The King Falls

"King Kohl...has a reputation for loving three things: the ladies, closing on properties, and playing bridge...After receiving a mysterious message to hurry to King's home, Wendy almost collides with the man's real-estate rival, running out the front door insisting he found King dead when he arrived. Not just dead, it turns out, but murdered...With her detective husband Ross and her father Bax Winchester, the chief of police, Wendy is determined to find the offender who dropped the unguarded King"--

It’s up to reporter and bridge player Wendy Winchester Rierson to finesse a homicide investigation where the killer holds a master hand . . . King Kohl, scion of the Kohl and Son real estate firm, has a reputation for loving three things: the ladies, closing on properties, and playing bridge. Still, when he invites Wendy, the president of the Rosalie, Mississippi, Country Club Bridge Bunch, to a small, exclusive bridge party, her investigative instincts as a reporter for the Rosalie Citizen are on the alert. In fact, King means to use the occasion to make a surprising announcement to his selected guests. But before he can lay his cards on the table, tragedy strikes. After receiving a mysterious message to hurry to King’s home, Wendy almost collides with the man’s real-estate rival, running out the front door insisting he found King dead when he arrived. Not just dead, it turns out, but murdered—crowned with one of his own award plaques. Is the rival as guilty as he looks? Was it a crime of passion by one of Kohl’s scorned lovers? With her detective husband Ross and her father Bax Winchester, the chief of police, Wendy is determined to find the offender who dropped the unguarded King . . . Praise for Cold Reading Murder “A very Southern mystery with authentic characters, a well-hidden killer, and some helpful bridge tips.” —Kirkus Reviews

Taking place during the first half of the sixteenth century, The Fall of the King tells the story of dreamy, slacking student Mikkel Thøgersen and the entanglements that ultimately bring him into service as a mercenary under King Christian II of Denmark. Moving from the Danish countryside to Stockholm during the execution of Swedish nobility and finally to the imprisonment of Mikkel and Christian, the narrative is a lyrical encapsulation of “the fall”—the fall of country, history, individuals, and nature. Twice voted as the most important Danish novel of the twentieth century, The Fall of the King is both an epic depiction of real events and a complex psychological novel. Half pure narration, half prose poem, its scenes of brute realism mixed with rhapsodical passages make it a work of artistic genius.

In the conclusion of the trilogy retelling the story of Homer's "Iliad," the allies of the Mykene king Agamemnon, including a reluctant Odysseus, ruler of Ithaca, and the fierce warrior Achilles, gather to prepare a final onslaught against the Golden City of Troy.

Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady is Florence King's classic memoir of her upbringing in an eccentric Southern family, told with all the uproarious wit and gusto that has made her one of the most admired writers in the country. Florence may have been a disappointment to her Granny, whose dream of rearing a Perfect Southern Lady would never be quite fulfilled. But after all, as Florence reminds us, "no matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street."

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A richly textured portrait . . . an intimate look at a closed Orthodox community.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK It is 1976. And the tiny upstate New York town of Kaaterskill Falls is bustling with summer people in dark coats, fedoras, and long, modest dresses. Living side by side with Yankee year-rounders, they are the disciples of Rav Elijah Kirshner. Elizabeth Shulman is a restless wife and mother of five daughters; her imagination transcends her cloistered community. Across the street Andras Melish is drawn to Kaaterskill by his adoring older sisters. Comforted, yet crippled by his sisters’ love, he cannot overcome the ambivalence he feels toward his own children and his young wife. At the top of the hill, Rav Kirshner is nearing the end of his life. As he struggles to decide which of his sons should succeed him—the pious but stolid Isaiah or the brilliant but rebellious Jeremy—his followers wrestle with their future and their past. With this community, Allegra Goodman weaves magic. The nationally bestselling author of The Family Markowitz crafts a tale of family and tradition—one that confirms this author’s place as a virtuoso of her generation.

Ken Follett’s magnificent historical epic begins as five interrelated families move through the momentous dramas of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the struggle for women’s suffrage. A thirteen-year-old Welsh boy enters a man’s world in the mining pits. . . . An American law student rejected in love finds a surprising new career in Woodrow Wilson’s White House. . . . A housekeeper for the aristocratic Fitzherberts takes a fateful step above her station, while Lady Maud Fitzherbert herself crosses deep into forbidden territory when she falls in love with a German spy. . . . And two orphaned Russian brothers embark on radically different paths when their plan to emigrate to America falls afoul of war, conscription, and revolution. From the dirt and danger of a coal mine to the glittering chandeliers of a palace, from the corridors of power to the bedrooms of the mighty, Fall of Giants takes us into the inextricably entangled fates of five families—and into a century that we thought we knew, but that now will never seem the same again. . . .

A natural history and celebration of the famous bears and salmon of Brooks River. On the Alaska Peninsula, where exceptional landscapes are commonplace, a small river attracts attention far beyond its scale. Each year, from summer to early fall, brown bears and salmon gather at Brooks River to create one of North America’s greatest wildlife spectacles. As the salmon leap from the cascade, dozens of bears are there to catch them (with as many as forty-three bears sighted in a single day), and thousands of people come to watch in person or on the National Park Service’s popular Brooks Falls Bearcam. The Bears of Brooks Falls tells the story of this region and the bears that made it famous in three parts. The first forms an ecological history of the region, from its dormancy 30,000 years ago to the volcanic events that transformed it into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes. The central and longest section is a deep dive into the lives of the wildlife along the Brooks River, especially the bears and salmon. Readers will learn about the bears’ winter hibernation, mating season, hunting rituals, migration patterns, and their relationship with Alaska’s changing environment. Finally, the book explores the human impact, both positive and negative, on this special region and its wild population.

This stunning follow-up to Ellen Kushner’s cult-classic novel, Swordspoint, is set in the same world of labyrinthine intrigue, where sharp swords and even sharper wits rule. Against a rich tapestry of artists and aristocrats, students, strumpets, and spies, a gentleman and a scholar will find themselves playing out an ancient drama destined to explode their society’s smug view of itself–and reveal that sometimes the best price of uncovering history is being forced to repeat it…. The Fall of the Kings Generations ago the last king fell, taking with him the final truths about a race of wizards who ruled at his side. But the blood of the kings runs deep in the land and its people, waiting for the coming together of two unusual men, Theron Campion, a young nobleman of royal lineage, is heir to an ancient house and a modern scandal. Tormented by his twin duties to his family and his own bright spirit, he seeks solace in the University. There he meets Basil St. Cloud, a brilliant and charismatic teacher ruled by a passion for knowledge–and a passion for the ancient kings. Of course, everyone now knows that the wizards were charlatans and the kings their dupes and puppets. Only Basil ins not convinced–nor is he convinced that the city has seen its last king…