2007, ISBN: 9780345480293

Taschenbuch

HQN. Very Good. 4.22 x 1.01 x 6.61 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2007. 384 pages. <br>Ex-cop Gina Ryan traded in her Smith & Wesson to f ollow adream. Now she's creating de… Mehr…

HQN. Very Good. 4.22 x 1.01 x 6.61 inches. Mass Market Paperback. 2007. 384 pages. <br>Ex-cop Gina Ryan traded in her Smith & Wesson to f ollow adream. Now she's creating decadent desserts aboard a luxur ycruise ship in the Caribbean. But a gorgeous passenger isabout t o send her perfect world up in smoke.- Trace O'Halloran is a har d-edged navy SEAL, under strictorders to take some high seas R & R. There's a shipload ofwomen in bikinis eager to help him unwind , so why can'the take his mind off the stubborn pastry chefwith a n attitude the size of Montana? When a dangerous assassin from Trace's past appears,Gina and Trace must join forces to save the ship's guests.The clock's ticking, and they'll need every weapon at hand-from body armor to chocolate ganache! Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly It's The Six Million Dollar Man meets The Love Boat in this fifth addition to Skye's energetic Code Name s eries (following Code Name: Blondie). Fresh from a northern Afgha nistan war zone and worse for the wear, microchip-enhanced navy S EAL Trace O'Halloran has a new assignment guarding valuable human tissue samples aboard a luxury cruise ship en route to Mexico. T race, who'd rather be in a northern Afghanistan war zone, grimace s his way through boarding and the first uncomfortable meal befor e meeting pastry chef Gina Ryan, a rising industry star who gets her kicks creating and plating a thousand crème brûlées a night. Unfortunately, Ryan's nascent celebrity has netted her an enemy i n Blaine Richardson, the Cruella DeVille of beverage service. Whe n a villain from Trace's past resurfaces, things go from bad to d eadly. While the romance between Trace and Gina feels inevitable and uninspired, and the plot line barely plausible, it makes a fu n, antic read. Series fans will find what they came for, but newc omers will want to save themselves some confusion by starting at the beginning. (July) Copyright ® Reed Business Information, a d ivision of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Recuperating from a mission that almost cost him his life, Navy SEAL Trace O'Halloran, with his implanted special abilities shut off, is sent on a cruise ship to protect a shipment important to the secret genetic engineering program that has enhanced his natu ral powers. Gina Ryan, the ship's pastry chef, is no stranger to him, and even though his unit has pledged to forgo personal entan glements, he just can't stay away from her, especially after he d iscovers she is being sabotaged. One of the myriad appeals of Sky e's Code Name series is the seriously hunky Izzy Teague, technowi zard extraordinaire, and in this episode, some of his mysterious background is exposed. Cruz, the super villain, is back again and more diabolical than ever. Then there are dogs of the extrasmart variety, and a kitten who plays an important role. Skye is adept at writing an imaginative yet believable romance with endearing characters and an action-packed story. Tixier Herald, Diana Copy right © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Christina Skye loves a good adventure. Living in Arizo na gives her plenty of room to practice target shooting and to tr ek off-road on her motorcycle, researching the details for storie s rich with snappy dialogue and an unerring ability to keep the n arrative energy high and the pacing swift (Publishers Weekly). Wi th over two million books in print, her novels appear regularly o n national bestseller lists. Visit her online at www.christinasky e.com. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Northern Afghanistan Winter DARKNESS. Wind and death. Trace O'Halloran didn't move. Cold dug under his Kevlar vest as he watc hed the rugged road below him. Something moved over the snow-dus ted ground near his feet. Another rat. Red eyes glowed in the fa int green light of his nightvision goggles. Only rats could survi ve in this godforsaken mountain pass in winter. It was Christmas Eve. Back in the States, families sang hymns and parents assembl ed dollhouses to surprise wideeyed children while snow fell in th e soft hush. But here on a rugged plateau in Afghanistan, the co ld was merciless and wind cut with icy fingers. Frostbite was una voidable if he didn't find shelter soon. But the mission came fir st. Trace leveled his gaze on the road three hundred feet below