Macmillan Publishers USA

These four early works by the internationally lauded filmmaking team deal with the subject for which they are best known: corruption and crime in situations that combine the real and the surreal with the hilarious. Of the scripts included here, Barton Fink — an intense look at the psychological ruin of a New York playwright trying to make it in 1940s Hollywood — is a masterful culmination of these themes.

Welcome to Battleschool. Growing up is never easy. But try living on the mean streets as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn't hesitate to pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has learned anything on the streets, it's how to survive. And not with fists. He is way too small for that. But with brains. Bean is a genius with a magician's ability to zero in on his enemy and exploit his weakness. What better quality for a future general to lead the Earth in a final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another future commander — Ender Wiggins — perhaps his only true rival. Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.

Dispatched on a trial run, NASA's SuperAegis satellite has been created as the foundation of an international antimissle defense system. But moments after dispatch, it vanishes. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton fears something worse than a grave malfunction — he suspects sabotage...The USS America — the world's most technically advanced nuclear submarine — is launched on its maiden voyage. Then shortly after steaming out of harbor, the unthinkable happens. Pirated by terrorists, America disappears beneath the roiling waves of the Atlantic, its Tomahawk warheads aimed directly at the United States...An ingeniously calculated war has been waged — but the rouge enemy is far more insidious than Jake Grafton ever imagined. His mission: ferret out the core group responsible, overtake the stealth sub, and destroy it. But times is running out, and the race is on for Grafton to blow the covert operation out of the water before an entire nation is brought to its knees.

I've been summoned. Thursday, ten sharp. Thus begins a day in the life of a young factory worker in totalitarian Romania. Her crime? Sewing notes into the linings of men's suits bound for Italy. Marry me the notes say, with her name and address. As she rides the tram to her interrogation, she thinks over the events and people of her life under terror. In her distraction, she misses her stop, and alone on an unfamiliar street, Lilli discovers something far worse than anything she had feared.

While serving a sentence for killing his mother, Jacko Argyle dies in prison. Two years later, a stranger shatters the peace of the Argyle household. Was Jacko convicted of a murder he didn't commit?

An unknown doomsday virus quickly claims the lives of four people across the country — including Dr. Sophia Russell, a researcher leading the team trying to crack the disease. Devastated and enraged, her fiance, Lt. Colonel Jonathan Smith, uncovers evidence that his lover's death was no accident — that someone out there has the virus, and the pandemic that threatens countless millions of lives was planned. Not knowing where to turn or whom to trust, Smith assembles a private team to aid his fight against the deadly virus. While the death toll mounts rapidly, their quest leads them to the highest levels of power and the darkest corners of the earth, as Smith and his team match wits with a determined genius out to destroy them, with the fate of the world in the balance...

Sequel to the New York Times bestselling «Faith of the Fallen». New York Times bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Lauren seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin. With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter. Meanwhile, Lauren finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real. Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation. Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew «Ender» Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

A towering epic of fantasy, The Pearl, is launched in «The Ring of Five Dragons». Filled with action, color, and the myriad details of another world, The Pearl is the first great fantasy series of the new millennium, set to rival Robert Jordan, David Eddings, George R. R. Martin, Terry Brooks, and Terry Goodkind in popular appeal. This astonishing first volume opens as the Kundalan people have suffered for a century under the viciously oppressive, technologically-superior V'ornn invaders. In the resulting crisis of faith — why hasn't their goddess Miina saved them? — Kundalan religion has fallen under the control of evil forces from within who forbid the teaching of traditional sorcery, pretending to have no magic of their own. The V'ornn's mysterious leaders, the Gyrgon, know better, and search for the lost Ring of Five Dragons, the key to the door of the fabled Kundalan Storehouse, and perhaps to Kundalan sorcery as well. But misused, the Ring is the trigger of seemingly inexorable annihilation for V'ornn and Kundalan alike. Now from among the oppressed must arise the hero of prophecy, the Dar Sala-at, who alone can wield the sorcerous power to save the world. Thus begins a huge epic rooted in the conflict between spiritual and technological cultures. The twisting plot raises difficult and provocative moral questions in the course of a constantly surprising, sometimes shocking, fantastic adventure that will transport fantasy readers to new heights of enthusiasm, and make them ask for more.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

