Wheel of Misfortune Though the town lines of rural Ogeechee aren't all that far from bustling Atlanta, it still retains the charm and quirks of some sleepy Southern communities. Topping that list is old Tanner Whitcomb, who drives through Ogeechee in an imaginary car with a hubcap for a steering wheel. So when he reports that he’s run over somebody, Officer Trudy Roundtree puts on a straight face and goes to investigate. She finds a dead body with a tire mark on it. Trudy has seen the victim―a handsome, expensively groomed man―somewhere before. Putting Tanner’s claims of guilt aside, Trudy follows a trail leading to a posh Atlanta art gallery―and a drama of greed, passion and manipulation. Even Trudy’s own past becomes part of the complex mystery as she closes in on a killer who, having murdered once, is more than willing to kill again. "Berry has a lot of insight . . . and a keen perception of human characteristics." ―The Snooper "This is a fun-to-read, down home regional mystery . . . provides insight into life in a small Georgia town . . ." ―The Midwest Book Review

Like other fictional characters, female sleuths may live in the past or the future. They may represent current times with some level of reality or shape their settings to suit an agenda. There are audiences for both realism and escapism in the mystery novel. It is interesting, however, to compare the fictional world of the mystery sleuth with the world in which readers live. Of course, mystery readers do not share one simplistic world. They live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, as do the female heroines in the books they read. They may choose a book because it has a familiar background or because it takes them to places they long to visit. Readers may be rich or poor; young or old; conservative or liberal. So are the heroines. What incredible choices there are today in mystery series! This three-volume encyclopedia of women characters in the mystery novel is like a gigantic menu. Like a menu, the descriptions of the items that are provided are subjective. Volume 3 of Mystery Women as currently updated adds an additional 42 sleuths to the 500 plus who were covered in the initial Volume 3. These are more recently discovered sleuths who were introduced during the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. This more than doubles the number of sleuths introduced in the 1980s (298 of whom were covered in Volume 2) and easily exceeded the 347 series (and some outstanding individuals) described in Volume 1, which covered a 130-year period from 1860-1979. It also includes updates on those individuals covered in the first edition; changes in status, short reviews of books published since the first edition through December 31, 2008.

This volume is a comprehensive collection of critical essays on The Taming of the Shrew, and includes extensive discussions of the play's various printed versions and its theatrical productions. Aspinall has included only those essays that offer the most influential and controversial arguments surrounding the play. The issues discussed include gender, authority, female autonomy and unruliness, courtship and marriage, language and speech, and performance and theatricality.

A VAMPIRE IN ZOMBIELAND You wouldn’t like Coburn. People don’t, as a rule. And that’s okay, because he doesn’t like people much either. People are food. Five years ago, Coburn went to sleep – wasn’t exactly planned – and he’s just woken up to find most everybody in the world dead. Not dead like him; he looks human, drinks blood. He’s smart. They’re... none of those things. They outnumber him by about a million to one, and their clotted blood cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving, and on the run. He has to find blood, soon, and – like it or not – he’s gonna have to keep an eye on the frail flesh-bags he finds it in. Time for the wolf to turn shepherd. No, Coburn doesn’t like people. But he’ll have to learn to.

My life was littered with harrowing and outrageous experiences. I was rescued from drowning twice. Stood face-to-face with a bear and pulled from under a dump truck before age six. My teens were equally risk-prone and my adult life not much better. Not all of the stories are tragic. Many are funny and some are amazing. I spent a summer hitchhiking the West Coast. I've no stranger to juvenile hall, jail or mental ward. I retired after thirty-four years of self-employment with numerous inventions and licenses.

Derek Walcott's Encounter with Homer puts Walcott's epic poem Omeros in conversation with Homer to show how reading them against each other changes our understanding of both. Rachel Friedman examines Walcott's use of the Homeric persona of Omeros to explore his own deepening relationship with his craft and his identity as a Caribbean poet.

Time, The Universe, And America... In a country a lot like our own, in a time a little bit like now, Bibi Brown is an ordinary young man with an extraordinary destiny. Bibi, the first male in twelve generations of Browns not to have taken his own life, has a furious crush on a beautiful nine-fingered woman and an unbearable urge to understand the meaning of Time, the Universe, and America. So Bibi begins his quest--careening through a world of bizarre cults, gravity-defying crones, and lunatics of every stripe--all for a chance to meet his long-lost uncle Otto, a legendary junk-dealer who lives on the Hope Valley Hubcap Ranch. Because in a world that is spinning a little too fast, and a little too wildly, Bibi’s destiny is to find the essence of hope, the beauty of hubcaps, and the meaning of life in the Valley of the Hubcap King.... With a touch of Candide, a dash of Don Quixote, and healthy dose of Zen, Sean Murphy’s wondrous, riotous novel is the story of an ordinary man searching through a hilariously off-kilter world--for the truths that might just save us all.