Action. Comedy. Romance. And that one weird guy. When homicide detective Dexter J. Daley's testimony helps send his partner away for murder, the consequences - and the media frenzy - aren't far behind. He soon finds himself sans boyfriend, sans friends, and, after an unpleasant encounter in a parking garage after the trial, he's lucky he doesn't find himself sans teeth. Dex fears he'll get transferred from the Human Police Force's Sixth Precinct, or worse, get dismissed. Instead, his adoptive father - a sergeant at the Therian-Human Intelligence Recon Defense Squadron otherwise known as the THIRDS - pulls a few strings, and Dex gets recruited as a Defense Agent. Dex is determined to get his life back on track and eager to get started in his new job. But his first meeting with Team Leader Sloane Brodie, who also happens to be his new jaguar Therian partner, turns disastrous. When the team is called to investigate the murders of three HumaniTherian activists, it soon becomes clear to Dex that getting his partner and the rest of the tightknit team to accept him will be a lot harder than catching the killer - and every bit as dangerous.

What Hurricane Katrina reveals about the fault lines of race and poverty in America-and what lessons we must take from the flood-from best-selling ''hip-hop intellectual'' Michael Eric Dyson Does George W. Bush care about black people? Does the rest of America? When Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, hundreds of thousands were left behind to suffer the ravages of destruction, disease, and even death. The majority of these people were black; nearly all were poor. The federal government's slow response to local appeals for help is by now notorious. Yet despite the cries of outrage that have mounted since the levees broke, we have failed to confront the disaster's true lesson; to be poor, or black, in today's ownership society, is to be left behind. Displaying the intellectual rigor, political passion, and personal empathy that have won him fans across the color line, Michael Eric Dyson offers a searing assessment of the meaning of Hurricane Katrina. Combining interviews with survivors of the disaster with his deep knowledge of black migrations and government policy over decades, Dyson provides the historical context that has been sorely missing from public conversation. He explores the legacy of black suffering in America since slavery, including the shocking ways that black people are framed in the national consciousness even today. With this call-to-action, Dyson warns us that we can only find redemption as a society if we acknowledge that Katrina was more than an engineering or emergency response failure. From the TV newsroom to the Capitol Building to the backyard, we must change the ways we relate to the black and the poor among us. What's at stake is no less than the future of democracy.

Nola Cespedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, finally catches a break: an assignment to write her first full-length feature. While investigating her story, she also becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in the French Quarter. As Nola's work leads her into a violent criminal underworld, she's forced to face disturbing truths from her own past and is confronted with the question: In the aftermath of devastation, who is responsible for rebuilding what's been broken? Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this haunting thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed--and the courageous struggle to rebuild. Fast-paced, atmospheric, and with a knockout twist, Hell or High Water features an unforgettable heroine as fascinating and multilayered as New Orleans itself.

The genesis and aftermath of the print edition's death knell. In May 2012, the New York Times broke a story that the internationally acclaimed, locally beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning New Orleans Times-Picayune would become a three-day-a-week publication. The profitable newspaper slashed its veteran newsroom, antagonized the city, state, and nation, and jeopardized its vaunted reputation-all in an effort to create a new blueprint for American newspapers in the increasingly digital world. Here is the insider's account of the outrage, betrayal, and aftermath of the death of the daily edition of the Times-Picayune.

Global warming is the story of the twenty-first century. It is the most serious issue facing the future of humankind, but American energy and environmental policy is driving the whole world down a path toward global catastrophe. According to Joseph Romm, we have ten years, at most, to start making sharp cuts to our greenhouse gas emissions, or we will face disastrous consequences. The good news, he writes, is that there is something we can do—but only if the leadership of the U.S. government acts immediately and asserts its influence on the rest of the world. Hell and High Water is nothing less than a wake-up call to the country. It is a searing critique of American environmental and energy policy, and a passionate call to action by a writer with a unique command of the science and politics of climate change.

