NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING NINA DOBREV AND AARON ECKHART “Terrific pace, surprises galore….Move over Jack Reacher, here comes The Bricklayer.” —James Patterson Someone will kill and kill again if it means he can fool the FBI . . . Ex-FBI agent Steve Vail is more than happy to leave the Bureau behind, but they aren’t through with him yet. A group called the Rubaco Pentad is holding the FBI up for buckets of cash, with an escalating body count as leverage. The Feds are stumped. Some signs point to a corrupt agent while others lead to completely dead ends. Vail has built a reputation for being able to find anybody anywhere. Now, with no official ties, he’s the perfect choice for this under-the-radar investigation. But as Vail well knows, going after people who use killing as a bargaining chip is asking for the worst kind of trouble. The Bricklayer is a gripping debut of an iconic new hero, and is brought to us with the startling authenticity only a real insider can provide. Noah Boyd has created a mind-twisting maze of clues inside a nonstop thrill ride that is guaranteed to keep readers on edge until the final page. "Non-stop action and non-stop authenticity make this a real winner." —Lee Child Don't miss Steve Vail's next pulse-pounding thriller from Noah Boyd: Agent X, available now!

Two weeks after the United States officially entered World War I, Irish American "Bricklayer Bill" Kennedy won the Boston Marathon wearing his stars-and-stripes bandana, rallying the crowd of patriotic spectators. Kennedy became an American hero and, with outrageous stories of his riding the rails and sleeping on pool tables, a racing legend whose name has since appeared in almost every book written on the Boston Marathon. When journalist Patrick Kennedy and historian Lawrence Kennedy unearthed their uncle's unpublished memoir, they discovered a colorful character who lived a tumultuous life, beyond his multiple marathons. The bricklayer survived typhoid fever, a five-story fall, auto and train accidents, World War action, Depression-era bankruptcy, decades of back-breaking work, and his own tendency to tipple. In many ways, Bill typified the colorful, newly emerging culture and working-class ethic of competitive long-distance running before it became a professionalized sport. Bricklayer Bill takes us back to another time, when bricklayers, plumbers, and printers could take the stage as star athletes.

IBPA-Benjamin Franklin Award, Gold Medal; MIPA-Midwest Publishers Association Award, Finalist; Great Midwest Book Festival, First Runner Up Does it take a monster to catch a monster? As a student, Francis Vincenti asked his mentor, former Chicago PD detective Thomas Aquinas Foster, if it took a monster to catch a monster. Foster, a man with a tortured soul and his own self-righteous brand of justice, didn't have an answer. Now a detective with a string of famous arrests under his belt, Vincenti is known as a cop with an uncanny insight into a killer's psyche. Until the Bricklayer of Albany Park. Obsessed with the brutal slayings, Vincenti studies the murderer and his victims, reconstructing the killings and burials by day and, at night, recreating the murders one by one in his nightmares. He knows the Bricklayer. But not well enough to stop him.

La crisis, a period of political and economic turmoil in Mexico that began in the late 1960s, spawned a new era in Mexican cinema. Known as el Nuevo Cine (the New Cinema), these films presented alienated characters caught in a painful transition period in which old family, gender, and social roles have ceased to function without being replaced by viable new ones. These are the films explored by Charles Ramírez Berg in Cinema of Solitude, the first book-length critical study of Mexican cinema in English. Berg discusses the major films and filmmakers of el Nuevo Cine in depth. He analyzes dozens of commercial movies, from popular comedies and adventures to award-winning films. Introductory chapters address the issue of mexicanidad (Mexican national identity) and outline Mexican history, the history of film as popular culture and as a leading national industry, and the ideological dynamics of Mexican cinema. In thematically arranged chapters, Berg investigates the images of women, men, and social structures portrayed in New Cinema films. He finds that women characters have begun to reject traditional stereotypes for more positive images, while male characters have grown ambiguous and undefined as machismo is abandoned. Other chapters trace the continuing marginalization of Indians in Mexican culture, the changes in male dominance within the family, and the disruptive social and economic effects caused by migration. For everyone interested in Mexican culture as reflected in its major cinematic productions, as well as students of film theory and national cinemas, this book will be important reading.

Brickwork is a form of masonry that utilises bricks and mortar. Rows of bricks—or, 'courses'—are placed on top of each other in order to create a structure such as a wall. This is volume I of William Frost's “The Modern Bricklayer”, a detailed guide to all aspects of bricklaying, including slating, tiling, planning, materials, tools, and more. Contents include: “House Drains”, “Egg-Shaped and Circular Sewers”, “Sand Courses”, “Retaining Walls”, “Reinforced Brickwork”, “Arches”, “Cornices”, “Gauged Brickwork: Introduction”, “Gauged Work—Various Forms of Arches”, “Gauges Work—Arches”, “Gauged Work: Ninches, Panels, and Mouldings”, “Terra-cotta and Glazed Ware”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on DIY.

An officer at the Russian embassy—a man known as Calculus—has approached the FBI offering to sell a list of Americans who are giving confidential information to the Russian SVR. But before a deal can be made, Calculus is recalled to Moscow, and the Bureau fears the Russians will be hunting down and killing the traitors unless the FBI can find them first. FBI agent-turned-bricklayer Steve Vail thought he was done with the agency, but the Bureau has another unsolvable problem, and it has Vail's name written all over it. Finding the hidden turncoats, however, won't be easy—in fact, it could be downright deadly. And even with the help of FBI Assistant Director Kate Bannon, the Bricklayer's going to have to come up with a few new tricks of his own if he hopes to survive. Agent X: a white-knuckled thrill ride that crackles with an electric authenticity only a writer who's a real-life FBI veteran can provide.