To err is human. To really screw things up takes modern technology. To enjoy reading about the misfortunes of others at the hands of technology...all it takes is this book! In addition to being one of the country's leading technology experts (he's co-authored more than 30 books), Rick Broadhead has had a life-long predilection for stories of the strange-but-true genre. In Dear Valued Customer: You are a Loser, he combines his two abiding passions to present an exhaustive, fascinating, and hysterical collection of technologically enabled blunders, bloopers, and mishaps. Have you heard the story about the bank in Chicago whose computer made overnight multi-millionaires out of hundreds of its account holders? How about the man in California who was informed that he owed 39 trillion dollars in overdue library fines? Or the woman in New York state who claimed she was seeing the names of dead people on her caller-ID box? The Most "F" words in a Disney movie, The Most Embarrassing Open Mike Gaffe by a Politician, The Strangest Discovery by an Airport Metal Detector (a woman discovered she had a surgical retractor in her stomach)..;.these and more than one hundred other bizarre stories will definitely keep readers uproariously enthralled.

Herewith a handful of sample entries to tickle your funny bones... In the 1824 war between Britain and Ashanti (now part of Ghana), the British Redcoats found themselves surrounded by 10,000 fierce Ashanti warriors, and running very low on ammunition. Their commander ordered Charles Brandon, the army’s stores manager, to break open the reserve ammunition he’d ordered. As the Ashanti advanced Brandon began to open the ammunition boxes – only to find he had brought the wrong supplies. They were all full of biscuits. The grandfather of film star Lana Turner owned a half share in a brand new company that had started bottling a fizzy drink. He thought the drink’s name would affect its saleability and wanted to change it – without success. In frustration and as a protest he sold his 50%. It’s a pity really because Coca-Cola became quite popular... Italian Vittoria Luise was out driving during a fierce storm in Naples. A huge gust of wind blew his car into the River Sele. The car began to sink, but the calm motorist managed to break a window and swim to safety. He dragged himself onto the riverbank – and it was here that he was hit by a falling tree and killed. The Times of 19 October 1986 carried the story of Emilio Tarra, a crewmember of the 1986 America’s Cup race, who was driving from Perth towards Adelaide during the Australian leg of the race. En route, his car sideswiped a kangaroo, leaving it sprawled across the road. Tarra got out of his car and, assuming the kangaroo was dead, decided to take a novelty photograph to show his colleagues. Dressing the kangaroo up in his smart team blazer, he propped it against his car to take its photograph. As he was focusing his camera, the kangaroo, which had only been stunned, woke up and bounded back off into the bush, taking with it the jacket, which contained Tarra’s passport, $2,000 worth of cash and his credit cards.

Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are London’s craftiest and bravest detectives—and there’s no better pair to solve the city’s most confounding crimes. In this riveting eBook collection of mystery short stories, available together for the first time, Christopher Fowler takes Bryant and May on a series of twisting adventures and brings readers behind the scenes of his beloved novels. Includes a preview of Christopher Fowler’s new Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery, Bryant & May and the Burning Man! In “Bryant & May in the Field,” a woman is found with her throat slashed in a snowy park, yet the killer managed to escape without leaving any footprints. In “Bryant & May and the Nameless Woman,” a businessman drowns in the pool of a posh club, and the only suspect is a young woman who remains almost too calm during questioning. And in “Bryant & May Ahoy!” the pair go on holiday on a friend’s yacht in Turkey, but Bryant realizes there’s something fishy about their fellow passengers. From London’s grandest mansions to its darkest corners, from the Christmas department of Selfridges to a sinister traveling sideshow, there’s no scene too strange for the Peculiar Crimes Unit and the indefatigable detectives at its helm. Praise for Christopher Fowler’s ingenious novels featuring the Peculiar Crimes Unit “A brilliant series.”—The Denver Post “Fowler, like his crime-solvers, is deadpan, sly, and always unexpectedly inventive.”—Entertainment Weekly “Eclectic, eccentric and endlessly entertaining books.”—The Seattle Times “Fowler’s small but ardent American following deserves to get much larger.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times “A rough mash-up of Law & Order, The X-Files, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus . . . These stories are witty, challenging, engrossing, informative and incredibly well-written.”—Bookreporter “May and Bryant make a stellar team.”—The Wall Street Journal “Fowler reinvents and reinvigorates the traditional police procedural.”—The Boston Globe “Grumpy Old Men does CSI with a twist of Dickens! Bryant and May are hilarious. I love this series.”—#1 New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning