Army cop-turned-small-town-investigator Mick Hardin returns to Appalachia in this propulsive thriller from the award-winning author of The Killing Hills. Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack and flirting with prescription painkillers, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, it seems there’s more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town—and most of all, staying out of the way of his sister’s reelection as Sheriff—but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself. A dark, pacy crime novel about grief and revenge, and the surprises hidden below the surface, Shifty’s Boys is a tour de force that confirms Mick Hardin as one of the most appealing new investigators in fiction. Praise for The Killing Hills “[A] work of rural noir whose characters’ singular codes lead to constant surprises.” —The Wall Street Journal “Dark, but deeply humane. The love in this book is deep and powerful. And winsome twinkles shine through the blackness throughout, thanks in no small part to Offutt’s keen ear and eye.” —The New York Times “Sense of place also steams off the pages . . . Pitch-perfect in its tone and dialogue, if more interested in mood than in the business of plot, this is what Jack Reacher wants to be when it grows up.” —The Times [UK]

A veteran on leave investigates a murder in his Kentucky backwoods hometown in this Appalachian noir by the acclaimed author of Country Dark. Mick Hardin, a combat veteran and Army CID agent, is home on a leave to be with his pregnant wife—but they aren’t getting along. His sister, newly risen to sheriff, has just landed her first murder investigation—but local politicians are pushing for someone else to take the case. Maybe they think she can’t handle it. Or maybe their concerns run deeper. With his experience and knowledge of the area, Mick is well-suited to help his sister investigate while staying under the radar. Now he’s dodging calls from his commanding officer as he delves into the dangerous rivalries lurking beneath the surface of his fiercely private hometown. And he needs to talk to his wife. The Killing Hills is a novel of betrayal within and between the clans that populate the hollers—and the way it so often shades into violence. Chris Offutt has delivered a dark, witty, and absolutely compelling novel of murder and honor, with an investigator-hero unlike any in fiction.

Fifteen-year-old Shifty knows all about moving around and next to nothing about where he came from. When he's assigned to a new foster home and family, he tries hard to keep cool and stay out of trouble. But it seems like the more he tries to do the right thing, the more trouble he finds. As Shifty navigates a series of messy summer adventures, he struggles to find a balance between the street-wise spirit that has helped him survive and his longing for a place to call home. Lynne E. Hazen has created a fast-paced, page-turning plot full of surprises and warmth.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are the world's most useless burglars, and their new master plan for a robbery is going hopelessly wrong! Will their neighbours catch them red-handed? Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are two hapless robber dogs who can never seem to fill their swag bags. They've tried the bank, the bookshop, the bike shop . . . and even a plot to rob their neighbours is foiled! But when they decide on a career change and open up a café they realize that, although crime doesn't pay, cupcakes certainly do! Join the fun in this hilarious rhyming picture book adventure. Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam is a hugely successful, action-packed series about two baker-dogs who used to be robbers, but now solve mysteries and sniff out crimes! Tracey Corderoy is a multi-award-winning author and has written over 70 books for children including collaborations with Rosalind Beardshaw and Sarah Massini. Steven Lenton has created many books with Tracey Corderoy and also illustrates books by David Baddiel, Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Peter Bently. His books have won awards such as the Sainsbury's Children's Book Award and have been selected for the WHSmith Children's Book of the Year and Tom Fletcher Book Club. Every Nosy Crow paperback picture book comes with a free "Stories Aloud" audio recording. Just scan the QR code and listen along! Read all the Shifty and Sam picture book adventures: Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Cat Burglar Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Diamond Chase Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Missing Masterpiece Have you read Shifty and Sam's two-colour early readers? Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Jingle Bells! Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: Up, Up and Away! Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Spooky School Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam: The Aliens Are Coming!

