The authors challenge widespread beliefs that business accounting practices are neutral and involve the mere reporting of objective data, revealing how easily balance sheets can be manipulated.

In this deceptively simple little book, Ms. England has made accessible for both professionals and the general public the theory linking neurochemical science to the behaviors and relational patterns observed in persons with addictions and those who love them. As a professional working with families ravaged by addiction, and as a member of Al-Anon seeking to grow and be a good steward of the life experiences that are mine, I am challenged by this book to seek ways to apply its techniques with clients and my own life...Ms. England's book reminds me in the particularly memorable way of any good story...that there is both danger and delight in this activity of living.

Stage magician Terry Ward must use his skills to survive in a world where magic rules.

A con artist and seductress, Meredith Spooner lived fast—and died young. But her final scam—embezzling more than a million dollars from a college endowment fund—is coming back to haunt Leonora Hutton. The tainted money is stashed away in an offshore account for Leonora. And while she wants nothing to do with the cash, she discovers two other items in the safe-deposit box: a book about Mirror House—the place where Meredith engineered her final deception and a set of newspaper stories about an unsolved murder that occurred there thirty years ago. Now Leonora has an offer for Thomas Walker, another victim of Meredith’s scams and seductions. She’ll hand over the money—if he helps her figure out what’s going on. Meredith had described Thomas as “a man you can trust.” But in a funhouse-mirror world of illusion and distortion, Leonora may be out of her league…

“Rewarding.” —BCCB (starred review) “A Wrinkle in Time–inspired adventure…Halbrook’s writing is artful.” —Kirkus Reviews “This is a story to savor.” —Kathi Appelt, National Book Award finalist and Newbery Honor–winning author of The Underneath and Keeper “Adventure and magic unfold in this captivating story.” —School Library Connection “A fairy-tale atmosphere wafts through Halbrook’s story of magic, love, belonging, and circus...Enchanting.” —Booklist Circus Mirandus meets Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms in this beautifully written fantasy novel about a girl who must face her fears in order to right a terrible wrong, confront what it means to be different, and discover her own power. Smoke has come to the Cirque Magnifique. And Sasha Brown is sure it is her fault. Sasha has always loved the Cirque, a place filled with sequined costumes, dazzling spotlights, and magnificent tents. But when she starts fifth grade with the Islanders—the ordinary folk from the other side of the Island—for the first time, she’s not so sure she wants to be a Cirque kid. She starts to question her home and her Cirque family. Is the magic real? Are the stories even true? As the bullying by the Island kids gets worse, swirling blue-gray Smoke appears. One night in the big tent, Sasha’s dad performs, twisting his body through the air as the lights dance. Sasha is supposed to be helping, but instead she sits beneath the bleachers, seething. She has wished for the Smoke to come and make it all disappear: the Cirque, her family, the Island with its mean Island kids. And the Smoke does come. As Sasha watches her dad, he flips and raises his arms out for the bar that is supposed to meet him, his bright grin confident and sure. But there is only air…and Smoke. Both of Sasha’s parents disappear that night, and it’s all Sasha’s fault. What can she do but try and find them?

An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars.... A sexual predator hides behind multiple fake identities, eluding police for years while his past victims live in fear that he will hunt them down.... A modest preacher's wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument -- but there's more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a page-turning collection you won't be able to put down. Included in this volume are stories of a victim burned beyond recognition - spontaneous human combustion? - impossible - and yet no one else seemed to enter or exit; a man who was a woman who was a man, whose con games in a small community led to murder; a "counterfeit priest" who wasn't a priest at all; a lifetime rapist; and the strangest case ever to hit Montana.

Phineas T. Barnum’s sister must solve a murder in 19th-century New York City in this historical mystery from the author of the Pepper Martin mysteries. Evie Barnum oversees her brother’s American Museum, a place teeming with scientific specimens and “human prodigies” including a bearded woman and the lizard man. In this weird and whacky workplace, Evie hopes she can easily bury her secrets. But when an old friend shows up and begs for her help, she does all she can to stay away. The next time she sees him, he is dead in front of the exhibit of the Feejee Mermaid. Suspicion for the murder falls on Jeffrey, known as the Lizard Man, but Evie knows it isn’t possible. After Jeffrey disappears, Evie becomes determined to solve the mystery of her friend’s murder, even if it brings her face to face with a past she is desperate to hide… “[An] appealing heroine…. Amusing and eye-opening historical details complement a mystery that’s appropriately melodramatic.”—Publishers Weekly

Migration between Mexico and the United States is part of a historical process of increasing North American integration. This process acquired new momentum with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which lowered barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and information. But rather than include labor in this new regime, the United States continues to resist the integration of the labor markets of the two countries. Instead of easing restrictions on Mexican labor, the United States has militarized its border and adopted restrictive new policies of immigrant disenfranchisement. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors examines the devastating impact of these immigration policies on the social and economic fabric of the Mexico and the United States, and calls for a sweeping reform of the current system. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors shows how U.S. immigration policies enacted between 1986–1996—largely for symbolic domestic political purposes—harm the interests of Mexico, the United States, and the people who migrate between them. The costs have been high. The book documents how the massive expansion of border enforcement has wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, yet has not deterred increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants from heading north. The authors also show how the new policies unleashed a host of unintended consequences: a shift away from seasonal, circular migration toward permanent settlement; the creation of a black market for Mexican labor; the transformation of Mexican immigration from a regional phenomenon into a broad social movement touching every region of the country; and even the lowering of wages for legal U.S. residents. What had been a relatively open and benign labor process before 1986 was transformed into an exploitative underground system of labor coercion, one that lowered wages and working conditions of undocumented migrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens alike. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors offers specific proposals for repairing the damage. Rather than denying the reality of labor migration, the authors recommend regularizing it and working to manage it so as to promote economic development in Mexico, minimize costs and disruptions for the United States, and maximize benefits for all concerned. This book provides an essential "user's manual" for readers seeking a historical, theoretical, and substantive understanding of how U.S. policy on Mexican immigration evolved to its current dysfunctional state, as well as how it might be fixed.

Carol and Johnny Garza are 12-year-old twins whose lives in a small Texas town are forever changed by their mother's unexplained disappearance. Shipped off to relatives in Mexico by their grieving father, the twins soon learn that their mother is a nagual, a shapeshifter, and that they have inherited her powers. In order to rescue her, they will have to descend into the Aztec underworld and face the dangers that await them. American Library Association, 2016 Pura Belpre Author Honor winning novel.

The astonishing and impressive first collection of short stories from New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat in a second-hand store . . . A stray cat fights and refights a nightly battle to protect his adoptive family from an unimagiable evil . . . A young couple receives a wedding gift that will reveal a chilling alternate history of their marriage . . . Beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks, a frightened little boy bargains for his life with a most persistent troll . . . Such miraculous inventions and more await within Neil Gaiman’s first collection of short fiction, a gift of wonder and delight from one of the most unique literary artists of our day. In his capable hands, magic is no mere illusion, but a powerful means to reveal the nature of our humanity obscured in the smoke of our fears and anxieties . . . and reflected in the funhouse mirrors of our dreams.