN-II program, a secret experiment with the aim of creating super soldiers for the UNSC to quell rebellions. Seventy-five of the children are kidnapped by operatives of the Office of Naval Intelligence and replaced by clones engineered to die of natural causes shortly thereafter. From this point on, the recruits are known only by their first name and a three digit number. John-117 and the rest of the children are drilled and trained by Franklin Mendez; John demonstrates leadership of his fellow Spartans leading to his promotion to squad leader. In 2525, the Spartans undergo a series of surgical enhancements which turn them into highly efficient super soldiers at the cost of crippling or killing more than half of the original seventy-five. The Spartans are also equipped with powerful MJOLNIR battle armor, designed to respond as quickly as the soldier''s thoughts. John-117 is given the rank of Master Chief Petty Officer. The Spartans are highly successful, but they experience a priority shift after a collective of alien races known as the Covenant begin obliterating human colonies, declaring humanity''s destruction as the will of the gods. Mendez leaves the group to train the next generation of Spartans as John and his comrades first face the Covenant. By 2552, the war against the Covenant is going poorly. The technological superiority of the Covenant means that space battles heavily favor the Covenant, and the UNSC can only win engagements by suffering tremendous losses. To prevent the discovery of Earth or other human colonies, Vice Admiral Cole creates the "Cole Protocol", which forbids direct slipspace jumps to Earth or any other population center and mandates the destruction of a ship before it can be captured by the Covenant. Jacob Keyes, now commander of the destroyer Iroquois, discovers four Covenant ships arriving at the Sigma Octanus System, and single-handedly destroys three of them; his heroics earn Keyes the rank of Captain. The Covenant proceed to overrun Sigma Octanus IV, searching for a mysterious ancient artifact. Despite a costly fight, the humans manage to repel the Covenant, and Keyes intercepts a coded Covenant transmission from the surface before the Covenant retreat. The Iroquois heads to Reach, unwittingly bringing a Covenant tracking device with it. Soon after, Keyes is given the command of the UNSC cruiser Pillar of Autumn for a secret mission; the Spartans are to capture one of the Covenant''s religious leaders and barter a truce. Dr. Halsey also introduces John to the artificial intelligence Cortana, who would assist the Spartans by residing in their MJOLNIR armor. Before the mission can begin, however, Reach is attacked by a massive Covenant fleet. John and Cortana reach the Pillar of Autumn, but most of the other Spartans are presumed killed as the Covenant vitrify the surface of Reach, turning the landmasses into glass. Cortana initiates a slipspace course based on the ancient glyphs intercepted by the Covenant at Sigma Octanus, the course takes them to a massive ringworld known as Halo, setting the stage for the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Halo: The Fall of Reach

The novel begins with the discovery of a body hanging from a tree in the park. It doesn’t take long to figure out that this is no suicide, as the person had been shot several times before the hanging. After a little investigation the body is discovered to be that of libertarian national talk radio and television personality Walter Weeks. Weeks was an influential man, and personal friend to the governor of Massachusetts, so when the media finds out, Jesse Stone finds himself hounded by the governor, the media, and leading a very high profile case. Stone begins his investigation by interviewing Weeks’s ex-wives, manager, widow Laurie Weeks, and bodyguard Conrad Lutz. Before long another twist is added to the crime when the body of Weeks’s pregnant mistress turns up in the dumpster of a local restaurant. The medical examination soon discovers that this second victim was shot by the same gun, probably around the same time. As part of his investigation, Stone has Suitcase Simpson check to see if Weeks has any criminal convictions. The only one that turns up is an incident in Baltimore in 1987 where Weeks is found having sex in his car with a young woman. This seems unimportant at first, until Jesse discovers that the arresting officer was Weeks’s bodyguard, Lutz. When questioned, Lutz confirms that he had busted Weeks while working as a Baltimore police officer, but that later he and Weeks struck up a friendship which ended in Lutz becoming his bodyguard. The plot thickens when further investigation determines that Laurie Weeks was formerly Lutz''s wife. He also learns that Weeks had planned on divorcing Laurie and leaving his fortune to his new mistress and unborn child. After discovering this, Chief Stone and Suitcase Simpson head up to New York to stake out the widow’s apartment. While there they see Lutz visiting her apartment during the day. They also witness Weeks’s research assistant Alan Hendricks spending the night. This is interesting to Jesse because Alan was a frequent guest host, and the one writing most of the show''s material by the end of Weeks’s life. With Hendricks the heir apparent to Weeks’s media empire and expected to continue Weeks’s shows, it now appears to Jesse that Laurie is trying to secure herself a new sugar daddy. With the assistance of an NYPD officer, Chief Stone interrogates Laurie in her apartment and records the interview. She confirms that she was once married to Lutz. Stone asks her if Lutz could have held onto resentment concerning this and led him to kill Weeks. She seems to ponder it and then confesses that she believes Lutz could be the killer. Back in Paradise, Jesse confronts Lutz with the tape of his ex-wife’s accusation and Lutz leaves the station without a word. Lutz confesses everything over a glass of Jack Daniels to Jesse that evening in his apartment. He tells Jesse how after he busted Weeks, his wife convinced him to blackmail Weeks into giving him a job as his body guard. Later Weeks, a serial womanizer, took a liking to Laurie. Once again, Laurie convinced Lutz it would be for the best if they divorced and she married Weeks. Once she got his money, they could get back together and be rich. However, when she found out that he was going to divorce her and leave her with nothing she convinced Lutz to kill him. So Lutz took Weeks and his mistress for a walk through of their new home on Stiles Island, near Paradise. While there he shoots and kills them both on the beach. He then drags the bodies to the house and stores them in the refrigerator for several days. Finally he hangs Weeks on the tree in the park, and dumps the mistress in the restaurant dumpster. He does this to confuse the police and also to mess up their calculation of the time of death. He was counting on a dumb small town sheriff not knowing what to do, but he got Jesse Stone. He then tells Jesse he is going to leave and will shoot Jesse if he tries to stop him. He pulls his gun on Jesse and Jesse shoots him dead, essentially committing suicide by cop. It was Jesse’s revelation that Laurie was now sleeping with Alan Hendricks and her taped accusation that leads him to do this.