his hiding spot. He didn't think about the fresh wounds across hi s left wrist or the blood that darkened his forearm, courtesy of a difficult high altitude, low opening-HALO-jump. Abruptly he fe lt movements in the night. Leaning forward, he read a change in e nergy patterns. A three-truck convoy crawled through the darkness . Their Korean-made trucks were guarded by soldiers wielding Sovi et RPG-7 shoulder-launched missiles. An equal-opportunity war, h e thought grimly. And this was his target. The convoy carried co vert German communication technology extorted from a weapons desi gner based in Singapore. Not surprisingly, the man had disappeare d before he could reveal his blackmailer. In the hands of a train ed technician, the new device could track a massive quantity of U .S. communications. Through the application of mathematical predi ctive models, government assets could be located and areas of vul nerability tapped within minutes. In enemy hands the system could inflict catastrophic damage, and Trace's job was to see that the hardware never reached its destination. Truck lights carved the darkness. The convoy stopped with a screech of brakes. Agitated voices cut through the cold, still air. The men in the Korean tr ucks were ruthless and well trained. They would shoot anything su spicious on their trek to an isolated mountain stronghold sixty m iles to the north. But Trace didn't intend to be noticed until he was ready. As he glanced at his watch, his skin burned. Frostbit e was setting in. Ignoring his pain, the SEAL fingered a button on the device in his left pocket. Something moved down on the ro ad. The first truck pulled sideways and two soldiers jumped out. Arguing loudly, they pointed to a paper flapping in the bone-chil ling wind. Right on schedule, Trace thought. Nice to see technol ogy working right for once. His maneuver had lured them exactly w here he wanted them. Dark fur brushed his arm. Ears raised alert ly, a black Labrador retriever held his down position behind a ro ck, awaiting Trace's next order. The big dog had trained with Tra ce for months to prepare for this mission, and Trace sensed the d og's eagerness to go to work. Not yet, Duke. His hand settled o n the dog's head. The Lab watched every movement, waiting for the next touch command. As the wind keened over the rocky slope, Sa nta Fe and Christmas cheer were a universe away. Trace couldn't e ven remember his last Christmas at home. His last two leaves had been cut short because of security alerts. As part of a top-secre t government team, code-named Foxfire, Trace trained hard and kep t personal attachments next to nil. That was the price of admissi on for special operations work, but the conditions had never both ered Trace, not when the stakes were so high. Other people might call him a patriot. But for Trace the job boiled down to very pe rsonal terms-protecting family, friends and a way of life from en emies without honor or scruples. If doing his job meant taking a bullet, he was more than ready to pay that price with his own blo od. A silent alarm vibrated at his wrist. Showtime. Silently, he pulled a small box from his Kevlar vest. The dog sniffed, then gripped the box's metal handle between his teeth. When Trace tou ched the Lab's collar in a prearranged command, weeks of training kicked in. Duke skirted the rocks, turned and then headed for th e road below. Be safe, Trace thought. Stay low and move fast. He didn't have to project the commands. Duke would do exactly as tr ained. Trace leveled his scoped assault rifle and measured his t arget. A third hostile soldier jumped down, shouting at his teamm ates. Trace took out the nearest truck's tires and front windshie ld with a four-second burst. The insurgents scattered. Gunfire h ammered the air above Trace's head. His next volley drilled the m iddle truck's gas tank. Under the explosive flare of an orangered fireball, he jumped a boulder and dropped into a narrow wash tha t snaked toward the road. Hidden by walls of sand, he followed t he curve of the wash, a shadow swallowed by the greater darkness of the night. One short tap on a small transmitter alerted his ba ckup team that the encounter had begun. Now he had only minutes t o complete his objective and head for the extraction point. He s printed to the bottom of the wash and found the big package exact ly where he'd left it a day earlier, buried beneath a foot of san d. In seconds Trace had opened the hours. He rechecked the unifor m pockets, then hefted the dead weight over his shoulders. Hidde n by the mayhem of the explosion, he carried