Elliot Serlin is having the worst week of his life. First, he learns that he has lost his entire savings, including his son's college tuition, to the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Then he stumbles upon a file at work marked SECRET and learns he is going to lose his job. Desperate to avoid financial ruin, and unwilling to tell his wife for fear she'll leave him, Elliot sets out planning an elaborate, if not quite foolproof, art heist. Along the way, he will recruit a salsa-dancing ex-con, a 19-year-old hacker, his best friend, and his wife's best friend who, it turns out, has eyes for him. Not least among the seemingly insurmountable obstacles Elliot must overcome is his own ego.

Based on real events. A truly unimportant story of an incredible major crime in small town Neverland. Follow the author’s romantic expedition through time and deception into a world of lost trust, lust, criminal intent and rejection. Delve deep into the criminal underbelly of Mexican Drug Cartels, Federal Marshals, Canadian and International Policing Agencies and deep into trusted “friends” who betray, steal and deceive you. Follow this truly unimportant major crime from it’s beginning to tragic ending and release yourself into a spine tingling adventure.

Adapted from the groundbreaking bestseller Principles of Comparative Politics, Third Edition! Foundations of Comparative Politics presents a scientific approach to the rich world of comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship, providing you a guide to cross-national comparison and why it matters. This condensed, more accessible format introduces you to the key questions in comparative politics, using brief insights from tools such as decision, social choice, and game theory to help you understand clearly why some explanations for political phenomena are stronger than others. Foundations concentrates on describing the core features of regimes and institutions and on analyzing how these fundamental attributes drive variation in the economic and political outcomes we care about most. This approach more closely replicates what comparative scholars do: constructing and testing theories on political phenomena over basic memorization of country-specific facts—to explain, rather than describe. Illustrated with current examples that show the application of theory, you will gain invaluable real-world skills in critical thinking and empirical analysis that you will carry with you long after the course is over.

Stolen Words is an epic story about the largest collection of Jewish books in the world--tens of millions of books that the Nazis looted from European Jewish families and institutions. Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the literary loot in castles, abandoned mine shafts, and warehouses throughout Europe. It was the largest and most extensive book-looting campaign in history. After the war, Allied forces discovered these troves of stolen books but quickly found themselves facing a barrage of questions. How could the books be identified? Where should they go? Who had the authority to make such decisions? Eventually the military turned the books over to an organization of leading Jewish scholars called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.--whose chairman was the acclaimed historian Salo Baron and whose on-the-ground director was the philosopher Hannah Arendt--with the charge of establishing restitution protocols. Stolen Words is the story of how a free civilization decides what to do with the material remains of a world torn asunder, and how those remains connect survivors with their past. It is the story of Jews struggling to understand the new realities of their post-Holocaust world and of Western society's gradual realization of the magnitude of devastation wrought by World War II. Most of all, it is the story of people --of Nazi leaders, ideologues, and Judaica experts; of Allied soldiers, scholars, and scoundrels; and of Jewish communities, librarians, and readers around the world.

Principles of Comparative Politics offers a view into the rich world of comparative inquiry, research, and scholarship. This groundbreaking text gives students meaningful insight into how cross-national comparison is actually conducted and why it matters. William R. Clark, Matt Golder, and Sona N. Golder walk us through the enduring questions that scholars grapple with, the issues about which consensus has started to emerge, and the tools comparativists use to analyze the complex and interesting problems at the heart of the field. The thoroughly revised Fourth Edition includes streamlined discussion and analysis of key topics and theories in the field. Included with this title: LMS Cartridge: Import this title′s instructor resources into your school′s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Don′t use an LMS? You can still access all of the same online resources for this title via the password-protected Instructor Resource Site. Select the Resources tab on this page to learn more.

'Principles of Comparative Politics' offers a comprehensive and up-to-date view of the rich world of comparative inquiry, research and scholarship.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and the only things on Birds & Bees owner Amy Simms’s wish list are peace, quiet, and birding beside her beau. But in small town Ruby Lake, ‘tis the season to solve murders . . . Before Amy can get into the holiday spirit, she meets Franklin Finch—the cocky new owner of Christmas House Village, one of the most beloved attractions in town. Locals have been squawking over his decision to sack veteran staff members for cheaper help. And when Finch blows off a business deal with Amy, it confirms that he’s the biggest scrooge around. Still, she’s stunned the night his dead body is found swinging in the attic of a festive Victorian . . . Clashing against Chief Kennedy once again, Amy sets off to prove that Finch was murdered. But while her investigation quickly reveals a gaggle of disgruntled ex-Christmas House Village employees and unusual clues, Amy must move with caution as she focuses in on the seedy killer . . . Praise for J.R. Ripley’s Beignets, Brides and Bodies “Appealing . . . A clever, amusing cozy.” —Publishers Weekly “Ripley’s entertaining second series outing is a tasty option for foodie mystery fans.” —Library Journal