##deceit #greed #tragedy #villains #heroes

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

The Untold Story of Asbestos; Why It Is Still Legal and Still Killing Us

"It's shocking to me that hundreds of thousands of people are dying of asbestos-related disease across this country but most people don't know a thing about it," says Chris Weis, an asbestos coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency. Medical evidence dating back to 1899 has shown that asbestos is a slow but steady killer, even though world governments, including our own, and the popular media have long bought into the idea that a little asbestos won't hurt you. In fact, a single microscopic spear-shaped asbestos fiber lodged in a victim's lung can cause myriad fatal reactions. Physicians estimate that exposure to asbestos will eventually kill millions of Americans. They will die of asbestosis, mesothelioma, tremolite poisoning, or cancer of the esophagus, colon, or stomach.

In 1989, the EPA finally did ban the manufacture, importation, processing, and distribution of commercial asbestos-- but the ban didn't hold. Asbestos is big business, rivaling tobacco in its profitability. By 1991, powerful corporate lobbyists had succeeded in having the ban overturned. Today, asbestos remains an ingredient in more than three thousand products on sale here in the United States and many more that are exported to developing nations around the globe.

In Fatal Deception, Michael Bowker details the gritty struggle for justice in Libby, Montana, site of the most lethal environmental disaster in U.S. history. Bowker also tracks the cover-up that has led to the exposure of more than 100 million Americans to the potentially lethal fibers that still exist in countless homes and in more than a million public buildings and offices. Among these are the World Trade Center, which contained hundreds of thousands of pounds of asbestos. Bowker makes the case that the owners of the vermiculite mine in Libby, and the asbestos industry in general, took terrible advantage of employees, who rarely were told of their peril.

At least fifty American companies have already filed for bankruptcy due to asbestos lawsuits, and jury awards by some estimates may reach a staggering $200 billion. By establishing the serious threat of asbestos once and for all, Fatal Deception is an urgent appeal to cut our collective losses and ban asbestos now.

Fatal Deception

7ae99864-3d84-422a-b59f-8db5b9f8ab30-1

Lawrence Sanders

While investigating a wealthy widow's possible purchase of an Imperial Faberge egg, the strange behavior of family advisors, her children, and an aged antiques dealer plunges Archy McNally into a mess of greed, passion, and murder.

Texas

"Archy McNally lives a life most people only dream about. As Chief of Discreet Inquiries at his father's white-shoe law firm, Archy keeps tabs on the rich and famous while keeping hours only a barfly could love. When well-to-do widow Edythe Westmore is urged to buy a Faberge Imperial egg, her adult offspring violently oppose the investment and enlist Archy's services to put the kibosh on the deal. As he investigates the bona fides of the bejeweled trinket, the mysterious machinations of the siblings, family advisors, and an aged antiques dealer are revealed, and Archy is thrust into a whirling vortex of greed, passion, and murder that even he must fight to rise above."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

McNally's Gamble

2358006f-fee2-4308-bb11-7efa4a44388f-1

At the request of the nubile treasurer of a posh funeral home, Archy McNally and his partner, Binky Watrous, investigate suspicious goings-on and uncover family scandal, criminal conspiracy, business intrigue, and other sinister surprises.

McNally's Trial

37fb3312-4b95-467a-a936-51884409d610-1

#hardcover #protectivecover #formerlibrarybook #mystery #ghana #corporategreed #greed

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

Darko Dawson returns in Kewi Quartey's atmospheric crime series. Gold of Our Fathers sees him promoted to Chief Inspector in the Ghana Police Service. But he doesn't have long to celebrate, because his new boss is transferring him from Accra, Ghana's capital, out to remote Obuasi in the Ashanti region, an area now notorious for the illegal exploitation of its gold mines. On his second day, he finds the body of a Chinese mine owner in his own gold quarry. Dawson quickly learns that the offenders here have more money than fear of the law.

Gold of Our Fathers

2d7cbdee-9439-44db-85a2-55c53ff1f9ee-1

David Mark

Missouri

The New York Times hails David Mark's work as "in the honorable tradition of Joseph Wambaugh and Ed McBain"; in Taking Pity, Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy returns for another darkly enthralling installment of this internationally acclaimed series.

