Cody, Quinn, Luke, and M.E. may not have much in common with each other, but they do love playing around with codes. In fact, they love codes so much, they have their own private club, with a super-secret hideout and passwords that change every single day. When Cody and Quinn notice what could be a code on the window of their neighbor's house—the neighbor they call Skeleton Man—the club gets to work. And it is a cry for help! Now the Code Busters are on the case—and nothing will stop them from solving the mystery and finding the secret treasure that seems to be the cause of it all! This exciting interactive mystery offers more than fifteen codes for you to decipher, including the Consonant code, Morse code, and American Sign Language. Test your brain with the Code Busters and solve the mystery along with them. Answers are in the back, if you ever get stuck.

"Wildly entertaining." —The New York Times Book Review A Lefty Nominee for Best Mystery Novel Known for her wonderfully addictive characters, multiple award-winning author Gigi Pandian introduces her newest heroine in this heartfelt series debut. Under Lock & Skeleton Key layers stunning architecture with mouthwatering food in an ode to classic locked-room mysteries that will leave readers enchanted. An impossible crime. A family legacy. The intrigue of hidden rooms and secret staircases. After a disastrous accident derails Tempest Raj’s career, and life, she heads back to her childhood home in California to comfort herself with her grandfather’s Indian home-cooked meals. Though she resists, every day brings her closer to the inevitable: working for her father’s company. Secret Staircase Construction specializes in bringing the magic of childhood to all by transforming clients’ homes with sliding bookcases, intricate locks, backyard treehouses, and hidden reading nooks. When Tempest visits her dad’s latest renovation project, her former stage double is discovered dead inside a wall that’s supposedly been sealed for more than a century. Fearing she was the intended victim, it’s up to Tempest to solve this seemingly impossible crime. But as she delves further into the mystery, Tempest can’t help but wonder if the Raj family curse that’s plagued her family for generations—something she used to swear didn’t exist—has finally come for her.

“A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen. Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death. In this delightful natural and cultural history of bone, Brian Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we've left behind. Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.

A note about the price: This book is of a rare nature, not for the general public, and the author has priced it accordingly. Less affluent readers are invited to pursue used copies or contact the author directly. Whether carved into amulets, daubed onto parchment, traced through ashes, or scratched in sand, ritual diagrams are the age-old precursors to our modern circuit boards, their intricately flowing lines summoning powerful energies. Five thousand years ago in China, the Yin-Yang alchemists of Taoism painted mysterious calligraphy onto rice paper, creating magic talismans imbued with the secrets of the universe. Each stroke and dot of their ink comprised a program for channeling the forces of nature, whether it be to influence human events or to establish contact with the non-material realm. In later years, and on other continents, the spiritual ancestors of the Taoist sorcerers developed their own systems of charms. In West African Vodou ceremonies, we find striking v�v� diagrams, those stylized "character sketches" that compel the deities to come forward. In Europe, we find the goetic sigils, those mystical glyphs documented in the grimoires of Medieval evocation rites. Interestingly, the sigils and the v�v�s share some striking parallels. In both cases, the diagrams conjure astral forces into the earthly plane, and they do so with some very similar symbols. Do the similarities constitute mere coincidence, or do they point to a profound significance?

When three old women arrive at Welcome Inn bent on a strange mission, Molly and Gwen realize that they are about to experience another of their adventures.

Cody, Quinn, Luke, and M.E. may not have much in common with each other, but they do love playing around with codes. In fact, they love codes so much, they have their own private club, with a super-secret hideout and passwords that change every single day. When Cody and Quinn notice what could be a code on the window of their neighbor's house—the neighbor they call Skeleton Man—the club gets to work. And it is a cry for help! Now the Code Busters are on the case—and nothing will stop them from solving the mystery and finding the secret treasure that seems to be the cause of it all! This exciting interactive mystery offers more than fifteen codes for you to decipher, including the Consonant code, Morse code, and American Sign Language. Test your brain with the Code Busters and solve the mystery along with them. Answers are in the back, if you ever get stuck.

After enjoying the successful conclusion of the exciting adventure saga entitled: “THE FOUR POETIC CLUES MYSTERY, detectives Sam Hames, Howie Newbald and Ginny Hames sat smiling at their office conference table. They had a feeling of confidence they were ready for their next challenge. As they discussed their future as detectives, Sam became serious. He stood up and announced: “Recently I discovered a large, soiled, envelope, yellowed with age, in my father's World War One trunk or footlocker. After my father's recent death I became the owner of the footlocker and contents.” Looking at his partners with a serious demeanor he continued, “Inside, among many items, including his army uniform, I discovered this soiled envelope stuck to the lower inside wall. Inside this envelope I found these three old, large, skeleton keys.” He tossed the three keys on the table top. Sam hesitated, then suggested, “These Three Skeleton Keys could be the focus of our next adventure; What secret objects, closed containers, doors or unknown places could these keys open?” Do detectives Sam, Howie and Ginny need to investigate and discover the answers to these intriguing questions? Follow along, engage and participate in this drama as dangerous and exciting events unfold.