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A Poisoned Season
London's social season is in full swing, and Victorian aristocracy can't stop whispering about a certain gentleman who claims to be the direct descendant of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette But he's not the only topic of wagging tongues. Drawing rooms, boudoirs, and ballrooms are abuzz with the latest news of an audacious cat burglar who has been systematically stealing valuable items that once belonged to the ill-fated queen. Light gossip turns serious when the owner of one of the pilfered treasures is found murdered, and the mysterious thief develops a twisted obsession with Lady Emily Ashton. It will take all of Emily's wit and perseverance to unmask her stalker and ferret out the murderer, while faced with a brewing scandal that threatens both her reputation and her romance with her late husband's best friend, the dashing Colin Hargreaves. .
Price: $4.80
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Swindled: The Dark History of Food Fraud, from Poisoned Candy to Counterfeit Coffee
Bad food has a history Swindled tells it. Through a fascinating mixture of cultural and scientific history, food politics, and culinary detective work, Bee Wilson uncovers the many ways swindlers have cheapened, falsified, and even poisoned our food throughout history. In the hands of people and corporations who have prized profits above the health of consumers, food and drink have been tampered with in often horrifying ways--padded, diluted, contaminated, substituted, mislabeled, misnamed, or otherwise faked. Swindled gives a panoramic view of this history, from the leaded wine of the ancient Romans to today's food frauds--such as fake organics and the scandal of Chinese babies being fed bogus milk powder. Wilson pays special attention to nineteenth- and twentieth-century America and England and their roles in developing both industrial-scale food adulteration and the scientific ability to combat it. As Swindled reveals, modern science has both helped and hindered food fraudsters--increasing the sophistication of scams but also the means to detect them. The big breakthrough came in Victorian England when a scientist first put food under the microscope and found that much of what was sold as "genuine coffee" was anything but--and that you couldn't buy pure mustard in all of London. Arguing that industrialization, laissez-faire politics, and globalization have all hurt the quality of food, but also that food swindlers have always been helped by consumer ignorance, Swindled ultimately calls for both governments and individuals to be more vigilant. In fact, Wilson suggests, one of our best protections is simply to reeducate ourselves about the joys of food and cooking. .
Price: $15.00
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Poisoned Tarts (Savannah Reid Mysteries)
What happens when too rich and too thin becomes too deadly? Voluptuous P.I. Savannah Reid is about to find out as she delves into the disappearance of a celebrity hanger - on that soon leads to something more sinister. As Halloween draws near, Savannah will have to learn a killer's deadly 'tricks' before someone else is 'treated' to murder...Halloween in Southern California just doesn't have the frosty bite Savannah's used to, although her latest job promises chills aplenty. The Skeleton Key Three, a celebutante clique so named by the media because of their super-skinny figures and fat trust funds, are in the spotlight again - but this time, it's for something more than partying. It seems the one member of the Three who was neither wealthy nor particularly svelte hasn't been heard from in days.The missing girl's name is Daisy O'Neil, and by all accounts, she had little in common with her so-called friends Tiffy, Kiki, and Bunny. Chubby, smart, and less-than-privileged, Daisy's role in the Three seems to have been primarily to be the victim of their vicious jibes and pranks. When Savannah learns that Tiffy's acting aspirations were threatened by Daisy's genuine talent, the poor little rich girl begins to look big-time guilty.But just when Savannah thinks she has it all figured out - except where the body is stashed - the vibe surrounding the Skeleton Key Three changes from vacuous and suspicious to downright murderous. As preparations are being made for a monster Halloween party, to be held on the Dante compound, the patriarch himself is spotted dressed as Dracula, laid out in his coffin, complete with a real stake through his no-longer-beating heart. Now, with the party seriously pooped and the tabloids on a tear, Savannah will have to put her Halloween candy on the shelf until she's deserving of a reward. And that means finding a killer - fast - before more Hollywood money becomes buried treasure....
Price: $4.89
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Death by Water: A Phryne Fisher Mystery
The nice men at P&O are worried A succession of jewelry thefts from the first-class passengers is hardly the best advertisement for their cruises Especially when it is likely that a passenger is the thief. Phryne Fisher, with her Lulu bob, green eyes, cupid’s bow lips, and sense that the ends justify the means, is just the person to mingle seamlessly with the upper classes and take on a case of theft on the high seas—or at least on the S.S. Hinemoa, on a luxury cruise to New Zealand. She is carrying the Great Queen of Sapphires, the Maharani, as bait. Shipboard romances, champagne cocktails, erotic photographers, jealous swains, Mickey Finns, jazz musicians, blackmail, and attempted murder mingle before the thieves find out—as have countless love-smitten men before them—that where the glamorous and intelligent Phryne is concerned, resistance is futile. .
