In this book, Alan Krell investigates the place barbed wire holds in the social imagination.

Jay Wilson is facing a fear he never dreamed possible. His life was being deleted. A diabolical hacker, ignited by an innocent transgression in a coffee shop, is hell bent on destroying Jay's life. After recently separating from his girlfriend, Jay was already miserable. Amidst the obliteration of everything around him, he fears ruin of his final chance with Jenni most of all. Life as an orphan and runaway teen did not prepare Jay for what was yet to come. The hacker not only deleted his existence from every known database in the world, but falsified a criminal record that has Jay wanted as an international fugitive. His survival is at the mercy of three homeless men who dwell in the underbelly of Manhattan. With Jenni's help, Ted Stone, a long-retired detective who helped take down the mob in its heyday, becomes an unlikely but promising ally, along with his maverick sketch artist as they pit their old school police methods against an elite hacker who is always one step ahead. This is a novel of perseverance against all odds and one last chance for love. The dramatic conclusion of this fast-paced thriller will leave you gasping for air and checking your own computer for a DEVIL IN THE WIRE.

By 1884, a new type of fencing called barbed wire—or, as ranchers deemed it, devil wire—is making more enemies than good neighbors in the American West. Jim Hartford, a failed farmer from Tennessee, is looking for a new beginning in Miles City, Montana. What he finds is a territorial disagreement that erupts in bloodshed. A local cattle baron has hired a renegade group of fence-cutters who turn out to be a band of grudge-holding murderers...and now it's up to Jim to put his life on the line not only to avenge the death of his brother, but to save the woman he loves from the deadly barbs of hatred and greed.

Jennifer's new neighbor, Lenise Jameson, is a liar. Lenise claims to have witnessed a disturbing incident involving Jennifer's husband, Hank, but as far as Jennifer is concerned, the forty-something single mother is a vindictive backstabber out to make trouble. But Jennifer soon discovers this is no sick joke. Hank has a dark side she knew nothing about. As Jennifer's life spirals out of control she has no one to turn to, apart from Lenise, who appears only too willing to help. But who is Lenise? What does she want from Jennifer? And just how far is she willing to go to get it? A tale about secrets and obsession, and what can happen when you forget to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. This new psychological thriller from award-winning writer Deborah Rogers will keep you turning pages until the very end.

Based on the series produced for the BBC World Service Who thought up paper money? How did the contraceptive pill change the face of the legal profession? Why was the horse collar as important for human progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside-down? The world economy defies comprehension. A continuously-changing system of immense complexity, it offers over ten billion distinct products and services, doubles in size every fifteen years, and links almost every one of the planet's seven billion people. It delivers astonishing luxury to hundreds of millions. It also leaves hundreds of millions behind, puts tremendous strains on the ecosystem, and has an alarming habit of stalling. Nobody is in charge of it. Indeed, no individual understands more than a fraction of what's going on. How can we make sense of this bewildering system on which our lives depend? From the tally-stick to Bitcoin, the canal lock to the jumbo jet, each invention in Tim Harford's fascinating new book has its own curious, surprising and memorable story, a vignette against a grand backdrop. Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are, how we got here, and where we might be going next. Hidden connections will be laid bare: how the barcode undermined family corner shops; why the gramophone widened inequality; how barbed wire shaped America. We'll meet the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, or were ruined by them. We'll trace the economic principles that help to explain their transformative effects. And we'll ask what lessons we can learn to make wise use of future inventions, in a world where the pace of innovation will only accelerate.

This important book from a Pulitzer Prize finalist follows the brutal journey a group of men take to cross the Mexican border: "the single most compelling, lucid, and lyrical contemporary account of the absurdity of U.S. border policy" (The Atlantic). In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, the "Devil's Highway." Three years later, Luis Alberto Urrea wrote about what happened to them. The result was a national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a "book of the year" in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

Barbed wire is the quintessentially modern creation. Its hidden history is here uncovered for the first time, illustrated with rare archive photographs. Few technologies did more to usher in the hallmarks of the modern era: the harnessing of nature, brutal mass warfare, political conquest and repression, and genocide. Developed in the USA as a handy way of keeping cattle _in_ and native Americans _out_, it realized its destiny in the trench warfare of 1914-18 and in the camp archipelagos of the world, from the Boer War to Auschwitz, from Gulag to Guantanamo.