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Jim Hardman was a mediocre Atlanta cop until he was wrongly accused of corruption and thrown off the force. Now he works as an unlicensed PI, trouble-shooter, and bodyguard...often partnered with his drinking buddy Hump Evans, a black ex-NFL player. Hardman is hired by The Man, a black mobster, to investigate the murder of his white girlfriend, a college student. It’s a case that plunges Hardman and Evans into the center of a violent street war that stretches from Atlanta’s seedy back alleys to the marbled corridors of power.

Jim Hardman was an Atlanta cop until he was wrongly accused of corruption and thrown off the force. Now he works as an unlicensed PI, trouble-shooter, and bodyguard...often partnered with his drinking buddy Hump Evans, a black, ex-NFL player who supports his playboy lifestyle by working as hired muscle. A small-town farmer hires Hardman to find his teenage daughter who ran off to Atlanta to become a model...and ended up a hooker. It’s fast work for Hardman, but she’s gunned down minutes after he finds her.

In The Golden Girl and All, Hardman is hired to find Peggy Holt, a drug dealer, stripper, and serial seductress who has kidnapped her six-year-old daughter from her ex-husband. Peggy has disappeared into an Atlanta underworld populated by the dirty cops, crooked lawyers, and violent mobsters that she's bedded and betrayed...and who keep coming back for more.

The celebrated author of The Making of Second Life and Game Design Secrets Wagner, James Au, delivers an engrossing exploration of how nascent metaverse platforms have already captured the imagination of millions. Featuring powerful stories and dozens of incisive interviews with insiders including Metaverse creator Neal Stephenson himself, the author uses his unique, grassroots-level perspective as the first reporter embedded in a metaverse platform.

In 2065, corporate sponsored governments jockey for supremacy in the biotechnical arena. Bullets and missiles take a back seat to cyber-enhanced soldiers and pulse weapons. In this extreme environment, only the most hardened body and mind can survive. Calder McKenna was a failed experiment in the military's push for power. Now a special agent for the metro task force, he lives day by day trying to forget the ones that were lost, the ones that he could have saved.

Wounded and weary from their battle at the military base, Will and Isabella want to rest and gather their strength for what lies ahead. But as the military continues to battle foreign insurgents bent on gaining control of Houston, Will and the others must flee the city or risk being pulled back into the fight. Danger awaits them at every turn as they make their way across East Texas. Desperate and dangerous people have flooded the roadways fleeing the fighting ravaging the city. It becomes a constant struggle for survival.

In crisp prose and sharp detail, Darling offers a moment-by-moment account of a one-day mission to track down and kill Taliban insurgents in the Zabul Province of southeastern Afghanistan. A rare day-in-the-life narrative that captures the mundane realities of deployment - the waiting, the heat, the heavy gear, the 0345 wake-up - along with the high-octane experience of crossing foreign terrain where every turn, every decision might have life or death consequences.

In today's digital-first economy, marketplaces are growing at twice the rate of overall eCommerce—and proving that traditional eCommerce is no longer enough. With The Online Marketplace Advantage: Sell More, Scale Faster, and Create a World-Class Digital Customer Experience, the duo behind more than 300 of the world's most successful marketplaces reveals the strategies every enterprise needs to take the lead.

In his path-breaking Killer High, Peter Andreas shows how six psychoactive drugs - ranging from old to relatively new, mild to potent, licit to illicit, natural to synthetic - have proven to be particularly important war ingredients. This sweeping history tells the story of war from antiquity to the modern age through the lens of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, opium, amphetamines, and cocaine.

Trapped in Ga'ee space, Leviathan runs for its life. And the lives of its crew. Declan Payne and Harry Wesson decide to go on the offensive. They have no choice. They can't go home. It only delays the inevitable. The Ga'ee march relentlessly into the space of the seven races while turning an inward eye toward the interloper, the ship they call God1. They direct tens of thousands of Ga'ee carriers to destroy Leviathan. The silicon-based life forms have to be stopped. Declan Payne comes up with a plan, and no one is sold on it, but it's the only plan they have.