the along a second t rail barely visible in the light from the burning truck. If all w ent as planned, the insurgents would find the com using them. Eve rything they picked up from U.S. sources would be carefully const ructed disinformation. Trace wasn't crazy about using human rem ains for a mission, but their local allies had provided unidentif iable bodies of insurgents killed in a violent skirmish earlier t hat day. Now they were dressed and outfitted as American soldiers . Automatic weapons fire punched the air to his left, and a trac er round whined over his head. For every round he could see, Trac e knew there were three others invisible in the darkness. The SEA L followed the rocky slope away from his service dog, who bounded toward a nearby covered, he turned into the open and made a clum sy run toward the highest ridge, his movements calculated to draw maximum fire. The maneuver worked. Down the hill, dark shapes r aced toward him, rifles level. Kevlar was good, but it wouldn't stand up to repeated bursts from an AK-47. That's where the ceram ic plates in his vest took over. But a glancing blow hit him with deadly force and knocked him off his feet. Calculating the spee d of his pursuers, he primed a grenade and lobbed it over his sho ulder. Rocks shot up, clawing at his back and neck while gunfire burned near his face and tore through his glove. His excited purs uers clustered at the top of the slope below, shouting in delight when they saw Trace fall. A second burst of fire drilled up his arm, but he didn't move, feigning a fatal wound. His heart poun ded. Sweat streaked his face. Footsteps raced behind him. He ca lculated strike force, distance and probable accuracy as the wind howled over the rocks, and then his fingers closed around anothe r grenade. He yanked the pin and lobbed the deadly metal sphere h ard, generating a wall of noise that masked more enemy fire. The blast was deafening. Sand flew into his eyes and mouth. Another round tore through his right deltoid. Trace's vision blurred. Mo re shrapnel from enemy fire tore into his chest and neck. He stum bled and then plunged forward, the wind in his face as he hit the cold sand. A chopper crested the mountain, the whine from its en gines blessedly familiar. Another explosion ripped through the n ight, and the lead truck vanished in a red fireball. The big Lab had accomplished his mission, planting his C-4 charge under the last truck while the insurgents were distracted by Trace's clumsy run. Nice job, Duke. Pain raked Trace's chest. He stumbled as blood gushed thickly over his Kevlar vest, every muscle stiff, ev ery movement strained. Over his head the mountains seemed to dark en, blurred between cold wind and night sky. And then he died. < /div ., HQN, 2007, 3, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. Very Good. 5.16 x 0.69 x 7.96 inches. Paperback. 1996. 297 pages. <br>Among the emerging generation of crime writers, no ne is as stylish and intelligent as Michael Dibdin, who, in Dead Lagoon, gives us a deliciously creepy new novel featuring the urb ane and skeptical Aurelio Zen, a detective whose unenviable task it is to combat crime in a country where today's superiors may be tomorrow's defendants.Zen returns to his native Venice. He is se arching for the ghostly tormentors of a half-demented contessa an d a vanished American millionaire whose family is paying Zen unde r the table to determine his whereabouts-dead or alive. But he ke eps stumbling over corpses that are distressingly concrete: from the crooked cop found drowned in one of the city's noisome black wells to a brand-new skeleton that surfaces on the Isle of the De ad. The result is a mystery rich in character and deduction, and intensely informed about the history, politics, and manners of it s Venetian setting. Editorial Reviews Review Surprisingly movin g . . . a first-rate mystery and a fine novel.-Washington Post Bo ok WorldDibdin's plot is as elegantly elaborate as the crisscross ing canals of Venice.-NewsdayThe author has transcended his own s uperb craftsmanship by working [two] story lines into a structure of pure steel, and by making it the foundation of a serious stud y of modern-day Venice.