High Profile

The book covers a period of time between September 1926 and May 1927, and is divided into two sections: The Craft and New York to Paris. In the first section, The Craft (pp. 3–178), Lindbergh describes the latter days of his career as an airmail pilot and presents his account of conceiving, planning, and executing the building of the Spirit of St. Louis aircraft. He describes the many challenges he faced, including getting financial backing, constructing an aircraft that could carry the necessary fuel and still fly, and completing the project within several months—other pilots were racing to achieve the first solo trans-Atlantic flight and win the $25,000 Orteig Prize. In the second section, New York to Paris (pp. 181–492), Lindbergh gives a detailed hour-by-hour account of his 33-hour solo flight above the Atlantic and northern Europe that began in the early morning hours of May 21, 1927. He describes the numerous challenges presented by navigation, storms, fuel calculation, boredom, and lack of sleep during the course of the flight that would take him over 3,600 miles from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York to Le Bourget field in Paris. Throughout the narrative, Lindbergh interjects flashback memories of his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota, his college years, his early years as an aviator barnstorming across the countryside, his aviation mentors and friends who flew the mail routes with him, and his family—especially his father, who was not only a congressman, but a respected and sage companion to his young son. As Lindbergh flies through the long, solitary night toward Europe, forcing his sleep-obsessed mind to check and re-check his course, he recalls the night he was flying the mail from St. Louis to Chicago when he first thought of flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh believed he could make that flight, and he remembers his nine St. Louis friends who helped him purchase the Spirit of St. Louis and realize his dream. Lindbergh describes the thrill of spotting the first fishing boats off the coast of Ireland, and then crossing the coast of France, and then following the Seine River all the way Paris and Le Bourget field. In addition to an Afterword (pp. 495–501), Lindbergh included an extensive Appendix (pp. 503–562) containing his flight log, a flight map, his journal account of his return to the United States aboard the cruiser Memphis, an article about the decorations, awards, and trophies he received, engineering data and engine specifications, 16 pages of photographs, various illustrations, and a glossary.