It's been three months since Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy returned home, or what was left of it after a horrific tragedy. All that remained was charred masonry, broken timbers, and dried blood--a crude reminder of the home invasion and explosion that tore his house and family apart. McAvoy's wife and daughter are safe, he's been assured; he just wishes he knew where they were.

            As McAvoy wrestles with his guilt, self-hatred, and helplessness, trouble persists in stormy Hull. Organized crime emerges as the city's latest threat, with two warring factions leaving plenty of bodies for Detective Superintendent Trish Pharaoh and her unit to clean up. Now more than ever, Pharaoh needs her sergeant to return to work and be a policeman again. She gives McAvoy a case that's supposed to ease him back into the game: a re-investigation of  a rural  quadruple murder that was put to bed fifty years ago. But what was supposed to be a cut-and-dry job quickly unravels as McAvoy digs up new evidence and witness testimonies, steering him closer to some of the most notorious criminals in northern England.

            Fast-paced, noir-ish and fresh off the heels of Sorrow Bound's violent finale, Taking Pity is the latest page-turning installment in the gripping Detective McAvoy series. Hailed by The New York Times as being "in the honorable tradition of Joseph Wambaugh and Ed McBain," David Mark's police procedurals are smart, dark, and above all, wholly captivating.



Taking Pity

e75413b1-e9b0-4bc8-b6ed-022e3b7047f3-1

Bill Hybels

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Applying God’s Power Where You Need It Most 

Through this small group Bible study, move beyond six tough hurdles: adversity, fear, apathy, greed, lust, and sorrow. As you unite the hope and insight of Scripture with the support of the people in your group, you'll find strength to overcome the things in your life you thought would never change. 6 SESSIONS

Overcoming

74f2224b-a8ac-49ce-96bf-9b4f75a29241-0

Maryland

Leibniz Spinoza and the Fate of God in the Modern World

"Exhilarating...Stewart has achieved a near impossibility, creating a page-turner about jousting metaphysical ideas, casting thinkers as warriors." --Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review


Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business--and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as "the atheist Jew." As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success. In between trips to the opera and groundbreaking work in mathematics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, he took every opportunity to denounce Spinoza, relishing his self-appointed role as "God's attorney."

In this exquisitely written philosophical romance of attraction and repulsion, greed and virtue, religion and heresy, Matthew Stewart gives narrative form to an epic contest of ideas that shook the seventeenth century--and continues today.

Courtier and the Heretic

f0755ec1-0324-49f2-988f-7d52e3f0f9e5-1

Jennifer Haigh

Iowa

A Novel

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Haigh returns to the Pennsylvania town at the center of her iconic novel Baker Towers in this ambitious, achingly human story of modern America and the conflicting forces at its heart—a bold, moving drama of hope and desperation, greed and power, big business and small-town families. Forty years ago, Bakerton coal fueled the country. Then the mines closed, and the town wore away like a bar of soap. Now Bakerton has been granted a surprise third act: it sits squarely atop the Marcellus Shale, a massive deposit of natural gas. To drill or not to drill? Prison guard Rich Devlin leases his mineral rights to finance his dream of farming. He doesn’t count on the truck traffic and nonstop noise, his brother’s skepticism or the paranoia of his wife, Shelby, who insists the water smells strange and is poisoning their frail daughter. Meanwhile his neighbors, organic dairy farmers Mack and Rena, hold out against the drilling—until a passionate environmental activist disrupts their lives. Told through a cast of characters whose lives are increasingly bound by the opposing interests that underpin the national debate, Heat and Light depicts a community blessed and cursed by its natural resources. Soaring and ambitious, it zooms from drill rig to shareholders’ meeting to the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to the ruined landscape of the “strippins,” haunting reminders of Pennsylvania’s past energy booms. This is a dispatch from a forgotten America—a work of searing moral clarity from one of the finest writers of her generation, a courageous and necessary book.

Heat and Light

69023c11-4816-4abd-b488-4bacb9bd85cd-1

#hardcover #non-fiction #greed #corruption in excellent condition with no missing or torn pages. No highlighted or underlined passages in the book. No damage to the spine or covers. 