A surprising assessment of the failures and successes of modern Japan.In Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr chronicles the many facets of Japan's recent, and chronic, crises — from the failure of its banks and pension funds to the decline of its once magnificent modern cinema. He is the first to give a full report on the nation's endangered environment — its seashores lined with concrete, its roads leading to nowhere in the mountains — as well as its monument frenzy, the destruction of old cities such as Kyoto and construction of drab new ones, and the attendant collapse of its tourist industry. Kerr writes with humor and passion, for passion, he says, is part of the story. Millions of Japanese feel as heartbroken at what is going on as I do. My Japanese friends tell me, 'Please write this — for us.'

The deep. The deadly. The damned... For a thousand years, an unimaginable treasure has rested on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, hidden by swift blue currents, guarded by deadly coral reefs, and even deadlier school of man-eating great white sharks. Harry Fletcher, a former soldier turned fisherman, is now being pulled into a murderous mystery by men willing to kill and a beautiful woman willing to lie for what rests far beneath the sea. Now, Harry has no choice but to enter full bore into an international battle to raise an extraordinary object from the deep. Because possessing this treasure isn't just about getting rich — it's about staying alive...

First there were ten — a curious assortment of strangers summoned as weekend guests to a private island off the coast of Devon. Their host, an eccentric millionaire unkonwn to all of them, is nowhere to be found. All that the guests have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal — and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. One by one they fall prey. Before the weekend is out, there will be none. And only the dead are above suspicion.

The Seagull, a spectacular failure on its first appearance, was the play that, on its second, established Anton Chekhov as an important and revolutionary dramatist. Here, amid the weariness of life in the country, the famous actress Arkadina presides over a household riven with desperate love, with dreams of success and dread of failure. It is her son, Konstantin, who one day shoots a seagull; it is the novelist Trigorin who will one day write the story of the seagull so casually killed; but it is Nina, the seagull herself, whose life to come will rewrite the story. This new translation of The Seagull — made by Tom Stoppard for the Peter Hall Company at the Old Vic in 1997 — was produced by The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City in 2001. The volume also contains an Introduction by Stoppard that indicates some of the problems translators have faced since the first English language Seagull in 1909.

On the eve of the first Scottish parliament in three hundred years, Edinburgh is a city rife with political passions and expectations. Queensbury House, the home of Scotland's new rulers, falls in the middle of John Rebus' turf, keeping him busy with ceremonial tasks. That quickly changes, however, when a long-dead body is discovered in a Queensbury House fireplace, a homeless man throws himself off a bridge — leaving behind a suitcase full of cash — and an up-and-coming politician is found murdered. The links between the three deaths lead Rebus to a confrontation with one of Edinburgh's most notorious criminals, a man he thought he'd put in jail for life. Someone's going to make a lot of money out of Scotland's independence — and, as Rebus knows all too well, where there's big money at stake, darkness gathers.

Reclusive tycoon Sir Oswald Coote and his melancholy wife, Lady Coote, have hit upon the ideal plan to spice up their quiet lives. They'll host a lavish weekend party at Chimneys. their isolated estate, and invite only «bright young things». But the festive mood is clouded by doom. A practical joke involving seven clocks and a sleeping guest has ended in accidental death — and cause for alarm. For the guests may not be all that they appear. And as whispers of a strange club called Seven Dials echo through the halls of Chimneys, all hands will be pointing to murder...

It's been less than a year since beautiful heiress Rosemary Barton took her own life during a birthday dinner in her honor. Her husband George never believed that his fun-loving wife would commit suicide--especially now that he's received two anonymous letters that suggest cold-blooded murder. One implicates even George himself. It's true he long suffered Rosemary's infidelities. But what about her embittered sister who was left out of the family will? Or any of Rosemary's secret lovers, not to mention their betrayed wives? Now one of them has ever forgotten Rosemary. Nor has any one of them ever forgiven her. But only one of them killed her...

