Leizman, a PhD (in some unnamed field), provides a brief overview and a review of sports literature, then discusses violence in ancient Greek and Roman sports, in early American sports, and in the writings of one or two philosophers; current administrative and legal remedies to violence in American professional sports; his Zen Buddhism/martial arts-based alternative to violent western training models; and several proposals for controlling violence, including limiting consumption of alcohol, reducing noise at games, doing away with mascots, instituting penalties for fighting, and holding professional athletes legally responsible for injuries they inflict. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In September, 2008, Roanoke, Texas, police discovered a house of horrors: poisoned pudding, a bathtub set up for electrocution, a bloody butcher knife, and a hank of chopped-off hair. The worst was yet to come… Days before, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Bailey, her thirteen-year-old brother David, and their friends Paul Henson and Merrilee White had made a gruesome pact: they’d kill their parents, steal their cars and credit cards, and flee to Canada. Paul and Merrilee’s parents thwarted their fates, but Jennifer and David’s mother Susan Bailey wasn’t so lucky. When the devoted mother returned home from work, her two children and their friend Paul took turns stabbing her and slicing her throat. When they were done, they fled in Susan’s car. They made it as far as South Dakota before being arrested. What really led them to make such a despicable pact? The answers would cast a disturbing new light on the way we see the all-American family, our neighbors, our children—and the society that nurtured them. Now an Investigation Discovery TV Special

When recently-orphaned Barnaby Gaunt is sent to stay with his uncle on a beautiful remote island off the coast of Canada, he is all set to have the perfect summer holiday. Except for one small problem: his uncle is trying to kill him. Heir to a ten-million-dollar fortune, Barnaby tries to tell everyone and anyone that his uncle is after his inheritance, but no one will believe him. That is, until he tells the only other child on the island, Chrissie, who concludes that there is only one way to stop his demonic uncle: Barnaby will just have to kill him first. With the unexpected help of One-Ear, the aged cougar who has tormented the island for years, Chrissie and Barnaby hatch a fool-proof plan. Playful, dark and witty, Let's Kill Uncle is a surprising tale of two ordinary children who conspire to execute an extraordinary murder - and get away with it.

On a dismal evening in the previous century, an unnamed writer in Venice, California, answers a furious pounding at his beachfront bungalow door and again admits Constance Rattigan into his life. An aging, once-glamorous Hollywood star, Constance is running in fear from something she dares not acknowledge -- and vanishes as suddenly as she appeared, leaving the narrator two macabre books: twin listings of the Tinseltown dead and soon to be dead, with Constance's name included among them. And so begins an odyssey as dark as it is wondrous, as the writer sets off in a broken-down jalopy with his irascible sidekick Crumley to sift through the ashes of a bygone Hollywood -- a graveyard of ghosts and secrets where each twisted road leads to grim shrines and shattered dreams ... and, all too often, to death.

In the explosive international thriller The Kill Option, the feuding McQueen brothers must band together to prevent the apocalypse of World War III. One brother, Nick, is a journalist who seeks the truth. The other, Barry, is a CIA hit man who leads a double life. The two brothers must come to terms long enough to thwart a Basque hit man who has been hired in Paris to trigger the war to end all wars. The brothers discover that the assassin is merely a pawn in a ruthless power grab by a supranational cabal that wants a certain world leader killed at a summit in Pike National Forest in Colorado and has both brothers in its crosshairs as well.

A friend in greed is a friend indeed. Comedy doesn't pay. Some might claim that's the wrong cliché, but Chuck Ramsey knows the truth of it all too well. That's why he resorts to crime to pay the bills. His latest scheme isn't to pick up odd, questionably legal jobs near his gigs; this time he's found the perfect opportunity, and he's willing to buy a gig to be in the right place at the right time. All he has to do is get a certain wizard to play his part without knowing it. Meanwhile, the colony Chuck chose is a real dump, an old asteroid mine turned barely-viable colony. And there's not much for kids to do there. At least, nothing that ticks all the boxes of safe, legal, and interesting enough to keep their attention. We already knew the Ramsey scheming gene had passed to the next generation, but the oldest isn't the only kid getting ideas outside the law. Live and Let Kill is the ninth mission of Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem. It follows a mismatched duo of itinerant comedian and outlaw wizard as they roam the galaxy trying to eke out a living and stay ahead of the consequences of their actions. Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem looks back at an earlier era in the Black Ocean universe, and returning readers will get to see how some of their favorite characters came to be. Fans of morally gray heroes and slick talking conmen will love this series. Grab your copy before someone else does.