-The New York Times Book Review From the Inside Flap readers a deliciously creepy new novel featuring the urbane and skeptical Aurelio Zen. In this new mystery, Zen return s to his native Venice, searching for a missing American milliona ire and encountering an assortment of corpses--including a suspic iously new skeleton that surfaces on the Isle of the Dead. About the Author Michael Dibdin was born in England and raised in Nort hern Ireland. He attended Sussex University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He spent five years in Perugia, Italy, where he taught English at the local university. He went on to live in Oxford, England and Seattle, Washington. He was the author of eig hteen novels, eleven of them in the popular Aurelio Zen series, i ncluding Ratking, which won the Crime Writers' Association Gold D agger, and Cabal, which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roma n Policier. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He died in 2007. Excerpt. ® Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. A ragged line of geese passed overhead, silhouetted ag ainst the caul of high cirrus, heading out towards the open sea. Over towards Marghera, a bloated sun subsided into a dense bank o f smog, dwarfing the striped stacks of the refineries. Giacomo no ted the rippled layers of cloud spreading across the sky like was h from a motorboat. The weather was changing. Tomorrow would be s qually and cold, a bitter north-easterly bora raising choppy seas on the lagoon. But tomorrow was another day. For now the air wa s still, the water smooth as oil, the creak of the oars against t he thole and the gentle plashing of the blades the only sound. Pe ople thought Giacomo a bit odd, sculling out to tend his nets in this day and age. No one rowed any more except the yuppy oarsmen from the city's boating clubs. But Giacomo had no interest in rev iving the picturesque traditions of the past. If he preferred oar s to outboards, he had his reasons. On an evening such as this, t he noise of a motor carried for miles across the water, and Giaco mo did not want any inquisitive ears tracking his progress throug h the shoals and along the winding creeks to his destination. Hi s eyes alertly scanned the water ahead. The channel he was follow ing was unmarked and the tide was ebbing fast. It would have been better to come at another time, but Giacomo simply carried out t he orders he received by telephone. Tomorrow, the voice had said, so tomorrow it must be. He would be well enough paid for his pai ns. Meanwhile, he needed all his skill. The flat-bottomed skiff d rew only a few centimetres, but it was always easy to run aground in these treacherous backwaters. He raised his head, locating t he long low ridge, exuberantly green, towards which he was making such slow progress along the tortuous windings of the tideway. T o the east, the desolate swamps and saltflats of the laguna morta -the dead marshlands, unrefreshed by tidal currents-merged seamle ssly into the gathering dusk. The schoolteacher on Burano said th at there had once been a splendid city here, with fine palaces an d churches and paved streets, all swallowed up hundreds of years ago by the shifting topography of the lagoon. Standing in the st ern of the boat, Giacomo paused to light a cigarette. The teacher was a good soul, and would pay well over the odds for crabs and mussels, but she'd had the misfortune to be born on the mainland, and it was well known that mainlanders would believe anything. G iacomo breathed out a lungful of smoke, which drifted indolently away across the water towards the drooping heads of the wild gras ses on a nearby mudbank. The dull roar of a plane taking off from the international airport at Tessera reminded him of his busines s. Dipping the crossed oars into the water once more, he leaned f orward with his whole body, urging the sandolo across the shallow water. The light was fading fast by the time Giacomo beached th e skiff on the flats exposed by the ebbing tide. He stepped out, his waders sinking into the mud, and hauled the craft clear of th e water. Before him rose a mass of creepers and brambles, overgro wn bushes and stunted trees, spilling down over the low wall seal ing off the island. At the centre, a set of steps led to a bricke d-up gateway Slinging a blue canvas bag over his shoulder, Giacom o squelched off across the quagmire towards a stretch of wall com pletely submerged beneath the burgeoning greenery. Beneath the o verhanging shrubbery it was already night. Giacomo took a rubber- covered torch from his pocket and shone it round. A rat jumped fr om a hollow in the wall into the shallow water at its base. The h ollow had been formed by the removal of two of the flat ochre bri cks of the three-hundred-year-old wall. Giacomo remembered the ef fort it had taken, hammering away with a mallet and a cold chisel for the best part of twenty minutes. They built to last in those days, even for such