From D-Day to the Battle of the Bulge and more, here is the authorized biography of one of the most celebrated paratroopers of Easy Company, Sergeant Shifty Powers, the legendary sharpshooter from the Band of Brothers. Look for the Band of Brothers miniseries, now available to stream on Netflix! As a boy, Darrell “Shifty” Powers’s goal was to become the best rifle shot he could be. His father trained him to listen to the woods, to “see” without his eyes. Little did Shifty know his finely-tuned skills would one day save his life—and the lives of his fellow paratroopers. As one of the original men who trained at Camp Toccoa, Georgia, Shifty was one out of only two soldiers in Easy Company to initially earn the coveted expert marksman designation. He parachuted into France on D-day and fought for a month in Normandy; eighty days in Holland; thirty-nine in the harshly cold winter of Bastogne; and for nearly thirty more near Haguenau, France, and the Ruhr pocket in Germany. Shifty’s War is a tale of heroism and adventure, of a soldier’s blood-filled days fighting his way fromthe shores of France to the heartland of Germany, and the epic story of how one man’s skills as a sharpshooter and engagingly unassuming personality propelled him to a life greater than he could have ever imagined.

An emotional tale of identity, sexuality and suicide derived from personal experience about three teenage boys who struggle to come to terms with their homosexuality in a small Western Australian town. On the surface, nerd Zeke, punk Charlie and footy wannabe Hammer look like they have nothing in common. But scratch that surface and you'd find three boys in the throes of coming to terms with their homosexuality in a town where it is invisible. Invisible Boys is a raw, confronting YA novel that explores the complexities and trauma of rural gay identity with painful honesty, devastating consequences and, ultimately, hope.

Here’s sensible advice and caring encouragement on raising boys from the nation’s most trusted parenting authority, Dr. James Dobson. With so much confusion about the role of men in our society, it’s no wonder so many parents and teachers are asking questions about how to bring up boys. Why are so many boys in crisis? What qualities should we be trying to instill in young males? Our culture has vilified masculinity and, as a result, an entire generation of boys is growing up without a clear idea of what it means to be a man. In the runaway bestseller Bringing Up Boys, Dr. Dobson draws from his experience as a child psychologist and family counselor, as well as extensive research, to offer advice and encouragement based on a firm foundation of biblical principles.

Grace is fascinated by the wolves in the woods behind her house; one yellow-eyed wolf in particular. Every winter, she watches him, but every summer, he disappears. Sam leads two lives. In winter, he stays in the frozen woods, with the protection of the pack. In summer, he has a few precious months to be human . . . until the cold makes him shift back again. When Grace and Sam finally meet, they realize they can't bear to be apart. But as winter nears, Sam must fight to stay human - or risk losing himself, and Grace, for ever.

“A smart, rich country noir” from the acclaimed author Kentucky Straight and The Good Brother (Stewart O’Nan, bestselling author of Henry, Himself). Chris Offutt is an outstanding literary talent, whose work has been called “lean and brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and compared by reviewers to Tobias Wolff, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver. He’s been awarded the Whiting Writers Award for Fiction/Nonfiction and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, among numerous other honors. His first work of fiction in nearly two decades, Country Dark is a taut, compelling novel set in rural Kentucky from the Korean War to 1970. Tucker, a young veteran, returns from war to work for a bootlegger. He falls in love and starts a family, and while the Tuckers don’t have much, they have the love of their home and each other. But when his family is threatened, Tucker is pushed into violence, which changes everything. The story of people living off the land and by their wits in a backwoods Kentucky world of shine-runners and laborers whose social codes are every bit as nuanced as the British aristocracy, Country Dark is a novel that blends the best of Larry Brown and James M. Cain, with a noose tightening evermore around a man who just wants to protect those he loves. It reintroduces the vital and absolutely distinct voice of Chris Offutt, a voice we’ve been missing for years. “[A] fine homage to a pocket of the country that’s as beautiful as it is prone to tragedy.”—The Wall Street Journal “A pleasure all around.”—Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter’s Bone

Gothic Appalachian Literature examines the ways contemporary Appalachian authors utilize gothic tropes to explore the complex history and contemporary problems of the region, particularly in terms of their representation of economic and environmental concerns. It argues that across Appalachian fiction, the plight of characters to save their homes, land and way of life from the destructive forces of extractive industries brings sharply to bare the histories of colonization and slavery that problematize questions of belonging, ownership and possession. Robertson extensively considers contemporary manifestations of the gothic in Appalachian literature, arguing that gothic tropes abound in fiction that focuses on the impacts of extractive industries that connect this micro-region with other parts of the Global North and Global South where the devastating impacts of extractive industries are also experienced socially, economically and environmentally.