No Mercy

The New York Times bestselling author introduces a take-no-prisoners hostage specialist in this series debut—a “fast-paced tale of violence and revenge” (Publishers Weekly). When those inside the corridors of power need help outside the law, they know who to call. Jonathan Grave, covert rescue specialist, always gets results. But perhaps what’s most valuable of all is what stays missing: No names. No feds. No trace evidence. When an Indiana college student is abducted, Grave and his team of operatives unravel a deadly scheme the government would prefer to keep hidden. But things get complicated when an investigative reporter—who happens to be married to Grave’s ex-wife—goes missing. Someone rich and powerful is willing to do anything to control a devastating secret. And that includes killing the people Grave loves most. “The launch of a really exciting series.”—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries imprisoned black women faced wrenching forms of gendered racial terror and heinous structures of economic exploitation. Subjugated as convict laborers and forced to serve additional time as domestic workers before they were allowed their freedom, black women faced a pitiless system of violence, terror, and debasement. Drawing upon black feminist criticism and a diverse array of archival materials, Sarah Haley uncovers imprisoned women's brutalization in local, county, and state convict labor systems, while also illuminating the prisoners' acts of resistance and sabotage, challenging ideologies of racial capitalism and patriarchy and offering alternative conceptions of social and political life. A landmark history of black women's imprisonment in the South, this book recovers stories of the captivity and punishment of black women to demonstrate how the system of incarceration was crucial to organizing the logics of gender and race, and constructing Jim Crow modernity.

Lit with humor, full of African birdsong and told with great narrative force, No Mercy is the magnum opus of "probably the finest writer of travel books in the English language," as Bill Bryson wrote in Outside, "and certainly the most daring." Redmond O'Hanlon has journeyed among headhunters in deepest Borneo with the poet James Fenton, and amid the most reticent, imperilled and violent tribe in the Amazon Basin with a night-club manager. This, however, is his boldest journey yet. Accompanied by Lary Shaffer--an American friend and animal behaviorist, a man of imperfect health and brave decency--he enters the unmapped swamp-forests of the People's Republic of the Congo, in search of a dinosaur rumored to have survived in a remote prehistoric lake. The flora and fauna of the Congo are unrivalled, and with matchless passion O'Hanlon describes scores of rare and fascinating animals: eagles and parrots, gorillas and chimpanzees, swamp antelope and forest elephants. But as he was repeatedly warned, the night belongs to Africa, and threats both natural (cobras, crocodiles, lethal insects) and supernatural (from all-powerful sorcerers to Samalé, a beast whose three-clawed hands rip you across the back) make this a saga of much fear and trembling. Omnipresent too are ecological depredations, political and tribal brutality, terrible illness and unnecessary suffering among the forest pygmies, and an appalling waste of human life throughout this little-explored region. An elegant, disturbing and deeply compassionate evocation of a vanishing world, extraordinary in its depth, scope and range of characters, No Mercy is destined to become a landmark work of travel, adventure and natural history. A quest for the meaning of magic and the purpose of religion, and a celebration of the comforts and mysteries of science, it is also--and above all--a powerful guide to the humanity that prevails even in the very heart of darkness.

Did God condone genocide in the Old Testament? How do Christians harmonize the warrior God of Israel with the God of love incarnate in Jesus? Christians are often shocked to read that Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, commanded the total destruction--all men, women, and children--of the ethnic group known as the Canaanites. This seems to contradict Jesus' command in the New Testament to love your enemies and do good to all people. How can Yahweh be the same God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? What does genocide in the Bible have to do with the politics of the 21st century? Show Them No Mercy explores the Old Testament command of God to exterminate the Canaanite population and what that implies about continuity between the Old and New Testaments. The four views presented are: Strong Discontinuity – emphasizes the strong tension, regarding violence, between the two main texts of the Bible (C.S. Cowles) Moderate Discontinuity – provides a justification of God’s actions in the Old Testament with strong emphasis on exegesis (Eugene H. Merrill) Eschatological Continuity – a reading of the warfare narratives that ties them contextually to the book of Revelation and the Second Coming (Daniel L. Gard) Spiritual Continuity – incorporates the genocidal account into the full picture of the Old and New Testaments (Tremper Longman III) The Counterpoints series presents a comparison and critique of scholarly views on topics important to Christians that are both fair-minded and respectful of the biblical text. Each volume is a one-stop reference that allows readers to evaluate the different positions on a specific issue and form their own, educated opinion.

"No Mercy" is a sweeping adventure of life, love, trust, and desire-a portrait of the spiritual battle between flesh and spirit, an odyssey asserting that real life is more than meets the eye. Hank Henderson thought he was going on vacation to Montana, but his brother had something else in mind. Hank's life soon dangles on the precipice of disaster. Disoriented. Injured. His resources depleted, Hank is caught between powerful forces. One is dark, aggressive, and powerful. The other, of questionable integrity, appears Hank's only option for freedom. From his placid fishing of Malden Creek into a dungeon of double-dealing, Hank crosses swollen rivers, scales blizzard strewn heights, and discovers more than he bargained for in an unlikely ally. His hope dependent upon a hesitant trust, Hank gambles to emerge from "No Mercy" a transformed person.

