Crushed by successive crop failures and the burden of debt, Sudhakar Bhadra kills himself. The powerful district committee of Mityala routinely dismisses the suicide and refuses compensation to his widow. Gangiri, his brother, makes it his life's mission to bring justice to the dead by influencing the committee to validate similar farmer suicides. Keyur Kashinath of the Democratic Party-first-time member of Parliament from Mityala, and son of Vaishnav Kashinath, the party's general secretary-is the heir to his father's power in Delhi politics. He faces his first crisis; every suicide in his constituency certified by the committee as debt-related is a blot on the party's image, and his competence. The brilliant farmer battles his inheritance of despair, the arrogant politician fights for the power he has received as legacy. Their two worlds collide in a conflict that pushes both to the limits of morality from where there is no turning back. At stake is the truth about 'inherited' democratic power. And at the end, there can only be one winner. Passionate and startlingly insightful, Shoes of the Dead is a chilling parable of modern-day India.

This monumental study provides an innovative and powerful means for understanding institutions by applying problem solving theory to the creation and elaboration of formal organizational rules and procedures. Based on a meticulously researched historical analysis of the U.S. Navy’s officer personnel system from its beginnings to 1941, the book is informed by developments in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, operations research, and management science. It also offers important insights into the development of the American administrative state, highlighting broader societal conflicts over equity, efficiency, and economy. Considering the Navy’s personnel system as an institution, the book shows that changes in that system resulted from a long-term process of institutional design, in which formal rules and procedures are established and elaborated. Institutional design is here understood as a problem-solving process comprising day-to-day efforts of many decision makers to resolve the difficulties that block completion of their tasks. The officer personnel system is treated as a problem of organized complexity, with many components interacting in systematic, intricate ways, its structure usually imperfectly understood by the participants. Consequently, much problem solving entails decomposing the larger problem into smaller, more manageable components, closing open constraints, and balancing competing value premises. The author finds that decision makers are unlikely to generate many alternatives, since searching for existing solutions elsewhere or inventing new ones is an expensive, difficult enterprise. Choice is usually a matter of accepting, rejecting, or modifying a single solution. Because time constraints force decisions before problems are well structured, errors are frequently made, problem components are at best only partially addressed, and the chosen solution may not solve the problem at all and even if it does is likely to generate unanticipated side-effects that worsen other problem components. In its definitive treatment of a critical but hitherto entirely unresearched dimension of the administration of the U.S. Navy, the book provides full details over time concerning the elaboration of officer grades and titles, creation of promotion by selection, sea duty requirements, graded retirement, staff-line conflicts, the establishment of the Reserve, and such unusual subjects as “tombstone promotions.” In the process, it transcends the specifics of the personnel system to give a broad picture of the Navy’s history over the first century and a half of its development.

The Romans believed that an artist's inspiration came from a spirit, called a genius, that lived in the walls of the artist's home. In her second book, Sierra DeMulder examines her childhood in a small town, heartache, loss, and the possibility of transcending suffering, aided by the voice of her own genius. His character appears throughout the book, providing charming commentary and biting insight on the young author's creative process and emotional path.

DCI Sidney Walsh must dig deeper into the murder case of a hated businessman when the prime suspect has an airtight alibi.

It’s drow god vs. drow god in this thrilling second installment of the Lady Penitent series When drow goddesses Lolth and Eilistraee sit down to a game of sava, they play for control of the dark elves of Faerûn and their own immortality. Unable to resist such high stakes, Kiaransalee—the goddess of the dead and of vengeance—asks to join the fray, turning the game into an even more cutthroat race for power. Though the goddesses' drow pawns will survive the game, the very nature of what it means to be a dark elf may change forever.

From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes an epic tale of unspeakable horror. It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices. As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.

During a writing career lasting nearly seven decades, E. Hoffman Price formed lasting friendships with many of the great and near-great fictioneers, editors and artists of his day -- H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Otis Adelbert Kline, Farnsworth Wright, W.K. Mashburn, Ralph Milne Farley, Seabury Quinn, Hugh Rankin, Robert Spencer Carr, Barsoom Badigian, Harry Olmstead, Albert Richard Wetjen, Norbert W. Davis, Milo Ray Phelps, William S. Bruner, Henry Kuttner, Jack Williamson, August Derleth and Edmond Hamilton. Through long correspondence and many cross country trips, E. Hoffman Price kept diaries of his visits, which from time to time he transformed into essays recalling the grand old days of the fictioneer's precarious way of life. Several essays were previously published in fanzines and as Arkham House book introductions. In 1977, Price rewrote these and added additional essays to fill a book. This is one of the most fascinating and historically important books about the pulp fiction era.

“You have a very lovely little girl,” breathed the voice on the phone. And just like that, Susan Young is drawn into a living nightmare. A stranger has kidnapped Sue’s daughter, Veda. But he doesn’t want her money, only her suffering–and he will kill Veda if Sue doesn’t follow his every command. With detailed instructions, the faceless abductor leads Sue into a blinding snowstorm on the longest night of the year, to a place she has not traveled to since childhood. The voice on the other end of the line somehow knows Sue’s deepest, most chilling secret–an ominous incident from her past, buried long ago... Across the loneliest back roads of Massachusetts, in the black expanse of a New England winter, Sue is forced to confront her most awful fears as she is met at each step by ever increasing horrors created by a monster who is surely something less than human. In the hope of saving her daughter from a kidnapper whose origin seems darker than anything she could ever have imagined, Sue will discover just how much trauma and fright the human body is capable of absorbing. Set over the course of a single night, Chasing the Dead is a fast-paced, ferociously tense supernatural thriller. With the skill of masters like Dean Koontz and David Morrell, Joe Schreiber has created a tableau of shock and horror, death and destruction, that will draw you in and never let you go.

Author of The Girl With All the Gifts Mike Carey presents the third book in his hip supernatural thriller series featuring freelance exorcist Felix Castor. You might think that helping a friend's widow to stop a lawyer from stealing her husband's corpse would be the strangest thing on your To Do list. But life is rarely that simple for Felix Castor. A brutal murder in the heart of London bears all the hallmarks of a long-dead American serial killer, and it takes more good sense than Castor possesses not to get involved. He's also fighting a legal battle over the body -- if not the soul -- of his possessed friend, Rafi, and can't shake the feeling that his three problems might be related. With the help of the succubus Juliet and paranoid zombie data-fence Nicky Heath, Castor just might have a chance of fitting the pieces together before someone drops him down an elevator shaft or rips his throat out. Or not. . .

Marion Wink is esteemed for bringing humor and wit to that most unavoidable of subjects: death. At last, Winik's critically acclaimed, cult favorites, Glen Rock Book of the Dead and Baltimore Book of the Dead, have been carefully combined in their proper chronological order, revealing more clearly than ever before the character hidden throughout these stories: Winik herself. Featuring twelve additional vignettes along with a brand–new introduction, The Big Book of the Dead continues Winik's work as an empathetic, witty chronicler of life.