When Peter Mills descends into the creepy basement of Finley Junior High, he discovers a dark and twisted truth: girls haven't always ruled the world. Now armed with a book of ancient, forbidden man secrets (such as how to make paper airplanes, stink bombs, and beef jerky), Peter and his friends think they've found the recipe to changing their lives. But the boys of the Beef Jerky Gang will soon find out that the girls aren't about to give up control to a bunch of prank-pulling punks. Join Peter and his friends in this hilarious first book of the Beef Jerky Gang series.

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys • “Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world.” —The Boston Globe In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist Colson Whitehead $10,000 to play at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. It was the assignment of a lifetime, except for one hitch—he’d never played in a casino tournament before. With just six weeks to train, our humble narrator took the Greyhound to Atlantic City to learn the ways of high-stakes Texas Hold’em. Poker culture, he discovered, is marked by joy, heartbreak, and grizzled veterans playing against teenage hotshots weaned on Internet gambling. Not to mention the not-to-be overlooked issue of coordinating Port Authority bus schedules with your kid’s drop-off and pickup at school. Finally arriving in Vegas for the multimillion-dollar tournament, Whitehead brilliantly details his progress, both literal and existential, through the event’s antes and turns, through its gritty moments of calculation, hope, and spectacle. Entertaining, ironic, and strangely profound, this epic search for meaning at the World Series of Poker is a sure bet. Look for Colson Whitehead’s bestselling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!

Liar & Spy meets The Parker Inheritance in this whimsically complex story about human connection and the power we all have to determine our own fate. Is there anything more random than middle school? Sixth graders Oliver and Frankie don't think so. Their first few weeks have been full of weirdness -- lunchtime thievery, free beef jerky, and Matilda, the mysterious new girl who knows everything about them, but has a lot to learn about making friends.But what if none of it is random at all? What if a reclusive genius is keeping an eye on them and making sure the tiny pieces of his puzzle fall into place, one by one, until strange, seemingly unconnected incidents snowball totally out of control? Imagine the odds! First a cardamom shortage takes down the school bully. Then a giant dog leads to some extracurricular spying. Soon Oliver is being followed and Matilda is hacking the FBI. And by the time they discover a gang of angry clowns and the world's largest game of Mousetrap, an insanely brilliant plan has been set in motion that will change their lives forever.Connect the Dots is an intricately plotted story about the power of human connection and a chain of "coincidences" so serendipitous they must be destiny at work.

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up Like Mission Impossible... but with Fractions! Do your kids love math? Hate math? Always ask you: "When am I ever going to use math?"THE MATH INSPECTORS HAVE AN ANSWER!The series people are calling:Like Sherlock Holmes... but with calculatorsLike NCIS...but with milkshakes.Like Jurassic Park...but without the dinosaurs.Wait, what?Each book in this insanely popular mystery & detective series is designed to draw readers aged 9-12 into a mystery so intriguing, with characters so smart and funny, that they forget they're doing math.Because the Math Inspectors know two things. First, math is the greatest thing in the world. Second, crime solving is nothing more than a word problem. And they eat word problems for breakfast! Buy The Math Inspectors 1: The Case of the Claymore Diamond now! Bonus: Funny word problems at the end of the book for kids who want to sharpen their own Math skills.~PRAISE FOR THE MATH INSPECTORS:-"I thought this was going to be a sneaky way for me to get them to get some "math" worked into their reading. Turns out, I didn't have to be sneaky at all. My 9 and 10 year old both loved these books." Amazon Customer- "It made sense to my daughter and helped put the math she does on worksheets into perspective and gave her a real world use for math." Amazon Customer~CRITICISM FOR THE MATH INSPECTORS:- "People who like math as much as the Math Inspectors do need to find another hobby. Like English, for example." Polly Partridge, leader of the Ravensburg English Club and avowed enemy of the Math Inspectors.- "Do you have any idea how much trouble the four of you are in?" Officer Bobby Evans, Ravensburg Police Department. MATH INSPECTORS BOOKS -Book One: The Case of the Claymore Diamond-Book Two: The Case of the Mysterious Mr. Jekyll-Book Three: The Case of the Christmas Caper-Book Four: The Case of the Hamilton Roller Coaster-Book Five: The Case of the Forgotten Mine Coming Spring 2018 MATH INSPECTORS WORK BOOKS - Like A Math Workbook Only Fun! Grade 3 Coming August 2018- Like A Math Workbook Only Fun! Grade 4 Coming March 2019- Like A Math Workbook Only Fun! Grade 5 Coming November 2019BUY MATH INSPECTORS 1 TODAY!

