Cat O'Nine Tales is the fifth collection of irresistible short stories from the master storyteller and bestselling author Jeffrey Archer. Ingeniously plotted, with richly drawn characters and Archer's trademark of deliciously unexpected conclusions, some of these thirteen stories were inspired by the two years Jeffrey Archer spent in prison, including the story of a company chairman who tries to poison his wife while on a trip to St Petersburg—with unexpected consequences. The Red King is a tale about a con man who discovers that an English Lord requires one more chess piece to complete a set that would be worth a fortune. In another tale of deception, The Commissioner, a Bombay con artist ends up in the morgue, after he uses the police chief as bait in his latest scam. The Perfect Murder reveals how a convict manages to remove an old enemy while he's locked up in jail, and then set up two prison officers as his alibi. In Charity Begins at Home, an accountant realizes he has achieved nothing in his life, and sets out to make a fortune before he retires. And then there is Archer's favorite, In the Eye of the Beholder, where a handsome star athlete falls in love with a three-hundred-pound woman...who happens to be the ninth richest woman in Italy. Jeffrey Archer is the only author to have topped international bestseller lists with his fiction, non-fiction, and his short stories. Cat O'Nine Tales is Archer at his best: witty, sad, surprising, and unforgettable.

Four stories from the world of “smart, sexy, ruthless”* heroine Jane Yellowrock—plus bonus material! In Have Stakes Will Travel, readers get a chance to go deeper into the thrilling world of skinwalker and vampire hunter Jane Yellowrock. In “WeSa,” the Beast who lives inside Jane watches as her hunting grounds become prey. In “Haints,” Jane and her best friend, witch Molly Trueblood, are hired to investigate mysterious paranormal phenomena—and the evil they find brings a new meaning to the words "haunted house." “Signatures of the Dead” tells the story of the vampire massacre that made Jane Yellowrock a household name. And in “Cajun with Fangs,” Jane makes a new friend who turns out to have old enemies, and finds herself drawn into a vicious blood feud, fueled by dark magic and ancient grudges. Includes an exclusive preview of the newest Jane Yellowrock novel, Death’s Rival—out October 2012 from Roc! “Wesa,” “Haints,” and “Cajun with Fangs” are never before published. The story “Signatures of the Dead” previously appeared in the Strange Brew anthology. *New York Times bestselling author Kim Harrison

Based on the life of the illustrator's pet cat.

The man we call Saint Matthew, being the tax collector "sitting at the receipt of custom" in Capernaum, is by definition a Roman agent. As such, he has the additional task of spying on the religious fanatics who head the insurgency against the Roman occupation - in fact, he has been appointed there by Pontius Pilate.-publisher's description.

When pirate hunter Orrin and his brother Kale are hired by Queen Winifred to hunt down Aeron and her band of miscreants, Orrin never dreamed he'd fall in love with the beautiful she-pirate nor the kind, accepting people of her island hideaway. As Orrin learns of Aeron's jaded past with the Queen, he allies himself with the pirate captain and her crew. Joining forces on the high seas to bring Winifred's evil reign to an end, Aeron and Orrin soon discover that the strongest weapon in their combined arsenal is the love they have for each other.

This is the most comprehensive, and most comprehensively chilling, study of modern torture yet written. Darius Rejali, one of the world's leading experts on torture, takes the reader from the late nineteenth century to the aftermath of Abu Ghraib, from slavery and the electric chair to electrotorture in American inner cities, and from French and British colonial prison cells and the Spanish-American War to the fields of Vietnam, the wars of the Middle East, and the new democracies of Latin America and Europe. As Rejali traces the development and application of one torture technique after another in these settings, he reaches startling conclusions. As the twentieth century progressed, he argues, democracies not only tortured, but set the international pace for torture. Dictatorships may have tortured more, and more indiscriminately, but the United States, Britain, and France pioneered and exported techniques that have become the lingua franca of modern torture: methods that leave no marks. Under the watchful eyes of reporters and human rights activists, low-level authorities in the world's oldest democracies were the first to learn that to scar a victim was to advertise iniquity and invite scandal. Long before the CIA even existed, police and soldiers turned instead to "clean" techniques, such as torture by electricity, ice, water, noise, drugs, and stress positions. As democracy and human rights spread after World War II, so too did these methods. Rejali makes this troubling case in fluid, arresting prose and on the basis of unprecedented research--conducted in multiple languages and on several continents--begun years before most of us had ever heard of Osama bin Laden or Abu Ghraib. The author of a major study of Iranian torture, Rejali also tackles the controversial question of whether torture really works, answering the new apologists for torture point by point. A brave and disturbing book, this is the benchmark against which all future studies of modern torture will be measured.