Random House, Inc.

This is where it all begins for Dexter Morgan, the darkly funny character who is the inspiration for the hit Showtime series. Dexter is a forensics blood-spatter expert for the Miami police department, who is also a serial killer with a golden rule: he only kills bad people.

The long-awaited and highly anticipated final volume in Penman's trilogy of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine offers a tumultuous conclusion to this timeless story of love, power, ambition, and betrayal.

»Everything Flows» is the last novel by Grossman, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed his extraordinary epic of besieged Stalingrad, «Life and Fate.»

An international publishing sensation, Stieg Larsson's Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel. Harriet Vanger, scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families, disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption. .

From the glittering ballrooms of Manhattan to the fires of World War I, Danielle Steel takes us on an unforgettable journey in her new novel-a spellbinding tale of war, loss, history, and one woman's unbreakable spirit... Filled with breathtaking images and historical detail, Danielle Steel's new novel introduces one of her most unique and fascinating characters: Annabelle Worthington, a remarkable woman, a good woman, a true survivor who triumphs against overwhelming odds. For Annabelle's story is more than compelling fiction, it is a powerful celebration of life, dignity, and courage-and a testament to the human will to survive.

Afghanistan has been a strategic prize for more than 200 years. Foreign invaders have continually fought across its beautiful and inhospitable terrain. A century ago, the common sneer about how British soldiers treated Afghan tribesmen was that they would 'butcher' them, then 'bolt'. This book recounts this violent history.

Every time the lights go out, someone dies... The Tardis lands at an academy for top athletes, all hoping to be chosen for the forthcoming Globe Games. But is one of them driven enough to resort to murder? The Doctor discovers that the students have been hushing up unexplained deaths. Teaming up with a young swimmer called Emma, the Doctor begins to investigate — but he doesn't expect to find a squad of Sontarans invading the academy! As the Sontarans begin their own lethal version of the Globe Games, the Doctor and Emma must find out what's really going on. But the Doctor is captured and forced to take part in the Sontaran Games. Can even a Time Lord survive this deadly contest? Featuring the Doctor as played by David Tennant in the acclaimed hit series from BBC Television.

What makes or breaks a nation? To whom do we give our allegiance and why? And where do the boundaries of our community lie — in our hearth and home, our village or city, tribe or faith? What is Britain — one country or many? This book delivers these themes.

It is 1951 in America, the second year of the Korean War. A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohio's Winesburg College. And why is he here and not at a local college in Newark where he originally enrolled?

Explains what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking readers, to the middle ages, and showing various things from the horrors of leprosy and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and haute couture.

According to Vonnegut's alter ego, science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout a global timequake will occur in New York City on 13 February 2001. It is the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience. Should it expand or make a great big bang? It decides to back up a decade to 1991, making everyone in the world endure ten years of deja vu and a total loss of free will-not to mention reliving every nanosecond of one of the tawdiest and most hollow decades. In 1996, dead centre of the 're-run' Vonnegut is wrestling again with Time-quake I, a book he couldn't write the first time and won't be able to now. As he struggles, he addresses, with his trademark wicked wit, the relationship between memory and deja vu, humanism, suicide, the Great Depression and World War II as the last generated character builders, the loss of American eloquence, the obsolescent thrill of reading books, and what 'extended family' really means.

Sarah is a wedding planner who doesn't believe in love. Or, not for herself anyway. And now with all her working hours spent planning the wedding of the year, she certainly doesn't have time to even think about love... Or does she? From the Hardcover edition.

From the master of literary mayhem and provocation, this is a full-frontal Triple-X novel that goes where no work of fiction has gone before. 'Six hundred dudes. One porn queen. A world record for the ages. A must — have movie for every discerning collector of things erotic'. 'Didn't one of us on purpose set out to make a snuff movie?' — Cassie Wright, porn priestess, intends to cap her legendary career by breaking the world record for serial fornication. On camera with six hundred men, Snuff unfolds from the perspectives of Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600, who await their turn on camera in a very crowded green room. This wild, lethally funny and thoroughly researched novel brings the huge yet underacknowledged presence of pornography in contemporary life into the realm of literary fiction at last. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing? Who else could do it so well, so unflinchingly and with such an incendiary (you might say) climax?

When Kurt Wallander first appeared in Faceless Killers back in 1990, he was a senior police officer, just turned forty, with his life in a mess. His wife had left him, his father barely acknowledged him; he ate badly and drank alone at night. The Pyramid chronicles the events that led him to such a place. We see him in the early years, doing hours on the beat whilst trying to solve a murder off-duty; witness the beginnings of his fragile relationship with Mona, the woman he has his heart set on marrying; and learn the reason behind his difficulties with his father. These thrilling tales provide a fascinating insight into Wallander's character, and demand to be read in one sitting. From the stabbing of a neighbour in 1969 to a light aircraft accident in 1989, every story is a vital piece of the Wallander series, showing Mankell at the top of his game. Featuring an introduction from the author, The Pyramid is an essential read for all fans of Kurt Wallander.

Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, her adventures in motherhood and in China and we learn cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides.

In 1956, a twenty-one-year-old Elvis Presley was at the beginning of his remarkable and unparalleled career. Photojournalist Alfred Wertheimer was asked by Presley's new label, RCA Victor, to photograph the rising star for a one-day assignment that quickly developed into an odyssey. With unimpeded access to the young performer, Wertheimer was able to capture the unguarded and everyday moments in Elvis' life during March and July of 1956, the pivotal year that made Elvis' career — taking him from virtual obscurity to the verge of international stardom and his crowning as 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll'. Wertheimer's unobtrusive photographs of Elvis in performance, with his fans, in the recording studio as well as at home with his family, present a unique look at one of the world's most famous cultural figures. These images represent the first and the last unguarded look at Elvis, and are an extraordinary portrait of a charismatic young man who would go on to become a legend.

