In this enthralling new novel in the bestselling Kyle Swanson sniper series, an American warrior is called to redeem a debt of honor in Somalia amid haunting personal nightmares. Top-ranked sniper Kyle Swanson was a promising young Marine on a dangerous peace-keeping mission in Mogadishu when he first captured "the Cobra" and a life-long blood feud began. Twenty years later, Kyle works for the CIA while the Cobra emerges from prison to become an efficient killing machine, and has never slackened his hatred for Swanson. To draw out his ultimate target, the Cobra launches a violent campaign against the United States and attacks the second-largest shopping mall in America. Kyles teams with FBI agent Lucky Sharif, whom Swanson had saved as a child in Somalia, and they must fight through terrorists at home and abroad to stop his old enemy. The Cobra retreats to Somalia, where he is set to become a powerful warlord and leader of the bloody al Shabaab terror gang. To block him, Swanson must return to the daunting streets of Mogadishu-where he must face his personal nightmares, as well as the Cobra, who lies in wait.

"[Top-ranked sniper Kyle] Swanson is sent on a mission to track down two targets--one is the Cobra, the warlord who spent twenty years in prison after Swanson captured him and is now back in charge of the strong Somali underworld, vowing vengeance on the Marine; the other is the grandson of the schoolteacher who once saved his life, who has joined the Cobra's army of terror"--

The Cobra Event is set in motion one spring morning in New York City, when a seventeen-year-old student wakes up feeling vaguely ill. Hours later she is having violent seizures, blood is pouring out of her nose, and she has begun a hideous process of self-cannibalization. Soon, other gruesome deaths of a similar nature have been discovered, and the Centers for Disease Control sends a forensic pathologist to investigate. What she finds precipitates a federal crisis. The details of this story are fictional, but they are based on a scrupulously thorough inquiry into the history of biological weapons and their use by civilian and military terrorists. Richard Preston's sources include members of the FBI and the United States military, public health officials, intelligence officers in foreign governments, and scientists who have been involved in the testing of strategic bioweapons. The accounts of what they have seen and what they expect to happen are chilling. The Cobra Event is a dramatic, heart-stopping account of a very real threat, told with the skill and authority that made Preston's The Hot Zone an internationally acclaimed bestseller.

Deveraux used to run Special Ops for the CIA, before they retired him for being too ruthless. Now the President has asked the man they call the Cobra to do anything he requires to destroy the cocaine industry. No rules, no questions asked. Just do it ...

Mohit K. Ray, b.1940, former Professor of English, Burdwan University; contributed articles.

A love letter to a time before Instagram and the legendary party scenes of the 2000s that brought together the new millennium’s rising stars of pop culture. Under the moniker the Cobrasnake, the photographer Mark Hunter captured the party scenes of Los Angeles and New York during the hipster-glam heyday of the 2000s—and in doing so defined the look of a generation. Armed with just a Polaroid and a primitive website, Cobrasnake captured pioneers of youth culture from Kanye West and Steve Aoki to Jeremy Scott, Katy Perry, and Virgil Abloh—icons of the indie pop world in the making. Intimately connected with the people around him and keyed-in to the edgier fringes of the fashion, music, and art worlds, Hunter photographed influencers before they were influencers, in the wild and at play from the streets of LA to NYC and beyond. Collected here for the first time are more than three hundred of Cobrasnake’s favorite images alongside ephemera, from concert tickets and backstage passes to outtakes and unseen photographs from his many adventures. These photographs are records of the last generation of partiers to predate the livestreaming of culture afforded by today’s social media—capturing the energy and vibrancy of a time before Instagram.

It was supposed to be a quiet night. It was anything but. Riel Dunbar grew up and, for many years, sailed out of the little moon of Isvalar – the interstellar port of Aeroday. But the restless life of a starfarer eventually carried him away for decades. Chance had now brought him home again with a promised long leave ashore. But, it turned out, that was not to be. Instead, he ended up with only a few free hours to spend on Isvalar. His plan was simple. He’d dine at an old haunt of his youth, and then, after a brief nap, he’d visit the starfarer dives of Isvalar for a real spree before sailing. But Riel hadn’t counted on crossing orbits with Cera Marm, the power mate of a rival ship. Somehow he found himself entangled in her plans – plans that included not paying a gambling debt to a very persistent bookie and his collectors. Riel’s night on Isvalar turned into a hectic series of chases and escapes across the little moon, encountering neuro-blade wielding thugs, a snake obsessed shadow-rat gang, a sentient machine enforcer, and the bookie himself. It didn’t end well. A Night on Isvalar is a 26,200 word novella.

Finalist for the 2021 CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year "For that period of time, he was the greatest player of my generation."--Keith Hernandez Dave Parker was one of the biggest and most badass baseball players of the late twentieth century. He stood at six foot five and weighed 235 pounds. He was a seven-time All-Star, a two-time batting champion, a frequent Gold Glove winner, the 1978 National League MVP, and a World Series champion with both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland A's. Here the great Dave Parker delivers his wild and long-awaited autobiography--an authoritative account of Black baseball during its heyday as seen through the eyes of none other than the Cobra. From his earliest professional days learning the game from such baseball legends as Pie Traynor and Roberto Clemente to his later years mentoring younger talents like Eric Davis and Barry Larkin, Cobra is the story of a Black athlete making his way through the game during a time of major social and cultural transformation. From the racially integrated playing fields of his high school days to the cookie-cutter cathedrals of his prime alongside all the midseason and late-night theatrics that accompany an athlete's life on the road-Parker offers readers a glimpse of all that and everything in between. Everything. Parker recounts the triumphant victories and the heart-breaking defeats, both on and off the field. He shares the lessons and experiences of reaching the absolute pinnacle of professional athletics, the celebrations with his sports siblings who also got a taste of the thrills, as well as his beloved baseball brothers whom the game left behind. Parker recalls the complicated politics of spring training, recounts the early stages of the free agency era, revisits the notorious 1985 drug trials, and pays tribute to the enduring power of relationships between players at the deepest and highest levels of the sport. With comments at the start of each chapter by other baseball legends such as Pete Rose, Dave Winfield, Willie Randolph, and many more, Parker tells an epic tale of friendship, success, indulgence, and redemption, but most of all, family. Cobra is the unforgettable story of a million-dollar athlete just before baseball became a billion-dollar game.