Richard Rayner had a peripatetic childhood, and it seemed he found some sense of place when he attended Cambridge University. The study of philosophy combined with an obsession with books, however, served as the catalyst for a bizarre life of crime. Mounting debts propelled the author into a series of adventures, as he plundered bookstores for elusive first editions, forged checks, and acted as an accomplice in a Keystone Kops-like attempted bank robbery. In a memoir that's "compelling, edgy, painfully alive" (Times Literary Supplement), like "stripped-down Dostoevsky" (Time), this is the personal story, both tragic and comic, of an absence of identity and a long checkered past of crimes and misdemeanors.

The book opens with the annual spring dispatch, by the Seattle-based Filipino union, of thousands of Filipino workers to the Alaska salmon canneries. We meet characters who reappear throughout the stories: Vince, the tough but charming union foreman and "big shot" father to Buddy, our American-born narrator; Chris, the battle-scarred union president targeted by McCarthyism; Rico, the spirited young king of the neighborhood who will fall victim to Vietnam; Stephanie, the beautiful mestiza who marrie up; and many others who age and change in ironic counterpint to persistent themes of loyalty, fierce ethnic pride, and a willingness to struggle against hostile forces in society. There are wry twists of humor and surprising turns of plot; a long-lost love is renewed; a long-hidden family secret is revealed. We encounter the inevitable aging and passing of the Manong generation, but we sense as well the arrival of its vision. Babies are born. The migrant fisheries worker gets a nine-to-five job, and his children go to college. The conclusion builds to a quiet power that is essentially elegiac; an era closes, but the voices of the older generation are shouldered by the younger, to keep the history to retell the stories, and to pay homage.

A ghost story with a difference from the WORLD FANTASY and multiple BRITISH FANTASY AWARD-winning author of SOME KIND OF FAIRY TALE It is the summer of 1976, the hottest since records began and a young man leaves behind his student days and learns how to grow up. A first job in a holiday camp beckons. But with political and racial tensions simmering under the cloudless summer skies there is not much fun to be had. And soon there is a terrible price to be paid for his new found freedom and independence. A price that will come back to haunt him, even in the bright sunlight of summer. As with SOME KIND OF FAIRY TALE, Graham Joyce has crafted a deceptively simple tale of great power. With beautiful prose, wonderful characters and a perfect evocation of time and place this is a novel that transcends the boundaries between the everyday and the supernatural while celebrating the power of both.

The Man in the Blue Suit owns an art gallery in the city centre of Glasgow. For some unknown reason he gets involved in a spy network. He has been asked to go to the south of France and there meet a contact named Olga. He knows that he is being watched, and that his mission may be a dangerous one. To protect himself he takes along a woman from his native city of Glasgow, the Two Tattooed Woman, surely no one will be brave enough to interfere with him when she is by his side.

This short history is the true story of a young, working mother in New York's financial district. The author relates her experience as everyday concerns evaporate and a global reality shifts forever. "She" becomes an eyewitness to the most tragic day in the City's history: September 11, 2001. "The Blue Suit" provides a personal perspective of a collective grief, with heartbreaking clarity. Written in the third person as a means of self-help, this nonfiction work allows others to see the common experiences of many on the ground that day. The novella explores the indelible mark left behind, the healing power of community, and the hope that generations to come will #neverforget. This brief narrative of 9/11 and the weeks and months following the tragedy can be read in just over one hour, but will stay with the reader indefinitely.

When Eden Foley walked out of millionaire bad boy Devlin Stone's life, she vowed it would be forever. He knew just how to make her tremble with desire, but he was dangerous! Now, forced to contact Devlin, Eden is stunned—he wants to pick up from where they left off. Even worse, her traitorous body seems to agree! Will one night with Devlin mean she can finally move on with her life…? Or has this devil in a dark blue suit got other, more pleasurable plans in mind?

After her father’s death, young Anne Beddingfeld moves to London with her meagre inheritance, hopeful and ready to meet adventure. She witnesses a fatal accident at a Tube station and picks up a cryptic note dropped by the anonymous doctor who appeared on the scene. When Anne learns of a murder at the estate that the dead man was on his way to visit, it confirms her suspicion that the man in the brown suit who lost the note was not a real doctor. With her clue in hand she gains a commission from the newspaper leading the search for the “man in the brown suit,” and her investigation leads her to take passage on a South Africa–bound ocean liner. On board, she meets a famous socialite, a fake missionary, a possible secret service agent, and the M.P. at whose estate the second murder occurred. She learns about a secretive criminal mastermind known only as the Colonel and of stolen diamonds connected to it all. During the voyage, she evades an attempt on her life, and in South Africa she escapes from a kidnapping and barely survives another attack on her at Victoria Falls. She falls in love, finds the diamonds, and discovers the truth about the two deaths in London that started it all. Finally, she confronts the mysterious criminal mastermind, the Colonel. Published in 1924 by the Bodley Head, The Man in the Brown Suit is Agatha Christie’s fourth novel. Unlike the classic murder mysteries that made her famous, The Man in the Brown Suit, like her second novel The Secret Adversary, is an international crime thriller. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.