Jean Stefancic and Richard Delgado provide an incisive analysis of the Right's rise to power. The authors show that, since the sixties, the Left has had little to do with setting the country's agenda and that conservative think tanks and foundations have been systematically abetting a conservative revolution by funding a variety of issue-oriented studies and programs. The authors focus on seven areas in which this battle has been waged and won by the powerful conservative coalition: English Only; Proposition 187 and immigration reform; IQ, race, and eugenics; affirmative action; welfare; tort reform; and campus multi-culturalism. How has the Right managed to gain the advantage in these traditionally liberal campaigns? How can this be stopped? During this research, the authors found themselves in partial admiration of the dedication, economy of effort, and sheer ingenuity of the conservative forces. But Stefancic and Delgado seek to inform the American public about how the juggernaut operates - not to celebrate but to combat it. They challenge the Left to adopt the same sort of strategic focus and issue orientation as the Right to bring this country back to the center - before it's too late.

Disaster strikes. A ship goes down, a plane crashes, a party of travellers is cut off. But when the panic and confusion subside and the dead are counted, the survivors must find a way to keep surviving. And in desperation, unconstrained by law or conventional authority, the tactics they resort to can be both horrifying and ultimately self-destructive. Learmonth and Tabakoff outline the physical and neurological changes that typically affect the victims of disaster. Then, using true stories from history as case studies, they investigate the scenario famously imagined by William Golding in Lord of the Flies and borne out by the extraordinary Robbers Cave experiments of the 1950s. As this fascinating book unfolds the awful truth becomes clear. In extremis, humans are capable of a swift descent into murderous savagery that is both hard to believe - and impossible to forget. Eleanor Learmonth has worked as a teacher and freelance journalist in Japan and Australia. She has a reputation as a magnet for natural disasters. Jenny Tabakoff has been a senior journalist in Australia and Britain for The Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and AAP. She is the co-author of Australian Style. Eleanor and Jenny live in Sydney with their husbands and children. They met at the school gate. 'Succinct yet considered, accessible yet authoritative, Learmonth and Tabakoff strike a happy balance between scholarliness and readability throughout...cogent presentation of some truly harrowing subject matter, which less responsible hands might have milked for vulgar sensationalism.' Bookseller and Publisher 'Well researched and well argued, lively and energetic, No Mercy is full of insights into leadership, loyalty, sacrifice and compassion that will challenge readers to wonder what they might do if similarly tested.' Booktopia Buzz 'Sometimes adversity brings out the best in people, at other times it does the opposite. This is about those other times...excellent reading when you’re safely at home.' Weekend Herald 'A fascinating post-mortem of how certain groups manage to survive while others flailed about in drunken, murderous chaos.' Daily Telegraph 'This fascinating book shines light on an awful truth.' Get Reading

In New Orleans, immortal Amazon warrior Samia is about to learn that there's a worse evil coming to slaughter mankind than she's ever faced before.

Powers and Johnson are back in the explosive conclusion to the Face of Fear investigation. As the personal lives of the police officers and detectives of the now Priority 1 Task Force seem to be back to normal, behind the scenes, a plot to destroy all those who saved the lives of Rachelle Robinson, Deborah Lance and Lindsey Wilkerson has been planned. The tables get turned when it is discovered there is a link to The Music Club Murders from The Face of Fear Investigation. This link forces Ghost Face to return where he proves that when it comes to revenge there is...no mercy.

Police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI profiler Reed Markham take on two difficult new cases in this stunning follow-up to The Vanishing Season. "A gripping and powerful read. It is what we call an edge-of-your-seat, rollercoaster of a thriller. You will not be able to put it down before you finish it."—The Washington Book Review on The Vanishing Season No Mercy is award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen’s heart-pounding second novel. Police officer Ellery Hathaway is on involuntary leave from her job because she shot a murderer in cold blood and refuses to apologize for it. Forced into group therapy for victims of violent crime, Ellery immediately finds higher priorities than “getting in touch with her feelings.” For one, she suspects a fellow group member may have helped to convict the wrong man for a deadly arson incident years ago. For another, Ellery finds herself in the desperate clutches of a woman who survived a brutal rape. He is still out there, this man with the Spider-Man-like ability to climb through bedroom windows, and his victim beseeches Ellery for help in capturing her attacker. Ellery seeks advice from her friend, FBI profiler Reed Markham, who liberated her from a killer’s closet when she was a child. Reed remains drawn to this unpredictable woman, the one he rescued but couldn’t quite save. The trouble is, Reed is up for a potential big promotion, and his boss has just one condition for the new job—stay away from Ellery. Ellery ignores all the warnings. Instead, she starts digging around in everyone’s past but her own—a move that, at best, could put her out of work permanently, and at worst, could put her in the city morgue.