Ocean's 11 . . . with 11-year-olds, in a super stand-alone heist caper from Gordon Korman!After a mean collector named Swindle cons him out of his most valuable baseball card, Griffin Bing must put together a band of misfits to break into Swindle's compound and recapture the card. There are many things standing in their way -- a menacing guard dog, a high-tech security system, a very secret hiding place, and their inability to drive -- but Griffin and his team are going to get back what's rightfully his . . . even if hijinks ensue. This is Gordon Korman at his crowd-pleasing best, perfect for readers who like to hoot, howl, and heist.

Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw – or sometimes even steal the full point! Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in the computer’s best moves, but in playing your opponent – however bad the evaluation! With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. You’ll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the decoy trap, the berserk attack, and ‘window-ledging’. So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and wildly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.

The Book of Swindles, a seventeenth-century story collection, offers a panoramic guide to the art of deception. Ostensibly a manual for self-protection, it presents a tableau of criminal ingenuity in late Ming China. Each story comes with commentary by the author, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle.

Jordan Kelly is delighted to make money tracking down rare and valuable mystery novels for her employer, Vera Van Alst, an avid collector and the most difficult woman in Harrison Falls, New York. But now her boss’s complete set of Dorothy Sayers is missing, and finding them may lead Jordan to a murder suitable for Sayers’s esteemed sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey… When Jordan manages to locate her boss’s missing books, they are in the possession of Randolph Adams, an elderly man in a nearby town. Offering a valuable Hemingway first edition as an incentive, Jordan thinks she’s about to seal the deal—but some of Randolph’s relatives think he should hold out for more. Then the entire family disappears—and a dead body shows up. It’s up to Jordan to collect the clues—and make sure a killer gets booked.

The heroes of SWINDLE, ZOOBREAK, and FRAMED are back - and this time, things have gone to the dogs! When Luthor goes berserk at a mall dog show, he's accused of ruining the career of the three-time best-in-show beagle. Griffin always knew that Luthor's viciousness was simmering just below the surface - so why does he feel bad enough to spring him from the pound?Griffin and his team have a new plan. This one involves New York City, a sinister saboteur, a reclusive dog-trainer who's quit the business, an international dog show, and a whole lot of red dye. But if they pull it off, no one will even notice their sting operation...right?

The sequel to Gordon Korman's SWINDLE---the Man With A Plan is back! When Griffin Bing's class goes to a floating zoo, they don't expect to see animals being treated so badly. They don't expect to find Cleo, Dog Whisperer Savannah's pet monkey who's been missing for weeks. And they really don't expect to have to hide the animals once they've rescued them! Hilarity ensues as Griffin's team once more pulls off a heist . . . trying to break the animals back into a (better) zoo!

The hilarious third SWINDLE book - now in paperback!Griffin Bing's new principal doesn't like him. And Griffin doesn't like the boot camp football atmosphere the new principal has brought. Griffin manages to stay out of trouble -- until a Super Bowl ring disappears from the school's display case, with Griffin's retainer left in its place. Griffin has been framed! Unfortunately, the Man doesn't have a Plan - and everything his team tries to find out who really took the ring backfires. Griffin ends up in an alternate school, then under house arrest, and finally with an electronic anklet - with no way to prove his innocence! Griffin smells a rat - but will he be able to solve the mystery in time?

Santa's Workshop Holiday Spectacular at the Colchester mansion is a long standing tradition in Cedarville, however Griffin and his friends are not happy to find that they have been volunteered as elves by their friend Logan and can not get out of it--but this year the pageant seem plagued by frequent electrical outages, and during one of them the valuable antique known as the Star of Prague disappears from the giant Christmas tree, and as they are the chief suspects, the friends set out to find who took it.

A Book Sense Pick and Annual Highlight With a New Afterword In less than two decades, large retail chains have become the most powerful corporations in America. In this deft and revealing book, Stacy Mitchell illustrates how mega-retailers are fueling many of our most pressing problems, from the shrinking middle class to rising pollution and diminished civic engagement—and she shows how a growing number of communities and independent businesses are effectively fighting back. Mitchell traces the dramatic growth of mega-retailers—from big boxes like Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Costco, and Staples to chains like Starbucks, Olive Garden, Blockbuster, and Old Navy—and the precipitous decline of independent businesses. Drawing on examples from virtually every state in the country, she unearths the extraordinary impact of these companies and the big-box mentality on everything from soaring gasoline consumption to rising poverty rates, failing family farms, and declining voting levels. Along the way, Mitchell exposes the shocking role government policy has played in the expansion of mega-retailers and builds a compelling case that communities composed of many small, locally owned businesses are healthier and more prosperous than those dominated by a few large chains. More than a critique, Big-Box Swindle provides an invigorating account of how some communities have successfully countered the spread of big boxes and rebuilt their local economies. Since 2000, more than two hundred big-box development projects have been halted by groups of ordinary citizens, and scores of towns and cities have adopted laws that favor small-scale, local business development and limit the proliferation of chains. From cutting-edge land-use policies to innovative cooperative small-business initiatives, Mitchell offers communities concrete strategies that can stave off mega-retailers and create a more prosperous and sustainable future.

Russell Cobb’s The Great Oklahoma Swindle is a rousing and incisive examination of the regional culture and history of “Flyover Country” that demystifies the political conditions of the American Heartland.