Colorado

How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon

AWashington Post Notable Nonfiction Book for 2011
One ofThe Economist's 2011 Books of the Year

TheNew York Times's Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist reveals how the financial meltdown emerged from the toxic interplay of Washington, Wall Street, and corrupt mortgage lenders

InReckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, the star business columnist ofThe New York Times, exposes how the watchdogs who were supposed to protect the country from financial harm were actually complicit in the actions that finally blew up the American economy.

Drawing on previously untapped sources and building on original research from coauthor Joshua Rosner--who himself raised early warnings with the public and investors, and kept detailed records--Morgenson connects the dots that led to this fiasco.

Morgenson and Rosner draw back the curtain on Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance giant that grew, with the support of the Clinton administration, through the 1990s, becoming a major opponent of government oversight even as it was benefiting from public subsidies. They expose the role played not only by Fannie Mae executives but also by enablers at Countrywide Financial, Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve, HUD, Congress, the FDIC, and the biggest players on Wall Street, to show how greed, aggression, and fear led countless officials to ignore warning signs of an imminent disaster.

Character-rich and definitive in its analysis, this is the one account of the financial crisis you must read.

Reckless Endangerment

61f726af-07e7-4bed-9269-f038b66decbb-1

Nickolas Butler

Wisconsin

In this riveting new novel by the bestselling and award-winning author of Shotgun Lovesongs, three troubled construction workers get entangled in a dangerous plan against an impossible deadline. Why is it being built here, and why so quickly? These are the questions Cole, Bart, and Teddy, the three principals of True Triangle Construction, ask themselves when they are hired to finish a project for a mysteriously wealthy homeowner. Nestled in the mountains outside of Jackson, Wyoming, the house is a masterpiece, unlike anything they've done before. Once finished, it promises to be the architectural prize of Jackson and could put True Triangle on the map. But despite the project's lure, the owner is intent on having it built in a matter of months, an impossible task made irresistible by the exorbitant bonus that awaits them if they succeed. A bonus that could change the course of their business, and their lives. Up against the fateful deadline, and the looming threat of a harsh Wyoming winter, Cole, Bart, and Teddy are willing to do anything to get the money, even if it means risking life, limb, and family. And what becomes an obsession for all three quickly builds to tragic consequences for some. Struck through with heart-pounding danger and an arresting lyricism, Godspeed is a stark exploration of the haves and the have-nots, a cautionary tale of greed and violence that asks: How much is never enough?

Godspeed

b14b3118-4ca4-4c00-88f8-2c50cd124dc9-1

2005 Edition 

Prosperity with a Purpose 

Pennsylvania

A charismatic salesman's participation in a series of financial scams escalates to the point that he becomes the head of a violent gold mining operation in the Brazilian jungle before forging a relationship with a darkly ambitious woman.

The Dream Merchant

ed95192d-ba07-4a3e-9d18-637a726fa96f-1

John Riherd

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Samuel Locke, attorney and custom BBQ grill builder, is hired by his best client, the blues musician Thumper Lee, to protect Angelique, a soloist with the Houston Ballet, from both unknown stalkers who seem to wish her harm and from law enforcement who might discover there's been a murder. Greed, murder, and alligators on the Gulf Coast from Houston to New Orleans.

The Blues and Ballet

b3895ef1-faa4-4597-b8b3-8ab4a998bf5b-1

Delaware

Gabrielle Glaser

Oregon

A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption

“Powerful… Tells a singular story to illuminate a universal truth.”--The New York Times Book Review The shocking truth about postwar adoption in America, told through the bittersweet story of one teenager, the son she was forced to relinquish, and their search to find each other During the Baby Boom in 1960s America, women were encouraged to stay home and raise large families, but sex and childbirth were taboo subjects. Premarital sex was common, but birth control was hard to get and abortion was illegal. In 1961, sixteen-year-old Margaret Erle fell in love and became pregnant. Her enraged family sent her to a maternity home, and after she gave birth, she wasn't even allowed her to hold her own son. Social workers threatened her with jail until she signed away her parental rights. Her son vanished, his whereabouts and new identity known only to an adoption agency that would never share the slightest detail about his fate. Claiming to be acting in the best interests of all, the adoption business was founded on secrecy and lies. American Baby lays out how a lucrative and exploitative industry removed children from their birth mothers and placed them with hopeful families, fabricating stories about infants' origins and destinations, then closing the door firmly between the parties forever. Adoption agencies and other organizations that purported to help pregnant women struck unethical deals with doctors and researchers for pseudoscientific "assessments," and shamed millions of young women into surrendering their children. Gabrielle Glaser dramatically demonstrates the power of the expectations and institutions that Margaret faced. Margaret went on to marry and raise a large family with David's father, but she never stopped longing for and worrying about her firstborn. She didn't know he spent the first years of his life living just a few blocks away from her; as he grew, he wondered about where he came from and why he was given up. Their tale--one they share with millions of Americans--is one of loss, love, and the search for identity. Adoption's closed records are being legally challenged in states nationwide. Open adoption is the rule today, but the identities of many who were adopted or who surrendered a child in the postwar decades are locked in sealed files. American Baby illuminates a dark time in our history and shows a path to reunion that can help heal the wounds inflicted by years of shame and secrecy.

American Baby

d1c8ae2b-b6e4-49f0-bd4f-421dea3ef55d-1

Liska Jacobs

Maine

“Heady and dark and dangerous, The Pink Hotel is an intoxicating binge of a book. Liska Jacobs’s stunning indictment of a society teetering toward apocalypse is one you won’t easily forget.” —Janelle Brown, author of I’ll Be You Newlyweds Keith and Kit Collins can hardly believe their luck when the general manager of the iconic, opulent Pink Hotel invites them to come for a luxurious stay in a bid to hire Keith. Kit loves their small-town life, but Keith has always wanted more, and the glittering, lily-scented lobby makes him feel right at home. Soon after their arrival, wildfires sweep through the surrounding mountains and Los Angeles becomes a pressure cooker, with riots breaking out across the city amid rolling blackouts. The Pink Hotel closes its doors to “outsiders,” and Keith and Kit find themselves confined with an anxious, disgruntled staff and a growing roster of eccentric, ultra-wealthy, dangerously idle guests who flock to the hotel for sanctuary, company, and entertainment. The Pink Hotel exposes the tenuous class system within its walls, full of insurmountable expectations and unspoken resentments, which fester as the city burns. In her barbed, provocative new novel, Liska Jacobs explores the corrosive nature of greed and interrogates the notion of true love while hurtling readers toward certain disaster.

The Pink Hotel

38d92611-5f0e-4ea4-ab49-7fff9c739891-1

Edges are rough in corner book binding is great book intact #paperback #whatistreasure #selfdiscovery #greed #heart #lookaround

Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

Utah

The Greatest Treasure

Like new except for red ink mark on bottom outside edge of front cover. See photos. 

Michigan

A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed

When a shattered kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited island in the Pacific Northwest, they reignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest. Five months earlier, logger-turned-activist Grant Hadwin had plunged naked into a river in British Columbia's Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw. When his night's work was done, a unique Sitka spruce, 165 feet tall and covered with luminous golden needles, teetered on its stump. Two days later it fell.As vividly as John Krakauer puts readers on Everest, John Vaillant takes us into the heart of North America's last great forest.

The Golden Spruce

e7c2af5e-a467-4d7c-a6ae-340a050cc0ae-1

Michael Balter

A Marty and Bo Thriller

Most investor pitch meetings don't end in murder - but then Marty and Bo haven't had a lot of luck lately. They've been struggling to keep their startup business alive. It's not high-tech, it's not highly successful, and the pressure to find capital has strained their bank accounts and Marty's marriage. So when Nico Scava offered to invest, they eagerly accepted. He had money, connections in the art world, and a creative idea, but maybe they should have asked more questions. Now Nico's dead and they're on the hook for whatever scheme he was running. The Russian mob is after them, and if they don't find ten million dollars and a mysterious missing painting in the next few days, they'll be dead, too. Their frantic chase leads them from a cabin in the Oregon woods to a Portland strip club, from an aging artist to a bogus baron, and deep into the history of a missing masterpiece, for which someone is willing to kill to obtain. As the bodies pile up, Marty and Bo will have some tough choices to make about how far they'll go to protect their families, their company, and themselves.

