Kona Weather MISS MINERVA WINTERSLIP was a Bostonian in good standing, and long past the romantic age. Yet beauty thrilled her still, even the semi-barbaric beauty of a Pacific island. As she walked slowly along the beach she felt the little catch in her throat that sometimes she had known in Symphony Hall, Boston, when her favorite orchestra rose to some new and unexpected height of loveliness. It was the hour at which she liked Waikiki best, the hour just preceding dinner and the quick tropic darkness. The shadows cast by the tall cocoanut palms lengthened and deepened, the light of the f
When the office door opened suddenly I knew the game was up. It had been a money-maker-but it was all over. As the cop walked in I sat back in the chair and put on a happy grin. He had the same somber expression and heavy foot that they all have-and the same lack of humor. I almost knew to the word what he was going to say before he uttered a syllable. "James Bolivar diGriz I arrest you on the charge-" I was waiting for the word charge, I thought it made a nice touch that way. As he said it I pressed the button that set off the charge of black powder in the ceiling, the crossbea
In the Court of the Fountain the sun of March shone through young leaves of ash and elm, and water leapt and fell through shadow and clear light. About that roofless court stood four high walls of stone. Behind those were rooms and courts, passages, corridors, towers, and at last the heavy outmost walls of the Great House of Roke, which would stand any assault of war or earthquake or the sea itself, being built not only of stone, but of incontestable magic. For Roke is the Isle of the Wise, where the art magic is taught; and the Great House is the school and central place of wizardry; and
Norman gave his ivory-handled screwdriver a final twist and secured the last screw into the side panel of the slim brass cylinder. Unclamping it from his vice, he lifted it lovingly by its shining axle, and held it towards the dust-smeared glass of the kitchenette window. It was a work of wonder and that was for certain. A mere ten inches in diameter and another one in thickness, the dim light painted a rainbow corona about its varnished circumference. Norman carried it carefully across to his cluttered kitchen table and, elbowing aside a confusion of soiled crockery, placed it upon the twin
Zula Miller Crichton We are entering a world where the old rules no longer apply. PHILLIP SANDERS Business is war. Japanese motto LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT CONFIDENTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF INTERNAL RECORDS Contents: Transcript of Video InterrogationDetective Peter J. SmithMarch 13-15 re: "Nakamoto Murder" (A8895-404) This transcript is the property of the Los Angeles Police Department and is for internal use only. Permission to copy, quote from, or otherwise reproduce or reveal the contents of this document is limited by law. Unauthorized use carries severe penalties....
Muir Sutherland and Malcolm Craddock, with many thanks CHAPTER 1 It was funny, Richard Sharpe thought, that there were no vultures in England. None that he had seen, anyway. Ugly things they were. Rats with wings. He thought about vultures a lot, and he had a lot of time to think because he was a soldier, a private, and so the army insisted on doing a lot of his thinking for him. The army decided when he woke up, when he slept, when he ate, when he marched, and when he was to sit about doing nothing and that was what he did most of the time - nothing. Hurry up and do nothing, that was the
It was oven hot, and it was Sunday. In the air traffic tower, the control operator at Brady Air Force Base lit a cigarette from a still glowing butt, propped his stocking feet on top of a portable air conditioner and waited for something to happen. He was totally bored, and for good reason. Air traffic was slow on Sundays. In fact, it was nearly nonexistent Military pilots and their aircraft rarely flew on that day in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, particularly since no international political trouble was brewing at the moment. Occasionally a plane might set down or take of
CHAPTER IBIRDS OF A FEATHER "YOUR mail, Mr. Rowden." "Ah, yes. Thank you." The switchboard operator passed a stack of envelopes to the man who stood in front of the lobby desk. Rowden smiled as he received the mail. He scanned the envelopes; then thrust them in his pocket and strolled into the elevator. The switchboard girl sighed as the door closed. It was not often that the Mallison Apartments received such debonair guests as Roke Rowden. Small and obscure in the midst of Manhattan, the Mallison catered chiefly to bargain-hunting tourists. Roke Rowden was a novelty. He had the beari
