The woman astride the ghostly stallion reaches out desperately, the latest spirit to enlist the aid of Odd Thomas, the unassuming young fry cook whose gift--or curse--it is to see the shades of the restless dead, and to help them when he can.

"Two years after the cataclysmic events that sent him journeying into mystery, Odd Thomas, the intrepid fry cook who sees the dead and tries to help them, has traveled full circle, back to his beloved home town of Pico Mundo and the people he loves. He has come to save them--and perhaps humanity--from the full flowering of evil it is his destiny to confront, as he draws ever closer to the truth of the world and his place in it. Stronger, wiser than...

"For seventeen years, small-town public defender Andy Hughes has been underpaid to look after the poor, the addicted, and the unfortunate souls who constantly cycle through the courts, charged with petty crimes. Then, in the summer of 2020, he's assigned to a grotesque murder case that brings national media focus to rural Patrick County, Virginia--Alicia Benson, the wife of a wealthy businessman, is murdered in her home. The accused killer, Damian...

Ordinary people are caught up in unreal situations in these 19 strange stories. Welcome to a land Ray Bradbury calls "the Undiscovered Country" of his imagination--that vast territory of ideas, concepts, notions and conceits where the stories you now hold were born. America's premier living author of short fiction, Bradbury has spent many lifetimes in this remarkable place--strolling through empty, shadow-washed fields at midnight; exploring long-forgotten...

The last decade has seen significant global changes that have impacted the library, information, and learning services and sciences. There is now a mood to find pragmatic information solutions to pressing global challenges. Future Directions in Digital Information presents the latest ideas and approaches to digital information from across the globe, portraying a sense of transition from old to new. This title is a comprehensive, international take...

Fifteen-year-old Kyle discovers the shattering ramifications of the decisions he makes, and does not make, about school, the girl he likes, and his future.

Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father thirty-five years after the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat that the father only partially survived and that has divided them emotionally ever since. When his father for the first time finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him

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Ishawooa, Wyoming, is far from bucolic nowadays. The sheriff, Crane Carlson, needs no reminder of this but gets one anyway when he finds a kid not yet twenty murdered in a meth lab. His other troubles include a wife who's going off the rails with bourbon and pot, and his own symptoms of the disease that killed his grandfather. Einar Gilkyson, taking stock at eighty, counts among his dead a lifelong friend, a wife and -far too young- their only child;...

In a sinister encounter with a rogue truck driver tricked up like a rhinestone cowboy, Odd has a disturbing vision of a shocking multiple homicide that has not yet been committed. Across California, into Nevada, and back again, Odd embarks on a riveting road chase to prevent the tragedy. Along the way, he meetsand charms a collection of eccentrics who become his allies in a terrifying battle against a sociopath of singular boldness and cleverness--and...

In a small town in 1928, a twelve-year-old boy savors the magic of childhood and the wonders of summer. Ray Bradbury's moving recollection of a vanished golden era remains one of his most enchanting novels. Dandelion Wine stands out in the Bradbury literary canon as the author's most deeply personal work, a semi-autobiographical recollection of a magical small-town summer in 1928. Twelve-year-old Douglas Spaulding knows Green Town, Illinois, is...