Sometimes when things are at their worst, when you think life can't gey any bleaker or colder, a single star pierces the sky-shedding its light like an unexpected blessing, a beacon of hope....

Homecoming: A few weeks before the Presidential election, the Republican administration is wishing that dead troops from an unpopular war could return to tell America how proud they were to serve their country. Veterans begin to rise from their flag-draped coffins in order to vote, but are they gloriously resurrected heroes or brain-dead zombie dissidents? Pick me up: On a desolate mountain road two urban myths collide. Wheeler, a truck driver who...

"After a terrible fire destroys her home and kills her twelve sister-princesses, Desmia must rise above those who intend to manipulate her and sieze power for themselves--and find out the truth"--

A survey of the way America honors fallen soldiers follows the experiences of a Marine major whose duties include casualty notification, a responsibility involving unexpected and untrained acts of compassion.

Play Misty for me: A radio disc jockey becomes the victim of psychotic obsession when he tries to end a torrid love affair with a fan. The Eiger sanction: A professional assassin is forced out of retirement in order to avenge a friend's murder in the Swiss Alps. Coogan's bluff: An Arizona lawman's unorthodox methods of capturing an escaped murderer angers a tough NYC police lieutenant. The beguiled: A wounded soldier finds shelter in an all-girls...

"According to UNICEF, the number of civilian casualties in war climbed from 5 percent at the turn of the twentieth century to more than 90 percent at the end of that century. Additionally, the current war against ISIS has racked up a staggering number of civilian deaths, including children. The days when professional armies fought in contained areas are long gone, having been replaced by drone strikes, neighbors shooting at neighbors from apartment...

"London, 1943 : Tube stations across London have been converted into bomb shelters. Night after night, while sirens wail in Bethnal Green, immigrants and East Enders alike sleep on the tracks and wait. But on March 3, as the crowd hurries down the staircase, something goes wrong, and 173 adults and children lose their lives in a deadly crush. When the devastated neighborhood demands an inquiry, the job falls to the young magistrate Laurence Dunne..."--Front...