A blinding snowstorm — and a homicidal maniac — traps a small party of friends in an isolated estate. Out of this deceptively simple set-up, Agatha Christie fashioned one of her most ingenious puzzlers, which, in turn, would provide the basis for The Mousetrap, the longest-running play in history. From this classic title novella to the deliciously clever gems on its tail (solved to perfection by Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple), this rare collection of murder most foul showcases the intimtable Christie at her inventive best, proving her reputation as the champion deceiver of our time.

How odd, Anne Beddingfeld thought, that the stranger caught her eye, recoiled in horror, and fell to his death on the rails of Hyde Park Underground Station. Odder still was a doctor in a brown suit who pronounced him dead and vanished into the crowd. But what really aroused Anne's suspicion was when she learned of the doctor's link to the murder of a famous ballerina, a fortune in hidden diamonds, and a crime-lord embroiled in blackmail. And most frightening of all was the attempt made on Anne's own life. But she is unable to resist the lure of an isolated mansion that could hold the solution to the bizarre mystery — even if she becomes the next victim...

When Clarissa stumbles upon a corpse in her drawing room, she decides that she must dispose of it before her husband arrives with an important foreign dignitary and persuades her three house guests to assist her in the endeavor, but her efforts are threatened by the arrival of a police officer who has come in response to an anonymous tip about a murder.

Esteemed criminologist Mr. Treves notes that a good murder mystery begins long before the actual murder. Truer words have never been spoken, for a psychopathic killer insinuates himself with cunning manipulation into a quiet village on the river Tern. But who is his intended victim? And how and when will he reach the point of murder?

Sophie Dempsey is content living a quiet life filming wedding videos until an assignment brings her to Temptation, Ohio. From the moment she drives into town, she gets a bad feeling; Sophie is from the wrong side of the tracks and everything in Temptation is a little too right. And when she has a runin with the town's unnervingly sexy mayor, Phineas Tucker, making a little movie turns out to be more than a little dangerous.

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum and Trenton vice cop Joe Morelli join forces to find the madman killer who shot and barbecued the youngest son of international black-market arms dealer Alexander Ramos. Carlos Manoso, street name Ranger, is caught on video just minutes before the crime occurs. He's at the scene, he's with the victim, and he's the number-one suspect. Ranger is former special forces turned soldier of fortune. He has a blue-chip stock portfolio and no known address. He moves in mysterious circles. He's Stephanie's mentor — the man who taught her everything she knows about fugitive apprehension. And he's more than her friend. Now he's the hunted and Stephanie's the hunter, and it's time for her to test her skills against the master. But if she does catch him...what then? Can she bring herself to turn him in? Plus there are other things keeping Stephanie awake at night. Her maternal grandmother has set up housekeeping in Stephanie's apartment, a homicidal maniac has selected Stephanie as his next victim, her love life is in the toilet, she's adopted a dog with an eating disorder, and she can't button the top snap on her Levi's. Experience the world of Plum — in Janet Evanovich's new thriller. It's surreal, it's frenetic, it's incendiary. Hot Six. It's the best yet.

The year is 1935, shortly before World War II. The «Wolf of Rome», Italy's army under Mussolini, is poised to invade Ethiopia, whose army is not only ill-equipped, but also severely outnumbered. Desperate to save his troubled land, Emperor Haile Selassie enlists American Jake Barton and Englishman Gareth Swales, two risk-takers who both share a taste for danger and the thrill of adventure. The mission seems simple: Deliver four ancient refurbished armored cars and Vicky Camberwell, an American journalist, in exchange for a hefty weight of gold. But soon Jake and Gareth realize that this is just the beginning of a long, harrowing journey that will take them from the sea to the scorching deserts of Africa to the peaks of its treacherous mountains, where a dramatic struggle to stay alive awaits them...