Mystery turns to mortal danger as one young man’s quest to clear his father’s name ensnares him in a net of deceit, conspiracy, and intrigue in 1750s England. Caleb has spent his life roaming southern England with his Pa, little to their names but his father’s signet ring and a puppet theater for popular, raunchy Punch and Judy shows — until the day Pa is convicted of a theft he didn’t commit and sentenced to transportation to the colonies in America. From prison, Caleb’s father sends him to the coast to find an aunt Caleb never knew he had. His aunt welcomes him into her home, but her neighbors see only Caleb’s dark skin. Still, Caleb slowly falls into a strange rhythm in his new life . . . until one morning he finds a body washed up on the shore. The face is unrecognizable after its time at sea, but the signet ring is unmistakable: it can only be Caleb’s father. Mystery piles on mystery as both church and state deny what Caleb knows. From award-winning British author Tanya Landman comes a heart-stopping story of race, class, family, and corruption so deep it can kill.

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Things get a little devilish in the sixth Broken Heart novel from New York Times bestselling author Michele Bardsley. Everybody makes mistakes—my first one was named Connor, a heart-stealing Scottish hottie. I thought our night together was the beautiful beginning to a love story, which turned out to be my second mistake. I, Phoebe Allen, lifelong Broken Heart resident and vampire, am now mated to a half-demon. Thankfully Phoebe's four-year-old son Danny is safely away at Disneyworld with his human father. Because Phoebe's right in the middle of major paranormal drama, helping Connor and his rag-tag group of friends retrieve part of an ancient talisman in order to ward off Connor's vicious stepmother, an uber-demon named Lilith. Phoebe swears she isn't falling for any of Connor's demon charm. But still, he's willing to do anything to protect her and prevent demons from storming into Broken Heart. And her undead heart can't resist a bad boy with identity issues...

To Hell and High Water tells the story of the quest of two brothers to conquer the extreme conditions of outback Australia, recreating the Bourke to Hungerford `tramp' that influenced some of Australian literary legend Henry Lawson's greatest works. The book is part autobiography and part biography. It is an autobiography of the author's experiences with his brother overcoming significant obstacles to achieve his dream of walking in Lawson's footsteps. It paints a vivid picture of some of Australia's most remote country, the challenges and dangers, the heat, the distance, mosquitoes, blisters and thirst. At the same time it blends in the biography of Henry Lawson's captivating life including his marriage, struggles with alcoholism, his suicide attempt, influences upon his writing and his ideals of mateship. Extracts of Lawson's own writing have been carefully selected and woven into the narrative in a manner that draws parallels between the two experiences and offers fresh insights into his life.

The great adventure tales of man against nature have already been told the race to the South Pole; the first ascent of Everest; Shackleton's escape from Antarctica. Each continent has yielded up its treasure, and there are few such epic challenges left. But deep in the Tsangpo Gorge a team of extreme kayakers found their Everest. The Tsangpo Gorge cuts through the eastern end of the Himalayas to form the deepest, most remote river canyon on earth. Three times deeper than the Grand Canyon, hemmed in by 7500 metre plus peaks, and sacred to Tibetan Buddhists, the Tsangpo is revered as the last remaining extreme adventure challenge. An attempt in 1998 failed, ending in the death of one of the team. In 2002, despite the dangers, seven of the world's top expeditionary kayakers, including New Zealander Mike Abbott, paddled against the furious currents of Tibet's Tsangpo River and into the throat of the gorge. Led by filmmaker Scott Lindgren, the kayakers launched a grand, 19th century-style river expedition on a scale not seen since Lewis and Clark. Supported by an international team of eighty including Nepali sherpas, a Buddhist lama, a great Tibetan explorer, and author and adventurer Peter Heller they were prepared to go fifty days through the Himalayan winter without re-supply. It would become a thirty-seven day epic taking the paddlers through the most dangerous sustained white water ever and into the heart of the mythical Shangri-la, an isolated world of dense forests, ancient prayer caves and golden panthers. Along the way they were forced to traverse a terrifyingly steep mountain pass of snow and ice, kayaks slung across their backs; negotiate with corrupt officials; stare down violent, mutinous porters; and confront their own inner demons and fears. Hell or High Water takes you on a heart-stopping, awe-inspiring journey into a near-inaccessible world of death-defying white water and international river cowboys. A place so remote, so veiled in mystery and steeped with religious significance that one of its earliest explorers called it the very end of the earth'.