Chasing Money (SIGNED BY AUTHOR)

3177451e-afad-435a-b75b-2111e8ddb06e-0

Michael Lewis

Massachusetts

The Story of Modern Financial Insanity

An analysis of five financial upheavals in recent history includes coverage of the 1987 stock market crash, the internet bubble, and the current sub-prime mortgage crisis, in an anecdotal report that reveals how public knowledge differed from what was actually taking place. 100,000 first printing.

Panic!

33d92fad-b90d-4c26-a2af-a0992ca6e25c-1

Edges are rough. This is a board book loved by toddlers. 

The Greedy Python

Rob Northrup

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Crossing the Line

The Family Jewels

27fa86dd-2305-4cd4-af65-a75c1bd36375-0

Catherine Coulter

With unparalleled suspense and her trademark explosive twists, #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter delves into the terrifying mind of an escaped mental patient obsessed with revenge in this next installment of her riveting FBI series. When he fails to kidnap five-year-old Sean Savich, agents Sherlock and Savich know they’re in his crosshairs and must find him before he continues with his ‘kill’ list.

Chief Ty Christie of Willicott, Maryland, witnesses a murder at dawn from the deck of her cottage on Lake Massey. When dragging the lake, not only do the divers find the murder victim, they also discover dozens of bones. Even more shocking is the identification of a unique belt buckle found among the bones. Working together with Chief Christie, Savich and Sherlock soon discover a frightening connection between the bones and the escaped psychopath.

Paradox is a chilling mix of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, old secrets that refuse to stay buried, and ruthless greed that keep Savich and Sherlock and Chief Ty Christie working at high speed to uncover the truth before their own bones end up at the bottom on the lake.

Don’t miss Paradox, the twenty-second FBI thriller

With unparalleled suspense and her trademark explosive twists, #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter delves into the terrifying mind of an escaped mental patient obsessed with revenge in this next installment of her riveting FBI series. When he fails to kidnap five-year-old Sean Savich, agents Sherlock and Savich know they’re in his crosshairs and must find him before he continues with his ‘kill’ list. Chief Ty Christie of Willicott, Maryland, witnesses a murder at dawn from the deck of her cottage on Lake Massey. When dragging the lake, not only do the divers find the murder victim, they also discover dozens of bones. Even more shocking is the identification of a unique belt buckle found among the bones. Working together with Chief Christie, Savich and Sherlock soon discover a frightening connection between the bones and the escaped psychopath. Paradox is a chilling mix of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, old secrets that refuse to stay buried, and ruthless greed that keep Savich and Sherlock and Chief Ty Christie working at high speed to uncover the truth before their own bones end up at the bottom on the lake. Don’t miss Paradox, the twenty-second FBI thriller.

Paradox - First Gallery Books Edition

60a44480-175c-46a0-bb46-3117cd5b9221-1

Michael Gross

A "biography" of the nation's largest and most influencial generation looks at all the major movements, stages, and consumer fetishes that have influenced the development of 75 million "baby boomers."

Fifty Years of Sex, Drugs, Rock, Revolution, Glamour, Greed, Valor, Faith and Silcon Chips

The story of the Baby Boom generation, the driving force of modern American culture--how it grew up, shaped the history of the 20th century, and set the course toward the 21st.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Michael Bowker

Fatal Deception

Lawrence Sanders

McNally's Gamble

Lawrence Sanders

McNally's Trial

Kwei Quartey

Gold of Our Fathers

David Mark

Taking Pity

Bill Hybels

Overcoming

Matthew Stewart

Courtier and the Heretic

Jennifer Haigh

Heat and Light

Gretchen Morgenson; Joshua Rosner

Reckless Endangerment

Nickolas Butler

Godspeed

Wendell Smith

Prosperity with a Purpose

Fred Waitzkin

The Dream Merchant

John Riherd

The Blues and Ballet

Jennifer Haigh

Heat and Light

Gabrielle Glaser

American Baby

Liska Jacobs

The Pink Hotel

Demi

The Greatest Treasure

John Vaillant

The Golden Spruce

Michael Balter

Chasing Money (SIGNED BY AUTHOR)

Michael Lewis

Panic!

Richard Buckley

The Greedy Python

Rob Northrup

The Family Jewels

Catherine Coulter

Paradox - First Gallery Books Edition

Michael Gross

My Generation - First Edition