Audisee® eBooks with Audio combine professional narration and sentence highlighting for an engaging read aloud experience! A friend has vanished, a mummy's amulet is missing, and there's a weirdo out there looking for human brains and hearts. The Chicagoland Detective Agency—run by Megan, Raf, and his talking dog Bradley—have more than enough cases on their hands (and paws). But where to start? Megan's too busy for private-detecting. Her haikus won her tickets to meet the drop-dead gorgeous rock star Sun D'Arc. Raf is sure that Sun is too good not to be really bad. He must be involved in one of their cases. And what about Sun's suspiciously familiar manager? Or the pushy new girl at school? Can Bradley, dog genius, pull his team together and sniff out what suspect goes with which case?

The fragrant Miss Wonderley hires Sam Spade, a private detective, to track down her sister, who has eloped with an immoral man called Floyd Thursby. But trouble finds Spade when his partner Miles Archer gets shot while on Thursby's trail. "The Maltese Falcon" is a classic mystery novel that shaped how writers told detective stories.

Wind bands are common around the world, and the small Mediterranean island of Malta is no exception. Their abundance in Malta testifies to the popularity of the wind band tradition among the locals. It is central to everyday life, particularly during the village feast, which is synonymous with Maltese bands. These ensembles are not made up merely of performers and musical instruments but encapsulate a rich and intricate tradition embedded in the local community. This book describes the history and development of Maltese wind bands, social and political values, the Maltese march, entertainment, and the recording industry. Chapters demonstrate how local communality, partisan political division and rivalry, foreign influences, continuation of past practices as well as the introduction of new ones, and other interests have coalesced to shape the contemporary Maltese wind band tradition.

Part thinking-man's fan crush, part crazily inspired remix of the most beloved of film genres, this book will force scholars and film lovers alike to view film noir afresh

The pulse-pounding new thriller featuring Cotton Malone. Perfect for fans of Dan Brown, Sam Bourne and Scott Mariani. The pope is dead. Cardinals are beginning to arrive at the Vatican to select his replacement, but one has fled for Malta in search of a document that dates back to the 4th century and Constantine the Great. Former Justice Department operative Cotton Malone is in Italy, on the trail of legendary letters between Winston Churchill and Benito Mussolini that could re-write history. But someone else is after the same letters and, when Malone obtains and then loses them, he's plunged into a hunt that draws the attention of the legendary Knights of Malta. The knights are the only warrior-monks to survive into modern times. Now they are a global humanitarian organization, but within their ranks lurks the Secreti - an ancient sect intent on affecting the coming papal conclave. Malone races the rogue cardinal, the knights, the Secreti, and the clock to find what has been lost for centuries. Meanwhile, the election of the next pope hangs in the balance.

This edited volume brings together a collection of works that comprehensively address both the myriad geomorphological landscapes of the Maltese Islands and how their evolution has been shaped over various time-scales by different sets of processes. Additionally, the work highlights how the small geographical setting of the Maltese Islands helped to closely connect these landscapes with Maltese society and as a result, they have evolved from stand-alone examples of geomorphology to important backdrops of Maltese cultural identity. Most of the contributing authors are academics – both local and foreign – with a research focus on the geomorphology of the Maltese Islands. However, the editors have also (and purposefully) chosen other contributors from governmental institutions and research agencies, who complement the geomorphological research with their proactive work in selected case studies on Maltese landscapes.

Drawing upon empirical findings, archival research, and interviews, Zammit, Spiteri, and Grima fill a major gap in the literature by delivering a study of the development of the Maltese insurance industry.

This book discusses the remarkable plant diversity of the Maltese Archipelago. Despite its relatively small area and long-term human exploitation, many different plant communities occur in this territory. The book presents phytosociological investigations, together with taxonomical studies, which have been conducted over more than forty years, highlighting the unique features of this central Mediterranean insular ecosystem. It also describes the phytosociological role played by several narrow endemic or phytogeographically relevant taxa and introduces many phytocoenoses exclusively growing in the archipelago. The study integrates the palaeogeographic issues linked to the ancient and intriguing history of the different civilizations that succeeded on the islands for thousands of years. The book also focuses on the N2000 habitats.