Nina Reilly takes on the most dangerous and difficult case of her career in New York Times bestselling author Perri O’Shaughnessy’s latest thriller. An ingenious blend of forensic science, history, and gripping suspense, Unlucky in Law pits the tough but compassionate attorney against the most unbeatable adversary of all: the law. Nina has just received a last-minute call from her old boss and mentor in Monterey County, California, where she is enjoying the breathtaking scenery and spending time with her boyfriend, P.I. Paul van Wagoner. Klaus Pohlmann is in desperate straits and begs Nina to take over a seemingly unwinnable case: A luckless two-time felon named Stefan Wyatt has robbed a grave and made off with the long-buried bones of a Russian émigré. When he is caught and arrested, further devastating evidence found in the grave suggests that Stefan is guilty of a far more deadly crime. A young woman, a classmate of Stefan’s, has been killed, and he is accused of her murder. Now, as a result of California’s Third Strike law, Wyatt is looking at twenty-five years to life whether he’s convicted of grand theft or murder. Either way, he’s in big trouble. With her client’s blood DNA found in the dead woman’s apartment, Nina faces an uphill battle. Suspecting that her hapless client has been set up, Nina brings in a brilliant forensic pathologist who comes up with a startling theory about the case that could rewrite a crucial page of European history. As the evidence mounts against Nina’s client, Paul launches his own investigation into the shadowy past of the two-decades-old skeleton. But long-held secrets nearly get him killed and reveal a more insidious evil at work—and an extraordinary story dating back to tsarist Russia and the Romanov court. As Wyatt edges closer to the unluckiest verdict of his young life, Nina makes an astounding discovery that just might save her client—or expose a killer who could bury them all. Brilliantly imagined and compulsively readable, Unlucky in Law is a beguiling mix of wrenching drama and gripping action. And it is Perri O’Shaughnessy’s most accomplished novel to date.

Amoral, cunning, ruthless, and instructive, this multi-million-copy New York Times bestseller is the definitive manual for anyone interested in gaining, observing, or defending against ultimate control – from the author of The Laws of Human Nature. In the book that People magazine proclaimed “beguiling” and “fascinating,” Robert Greene and Joost Elffers have distilled three thousand years of the history of power into 48 essential laws by drawing from the philosophies of Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, and Carl Von Clausewitz and also from the lives of figures ranging from Henry Kissinger to P.T. Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.

Returning from her late shift as a barmaid at a casino in Lake Tahoe, Misty Patterson struck her violently jealous husband in self-defense. She admits that--but did she kill him? She says she can't remember. Like so many times before, Misty blacked out and the rest of the evening is a blank. Now her husband has disappeared, leaving behind a trail of blood, and she's the number-one murder suspect with no one to turn to for help. San Francisco attorney Nina Reilly is also on the run—from a bad marriage and a worse career setback. Relocated to Lake Tahoe, Nina is resolved to recover her spirit, give her young son a secure home, and build up a small solo practice. But, when Misty Patterson walks in the door, a blond Barbie doll of a cocktail waitress accused of murder, it triggers a harrowing series of events that will change both women's lives forever. Common sense says Misty is lying. To win this case Nina will have to trust her own instincts, diving headlong into the dark convolutions of the human mind. This murder case—teeming with sinister secrets, unspoken betrayals, and jolting revelations—is going to change everything Nina Reilly believes about the law. It's going to rock everything Misty believes about herself. And if they can learn to trust each other, it's going to give both women their one and only chance to reclaim their shattered lives. In a spellbinding novel that doesn't let go from the first page until the shocking unforgettable conclusion, Perri O'Shaughnessy delivers an electrifying legal thriller about two women risking all they have for the truth that could cost them their lives—or set them both free.