The Spirit of St. Louis

The novel begins in a small town describing the life of Charlie Benjamin. Charlie doesn''t socialize, and unknowingly brings Nethercreatures into his room when he has a nightmare. One night, Charlie brings a Silvertongue into his room. Charlie wakes up before the Silvertoungue kills him, and sees a team of three people, Rex, Tabitha, and Pinch attempting to bring the creature back to where it belongs. After the fight, Charlie''s parents meet the team. Pinch explains that Charlie has the Gift, which allows him to open portals into the Nether and bring creatures across them. Charlie''s gift is too strong, which can become dangerous. Pinch suggests that Charlie follow them to the Nightmare Division, who will decide what should be done with such a dangerous boy. Charlie''s mother reluctantly allows him to go. At the Nightmare Division, the Director instructs Charlie to open a portal. Charlie proceeds to accidentally open a portal to the Named, which are huge powerful beasts. Chaos ensues, and Barakkas, one of the four named creatures of the nether, reaches out his hand and attempts to enter. Charlie quickly closes the portal, which cuts Barakkas''s arm off, including his bracer. After a debate about Reducing (a process that removes IQ points in order to lower gifted peoples power) Charlie, the Headmaster brings him to the Nightmare Academy. There, Charlie meets two classmates, Theodore and Violet. The school trains two different groups, the Banishers and the Nethermancers. Banishers, like Rex, fight and hold off Nethercreatures whereas Nethermancers, like Tabitha, open portals to send them back. Students who lose their Gift are trained as Facilitators, who provide help to the other two. After meeting the Trout of Truth (a creature that determines whether you are a Banisher or a Nethermancer), Charlie finds out that he is a Double Threat, a combination of both a Banisher and Nethermancer. Charlie is then taken by the Headmaster to Charlie''s old house. Verminion, another of the Named who was portalled to Earth some years ago, kidnaps his parents and tells him to exchange his parents for the bracer. Charlie, Rex, Tabitha, and the Headmaster then go to find the Hags of the Void. The Hags of the Void, in return for Rex''s memories of his parents, allow Charlie to go through the Gorgon Maze to find the Shadow(a thing which helps find what you want the most). At the end of the maze, the Shadow fills Charlie, allowing him to find his parents. Charlie''s shadow now points to his parents'' exact location. The group tries to find his parents, and arrives in a volcano. Verminion tricks Charlie into opening a portal, allowing Barakkas to enter. After the incident, Charlie, Violet, and Theodore steal Barakkas''s bracer from the Nightmare Academy to exchange his parents. Brooke, a Facilitator, tags along, and they manage to bring themselves back to the volcano. Charlie tries to trick Barakkas and Verminion by pretending to exchange himself and the bracer for his parents. Verminion doubts Charlie, and exposes his plan. While Violet and Theodore finds his parents and tries to rescue them, Charlie causes the two Named to fight and flees with Brooke. While they are running, Brooke opens a portal, proving that she still has the Gift. The two jump through the portal back to the Academy. Meanwhile, Barakkas has his bracer back. Both of the Named reminded each other that they both have to be alive to summon the fifth, more powerful Named with their Artifacts. The Headmaster hides Charlie''s parents from the Named, and Charlie, with his two best friends, Theodore and Violet goes into the beach and reiterate how they will be together all the way.

Nightmare Academy

Eight people of varied background meet in the fictional village of Lochdubh in Northern Scotland. They attend the Lochdubh School of Casting : Salmon and Trout Fishing, owned and operated by John Cartwright and his wife Heather. What should be a relaxing holiday amid glorious Highland lochs and mountains becomes a misery. One of the party, Lady Jane Withers, a society widow and notorious gossip columnist, upsets everyone with her snobbishness, sharp tongue and rudeness. Lady Jane soon learns that each of her fellow guests has a secret in their past that they would prefer to remain unknown. When her Ladyship is found dead in Keeper''s Pool, no-one is surprised and everyone is relieved. Hamish Macbeth, Lochdubh''s local policeman, has to search for a murderer amongst the many suspects. No-one is willing to talk. With the assistance of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, the love of his life, Hamish solves the mystery in his usual unorthodox style. Hamish''s success does not endear him to Chief Inspector Blair, a senior detective from the nearby fictional town of Strathbane.

Death of a Gossip

Summary appearing on the 2000 paperback edition: For Xavier McLachlan, Rugby is life. Winning a 1st XV jersey means everything... Until he meets Nuala Magee. Has there ever been a girl like her? She''s feisty, she''s troubled, she''s dangerous. What will his mates think? Does he even care? Everything looks different now. Xavier McLachlan is in love. Copyright James Moloney 2000. Touch Me tells the story of a young Australian named Xavier McLachlan, who is in his final year of high school. A keen sportsman, his aim for the year is to be selected in the school Rugby team and help his friends and team mates win the first premiership in twenty years. All is going according to plan until he meets Nuala Magee, an unusual girl with her own agenda. (She is cross-dressing and acts in a deliberately confrontational manner towards boys.) Xavier is intrigued by her and against the advice of his friends, becomes very close to her, eventually starting a relationship with her. Xavier also befriends a new boy, Alex Murray and this friendship helps Xavier begin to change his ideas about what it means to be a man. The tension between Xavier and his friends begins to isolate him and when he betrays Nuala out of weakness, and a tragedy befalls Alex Murray, he is faced with difficult decisions about who he is and what he holds most dear.