clients as these. Other bricks had been goug ed out above, and using these holds Giacomo scaled the wall and p erched on the top. All was still. Even in broad daylight, people gave this particular island a wide berth. Nothing would persuade anyone in their right mind to venture there once darkness had fal len. The surface inside was much higher, almost level with the t op of the wall. Giacomo stepped down and started to push his way through the undergrowth, following a series of almost imperceptib le markers: the torn ligaments of a branch dangling from a bush, a patch of flattened grass, the sucker of a bramble bush, thick a s a squid's tentacle, lopped off clean by a fisherman's gutting-k nife. The ground crunched and slithered underfoot, as though he w ere walking on layers of broken crockery. A sudden scuttling noi se brought him to a halt, wielding his torchbeam like a staff. Th e island was infested with snakes, and Giacomo tried with limited success to convince himself that this was the only feature of th e place which scared him. He lit another cigarette to calm his ne rves and pushed on through the spiny undergrowth, across the grat ing, shifting surface, until he made out the final mark: a dessic ated bough leaning across a briar patch as though it had fallen f rom the dead tree above. One contorted branch pointed towards him , marking the path back. Another, bifurcated like a petrified han d, stuck out at an angle to one side. Following it, Giacomo quick ly located the mound of shards, white in the torchlight. At the s ame moment, he heard the scuttling sound again. It was only when he unslung the bag from his shoulder that he realised he had for gotten to pack the small spade he usually brought. Well, he wasn' t going back, that was for damn sure. Nor had he any intention of touching the things with his hands. Tossing away his cigarette, he snapped a length off the dead bough and started to prod and ja b at the mound, freeing a long femur here, the smooth gleam of a scapula there, a rounded skull, a big hip and pelvis. At last the dull gleam of the oilcloth wrapping appeared. The stick broke a s he redoubled his efforts. He hastily tore another from the bran ch behind him, and when that broke too used his boot to free the package. Breathing hard, he unwound the oilcloth, revealing three blocks wrapped in silver foil and plastic shrinkwrapping. They w ere about the size and shape of a cork float, but much heavier-pr ecisely one kilogram each, in fact. Giacomo carefully lifted them in turn and transferred them to the canvas bag. Then he added th e oilcloth wrapping and fastened the bag before turning for home. The torch beam wavered and probed the darkness all around, seek ing the gnarled bough which pointed the route home. It was nowher e to be seen. Giacomo searched the shrubbery in increasing despe ration until he found the broken branch entangled in the thorns. It must have keeled over when he snapped part of it off to use as a spade. For a moment he almost gave way to panic. Then, with an effort, he got a grip on himself and started to study the underg rowth all around. It must be that way, surely, to the right of th at squat, lopsided shrub. Yes, that was it. He recognized it. A few metres further on, the path, if that's what it had been, pete red out in a mass of briars twice as high as a man. He must have been mistaken. He started back, but he was unable to find the cle aring where the cache had been located. Then he saw what looked l ike one of the markers guiding him back to the boat and threw him self at it, plunging through the shrubbery like a speedboat throu gh breaking waves, ripping and tearing the undergrowth apart unti l its spiky tendrils fouled his limbs and brought him up short in an impenetrable mass of brambles. Instinctively he glanced up a t the sky, but the nebulous wash of cloud drifting in from the ea st had swallowed the stars. The evil jungle, its roots fattened o n hundreds of thousands of human skeletons, pressed in on every s ide, shutting out the world. Giacomo muttered a fervent prayer, a thing he had last done when a vicious combination of wind and t ide had caught him and Filippo on a lee shore just beyond the nor thern mole at the entrance to the Porto di Lido. It had worked th en, but he was less sanguine that his patron saint would interced e for him this time. Fishing was one thing, his present business quite another. Still, reciting the prayer helped to calm his pani c. Disentangling himself from the briars, he worked his way throu gh the undergrowth, searching for one of the signs