"Nothing excites me more than discovering new writing talent, and this book is bursting with it!" - Stephen Leather "Action, violence and cold-blooded ruthlessness, this compilation of thrillers has it all. Six authors, six different styles, one great read." - Jack Silkstone "You have a real treat in store for you here, my friends. These guys tell great stories; stories that feel so real you'll be looking over your shoulder. They just do it in an extraordinarily economical way." -Jake Needham DEATH TOLL is a powerful, pulse-pounding, thriller anthology introduced by international bestselling crime author Jake Needham that brings together Stephen Leather, Alex Shaw, JH Bográn, Stephen Edger, Liam Saville, and Howard Manson. DEATH TOLL takes you on an expedition into the dangerous, deadly world of assassins, spies, corrupt police officers, cold-blooded killers, rogue robbers and ruthless revenge. DEATH TOLL is the best short thriller fiction from six of today's best thriller authors. DEATH TOLL includes: Hiatus - STEPHEN LEATHER Hetman: Donetsk Calling - ALEX SHAW The Assassin's Mistress - JH BOGRAN Best Served Cold - STEPHEN EDGER Goodbye Maria, Sorry - HOWARD MANSON Predator Strike - LIAM SAVILLE Under Cover of Death - HOWARD MANSON Breaking In - STEPHEN LEATHER

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This international bestseller plumbs recently opened archives in the former Soviet bloc to reveal the accomplishments of communism around the world. The book is the first attempt to catalogue and analyse the crimes of communism over 70 years.

Significant changes have taken place in the policy landscape surrounding cannabis legalization, production, and use. During the past 20 years, 25 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis and/or cannabidiol (a component of cannabis) for medical conditions or retail sales at the state level and 4 states have legalized both the medical and recreational use of cannabis. These landmark changes in policy have impacted cannabis use patterns and perceived levels of risk. However, despite this changing landscape, evidence regarding the short- and long-term health effects of cannabis use remains elusive. While a myriad of studies have examined cannabis use in all its various forms, often these research conclusions are not appropriately synthesized, translated for, or communicated to policy makers, health care providers, state health officials, or other stakeholders who have been charged with influencing and enacting policies, procedures, and laws related to cannabis use. Unlike other controlled substances such as alcohol or tobacco, no accepted standards for safe use or appropriate dose are available to help guide individuals as they make choices regarding the issues of if, when, where, and how to use cannabis safely and, in regard to therapeutic uses, effectively. Shifting public sentiment, conflicting and impeded scientific research, and legislative battles have fueled the debate about what, if any, harms or benefits can be attributed to the use of cannabis or its derivatives, and this lack of aggregated knowledge has broad public health implications. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids provides a comprehensive review of scientific evidence related to the health effects and potential therapeutic benefits of cannabis. This report provides a research agendaâ€"outlining gaps in current knowledge and opportunities for providing additional insight into these issuesâ€"that summarizes and prioritizes pressing research needs.

Everyone is aware of the public outcry regarding how the elderly were abandoned to die of Covid-19 in care homes and in their houses. There’s a big reveal in that the UK has taken global leadership in under-counting and under-reporting its official death toll. Countries over-run by the pandemic are heavily attributing Covid-19 deaths to underlying conditions and co-morbidities. That has been surprising. But what is even more shocking, is the extent to which this has happened. To say, it is a tip of the iceberg is perhaps an understatement. Is the UK’s actual death toll as much as 15 times the official figures? That’s the big reveal. There is a reason why the official death toll only focused only on the NHS and hospital deaths. The book reveals it is a tip of the iceberg, but the extent is one that is shocking. The book highlights the women leaders who protected their countries from the crisis contrasting them with macho men leaders who chose the path of herd immunity, even against shocking scenes – yet due to massive egos, refused to change course. The book covers George Floyd in a unique way. The race for a vaccine is presented – but, will the public accept the shortcuts and the methods used?

Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in the most famous of the World's Natural Wonders.

To function in modern society complex data must be absorbed and understood at a breakneck pace. The most efficient way to do this is through data-based graphics. This book is an exploration and celebration of graphical methods of data presentation. Visual Revelations' principal purpose is to enlighten, inform, and amuse the reader regarding the shortcomings of common graphical practices; particularly how they can misinform while simultaneously providing models of wonderful graphics. There are many examples of the best graphic practice, graphs that go beyond conveying, facts, and structure to be able to carry emotion as well. Aimed at an educated, lay audience, this volume benefits anyone who must either convey or receive quantitative information, including designers, statisticians, and people in the media.

Americans are greatly concerned about the number of our troops killed in battle--33,000 in the Korean War; 58,000 in Vietnam; 4,500 in Iraq--and rightly so. But why are we so indifferent, often oblivious, to the far greater number of casualties suffered by those we fight and those we fight for? This is the compelling, largely unasked question John Tirman answers in The Deaths of Others. Between six and seven million people died in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq alone, the majority of them civilians. And yet Americans devote little attention to these deaths. Other countries, however, do pay attention, and Tirman argues that if we want to understand why there is so much anti-Americanism around the world, the first place to look is how we conduct war. We understandably strive to protect our own troops, but our rules of engagement with the enemy are another matter. From atomic weapons and carpet bombing in World War II to napalm and daisy cutters in Vietnam and beyond, our weapons have killed large numbers of civilians and enemy soldiers. Americans, however, are mostly ignorant of these methods, believing that American wars are essentially just, necessary, and "good." Trenchant and passionate, The Deaths of Others forces readers to consider the tragic consequences of American military action not just for Americans, but especially for those we fight against.

This volume, newly published in paperback, is part of a comprehensive effort by R. J. Rummel to understand and place in historical perspective the entire subject of genocide and mass murder, or what he calls democide. It is the fifth in a series of volumes in which he offers a detailed analysis of the 120,000,000 people killed as a result of government action or direct intervention. In Power Kills, Rummel offers a realistic and practical solution to war, democide, and other collective violence. As he states it, "The solution...is to foster democratic freedom and to democratize coercive power and force. That is, mass killing and mass murder carried out by government is a result of indiscriminate, irresponsible Power at the center." Rummel observes that well-established democracies do not make war on and rarely commit lesser violence against each other. The more democratic two nations are, the less likely is war or smaller-scale violence between them. The more democratic a nation is, the less severe its overall foreign violence, the less likely it will have domestic collective violence, and the less its democide. Rummel argues that the evidence supports overwhelmingly the most important fact of our time: democracy is a method of nonviolence.

Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. Table of Contents The Ordeal of a Managed Death Stealing Meaning from Dying The Tyrant Hope The Quality of Life Yes, But Not Like This The Work So Who Are the Dying to You? Dying Facing Home What Dying Asks of Us All Kids Ah, My Friend the Enemy