Touch Me

Elsha is a teenager living in a bleak, cold future where world-wide cloud cover has permanently blocked out the sun. Humans have split into two classes - the Chosen and the Quelled, of which Elsha is the latter. The Quelled are doomed to spend their lives in servitude to the Chosen, mining "firestones" - the only means of warmth on the planet. The Firelord is the leader of the Chosen, said to be a great and powerful man. A rebellious girl, Elsha causes trouble for herself - even going so far as being considered for execution - until she is met by a Chosen man named Amasai, Steward of the Firelord, and given the highest position available to a woman - Handmaiden to the Firelord. On her journeys with the Firelord, Elsha meets Teraj, later revealed to be the Firelord''s son, with whom Elsha forms a romantic relationship. Elsha uses her unlikely position to fight the stigma and oppression of her people, eventually inheriting the title for herself after the Firelord''s unexpected death and changing the course of the planet''s history for the better. It is implied Elsha marries Teraj. *Out of Print*

Winter of Fire

The book opens by reintroducing the Carr family and the widow Mrs. Ashe. Mrs. Ashe has her nephew, Walter, over for a visit and it is discovered that he has scarlet fever. Anxious that her only daughter Amy should not contract the disease, Amy is sent to live with the Carrs where she builds up a particular rapport with the eldest daughter Katy. Following Walter''s recovery, Mrs. Ashe decides that she should have a vacation to Europe and asks that Katy be her travel companion. Initially reluctant due to familial obligations, Katy is persuaded by her father to go and is given $300 for the trip. Before she begins her travels, Katy stops in Boston to visit her old friend Rose Red Browne from Hillsover. It is discovered that she has since gotten married to a man named Deniston and had a child by him. Whilst both ladies are affectionate for the baby, they disagree over the natural world which the self confessed "Bostonian" Rose regards with disdain while Katy is enamored by all things natural. A reunion of the Hillsover girls is organised in Rose''s house with Mary Silver, Esther Dearbon, Ellen Gray, and Alice Gibbons in attendance. The girls reminisce about their time at Hillsover and it is discovered that what has happened to previous characters; Miss Jane is still teaching, Lilly Page is in Europe while Bella is teaching in India. After they meet up, Katy departs on a steamer to England with the Ashes and following a journey where all three experience bouts of seasickness, they eventually come within view of the Irish Coast and start their trip in Europe. Katy''s experience in England (Chapter 3 Story Book England) involve her being perplexed by English culture, such as when she discovers a "fine day" in England is any day it''s not raining and the English muffins Dickens commended in his books are really tasteless. She also does some sight-seeing.

What Katy Did Next

Boualem Yekker is a bookseller in a country probably modelled on Algeria. His home is firmly in the grip of religious fundamentalists, but only recently: it was once a republic, but now it is a "Community in the Faith". Djaout presents readers with a terrifying world of religious fundamentalism comparable to Orwell''s 1984, but substituting a religious ditatorship for a purely political one. At first Yekker is only on the periphery of danger. He is "neither elegant nor talented", which puts him out of the spotlight: "what is persecuted above all, and more than people''s opinions, is their ability to create and propagate beauty." Still, Yekker is a purveyor of these outrageous "idea- and beauty-filled objects" known as books, so he doesn''t fit in too well in this new, retrograde society. Business isn''t exactly booming, of course. Touchingly Djaout describes Yekker''s brief moments of hope when he sees people gazing in the shop window. But there is hardly a market for the sorts of books he has any longer. One acquaintance, Ali Elbouliga, still comes to while away time there. Otherwise, Yekker remains largely alone in his bookish world—and the books ultimately prove almost as much a burden as a solace. Family life also gets more complicated when his daughter turns on him. "The illness of fanaticism had attacked her." She is transformed, "covered with superior certainties". Yekker tries to continue to live his life in the manner he is accustomed to, but there is no escape from the encroaching fanaticism. It crushes all opposition. Any semblance of rationality is done away with. Even weather forecasts are banned, as if these called some all-mighty''s grand plan (and his power) into question. (What a pathetic god it must be they''re protecting, if he can be threatened by mortals'' barely educated guesses at tomorrow''s weather; doesn''t the fact that the meteorologists barely ever get it right instead reinforce the idea of divine omnipotence?) Imagination is dulled, "the world has become aphasic, opaque, and sullen; it is wearing mourning clothes." Books "constitute the safest refuge against this world of horror" all around Yekker, but the books are also a danger to him. Eventually they must make place for "the one, the irremovable Book of resigned certainty." The threats against Yekker mount. What is, at first, almost harmless child''s play intensifies to very real danger. Might conquers right: They have understood the danger in words, all the words they cannot manage to domesticate and anesthetize. For words, put end to end, bring doubt and change. Words above all must not conceive of the utopia of another form of truth, of unsuspected paths, of another place of thought.

