Random House, Inc.

Who could have suspected that the exciting stag party for the groom would be the prelude to the murder of his close friend Charlie Hatton? And Charlie's death was only the first in a string of puzzling murders involving small-time gangsters, cheating husbands, and loose women. Now Chief Inspector Wexford and his assistant join forces with the groom to track down a killer...

Elizabeth Nightingale found peace and tranquility on her nightly walks through the rich, dense forests surrounding Myfleet Manor. But the peace she treasured was shattered one night when she found death waiting in the woods. Chief Inspector Wexford and his colleague Inspector Burden find a most unsavory case on their hands and must use all their wit and wisdom to solve it...

It was better than a hotel, this anonymous room on a secluded side street of a small country town. No register to sign, no questions asked, and for five bucks a man could have three hours of undisturbed, illicit lovemaking. Then one evening a man with a knife turned the love nest into a death chamber. The carpet was soaked with blood — but where was the corpse? Meanwhile, a beautiful, promiscuous woman is missing — along with the bundle of cash she'd had in her pocket. The truth behind it all will keep even veteran mystery fans guessing through the very last page.

Illus. in full color. «A rhyming story that is full of laughs. 'The alarm can ring. The birds can peep... Today's the day I'm going to sleep, 'says a lazy boy one morning, and despite a pail of icy water, television coverage, and the arrival of the Marines, he vows to stay in bed — and he does! The repetition of concepts and words will keep children turning the pages, as will the energetic drawings. A sure draw for early readers.

Luke Skywalker was a twenty-year-old who lived and worked on his uncle's farm on the remote planet of Tatooine...and he was bored beyond belief. He yearned for adventures that would take him beyond the farthest galaxies. But he got much more than he bargained for...

First published in 1986 and just as fresh and relevant today, this widely acclaimed, child-friendly poetry anthology is now being reissued with a striking new jacket. In his introduction to this book Jim Trelease, bestselling author of The Read-Aloud Handbook, writes, “No one better recognizes the essence of the child-poetry connection than poet and anthologist Jack Prelutsky. . . . Here are more than 200 little poems to feed little people with little attention spans to help both grow. Marc Brown’s inviting illustrations add a visual dimension to the poems, which further engage young imaginations.” The poems are by 119 of the best-known poets of the 20th century. This book has been selected as a Common Core State Standards Text Exemplar (Grades K-1, Poetry) in Appendix B.

Since his first appearance in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle's classic hero — a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes's adventures in crime! Volume I includes the early novel A Study in Scarlet, which introduced the eccentric genius of Sherlock Holmes to the world. This baffling murder mystery, with the cryptic word Rache written in blood, first brought Holmes together with Dr. John Watson. Next, The Sign of Four presents Holmes's famous «seven percent solution» and the strange puzzle of Mary Morstan in the quintessential locked-room mystery. Also included are Holmes's feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the chilling «The Adventure of the Speckled Band», the baffling riddle of «The Musgrave Ritual», and the ingeniously plotted «The Five Orange Pips» tales that bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

Here they are — some of the funniest tales and ruminations ever put into print, by one of the great comic minds of our time. From THE WHORE OF MENSA, to GOD (A Play), to NO KADDISH FOR WEINSTEIN, old and new Woody Allen fans will laugh themselves hysterical over these sparkling gems.

Since his first appearance in «Beeton’s Christmas Annual» in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has been one of the most beloved fictional characters ever created. Now, in two paperback volumes, Bantam presents all fifty-six short stories and four novels featuring Conan Doyle’s classic hero — a truly complete collection of Sherlock Holmes’s adventures in crime! Volume II begins with «The Hound of the Baskervilles», a haunting novel of murder on eerie Grimpen Moor, which has rightly earned its reputation as the finest murder mystery ever written. «The Valley of Fear» matches Holmes against his archenemy, the master of imaginative crime, Professor Moriarty. In addition, the loyal Dr. Watson has faithfully recorded Holmes’s feats of extraordinary detection in such famous cases as the thrilling «The Adventure of the Red Circle» and the twelve baffling adventures from «The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes». Conan Doyle’s incomparable tales bring to life a Victorian England of horse-drawn cabs, fogs, and the famous lodgings at 221B Baker Street, where for more than forty years Sherlock Holmes earned his undisputed reputation as the greatest fictional detective of all time.

It was a brutal, vicious crime — sixteen years old. A helpless old woman battered to death with an axe. Harry Painter hung for it, and Chief Inspector Wexford is certain they executed the right man. But Reverend Archery has doubts... because his son wants to marry the murderer's beautiful, brilliant daughter. He begins unravelling the past, only to discover that murder breeds murder — and often conceals even deeper secrets...