Chapter One Who I am 1 These are the things I know: Outerbridge Island has briny water running beneath its rocks, a subterranean series of narrow channels between the Sound and the Atlantic. You can see the entrances to these channels on the northern side of the island at low tide. These channels feed into the Great Salt Pond on the westerly side of the island before it empties into the sea. It was said that once-upon-a-time, a Dutch trading ship smashed up against the rocks, and local pirates fed upon the treasures found within the hold of the ship. The treasure, it is said, was buried in
Anselme, who has ever been acknowledged as the first and perhaps the greatest of all the troubadours of Arbonne, was of modest birth, the youngest son of a clerk in the castle of a baron near Cauvas. He was of middling height, dark haired, with a quiet manner in speech that was nonetheless wondrously pleasing to all who heard him. While yet tender in years, he showed great skill and interest in music and was invited to join the celebrated choir of the Cauvas sanctuary of the god. It was not long, however, before he felt the beginnings of a desire to make music very different from that acc
CHAPTER I SECRET PAPER-WORK THE TWO thirty-eights roared simultaneously. The walls of the underground room took the crash of sound and batted it to and fro between them until there was silence. James Bond watched the smoke being sucked from each end of the room towards the central Ventaxia fan. The memory in his right hand of how he had drawn and fired with one sweep from the left made him confident. He broke the chamber sideways out of the Colt Detective Special and waited, his gun pointing at the floor, while the Instructor walked the twenty yards towards him through the half-light of t
The Old Masters: how well they understoodIts human position; how it takes placeWhile someone else is eating or opening a window orMt walking dully along ...W. H. AUDEN, "Musee des Beaux Arts"Old Blue died and he died so hard He shook the ground in my back yard. I dug his grave with a silver spade And I lowered him down with a golden chain. Every link you know I did call his name, I called, "Here, Blue, you good dog, you.FOLK SONG"Nope, nothing wrong here.THE SHARP CEREAL PROFESSORONCE UPON A TIME, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. He killed. a waitress n
1 World Without End If a killing type of virus strain should suddenly arise by mutation ... it could, because of the rapid transportation in which we indulge nowadays, be carried to the far corners of the earth and cause the deaths of millions of people. - W. M. Stanley, in Chemical and Engineering News, Dec. 22, 1947. Chapter 1 ... and the government of the United States of America is herewith suspended, except in the District of Columbia, as of the emergency. Federal officers, including those of the Armed Forces, will put themselves under the orders of the governors of the various
His mind absorbed the scene before him, so quiet and calm and . . . normal. It was the life he had always wanted, a gathering of family and friends-he knew that they were just that, though the only one he recognized was his dear mother. This was the way it was supposed to be. The warmth and the love, the laughter and the quiet times. This was how he had always dreamed it would be, how he had always prayed it would be. The warm, inviting smiles. The pleasant conversation. The gentle pats on shoulders. But most of all there was the smile of his beloved mother, so happy now, no more a slave.
The light of stars is so damn stark. When I look up, I fill with fear. If all we have is what lies here, this lonely world, this troubled place, then cold dead stars and empty space. Well, I see no reason to persevere, no reason to laugh or shed a tear, no reason to sleep or ever to wake, no promises to keep, and none to make. And so at night I still raise my eyes to study the clear but mysterious skies that arch above us, as cold as stone. Are you there, God? Are we alone? -The Book of Counted Sorrows ONELOST FOREVER...
PERRY MASON-fighting attorney, who preferred being paid off as a sheep to being double-crossed like a lamb DELLA STREET-who was a faithful Girl Friday (also Sunday and Monday, if not quite always) EVA GRIFFIN-well groomed and well heeled, who was a phony HARRISON BURKE-Congressman, whose Duty to the People was to keep them from knowing he was mixed up in murder FRANK LOCKE-editor of Spicy Bits, who was Southern, but no gentleman PAUL DRAKE-who turned up some interesting information on Georgia peaches and sons of same SIDNEY DRUMM-who put himself out on a limb of the tree Perry Mas