Flat broke and stranded in a foreign country, Ralph Gardiner is nursing a beer and contemplating the wreckage of his life. He has no money, no prospects, and worst of all ... the beer is warm. When a local businessman approaches him with an intriguing offer, Ralph decides he has nothing to lose. He's wrong. A Piece of the Action is a gripping thriller with science fiction and horror overtones. A short story set in Latin America from the author of the Hal Spacejock science fiction series. Keywords: Free science fiction story, free scifi short, free ebook, free thriller science fiction

Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America’s consumer credit boom, 1994’s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs—resulting in profound societal change. “America began to change on a mid-September day in 1958, when the Bank of America dropped its first 60,000 credit cards on the unassuming city of Fresno, California.” So begins Joe Nocera’s riveting account of one of the most astonishing revolutions in modern American life—what Nocera labels “the money revolution.” In the decades since, the middle class has gained access to credit cards, to mutual funds, to retirement accounts—and to hundreds of other financial vehicles that have allowed everyone to get “a piece of the action.” In this lively, engaging book, some of the great financial characters of modern times—from Charles Merrill to Charles Schwab to Peter Lynch—strut across the stage as the course of this great financial shift is charted. In an all-new introduction, Nocera takes a look back at the consequences of the money revolution. Were members of the middle class as prepared as the innovators claimed to take control of their financial lives? Or did events like the dot-com and the housing bubbles suggest something else: that far too many of us lacked the wherewithal to make sound investment decisions?

During my 14 years spent in the Middle East I came upon rumors about a contract being put on the Israeli Defense Minister for his involvement in the 1982 Lebanon invasion. This contract never took place but I have written the book with the view that it did. The story takes several twists and turns and occurs in countries such as U.K.Thailand,Canary Islands,Singapore etc.With characters from the U.S.,Switzerland,Australia, and U.K.it all combines to be a real page turner with a surprise conclusion.

In 1957, a young cop boxes his way to a gold shield, and finds corruption everywhere he turns Before he became one of the most feared detectives in the New York Police Department, Stanley Moodrow was a boxer. A big kid with sledgehammer fists and a body that didn’t know when to quit, he won his first twenty bouts handily, and might have gone pro if he saw a future in it. But the men in Moodrow’s family have always been cops, and he wanted to join their ranks. As a young recruit, Moodrow knows that the pain he has suffered in the ring puts him a step ahead of the fresh-faced youngsters around him. Using his boxing talent as a way to get the attention of the brass, he wins his detective’s badge in record time. But when he starts life among the elite, he learns that there is nothing in the department that can’t be bought. Even the blood of the innocents has a price tag.

Hollywood is often thought of—and certainly by Hollywood itself—as a progressive haven. However, in the decade after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the film industry grew deeply conservative when it came to conflicts over racial justice. Amid black self-assertion and white backlash, many of the most heated struggles in film were fought over employment. In A Piece of the Action, Eithne Quinn reveals how Hollywood catalyzed wider racial politics, through representation on screen as well as in battles over jobs and resources behind the scenes. Based on extensive archival research and detailed discussions of films like In the Heat of the Night, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, Super Fly, Claudine, and Blue Collar, this volume considers how issues of race and labor played out on the screen during the tumultuous early years of affirmative action. Quinn charts how black actors leveraged their performance capital to force meaningful changes to employment and film content. She examines the emergence of Sidney Poitier and other African Americans as A-list stars; the careers of black filmmakers such as Melvin Van Peebles and Ossie Davis; and attempts by the federal government and black advocacy groups to integrate cinema. Quinn also highlights the limits of Hollywood’s liberalism, showing how predominantly white filmmakers, executives, and unions hid the persistence of racism behind feel-good stories and public-relations avowals of tolerance. A rigorous analysis of the deeply rooted patterns of racial exclusion in American cinema, A Piece of the Action sheds light on why conservative and corporate responses to antiracist and labor activism remain pervasive in today’s Hollywood.

“When you’re a success, when you’re at the top... that’s when they come for you. Everybody wants a piece... a piece of the action.” It’s 1960 and Klondike’s Circus is now a major, money-making juggernaut, with TV specials, Las Vegas engagements and all manner of sponsorship and endorsement deals in the pipeline. When the troupe is offered a starring role in a huge circus spectacular involving multiple promotions, boss Kal Klondike feels on top of the world. But that’s when the dark shadows start gathering. Sinister, malicious figures, all with a score to settle. And all wanting a slice of his profits. A deadly gangster. A humiliated performer. A madman long thought dead. And, at the head of the table, Klondike’s greatest rival, his former mentor and partner. Everybody wants a piece. Nobody is safe. The stage is set...