My name's Morgan Rook, supernatural detective, undercover agent, odd jobs man. I take out the nightmares, demons, and werewolves. Guys like us call them Nightkind. I had one final job. There's always one. This time a call to eliminate a cruel, rogue vampire, named Mr. Tudor. Simple, right? Sure. Until the bodies started piling up in a new wave of vicious occult killings leading scarily close to my own front door, sparking a series of deadly events that would make my years of fighting the Nightkind look like a cakewalk.

This global history as the Chinese would write it gives brilliant and unconventional insights for understanding China's role in the world, especially the drive to "Make China Great Again." We in the West routinely ask: "What does China want?" The answer is quite simple: the superpower status it...

Aliens are seizing planets at the edge of Berantz space. Earth Fleet sends an armada to investigate. They're never heard from again. Word reaches the Vestrall home planet of the encroachment. Declan Payne knows what has to be done—convince Leviathan to investigate. Peace through superior firepower, through the threat of annihilation. But Lev is retired. And so is Payne and his team. The choice is taken out of their hands.

Ben Clary is an everyday working man who caps off an afternoon of holiday shopping with a drink at his favorite watering hole. Before long, he is intoxicated, and a brutal winter storm descends. Trapped by a howling storm seems bad enough, until Ben and his fellow bar patrons find out something terrible lurks in the blizzard outside. One by one, unseen assailants pick them off until a local historian claims the attackers may be the remnants of a clan caught up in an ancient blood feud, said to have occurred at the site of the tavern. And, worse, they seem to eat human flesh.

As Mark Zuckerberg once put it, "the Age of Privacy is over." But Zuckerberg and others who say "privacy is dead" are wrong. In Why Privacy Matters, Neil Richards explains that privacy isn't dead, but rather up for grabs. Richards shows how the fight for privacy is a fight for power. If we want to preserve our commitments to these precious yet fragile values, we will need privacy rules. Pithy and forceful, this is a must-listen for anyone interested in a topic that sits at the center of so many current problems. 

Max has his home area protected now, with Maggie's help. He's trying to bring more people into the safe zone they created and while he does that, he's also fixing some electronics to work alongside the mana that's infusing everything. Despite the quarantine and its promise of danger, a number of people are intentionally trying to enter it after hearing the tales of what goes on inside. Meanwhile Prometheus has learned that radioactive materials can help open the wormhole further, allowing the mana to flow through and assimilate the Earth more quickly.

Three fugitives on a mission in which death would be a happy ending. A client who is amazed at the sheer size of his own plan. A destination where few humans have ever set foot. A retiree who holds the salvation of the world in her hands. Möbius 3 is the culmination of the trilogy that began deep in an Icelandic volcano and in a Princeton University basement...or is it? When the past swiftly becomes the future, the future no longer offers a safe haven.

Jack suffered from an attack by the Blue Caps. He sued the RSN and won. He also sued the Royal Family and won. Now he’s acquired his own warship and his first mission is to rescue the princess. What? Yes, Sofia is missing. The Queen has taken an intense dislike to her daughter’s ambitions, and Sofia has disappeared. Jack sets out to rescue her with the assistance of Black Company marines. The task is not as easy as it seems. Join Jack and his bot and AI friends as they search for the missing princess.

In the aftermath of the storm, reality sets in for Will Fontenot. Life as he knew it is over. He's battered and bruised from his previous battles but more determined than ever to escape Houston. There's no other choice. Houston is a powered keg ready to blow, and it's only a matter of time before the city falls. When Will, Cayden, and Isabella are again drawn back into the enemy's plan for the nation's final destruction, they'll have to once again fight for their lives against seemingly insurmountable odds as insurgents unleash their attack on Houston. 

The Empire is in danger, with a weak sybarite on the throne and rebellion rising in outlying regions of the Galaxy and on Earth itself. Then the Emperor is assassinated, and General Ivar Brady-Schiovana is forced to declare himself Emperor. But hope appears in the persons of two men and a woman who are rumored to be legendary heroes.