which marked t he path, trying not to think about what he was grinding and crush ing under his boots. When the man in white appeared, blocking hi s path, Giacomo felt a brief surge of relief at the thought that he was no longer alone. Then he remembered where he was, and terr or rose in his throat like vomit. He forced himself to look again . The figure was still there, splayed across a mass of brambles, the panels of its jacket rippling and heaving as though in the wi nd. But there was no wind. Then he saw the face, what was left of it, and the rats running in and out of the sleeves. He took it i n at one glance-a mass of half-eaten meat and tissue, the chest a bloody cage, the white suit ripped to shreds-and dropped the bag and fled, powered by an irresistible dread, a superstitious horr or which sent him stumbling across that dune of human bones, tear ing through the vegetation parasitic on that rich meal, running f or his life and his reason from the isle of the dead. On the way home from the bakery, she stops to buy some salad and fruit. The pale rain is still falling limply, covering the pavements in a g reasy sheen and raising a rash of pockmarks on the surface of the water. Sebastiano and his son huddle over their produce under th e green awning jury-rigged from the masts at either end of the ba rge. 'Eh, contessa! Take a look at this fennel! Fresh from Sant' Erasmo, the genuine stuff.' Even though she knows he's trying to make a sale, Ada can't help feeling flattered at the way he call s her 'contessa', without a trace of irony or obsequiousness, the way people did when titles were just a fact of life, a descripti on like the colour of your hair or eyes. So she orders some of hi s overpriced fennel along with the salad leaves, apples and grape s. It is while Sebastiano is weighing out the fruit that Ada catc hes sight of the figure fixing her with his moronic leer from the other side of the canal, his cloak billowing about him. 'What's the matter?' says Sebastiano, looking up from the makeshift coun ter of slatted wooden boxes piled high with potatoes and lemons a nd tomatoes. Following her fixed gaze, he turns to look. The dead -end alley opposite is empty except for some scaffolding whose pr otective tarpaulin screen is flapping in the stiff easterly wind. 'Are you all right?' he asks, looking at her with barely veiled anxiety. A wherry full of plastic sacks of sand and cement come s up the canal, its temporary foredeck of planks supporting a bat tered wheelbarrow and a cement mixer lying on its side. Going to the Pagan house, as Ada still thinks of it, even though Maria Pag an has been dead a year or more. Now some foreigner has bought th e property and is paying a fortune to have it done up . . . 'Car ry la Contessa Zulian's shopping home for her,' Sebastiano barks at his son, a gangling youth wearing a jacket inscribed Washingto n Redskins, a single gold earring and a baseball cap turned back to front. The boy scowls and mutters something under his breath t o which Sebastiano responds with a guttural monosyllable. Father and son sway back and forth as their barge heaves at its moorings under the swell of the passing wherry, pinching the bald tyres w hich serve as fenders. Ada Zulian recalls seeing a motor vehicle, many years ago, when her parents took her to the Lido. Waving aw ay the offers of help, she tells Sebastiano she'll pay him next w eek and trudges off, listing slightly to port, a bulging blue-and -white striped plastic bag in each hand. On the stone pillar sup porting the railing of the bridge perches a seagull with a bit of bloody liver in its beak. Ada carefully avoids looking it in the eye, lest she be beguiled. As she reaches the top, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 1996, 3, US: Del Rey, 2007. Mass Market Pa. Very Good. Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCa ffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the bestse lling novels Dragon's Kin and Dragonsblood, return with their second collab oration: a thrilling adventure of discovery and fate. Pellar is an orphan taken in by Masterharper Zist. Though born mute, Pellar is a gifted tracker, and when Zist sets off to take over as harper for Nat alon's coal-mining camp, Pellar-along with his fire-lizard, Chitter-joins h im on a secret mission of his own: to find out if reported thefts of coal a re the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship. Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of their paren ts' crimes, these children have inherited their cruel punishment. Lack of f ood, shelter, and clothes is their lot; hope is unknown to them. And what f uture would they hope for? Without a hold to call their own, there will be no protection for them when the lethal Thread inevitably falls again. Life is even tougher for Halla. Her family gone, she must fend for herself. Yet despite the brutality of her surroundings, Halla is kind and gentle, devote d to those more helpless than she. As depraved as Halla is good, Tenim is in league with Tarik, a crooked mine r from Camp Natalon, who helps him steal coal in exchange for a cut of the profit. But Tenim soon realizes there is a lot more to be made from firesto ne, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn Thread ou t of the sky. Tenim doesn't care what he has to do, or whom he has to kill, in order to corner the market. Cristov is Tari., Del Rey, 2007, 3<

2007, ISBN: 9780345480293

Rajpal & Sons . Papeback. New. pp. 110, Rajpal & Sons, 6, US: Del Rey, 2007. Paperback. Very Good. Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCa ffrey a… Mehr…

Rajpal & Sons . Papeback. New. pp. 110, Rajpal & Sons, 6, US: Del Rey, 2007. Paperback. Very Good. Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCa ffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the bestse lling novels Dragon's Kin and Dragonsblood, return with their second collab oration: a thrilling adventure of discovery and fate. Pellar is an orphan taken in by Masterharper Zist. Though born mute, Pellar is a gifted tracker, and when Zist sets off to take over as harper for Nat alon's coal-mining camp, Pellar-along with his fire-lizard, Chitter-joins h im on a secret mission of his own: to find out if reported thefts of coal a re the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship. Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of their paren ts' crimes, these children have inherited their cruel punishment. Lack of f ood, shelter, and clothes is their lot; hope is unknown to them. And what f uture would they hope for? Without a hold to call their own, there will be no protection for them when the lethal Thread inevitably falls again. Life is even tougher for Halla. Her family gone, she must fend for herself. Yet despite the brutality of her surroundings, Halla is kind and gentle, devote d to those more helpless than she. As depraved as Halla is good, Tenim is in league with Tarik, a crooked mine r from Camp Natalon, who helps him steal coal in exchange for a cut of the profit. But Tenim soon realizes there is a lot more to be made from firesto ne, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn Thread ou t of the sky. Tenim doesn't care what he has to do, or whom he has to kill, in order to corner the market. Cristov is Tari., Del Rey, 2007, 3<

2007, ISBN: 9780345480293

US: Del Rey, 2007. Paperback. Very Good. Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCa ffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the… Mehr…

US: Del Rey, 2007. Paperback. Very Good. Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCa ffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the bestse lling novels Dragon's Kin and Dragonsblood, return with their second collab oration: a thrilling adventure of discovery and fate. Pellar is an orphan taken in by Masterharper Zist. Though born mute, Pellar is a gifted tracker, and when Zist sets off to take over as harper for Nat alon's coal-mining camp, Pellar-along with his fire-lizard, Chitter-joins h im on a secret mission of his own: to find out if reported thefts of coal a re the work of the Shunned, criminals condemned to a life of wandering and hardship. Halla is one of the children of the Shunned. Though innocent of their paren ts' crimes, these children have inherited their cruel punishment. Lack of f ood, shelter, and clothes is their lot; hope is unknown to them. And what f uture would they hope for? Without a hold to call their own, there will be no protection for them when the lethal Thread inevitably falls again. Life is even tougher for Halla. Her family gone, she must fend for herself. Yet despite the brutality of her surroundings, Halla is kind and gentle, devote d to those more helpless than she. As depraved as Halla is good, Tenim is in league with Tarik, a crooked mine r from Camp Natalon, who helps him steal coal in exchange for a cut of the profit. But Tenim soon realizes there is a lot more to be made from firesto ne, the volatile mineral that enables the dragons of Pern to burn Thread ou t of the sky. Tenim doesn't care what he has to do, or whom he has to kill, in order to corner the market. Cristov is Tari., Del Rey, 2007, 3<