More than 200 spectacular photographs catch and define the energy, intoxication, rebellion, and magic of rock and roll. This work explores the photographs and the photographers who captured rock's message of freedom and personal reinvention.

Celebrate what's beautiful about traditional style while breaking some of its rules: Take a page out of a designer's book and add your own sense of relaxed whimsy and exuberant personality to create spaces that are versatile, original, and truly livable. That's designer Celerie Kemble's philosophy in a nutshell. It's all about blending a classic sensibility with a dose of irreverence and a dollop of humor to achieve a home that's tasteful, eclectic, always evolving, and always welcoming. Celerie takes you by the hand, gives you a detailed look at many of her signature interiors, and enthusiastically reassures you that, with the right information and attitude, you can overcome challenges and artfully achieve the ultimate design goal — a perfect blend of beauty and comfort. From finding inspiration in childhood memories, current trends, and favorite belongings to working around real-life design dilemmas (such as a lack of space or light, or awkward floor plans) to selecting just the right furnishings (including rugs, lamps, and accessories), Celerie Kemble: To Your Taste infectiously proves that when making a beautiful home, the process is the best part.

Vividly recreating life during the Dark Ages, while simultaneously painting a portrait of an unforgettable woman, «Pope Joan» explores the extraordinary life of an independent, intelligent and courageous woman who overcomes oppression and ascends to the highest religious power («San Francisco Chronicle»).

I don't have two lives, Annie Leibovitz writes in the Introduction to this collection of her work from 1990-2005. This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it. Portraits of well-known figures-Johnny Cash, Nicole Kidman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Keith Richards, Michael Jordan, Joan Didion, R2-D2, Patti Smith, Nelson Mandela, Jack Nicholson, William Burroughs, George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet-appear alongside pictures of Leibovitz's family and friends, reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early Nineties, and landscapes made even more indelible through Leibovitz's discerning eye. The images form a narrative rich in contrasts and continuities: The photographer has a long relationship that ends with illness and death. She chronicles the celebrations and heartbreaks of her large and robust family. She has children of her own. All the while she is working, and the public work resonates with the themes of her life.

'I don't believe in God, but I miss Him'. Julian Barnes' new book is, among many things, a family memoir, an exchange with his brother (a philosopher), a meditation on mortality and the fear of death, a celebration of art, an argument with and about God, and a homage to the French writer Jules Renard. Though he warns us that 'this is not my autobiography', the result is a tour of the mind of one of our most brilliant writers. When Angela Carter reviewed Barnes' first novel, Metroland, she praised the mature way he wrote about death. Now, nearly thirty years later, he returns to the subject in a wise, funny and constantly surprising book, which defies category and classification — except as Barnesian.

Harry Hole, drunkard, loner and brilliant detective is reassigned to surveillance after a high profile mistake. He's bored by his new job until a report of a rare and unusual gun being fired sparks his interest because of its possible links to Neo Nazi activity. Then a former soldier is found with his throat cut. Next Harry's former partner is murdered. Why had she been trying to reach Harry on the night her head was smashed in? The investigation leads Harry to suspect that the crimes have their roots in the battlefields of Eastern Front during WWII. In a quest that takes him to South Africa and Vienna, Harry finds himself perpetually one step behind the killer. He will be both winner and loser by the novel's nail-biting conclusion. The Redbreast. He's your judge, jury and executioner... And he must be stopped.

A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of fiction's greatest detectives. Here, in Stout's third and fourth complete Wolfe mysteries, the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, solve two of their most baffling cases. The Rubber Band What do a Wild West lynching and a respected English nobleman have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. But when a young woman hires his services, it becomes Nero Wolfe's job to look deeper and find the connection. A forty-year-old pact, a five-thousand-mile search, and a million-dollar murder are all linked to an international scandal that could rebound on the great detective and his partner, Archie, with fatal abruptness. The Red Box Murder by chocolate? That's the premise Nero Wolfe must operate from when a beautiful woman is poisoned after indulging in a box of candy. It's a case that the great detective — no stranger himself to overindulgence — is loath to take for a variety of reasons, including that it may require that he leave his comfortable brownstone. But he and Archie are compelled by a mystery that mixes high fashion and low motives... and a killer who may have made the deadliest mistake.

A NERO WOLFE SPECIAL EDITION--TWO COMPLETE MYSTERIES IN ONE VOLUME Nero Wolfe towers over his rivals... he is an exceptional character creation. New Yorker A grand master of the form, Rex Stout is one of America's greatest mystery writers, and his literary creation Nero Wolfe is one of fiction's greatest detectives. In this double helping of classic Nero Wolfe mysteries, Stout presents the arrogant, gourmandizing, sedentary sleuth and his trusty man-about-town, Archie Goodwin, with a pair of delectable murders that no connoisseur of the whodunit could possibly resist. BLACK ORCHIDS Not much can get Wolfe to leave his comfortable brownstone, but the showing of a rare black orchid lures him to a flower show. Unfortunately, the much-anticipated event is soon overshadowed by a murder as daring as it is sudden. It's a case of weeding out a cunning killer who can turn up anywhere — and Wolfe must do it quickly. Because a second case awaits his urgent attention: a society widow on a mailing list of poison-pen letters leading to a plot as dark as any orchid Wolfe has ever encountered. THE SILENT SPEAKER When a government power broker scheduled to speak before an influential group of millionaires turns up dead, Nero Wolfe grudgingly takes the case — even as his own financial affairs teeter toward ruin. Soon a second victim is discovered, a missing stenographer's tape causes a panic, and a dead man speaks, after a fashion. As the business world demands answers, the great detective baits a trap to net a killer worth his weight in gold.