The Last Summer of Reason

On a routine trip to Mars, the passenger liner Johannes Kepler is hit by a meteorite, killing the captain and almost all the senior members of the crew and resulting in the loss of much of the ship''s breathable air. Lieutenant Donald Chase, a junior medical officer, finds himself the highest-ranked surviving crew member and has to take over the running of the ship. He is helped by Chief Petty Officer Kurikka, who is familiar with the technical aspects; the Mexican scientist Dr Ugalde, a passenger whose mathematical genius enables the new crew to navigate the ship; and various others. Chase solves the air shortage by using the oxygen content of some of the ship''s water. Once the situation has stabilised, a passenger, General Mathew Briggs, who had criticised Chase''s methods, overthrows him by force with the apparent help of Ugalde. However, it turns out that Ugalde had only pretended to shift his loyalties and Briggs is faced down by Kurikka, defeated and imprisoned. The ship''s occupants are also struck by a deadly plague carried by the meteorite, but Chase and his medical colleagues eventually find a cure, although Chase collapses from disease and exhaustion. Recovering in hospital after the ship has docked safely, he is presented with a captain''s cap by his crew.

Spaceship Medic

Trelawny of the ''Wells tells the story of Rose Trelawny, a popular star of melodrama plays at the Barridge Wells Theatre (a thinly disguised Sadler''s Wells Theatre). Rose gives up the stage when she decides to marry her sweetheart, Arthur Gower, in order to please his conservative family. She finds life with Arthur''s grandfather and great-aunt, Sir William and Lady Tralfagar, unbearably dull and they detest her loud and unrestrained personality. Rose runs back to the theatre, abandoning Arthur. But her experience of the ''real world'' has killed her talent for melodrama, and she cannot recapture the liveliness that had made her a star. Meanwhile, Arthur has secretly run away to become an actor at the Bristol Old Vic. The problem is solved when Rose encounters Sir William again, and she reawakens his memory of admiring the great actor Edmund Kean as a young man. Sir William offers to help Rose''s friend Tom Wrench, an aspiring playwright who dreams of staging plays in a more realist style than the melodramas that dominate the stage. Tom stages the play with Rose as the star, and her newfound seriousness fits his style perfectly. Tom secretly arranges for Arthur to play the leading male role, and the lovers are reunited on stage.

Trelawny of the ''Wells''

The story follows 15-year-old Cameron (Cammie) Ann Morgan, a sophomore at Gallagher Academy For Exceptional Young Women, a school for "very gifted girls," but actually a school for espionage spies in training. She faces her fourth year of real spy training. While on her first mission required for her Covert Operations class, she meets a "normal" boy called Josh, he notices her despite her reputation as a "pavement artist" and that she is trying to be invisible. No one sees Cammie when she doesn''t want to be seen, which is one of the things she likes about him. She does not tell him who she really is though, or where she goes to school, due to Gallagher''s reputation of being a school for snooty heiresses. Soon Josh and Cammie develop a steady relationship, with Cammie always sneaking out of the school, with the help of her best friends and roommates Liz Sutton and Bex Baxter. Macey McHenry, an authentic heiress and senator''s daughter, also becomes her friend despite a rocky start at Gallagher. Cammie lies to Josh many times to keep her cover, claiming that she is home schooled, has a cat and has lived in exotic places, but her true identity is revealed after Josh''s friend, Dillon, sees Cammie walking toward the academy with the rest of the girls and attempts to break into Gallagher Academy to prove that it is Cammie''s real school. After a heated confrontation, Cammie tells Josh the truth—besides information about being a spy—and then they break up.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Halo: The Fall of Reach

By Eric S. Nylund

High Profile

By Robert B. Parker

The Spirit of St. Louis

By Charles Lindbergh

Nightmare Academy

By Dean Lorey

Death of a Gossip

By Marion Chesney

Touch Me

By James Moloney

Winter of Fire

No Author Listed

What Katy Did Next

No Author Listed

The Last Summer of Reason

By Tahar Djaout

Spaceship Medic

By Harry Harrison

Trelawny of the 'Wells'

By Arthur Wing Pinero

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You

By Ally Carter