"Dorothy Gale the current mayor of the Emerald City and wealthy socialite’s daughter has been murdered. Walter Diggs a former palace guard turned private detective is hired to investigate and uncover what the tin men didn’t find. What he does find will shake Oz to its very core. Drugs, sex, murder, corruption, and deception. The dark side of Oz you never knew about but always wanted to."

Baron Witherspoon, a disfigured WWI vet, now a beat cop in a small Kansas burg, is on a collision course with Jake Hickey, a volatile Chicago gangster. While Baron wants merely to provide residents with a safe place to live and escape the memory of the horrors of war, Jake is looking to recapture the glory of Prohibition. Forced to hide out in Arkansas City, Baron’s town, Jake’s impatient nature drives him to put together his own gang. The local crime outfit is wary of Jake’s dealings and lack of cooperation. Baron has his own suspicions but can’t prove anything. A mutual acquaintance from the past, a dead war hero, holds a secret that raises the stakes even higher. Baron has too much to lose, but the town’s future is in the balance.

Best-selling mystery writer Sam Torres loves jetting around the world, researching her next plot, and enjoying local culture, cuisine, and women. Her next stop: the Big Easy. Tess Arceneaux is a New Orleans native who likes life simple and uncomplicated. That includes shucking oysters for wealthy tourists and singing at the neighborhood bar—no pretense and no pressure. When Sam saunters in looking for company in addition to dinner, she sets her sights on Tess. Although Tess is hardly inclined to get involved with a woman who’s just passing through, Sam proves very persuasive. But when casual dates hint at something more, strange and sinister things ensue. Someone doesn’t want them together and will go to extreme lengths to make her point. Will looming danger bring them closer or drive them apart for good?

No other story has touched as many hearts and endeared itself into the American Fabric as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum. But Like all fairy tales, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz has one foot planted in the fantastic and another foot planted firmly in blood. Explore the darker side of Oz...the parts too terrifying or obscene to be told as bedtime stories. 19 tales from some of today's hottest Indie writers peel back the emerald layers of the Land of Oz and reveal the pink, bloody flesh beneath. Shadows DO fall in the Emerald city, and where they are their darkest you will find the true terror of Oz.

SEE IT DONE. DO IT YOURSELF. It's that Easy! Easy Mac OS X Lion teaches you the fundamentals of working with the Mac operating system as well as how to use many of the applications that come with your Mac. Fully illustrated steps with simple instructions guide you through each task, building the skills you need to master Mac OS X Lion with ease. No need to feel intimidated--we'll hold your hand every step of the way. * Locate, purchase, and download applications using the Mac App Store * Use Spotlight to instantly locate any file * Chat with your friends online using audio and video * Buy music online * Use iPhoto to take control of your photo collection * Share calendars with coworkers, family, and friends * Use LaunchPad to start and organize any applications on your Mac * Make your email organize itself * Burn custom music CDs and video DVDs * Customize your desktop and icons * Set up your own wireless network to share files, printers, and Internet access

More than 700 films from the classic period of film noir (1940 to 1959) are presented in this exhaustive reference book--such films as The Accused, Among the Living, The Asphalt Jungle, Baby Face Nelson, Bait, The Beat Generation, Crossfire, Dark Passage, I Walk Alone, The Las Vegas Story, The Naked City, Strangers on a Train, White Heat, and The Window. For each film, the following information is provided: the title, release date, main performers, screenwriter(s), director(s), type of noir, thematic content, a rating based on the five-star system, and a plot synopsis that does not reveal the ending.

Dorothy

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • National Book Award Finalist • This "eyewitness history of the first order ... should be read by anyone who wants to understand how things went so badly wrong in Iraq” (The New York Times Book Review). The Green Zone, Baghdad, Iraq, 2003: in this walled-off compound of swimming pools and luxurious amenities, Paul Bremer and his Coalition Provisional Authority set out to fashion a new, democratic Iraq. Staffed by idealistic aides chosen primarily for their views on issues such as abortion and capital punishment, the CPA spent the crucial first year of occupation pursuing goals that had little to do with the immediate needs of a postwar nation: flat taxes instead of electricity and deregulated health care instead of emergency medical supplies. In this acclaimed firsthand account, the former Baghdad bureau chief of The Washington Post gives us an intimate portrait of life inside this Oz-like bubble, which continued unaffected by the growing mayhem outside. This is a quietly devastating tale of imperial folly, and the definitive history of those early days when things went irrevocably wrong in Iraq.

A light-hearted A-to-Z encyclopedia of farm lore, Barnyard Confidential covers everything you need to know about living in the country, from courting to dealing with manure, root picking to rat catching, winter chores to tractor restoration, hay mows to outhouses—anything and everything related to farm life. Entries from well-known country authors like E. B. White, Gwen Petersen, Roger Welsch, and Patricia Penton Leimbach range from funny definitions to full stories and are illustrated throughout with a charming mix of fun, nostalgic, black-and-white photos and illustrations. These stories are both humorous and practical and will remind you why you often have a love-hate relationship with rural living. Before you move to the country (or even if you already live there), learn all the secrets to success from Barnyard Confidential. Featured authors include the following:Eric Sloane, Roger Welsch, Gwen Petersen, Ben Logan, Jim Heynen, Bob Artley, Marjorie Myers Douglas, Hamlin Garland, E. B. White, Jerry Stelmok, Louis Bromfield, Bob Becker, William Hazlett Upson, Patricia Penton Leimbach, Jerry L. Twedt, Michael Perry, Willa Cather, Jerry Apps, Josh Billings, Michael Dregni, Jared Van Wagenen Jr., Hugh Orchard, Dorothy Canfield, Virginia Bell Dabney, Tom Anderson, Ronald Jager, Margret Aldrich, Bill Vossler, and Gordon Green.

A “compelling” up-close memoir of a career spent among marine mammals and a portrait of the daily lives of dolphins (Publishers Weekly). Working among charismatic and clever dolphins in the wild is a unique thrill—and this book invites us shore-bound dreamers to join Maddalena Bearzi as she travels alongside them. In a fascinating account, she takes us inside the world of a marine scientist and offers a firsthand understanding of marine mammal behavior, as well as the frustrations and delights that make up dolphin research. Bearzi recounts her experiences at sea, tracing her own evolution as a woman and a scientist from her earliest travails to her transformation into an advocate for conservation and dolphin protection. These compelling, in-depth descriptions of her fieldwork also present a captivating look into dolphin social behavior and intelligence. Drawing on her extensive experience with the metropolitan bottlenose dolphins of California in particular, she offers insights into the daily lives of these creatures—as well as the difficulties involved in collecting the data that transforms hunches into hypotheses and eventually scientific facts. The book closes by addressing the critical environmental and conservation problems facing these magnificent, socially complex, highly intelligent, and emotional beings. “Pairing vivid images of bottlenose dolphins swimming together and caring for one another with descriptions of the meticulous scientific work required to record their behavior, Maddalena Bearzi sheds light on the life of a field biologist…A beautifully written account.”—Library Journal