Worst Case

Alex Cross has Washington, D. C. The Women's Murder Club has San Francisco. Detective Michael Bennett has all of New York City, chaos capital of the world. The son of one of New York's wealthiest families is snatched off the street and held hostage. But this kidnapper isn't demanding money. Instead, he quizzes his prisoner on the price others pay for his life of luxury . . . and wrong answers are fatal. Detective Michael Bennett heads the investigation. With ten kids of his own, he can't understand what could lead someone to target anyone's children. When another student from a powerful family disappears, the FBI sends in its top abduction specialist: Agent Emily Parker. Bennett's job and love life suddenly get even more complicated. Before Bennett has a chance to protest the FBI's intrusion on his case, the killer mastermind changes his routine. His plan leads up to the most devastating demonstration yet: one that could bring cataclysmic ruin to every inch of New York City.

As he faces a devastating personal loss, Detective Michael Bennett is about to take on the most sinister challenge of his career: a kidnapping crisis that could destroy the most powerful people in America. The nation has fallen into mourning after the unexpected death of a beloved former First Lady, and the most powerful people in the world gather in New York for her funeral. Then the inconceivable occurs: Billionaires, politicians, and superstars of every kind are suddenly trapped within one man's brilliant and ruthless scenario. Bennett, father of ten, is pulled into the fray. As the danger escalates, Michael is hit with devastating news: After fighting for many years, his wife has succumbed to a terrible disease. As New York descends into chaos, Bennett has lost the great love of his life and faces raising his ten devastated children alone-and rescuing 34 hostages. Day after day, Bennett confronts the most ruthless man he has ever dealt with, a man who kills without hesitation and counters everything the NYPD and FBI throw at him with impunity. As the entire world watches and the tension boils to a searing heat, Bennett has to find a way out-or face responsibility for the greatest debacle in history.

Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A single freight car of chlorine derails on the outskirts of Los Angeles, spilling its contents and killing seven million. An asteroid ten kilometers wide slams into the Atlantic Ocean, unleashing a tsunami that renders life on the planet as we know it extinct. We consider the few who live in fear of such scenarios to be alarmist or even paranoid. But Worst Cases shows that such individuals—like Cassandra foreseeing the fall of Troy—are more reasonable and prescient than you might think. In this book, Lee Clarke surveys the full range of possible catastrophes that animate and dominate the popular imagination, from toxic spills and terrorism to plane crashes and pandemics. Along the way, he explores how the ubiquity of worst cases in everyday life has rendered them ordinary and mundane. Fear and dread, Clarke argues, have actually become too rare: only when the public has more substantial information and more credible warnings will it take worst cases as seriously as it should. A timely and necessary look into how we think about the unthinkable, Worst Cases will be must reading for anyone attuned to our current climate of threat and fear.

Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction? Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster—emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost–benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations. Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of overreaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends.

This poignant middle grade novel in verse follows twelve-year-old Collin who manages his anxiety by mapping out survival plans for any disaster or worst-case scenario. Collin is always prepared for something to go wrong. Ever since he lost his mom in a car accident, he's been journaling about how to overcome things like avalanches, riptides, or even a bad case of halitosis. Meanwhile, Collin's father grows more distant by the day, and has started hoarding things throughout their house. Determined to hide his home life from his friends, Collin navigates middle school alongside the hilarious and clueless Liam, and Georgia, who Collin may have feelings for. Can Collin learn to be vulnerable around those he loves, even when he can't control every possible scenario?

Introduces exciting new methods for assessing algorithms for problems ranging from clustering to linear programming to neural networks.

It's the best of the worst! This edition of the popular series loved by parents and kids alike serves up a wild ride through mudslides, volcanos, shark-infested oceans, menacing mountains, and more. Seventy entries are packed with illuminating facts, eye-popping photos, hilarious illustrations, must-see maps, heaps of humor, and step-by-step instructions. Readers will be armed with the knowledge and skills needed to survive anything and live to tell about it!

A deliciously dark, unapologetically funny, and nail-bitingly tense psychological thriller by the international bestselling author of The Cry NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER *** Guardian, Telegraph, Herald Scotland AND The Week BOOK OF THE YEAR*** *** Sunday Times TOP 40 Crime Novels in the Last 5 Years*** ***Longlisted for Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2020*** 'Shocking, gripping and laugh-out-loud hilarious from the first line to the last. Brilliant' Erin Kelly 'This frenetic novel's strongest assets are its sheer verbal energy and the acerbic views of its heroine, who resembles a female Frankie Boyle' Sunday Times 'The main character is one of the most extraordinary you'll meet between the pages of a book' Ian Rankin 'A scandalously rude comic masterpiece' Daily Telegraph 'Sublime' Guardian _________________ Mary Shields is a moody, acerbic probation offer, dealing with some of Glasgow's worst cases, and her job is on the line. Liam Macdowall was imprisoned for murdering his wife, and he's published a series of letters to the dead woman, in a book that makes him an unlikely hero – and a poster boy for Men's Rights activists. Liam is released on licence into Mary's care, but things are far from simple. Mary develops a poisonous obsession with Liam and his world, and when her son and Liam's daughter form a relationship, Mary will stop at nothing to impose her own brand of justice ... with devastating consequences. A heart-pounding, relentless and chilling psychological thriller, rich with deliciously dark and unapologetic humour, Worst Case Scenario is also a perceptive, tragic and hugely relevant book by one of the most exciting names in crime fiction. _________________ 'Laced with pitch-dark acerbic humour, the classic thriller gets a hell of a twist' Heat 'This darkly, funny, shocking and surprisingly emotional thriller is unlike anything you've ever read before' Fabulous Magazine 'This novel is a funny, agonising account of one good woman's battle with rage, guilt, fear, duty and disaster' Literary Review 'Absolutely compelling company from start to finish in this wonderful, energetic, hard-hitting and deeply funny novel' Big Issue 'Simply stunning. Dark, uncompromising, funny, and almost impossible to put down' Luca Veste 'Outrageous, extremely funny and ultimately devastating' Ambrose Parry 'Dark humour and darker truths permeate a thrilling crime novel that is fabulously transgressive and completely unique ... nobody writes like Helen Fitzgerald' Mark Billingham 'Helen Fitzgerald is one of a kind, and a welcome breath of fresh air in the world of off-beat but achingly relatable crime fiction' SJI Holliday 'A dark, comic masterpiece which manages to be both excruciatingly tense and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. Great stuff!' Mark Edwards

Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction? Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster—emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost–benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations. Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of overreaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends.