Description Details
Synopsis Madhu and his mistress Mala were poisoned and Pravar, Mala’s brother, implicates Madhu’s wife Radha in the double murder. Radha seeks Dhruva’s help even as Kavya, rescued by him, takes to her kidnapper Pravar. The series of death by poisoning that follow puzzle Dhruva no end....

Excerpt Details
That June evening, the crimson sun gave in to the dark monsoon clouds to let them end its long summer reign over the Deccan skies. What with the thickening clouds thundering in triumph, Dhruva woke up from his siesta, and by the time he moved into the portico of his palatial bungalow at 9, Castle Hills, the skies had opened up to shower its sprawling lawns. It was as if the eagerness of the rainfall matched the longing of the parched soil to receive its fertile mate in an aroma of embrace, and in the ensuing echoes of that seasonal union, the roots of the garden plants devoured every raindrop, that is, even as their leaves shed the overburden to accommodate the new arrivals....

Table of Contents Details
Agenda for Revenge 1. Prey on the Prowl 2. Shakeel’s Fixation 3. Ranjit’s Predicament 4. Rags to Riches 5. Dhruva’s Dilemma 6. The Gatecrasher 7. Operation Checkmate 8. Foul on Pravar 9. Stockholm Syndrome 10. An Aborted Affair 11. Psyche of Revenge 12. Victim of Trust 13. Backyard of Life 14. Cuckoo’s Nest 15. ‘Untried’ Crime 16. Kavya’s Quagmire 17. Murders to Mislead 18. The Other Woman 19. Shakeel’s Demise 20. A Perfect Murder 21. Deaths in Spandan 22. Arraigned in Remand 23. Depressing Discovery 24. The Red Herring 25. Wages of Abuse 26. Decoding the Crime 27. A Poignant End ...

Description Details
A Study in Scarlet, a short novel published in 1887, was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes story. At the beginning of the book, Dr. Watson meets the detective for the first time and we ride along with them to the scene of a murder. The crime baffles the Scotland Yard detectives, but of course Holmes solves it easily. In the second half of the story, the scene shifts to Utah as we learn the murderer's history. The action returns to London in the last two chapters. In his first adventure, Holmes demonstrates many of the traits for which he later became well known: meticulous study of a crime scene, brilliant deductive reasoning, aptitude for chemistry and music, and the somewhat annoying habit of withholding crucial facts from Watson (and consequently the reader) until the conclusion of the case. (Summary by Laurie Anne Walden)...

Excerpt Details
Mystery, Adventure, Teen/Young adult

Description Details
The analysts were charged with the task of anticipating which specific contentious issues likely will propel large, organized political units to choose violent means of acquiring their sociopolitical objectives rather than attaining them peacefully. The units on which we focus have been traditionally identified as states, but we recognize that a host of new sub- and suprastate actors also will play major roles in such wars; hence, we also will allude to them....

Table of Contents Details
DISCLAIMER...............................................ii PREFACE....................................................vi HISTORY, CULTURE, AND CHANGE: FOUNDATIONS OF CONFLICTS AND WARS......1 RELIGION-A BANNER FOR TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CONFLICT............................19 NATIONAL FRAGMENTATION, ETHNICITY, AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER............................32 POPULATION PRESSURES, MIGRATION, AND REFUGEES...................................46 TRANSNATIONAL CRIME ITS EFFECT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL STABILITY..............................................58 HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN CONCERNS............................................70 ANTICIPATING THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ECONOMIC SOURCES OF CONFLICTS..........82 THE THIRD WORLD’S NONVIABLE STATES A MAJOR SOURCE OF CONFLICT IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY...........................96 Table 2..................................................101 WHEN THE WATER RUNS OUT......................................................111 TRANSNATIONAL AIR, WATER, AND LAND DEGRADATION PROBLEMS.............................................124 NUCLEAR CONFLICT AND NONPROLIFERATIO...

Description Details
Dome of Death is a slightly shocking and occasionally thought provoking romantic thriller about two young men who’d love to be as cool as James Bond in the face of extreme danger, but discover reality is not like fiction. When Max, the director of an Art Gallery in Queensland, falls to his death, Peter, the exhibiting artist who is also Max's ex-lover, unwillingly accepts the widow’s pleas to take over the job. After rescuing a strange young man from a raging sea, Peter’s suspicions about the accident and an investigation into what he thinks is an art swindle, puts him in great danger. He is raped and left for dead, but escapes, only to discover that he and his new friend Jon are wanted for murder. What follows is a hair-raising chase to clear their names. Murder, torture, cyclones, tidal surges, and snuff porn shows are but a few of the complications to be navigated in their search for justice, happiness and love....

Excerpt Details
Chapter One Exposing oneself in public is not for the faint-hearted. En masse and expertly illuminated the paintings gave viewers rather more insight into the private spaces of my mind than I’d bargained for. The fact that the gallery’s patrons were also baring their souls with every critical utterance and every painting bought was scant consolation – especially as no one was buying! After an hour of eavesdropping among the usual crush of wine-sipping social scramblers, I wished I hadn’t. Stepping back, I collided with an elderly, shapeless little woman loosely wrapped in a sari decorated with mirrors. ‘Young man!’ she demanded as though I’d been caught spraying graffiti, ‘Are you the artist?’ How to respond? People who call themselves artists remind me of Napoleon seizing the jewelled cap, crowning himself and living to rue the day. Such accolades are for others to bestow. If, as frequently happens, a painter’s efforts delight no one but himself, then the labour has been little but therapy. Only those whose works impose order on the chaos of existence and reinvigorate flagging spirits by giving the viewer a glimpse of a le...

Table of Contents Details
Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six ChapterSeven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-one Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-three Chapter Twenty-Four...

Description Details
On preservation of the Western rights, freedoms and quality of life in 21st century and beyond

Excerpt Details
Systemic approach to life of the highly cultured people provides them with higher level of happiness simply because their lives are better organized, risks are covered, reserves are maintained, dangers avoided, contacts established and so on so forth. Culture is not something that comes only with DNA, but genetic pre-disposition towards culture exists without doubt. Otherwise there would be no examples of people raising themselves above the scum they were born in and reaching high levels of society. Understanding of the elements of high culture, its systemic approach to organizing one’s life, can be practiced by virtually everybody. One just needs to want to elevate themselves and work towards that goal, which may involve getting better training and education, moving to a different neighborhood, getting a different job, spending time on more important things rather than on leisure, quitting drinking and smoking, refusing drugs, taking care of health, concentrating on the upbringing of the children and helping them in their adult life, babysitting grand-children, watching over quality of food supply and keeping the family ...

Table of Contents Details
Table of Contents Introduction iii Table of Contents iv About this book ix Who should not read this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Who is this book for? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Response to our critics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x About the authors xiii I What do we want to preserve and why? 1 1 Foreword 3 2 Measuring the quality of life 5 2.1 Individual happiness and self-fulfillment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.2 Individual rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 Social harmony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3 Checks and balances 11 3.1 Acceptable personal risk and responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 4 What is worth to fight for? 15 4.1 Security of the person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4.2 Personal and societal wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

Description Details
The long-awaited third edition of the Atlas of Hawai'i is entirely revised in content and design. It is divided into six sections, five of which are abundantly illustrated. The first contains detailed reference maps with place names for towns, mountains, bays, harbors, and other features; geographical descriptions of the state and the main islands; and an introduction to Hawaiian place names. This is followed by four sections on the physical, biotic, cultural, and social aspects of the Hawai'i environment. Geology, climate, the ocean, water, soils, and astronomy are among the topics discussed in "The Physical Environment." Next the special character of terrestrial and marine ecosystems is described in "The Biotic Environment." "The Cultural Environment" considers the people of Hawai'i. The diversity of the state's cultures is treated in chapters on history and languages as well as archaeology, religion, and the arts. "The Social Environment" treats such elements as the economy, government, and tourism. The sixth and final section comprises a statistical supplement, bibliography, and gazetteer for the reference maps. Readers of th...

Excerpt Details
Eo e ku'u lei mokupuni o na kai 'ewalu- I call to you, acknowledge O my lei islands of the eight seas. Located between 19 and 22 degrees north latitude, Hawai'i is the southernmost state in the United States and has the same general latitude as Hong Kong and Mexico City. It is situated almost in the center of the Pacific Ocean and is one of the most isolated yet populous places on Earth. The west coast of North America, for example, is 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) from Honolulu, and Japan is 3,800 miles (6,100 kilometers) away. Six time zones separate Hawai'i from the eastern United States. This means that 9:00 A.M. (eastern standard time) in Washington, D.C. and New York City is 6:00 a.m. in Los Angeles and 4:00 a.m. in Hawai'i....

Table of Contents Details
Preface -- ix -- Acknowledgments -- xi -- Introduction -- xiii -- Kaua'i and Ni'ihau -- 3 -- O'ahu -- 7 -- Moloka'i and Lana'i -- 11 -- Maui -- 14 -- Hawai'i -- 17 -- Northwestern Hawaiian Islands -- 23 -- Hawaiian Place Names -- 26 -- Mapping and Geodesy -- 29 -- Geology -- 37 -- Geothermal Resources -- 47 -- Climate -- 49 -- Hawai'i and Atmospheric Change -- 60 -- Paleoclimate and Geography -- 64 -- Natural Hazards -- 67 -- Earthquakes -- 69 -- Volcanic Hazards on the Island of Hawai'i -- 72 -- Hurricanes -- 74 -- Tsunamis -- 76 -- Coastal Hazards -- 79 -- The Ocean -- 82 -- Water -- 87 -- Soils -- 92 -- Astronomy -- 97 -- Biogeography -- 103 -- Evolution -- 107 -- Marine Ecosystems -- 111 -- Terrestrial Ecosystems -- 121 -- Birds -- 130 -- Native Plants -- 135 -- Insects and Their Kin -- 140 -- Hawaiian Tree Snails -- 144 -- Alien Species and Threats to Native Ecology -- 146 -- Endangered and Threatened Species -- 150 -- Protected Areas -- 154 -- Archaeology -- 161 -- History -- 169 -- Population -- 183 -- Languages -- 198 -- Religion -- 201 -- Architecture -- 205 -- Museums and Libraries -- 208 -- Culture and the Arts -- 211 --...