In The Weapons Detective, Rod Barton tells of a professional life replete with adventure, urgency and achievement. From the chaos of Somalia to the inner sanctums of the UN, Barton has more than once been at the eye of the historical storm. He describes interviewing Iraq's Dr Germ and painstakingly uncovering a biological weapons program. He also tells of resisting political pressure from the CIA and MI6 in the aftermath of the 2003 war, when WMD failed to appear. The Weapons Detective describes the fascinating chess - game of weapons inspection, with its mixture of detective work, scientific analysis and mind - games. It offers a fresh look at figures including Richard Butler, Hans Blix, Scott Ritter and David Kelly. Written with humour and authority, it reveals an unsung Australian hero and sheds new light on a vital chapter of contemporary history. With a Foreword by Robert Manne.

It is no ordinary murder case that brings the famed French detective Monsieur Bencolin out of retirement, but one that involves a midnight rendezvous on a steamy Paris night, a broken love affair, and four different murder weapons found in the secret villa where the body is discovered. Rose Klonec, whose corpse bears the mark of a particularly horrible wound, had connections - and old lovers - throughout Paris, and soon the number of suspects grows to match the number of possible weapons ...

A sobering read from another lost front. - Kirkus ReviewsWhat happens when you drop an experienced American cop in the middle of a war zone - with very little preparation or support - to train Iraqi police? Under the Gun in Iraq tells you in high fidelity detail about this vital aspect of U.S. efforts to build a nation.-BRYAN VILA, Ph.D., Professor at Washington State University, former Marine, Los Angeles police officer and cross-cultural police trainerOne moment, I was standing there with my buddies unloading a truck. The next moment, my ears picked up the distinct 'pssst' sound homing in on us.... Hit the ground! someone yelled. Right behind the first mortar was a second, then a third, then a fourth. They each slammed into the earth with an enormous impact. The ground shook. The eight-story building above us shuddered, and we all covered our heads when the windows blew out. As I lay there with glass and debris raining down on me, all I could think was, 'Holy shit, what did I get myself into?'President Bush is fond of saying, When Iraq can stand up, America can stand down. A large part of standing up is having a well-trained police force in place to maintain peace and order.Why is it taking so long to put a solid police force together? How prepared are the Iraqis to carry out their duties? What pitfalls are Americans facing as they try to get Iraqi police up to speed?In this book Robert Cole-a retired California police officer hired by DynCorp as an international police trainer-presents a vivid account of the challenges of training the Iraqis to handle their own security. In blunt, everyday language, Cole gives the reader an unusually candid and often hair-raising glimpse into reality at the street level as he and his colleagues navigate the dangerous sectors of Baghdad, Tikrit, and Kirkuk, dodging explosions and bullets aimed at them by young, Iraqi, wannabe heroes.Cole describes situations not shown in the media that fly in the face of the party line from Washington: men in their sixties being hired as policemen, Iraqi detectives who extract information from people by ramming toothpicks under their fingernails, officers suggesting that the best way to subdue potential suspects who flee is by shooting them in the back, police hunkered down in their barracks who refuse to patrol neighborhoods for fear of violence, an enemy that easily blends into a population armed to the teeth with loaded AK-47s, and the routine frustrations of cultural and language barriers to communication.In sharp contrast to the usual bromides about staying the course, Under the Gun in Iraq paints a brutally realistic picture of the bleak, perilous road ahead. This is essential reading for all Americans seeking an honest understanding of the dire situation in Iraq.Robert Cole was a police officer for over 25 years. He retired from the force in East Palo Alto, California, where he was one of the commanders that helped bring the city back from its status as the murder capital of the United States. Cole recently finished almost two years in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti. He served a one-year tour of duty working for DynCorp as an international police trainer in Iraq and will be redeployed for another in 2008.Jan Hogan (Las Vegas, NV) is an award-winning staff writer for Stephens Media who writes for View newspapers and has published numerous articles in AAA's Motorland (now Via), Law & Order, and other publications. She is currently writing her next book on dyslexia.

I was no James Bond with a licence to kill, but I worked with the British intelligence services and with, and for, the CIA. I had guns pointed at me, death threats issued, a price placed on my head. In 1971, Rod Barton applied for a junior scientist role in the Australian Department of Defence. Little did he know what it entailed: as the Cold War intensified, Barton was inducted into the murky world of espionage. For the next few decades, Barton lived a life straight from an adventure novel. In war-torn Mogadishu, he disarmed militia, while sleeping in rat-infested barracks. As a UN weapons inspector, he flew to Baghdad on special missions, interviewing top scientists to uncover an illegal weapons program, and raced across Europe, tracking materials sold to the Iraqis. After the disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA engaged him as its special adviser in the hunt for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But he soon clashed with the agency over what he saw – and what he didn’t find. It prompted him to step from the shadows and share the truth with the world, and to tussle with the Australian government. This is an extraordinary behind-the-scenes account of a world marked by risk, secrecy and individual acts of courage. Written with passion, humour and candour, The Life of a Spy will introduce you to a man of principle in a time of chaos, and take you to the frontlines of politics and war. ‘No Australian intelligence officer in recent times has been closer to the centre of world affairs than Barton, or better placed to observe the intense political pressures applied, from all sides, on those searching for Saddam Hussein’s elusive weapons of mass destruction.’ —Robert Manne

A murderer could be around every corner in this thrilling YA trilogy based on the board game CLUE! When a storm strikes at Blackbrook Academy, an elite prep school nestled in the woods of Maine, a motley crew of students—including Beth “Peacock” Picach, Orchid McKee, Vaughn Green, Sam “Mustard” Maestor, Finn Plum, and Scarlet Mistry—are left stranded on campus with their headmaster. Hours later, his body is found in the conservatory and it’s very clear his death was no accident. With this group of students who are all hiding something, nothing is as it seems, and everyone has a motive for murder. Fans of the CLUE board game and cult classic film will delight in Diana Peterfreund’s modern reimagining of the brand, its characters, and the dark, magnificent old mansion with secrets hidden within its walls.

From “one of the great (greatest?) contemporary popular writers on economics” (Tyler Cowen) comes a smart, lively, and encouraging rethinking of how to use statistics. Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. As “perhaps the best popular economics writer in the world” (New Statesman), Tim Harford is an expert at taking complicated ideas and untangling them for millions of readers. In The Data Detective, he uses new research in science and psychology to set out ten strategies for using statistics to erase our biases and replace them with new ideas that use virtues like patience, curiosity, and good sense to better understand ourselves and the world. As a result, The Data Detective is a big-idea book about statistics and human behavior that is fresh, unexpected, and insightful.