Lightning strikes twice. Two people have died in Lake Tahoe in shocking accidents. In a nearly empty parking lot, a hit-and-run driver kills probation officer Anna Meade Hallowell. High up on a jagged mountain, wife abuser Ray de Beers gets what he deserves: he's struck by lightning. Attorney Nina Reilly, hiking on a rare day off from her one-woman law practice, sees him die. So does her date, Tahoe deputy DA Collier Hallowell. Still shaken from his wife's violent death, Hallowell is hit hard by the accident. It's a bad end to a first date... and the start of a case that will test Nina's ethics and her heart. Nina is certain de Beers's death is an act of God. But his aging father wants to exhume the body to rule out foul play. De Beers's frantic wife and teenage twins hire Nina to stop the disinterment. What gets unearthed are secrets that raise new questions about Anna Hallowell's death, an indictment against one twin for murder, and a damning piece of evidence that can convict the boy . . . unless Nina obstructs justice by hiding it. No good lawyer will take that kind of risk. But a brilliant lawyer, one with a passion for truth, just might . . . .

Mallory Devereaux, a walking disaster, finds a way to take advantage of her chronic bad luck by "cooling" cards on her uncle's casino boat, where she gets tangled up with a dark-eyed undercover agent who enlists her help in catching a money launderer.

The Women's Murder Club is stalked by a killer with nothing to lose. San Francisco Detective Lindsay Boxer is loving her life as a new mother. With an attentive husband, a job she loves, plus best friends who can talk about anything from sex to murder, things couldn't be better. Then the FBI sends Lindsay a photo of a killer from her past, and her happy world is shattered. The picture captures a beautiful woman at a stoplight. But all Lindsay sees is the psychopath behind those seductive eyes: Mackie Morales, the most deranged and dangerous mind the Women's Murder Club has ever encountered. In this pulse-racing, emotionally charged novel by James Patterson, the Women's Murder Club must find a killer-before she finds them first.

With an introduction by the author of Circe and The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller In Lucky Alice Sebold reveals how her life was irrevocably changed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was raped and beaten inside a tunnel near her campus. In this same tunnel, a girl had been raped and dismembered. By comparison, Alice was told by police, she was lucky. Though Alice’s friends and family try their best to offer understanding and support, in the end it is Alice’s formidable spirit which resonates most in these pages. In a narrative both painful and inspiring, Alice Sebold shines a light on the true experience of violent trauma. Sebold’s redemption turns out to be as hard-won as it is real.

Remember fifty years ago when everyone smoked? Since tobacco found its way into Europe in the sixteenth century, smoking has been a controversial issue. Fifty years ago, almost everyone smoked, and fifty years before that, smokers were in the doghouse; up until the early twentieth century, cigarettes were illegal in a number of U.S. states. Needless to say, smoking has always been a ready source of revenue. It has also been a source of health concerns, both real and imagined. This mixture of pleasure, money and risk that comes with the act of smoking means that it's rarely treated fairly by politicians, health professionals or the public. Nowadays, tough anti-smoking laws are to be obeyed in most corners of the globe. The misinformation about, and unreasoning hostility directed at, smoking and smokers is one of the major concerns of this book. After all, smoking has no public cost. Isn't it just the individual smokers who are at risk? Prompted by this burgeoning fascination, Staddon looks further into the facts. And the more he looks, the weaker the case against smoking as a public health issue becomes. Is ETS really dangerous to children? And if so, how can science prove it? And if smoking has no public cost and the medical case for third-party harm is weak, why are smokers still being victimised? In this provocative, thought-provoking book, Staddon is determined to uncover the truth about smoking. But the truth's not always pretty.

Some legal rules are not laid down by a legislator but grow instead from informal social practices. In contract law, for example, the customs of merchants are used by courts to interpret the provisions of business contracts; in tort law, customs of best practice are used by courts to define professional responsibility. Nowhere are customary rules of law more prominent than in international law. The customs defining the obligations of each State to other States and, to some extent, to its own citizens, are often treated as legally binding. However, unlike natural law and positive law, customary law has received very little scholarly analysis. To remedy this neglect, a distinguished group of philosophers, historians and lawyers has been assembled to assess the nature and significance of customary law. The book offers fresh insights on this neglected and misunderstood form of law.

Feinberg is one of the leading philosophers of law of the last forty years. This volume collects recent articles, both published and unpublished, on what he terms "basic questions" about the law, particularly in regard to the relationship to morality. Accessibly and elegantly written, this volume's audience will reflect the diverse nature of Feinberg's own interests: scholars in philosophy of law, legal theory, and ethical and moral theory.