The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.

“Fast-paced and unrelentingly violent . . . readers looking for a strange and savage tale can’t go wrong” with this western from an Edgar Award–winning author (Publishers Weekly). From the New York Times–bestselling author of Hell at the Breech and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, a historical thriller in turns hilarious, bawdy and terrifying. It’s 1911 and the townsfolk of Old Texas, Alabama, have had enough. Every Saturday night for a year, E. O. Smonk has been destroying property, killing livestock, seducing women, cheating and beating men, all from behind the twin barrels of his Winchester 45-70 caliber over-and-under rifle. Syphilitic, consumptive, gouty, and goitered—an expert with explosives and knives—Smonk hates horses, goats, and the Irish, and it’s high time he was stopped. But capturing old Smonk won’t be easy—and putting him on trial could have shocking and disastrous consequences, considering the terrible secret the citizens of Old Texas are hiding. Praise for Tom Franklin: “I’m reminded, by the evocative strength of the prose and the relentlessness of the imagination, of William Faulkner.” —Philip Roth “It’s as if the author kidnapped Raymond Carver’s characters and set them loose in the Deep South.” —The New York Times Book Review

Based on his first-hand experiences and observations of how the Department of Homeland Security is failing to make America safe, Ervin shows the real threats we face--from nuclear attack to homegrown terrorism. Pushed out by the White House for refusing to sugarcoat its failures, Ervin candidly discusses the circumstances of his departure. He takes the reader inside the decision-making councils of this newest department of the U.S. government, and shows how his team's prescriptions for urgent change were ignored--leaving the US vulnerable to another terrorist attack.

In this hotly anticipated follow-up to the smash hit IQ, a New York Times Critics' Best of the Year and winner of the Anthony, Macavity, and Shamus Awards, Isaiah uncovers a secret behind the death of his brother, Marcus. For ten years, something has gnawed at Isaiah Quintabe's gut and kept him up nights, boiling with anger and thoughts of revenge. Ten years ago, when Isaiah was just a boy, his brother was killed by an unknown assailant. The search for the killer sent Isaiah plunging into despair and nearly destroyed his life. Even with a flourishing career, a new dog, and near-iconic status as a PI in his hometown, East Long Beach, he has to begin the hunt again-or lose his mind. A case takes him and his volatile, dubious sidekick, Dodson, to Vegas, where Chinese gangsters and a terrifying seven-foot loan shark are stalking a DJ and her screwball boyfriend. If Isaiah doesn't find the two first, they'll be murdered. Awaiting the outcome is the love of IQ's life: fail, and he'll lose her. Isaiah's quest is fraught with treachery, menace, and startling twists, and it will lead him to the mastermind behind his brother's death, Isaiah's own sinister Moriarty. With even more action, suspense, and mind-bending mysteries than Isaiah's first adventures, Righteous is a rollicking, ingenious thrill ride.

Six months after his mom's death, a still broken-hearted Curial Diggs discovers that his mom has left him a challenge. She wants him to find The Romanov Dolls, a fantastic treasure stolen from the Manhattan Art Collective when she was only a child. Despite having an overbearing famous father - who has already mapped out his son's future - Curial follows his heart and his mother's clues to Russia where he teams up with the granddaughter of a Russian History Professor to unravel the mystery behind the priceless treasure. Teenage Treasure Hunter is the first book in this exciting new treasure hunting series. Full of history, humor, and danger, these books are perfect for readers ages 10-14 (4th through 8tjh grades). Daniel Kenney is also the author of The Beef Jerky Gang, Katie Plumb & The Pendleton Gang, The Math Inspectors, and other awesome books for young readers. Find out more at www.DanielKenney.com

Hugo and Shirley Jackson award-winning Peter Watts stands on the cutting edge of hard SF with his acclaimed novel, Blindsight Two months since the stars fell... Two months of silence, while a world held its breath. Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune's orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever's out there isn't talking to us. It's talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route. So who do you send to force introductions with unknown and unknowable alien intellect that doesn't wish to be met? You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees x-rays and tastes ultrasound. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won't be needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called vampire, recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist—an informational topologist with half his mind gone—as an interface between here and there. Pray they can be trusted with the fate of a world. They may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.