Price: $15.65
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Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children
In this shocking and sobering book, two fearless journalists directly and definitively link industrial toxins to the current rise in childhood disease and death. In the tradition of Silent Spring, Poisoned Profits is a landmark investigation, an eye-opening account of a country that prizes money over children’s health. With indisputable data, Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff reveal that the children of baby boomers–the first to be raised in a truly “toxified” world–have higher rates of birth defects, asthma, cancer, autism, and other serious illnesses than previous generations. In piercing case histories, the authors identify the culprit as corporate pollution. Here are the stories of such places as Dickson, Tennessee, where babies were born with cleft lips and palates after landfill chemicals seeped into the water, and Port Neches, Texas, where so many graduates of a high school near synthetic rubber and chemical plants contracted cancer that the school was nicknamed “Leukemia High.” The danger to our children isn’t just in the outside world, though. The Shabecoffs provide evidence that our homes are now infested with everything from dangerous flame retardants in crib mattresses to harmful plastic softeners in teething rings to antibiotics and arsenic in chicken–additives that are absorbed by growing and physically vulnerable kids as well as by pregnant women. Compounding the problem are chemical corporations that sabotage investigations and regulations, a government that refuses to police these companies, and corporate-hired scientists who keep pertinent secrets massaged with skewed data of their own. Poisoned Profits also demonstrates how people are fighting back, whether through grassroots parents’ groups putting pressure on politicians, the rise of “ecotheology” in the pulpits of formerly indifferent churches, or the new “green chemistry” being practiced in labs to replace bad elements with good. The Shabecoffs also include helpful tips on reducing risks to children in how they eat and play, and in how parents clean and maintain their homes. Powerful, unflinching, and eminently readable, Poisoned Profits is a wake-up call that is bound to inspire talk and force change..
Price: $12.68
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Anteater of Death: A Zoo Mystery
But if Lucy, the pregnant Giant Anteater from Belize, didn’t kill the man found dead in her enclosure, who did? California zookeeper Teddy Bentley must find the real murderer before her furry friend is shipped off to another zoo in disgrace. Then another human bites the dust, the monkeys riot, and the wolves go nuts. Things get worse when the snooty folks at Gunn Landing Harbor attempt to evict Teddy from the Merilee, her beloved houseboat. That’s just the beginning. Her father, on the lam from the Feds for embezzling millions, gets targeted by a local gangster; and Caro, Teddy’s socialite mother, a former beauty queen who loathes Teddy’s dangerous job, starts introducing her to “eligible bachelors.” But Teddy has already given her heart to Sheriff Joe Rejas, a migrant worker’s son. Caro is not pleased. Zoo life, animal lore, and the leaky ups and downs of Central Coast California houseboat living create a thrilling backdrop for murder. .
Price: $16.47
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Blackman's Coffin: A Sam Blackman Mystery
Sam Blackman is an angry man. A Chief Warrant Officer in the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the U.S. military, he lost a leg in Iraq. His outspoken criticism of his medical treatment resulted in his transfer to the Veteran’s Hospital in Asheville, NC. Then an ex-marine and fellow amputee named Tikima Robertson walks into his hospital room. Tikima hints that she has an opportunity for Sam to use his investigative skills--if he can stop feeling sorry for himself. But before she can return, Tikima is murdered, her body found floating in the river. Tikima’s sister, Nakayla, brings Sam a journal she finds in Tikima’s apartment. The volume dates to 1919 and contains the entries of a twelve-year-old boy who accompanies his father, a white funeral director, as they help a black man, Elijah Robertson, transport his deceased relative to a small family plot in Georgia. Nearly ninety years ago, Elijah’s body was found in the French Broad River, a crime foreshadowing his great-great granddaughter Tikima’s death. Sam and Nakayla must delve into Asheville’s rich history--the legacy of the Vanderbilts at the Biltmore estate and of author Thomas Wolfe--to uncover the murderous truth. Blackman’s Coffin starts a new series by Mark de Castrique, author of the Buryin'’ Barry Mysteries. .
Price: $9.39
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Poisoned Love: The True Story of ER Nurse Chaz Higgs, his Ambitious Wife, and a Shocking Murder
Kathy Augustine was a controversial two-term Nevada State Controller In 2003, her husband Chuck died of an apparent stroke. Only a month later, she married Chaz Higgs, an ER nurse who, it was later revealed, had attended to her late husband just before his death. Three years later, fifty-year-old Kathy died after a heart attack—the result, her family and friends believed, of a stressful political campaign. But when an autopsy of Kathy’s body revealed no signs of heart disease, investigators dug deeper into Kathy’s case…only to find the presence of a powerful, paralyzing emergency-room drug in Kathy’s system. A jury would later charge Nurse Chaz with murder in the first degree. But could Kathy’s first husband alsohave been the victim of Chaz’s treachery? And just how much did Kathy know? This is the shocking true story of a family torn apart by lies, medical crime, and POISONED LOVE. .
Price: $2.50
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Cocaine Blues (Phryne Fisher Mysteries)
This is where it all started! The first classic Phryne Fisher mystery, featuring our delectable heroine, cocaine, communism and adventure Phryne leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. The London season is in full fling at the end of the 1920s, but the Honorable Phryne Fisher--she of the green-grey eyes, diamant garters and outfits that should not be sprung suddenly on those of nervous dispositions--is rapidly tiring of the tedium of arranging flowers, making polite conversations with retired colonels, and dancing with weak-chinned men. Instead, Phryne decides it might be rather amusing to try her hand at being a lady detective in Melbourne, Australia. Almost immediately from the time she books into the Windsor Hotel, Phryne is embroiled in mystery: poisoned wives, cocaine smuggling rings, corrupt cops and communism--not to mention erotic encounters with the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse--until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street..
Price: $9.45
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Poisoned Wells: The Dirty Politics of African Oil
Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce well over a billion dollars’ worth of oil, an amount that far exceeds development aid to the entire African continent. Yet the rising tide of oil money is not promoting stability and development, but is instead causing violence, poverty, and stagnation. It is also generating vast corruption that reaches deep into American and European economies. In Poisoned Wells, Nicholas Shaxson exposes the root causes of this paradox of poverty from plenty, and explores the mechanisms by which oil causes grave instabilities and corruption around the globe. Shaxson is the only journalist who has had access to the key players in African oil, and is willing to make the connections between the problems of the developing world and the involvement of leading global corporations and governments. .
Price: $8.85
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