»To Build A Fire and Other Stories» is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging collection of Jack London's short stories available in paperback. This superb volume brings together twenty-five of London's finest, including a dozen of his great Klondike stories, vivid tales of the Far North were rugged individuals, such as the Malemute Kid face the violence of man and nature during the Gold Rush Days. Also included are short masterpieces from his later writing, plus six stories unavailable in any other paperback edition. Here, along with London's famous wilderness adventures and fireband desperadoes, are portraits of the working man, the immigrant, and the exotic outcast: characters representing the entire span of the author's prolific imaginative career, in tales that have been acclaimed throughout the world as some of the most thrilling short stories ever written.

From world-renowed author Erich Segal comes a powerful and moving saga of five extraordinary members of the Harvard class of 1958 and the women with whom their lives are intertwined. Their explosive story begins in a time of innocence and spans a turbulent quarter century, culminating in their dramatic twenty-five reunion at which they confront their classmates — and the balance sheet of their own lives. Always at the center; amid the passion, laughter, and glory, stands Harvard — the symbol of who they are and who they will be. They were a generation who made the rules — then broke them — whose glittering successes, heartfelt tragedies, and unbridled ambitons would stun the world.

Sir Manuel Camargue, yesterday one of the most celebrated musicians of his time, today floats face down in the lake near his sprawling English country house. The consensus is accidental death — but Inspector Wexford knows the stench of murder most foul when he smells it. Particularly in the company of two suspects — one, the victim's fiancee, who is too young to be true, the other his daughter who may be no kin and even less kind...

Chief Inspector Wexford agrees to investigate the disappearance of a neighbor's husband and finds a connection with a man-hating girls' club.

Matt read the forbidden runes and found himself in a world where reciting verses worked magic. He got himself locked in a dungeon, created a fire-breathing dragon, and eventually discovered a beautiful princess he swore to save. Little did he guess how hard that would be...

Samantha Taylor is shattered when her husband leaves her for another woman. She puts her advertising career on hold and seeks refuge at a friend's California ranch, where she loses herself in the daily labor of ranch life. Here, she discovers the healing powers of trusted friends, simple joys, and hard work. She also meets Tate Jordan, the ranch foreman, and a tumultuous relationship ensues. When Tate disappears and a fall from a horse changes Samantha's life forever, she is confined to a wheelchair and must look deep inside herself to finds the courage to begin again. Now, fighting the battles of the handicapped, she finds new challenges, new loves, and even the adopted child she's always longed for.

A man trapped in a millionare's deadly game of political and sexual betrayal. Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, «The Magus» is a masterwork of contemporary literature. In it, a young Englishman, Nicholas Urfe, accepts a teaching position on a Greek island where his friendship with the owner of the islands most magnificent estate leads him into a nightmare. As reality and fantasy are deliberately confused by staged deaths, erotic encounters, and terrifying violence, Urfe becomes a desperate man fighting for his sanity and his life. A work rich with symbols, conundrums and labrinthine twists of event, «The Magus» is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, a work that ranks with the best novels of modern times.

This is the story of Nicholas Linnear, half-Caucasian, half-Oriental, a man caught between East and West, between the sexual passions of a woman he can't forget and the one he can't control and between a past he can't escape and a destiny he can't avoid. A sprawling erotic thriller that swings from postwar Japan to present-day New York in a relentless saga of violence and terror elaborately designed for the most savage vengeance of all...

This is the tumultuous novel of men and women pitted against a world of wealth, power, and privilege...the story of the powerful Van Zale clan, and the man, Cornelius Van Zale, whose dynastic struggle to control a great fortune becomes the center of his life. When the world of the Van Zales, of servants and country houses, of European summers and Bar Harbor clambakes, polite marriages and discreet affairs, suddenly begins to fall apart, we see this glamorous sphere for what it really is--rife with ruthless, power-hungry men, fortune hunters, secret sex, blackmail...and violence.

It is a time of political unrest in Great Britain. And behind the Iron Curtain an insidious plot is being hatched, a plan so incendiary that even the KGB is ignorant of its existence — Aurora, the sinister brainchild of two of the world's most dangerous men: the general secretary of the Soviet Union and master spy Kim Philby. The wheels are in motion, the pawns are in place, and the countdown has begun toward an accident that could change the fact of British politics forever and trigger and collapse of the Western alliance. Only British agent John Preston stand any chance of breaching the conspiracy. Through plot and counterplot, from bloody back streets to polished halls of power both East and West, his desperate investigation is relentlessly blocked by deceit, treachery, and the most deadly enemy of all... time.

Seventy-five short masterpieces of fiction.

Although they had won a significant battle, the war between the Rebels and the Empire had really just begun. Soon, Luke, Han, the princess and their faithful companions were forced to flee, scattering in all directions--the Dark Lord's minions in fevered pursuit...

A secret group of Washington's most powerful men have J. Edgar Hoover killed in order to reach his secret files only to discover there is someone else capable of using these personal dossiers for blackmail and extortion.

Farely Mowat's best loved book tells the splendidly entertaining story of his boyhood on the Canadian prairies. Mutt's pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed tress and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up a raw, untamed wilderness.