Download or read book A House of Smoke and Mirrors written by Annie Berkley and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-02-23 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A House of Smoke and Mirrors tells the story of a little girl named Annie growing up in a family home filled with secrets and lies. Annie's father walked out on the family when Annie was just five years old, leaving her heartbroken and devastated. Thinking nothing could compare to the loss of her father, Annie soon discovered she was horribly wrong, there are things far more damaging than abandonment. Shortly after her father leaves, Annie's brother began to take a deeper interest in her, a sinister interest involving physical abuse and molestation. In fact, he soon took over the whole family, lording over it in a monstrous fashion. A true story of tragedy and survival, this pulls back the curtain on family abuse in a way that only an insider could narrate.

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Casey Daniels and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phineas T. Barnum’s sister must solve a murder in 19th-century New York City in this historical mystery from the author of the Pepper Martin mysteries. Evie Barnum oversees her brother’s American Museum, a place teeming with scientific specimens and “human prodigies” including a bearded woman and the lizard man. In this weird and whacky workplace, Evie hopes she can easily bury her secrets. But when an old friend shows up and begs for her help, she does all she can to stay away. The next time she sees him, he is dead in front of the exhibit of the Feejee Mermaid. Suspicion for the murder falls on Jeffrey, known as the Lizard Man, but Evie knows it isn’t possible. After Jeffrey disappears, Evie becomes determined to solve the mystery of her friend’s murder, even if it brings her face to face with a past she is desperate to hide… “[An] appealing heroine…. Amusing and eye-opening historical details complement a mystery that’s appropriately melodramatic.”—Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Smoke in Mirrors written by Jayne Ann Krentz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-10-29 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A con artist and seductress, Meredith Spooner lived fast—and died young. But her final scam—embezzling more than a million dollars from a college endowment fund—is coming back to haunt Leonora Hutton. The tainted money is stashed away in an offshore account for Leonora. And while she wants nothing to do with the cash, she discovers two other items in the safe-deposit box: a book about Mirror House—the place where Meredith engineered her final deception and a set of newspaper stories about an unsolved murder that occurred there thirty years ago. Now Leonora has an offer for Thomas Walker, another victim of Meredith’s scams and seductions. She’ll hand over the money—if he helps her figure out what’s going on. Meredith had described Thomas as “a man you can trust.” But in a funhouse-mirror world of illusion and distortion, Leonora may be out of her league…

Download or read book The God of Smoke and Mirrors written by Samuel Emerson Buntz and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-09 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Senlin, a sophomore at Wilbur College, discovers a dead professor when attempting to visit office hours. Despite the complacency of the local authorities, he soon finds that the reason for his professor's death is far darker than the merely sordid surface would indicate. Simon is drawn beyond the tranquil lawns of Wilbur College into a nexus of power, where budding techno-fascists lust after coveted Silicon Valley internships and ancient rites of dark magic fuse with modern technology. His investigations uncover an occult conspiracy, one that holds the attention span of the human race in the balance. Teaming up with his friend Emma and an eccentric professor who has harnessed the universe's fundamental forces, Simon attempts to prevent an apocalyptic reckoning. Together, they quest to save the integrity of human consciousness from the supernatural and technological forces arrayed against it.

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Neil Gaiman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing and impressive first collection of short stories from New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat in a second-hand store . . . A stray cat fights and refights a nightly battle to protect his adoptive family from an unimagiable evil . . . A young couple receives a wedding gift that will reveal a chilling alternate history of their marriage . . . Beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks, a frightened little boy bargains for his life with a most persistent troll . . . Such miraculous inventions and more await within Neil Gaiman’s first collection of short fiction, a gift of wonder and delight from one of the most unique literary artists of our day. In his capable hands, magic is no mere illusion, but a powerful means to reveal the nature of our humanity obscured in the smoke of our fears and anxieties . . . and reflected in the funhouse mirrors of our dreams.

Download or read book Smoke Mirrors written by Michael Faudet and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Faudet’s latest book takes the reader on an emotionally charged journey, exploring the joys of falling madly in love and the melancholy world of the brokenhearted. Beautifully captured in poetry, prose, and short stories, Faudet's whimsical and sometimes erotic writing has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of readers from around the world.

Download or read book Smoke Mirrors And Murder written by Ann Rule and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-09 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ideal family is targeted for death by the least likely enemy, who plotted their demise from behind bars.... A sexual predator hides behind multiple fake identities, eluding police for years while his past victims live in fear that he will hunt them down.... A modest preacher's wife confesses to shooting her husband after an argument -- but there's more to her shattering story than meets the eye. These and other true cases are analyzed with stunning clarity in a page-turning collection you won't be able to put down. Included in this volume are stories of a victim burned beyond recognition - spontaneous human combustion? - impossible - and yet no one else seemed to enter or exit; a man who was a woman who was a man, whose con games in a small community led to murder; a "counterfeit priest" who wasn't a priest at all; a lifetime rapist; and the strangest case ever to hit Montana.

Download or read book Beyond Smoke and Mirrors written by Douglas S. Massey and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2002-03-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Migration between Mexico and the United States is part of a historical process of increasing North American integration. This process acquired new momentum with the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, which lowered barriers to the movement of goods, capital, services, and information. But rather than include labor in this new regime, the United States continues to resist the integration of the labor markets of the two countries. Instead of easing restrictions on Mexican labor, the United States has militarized its border and adopted restrictive new policies of immigrant disenfranchisement. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors examines the devastating impact of these immigration policies on the social and economic fabric of the Mexico and the United States, and calls for a sweeping reform of the current system. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors shows how U.S. immigration policies enacted between 1986–1996—largely for symbolic domestic political purposes—harm the interests of Mexico, the United States, and the people who migrate between them. The costs have been high. The book documents how the massive expansion of border enforcement has wasted billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, yet has not deterred increasing numbers of undocumented immigrants from heading north. The authors also show how the new policies unleashed a host of unintended consequences: a shift away from seasonal, circular migration toward permanent settlement; the creation of a black market for Mexican labor; the transformation of Mexican immigration from a regional phenomenon into a broad social movement touching every region of the country; and even the lowering of wages for legal U.S. residents. What had been a relatively open and benign labor process before 1986 was transformed into an exploitative underground system of labor coercion, one that lowered wages and working conditions of undocumented migrants, legal immigrants, and American citizens alike. Beyond Smoke and Mirrors offers specific proposals for repairing the damage. Rather than denying the reality of labor migration, the authors recommend regularizing it and working to manage it so as to promote economic development in Mexico, minimize costs and disruptions for the United States, and maximize benefits for all concerned. This book provides an essential "user's manual" for readers seeking a historical, theoretical, and substantive understanding of how U.S. policy on Mexican immigration evolved to its current dysfunctional state, as well as how it might be fixed.

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Lesley Choyce and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2004-11 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixteen-year-old Simon has always been considered odd. Three years ago, a skateboarding accident caused some minor brain damage and made him a little stranger. He spends much of his time living in his imagination. When Andrea appears to Simon in class, he strikes up a friendship, even though he knows she may be pure hallucination.-Simon strikes up a friendship with Andrea, even though he knows she may not be real. Andrea says she's there to save him, but Simon discovers it's he who must save her.

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by E. Melanie Dupuis and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2004-07 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the politics of air pollution.

Download or read book Smoke And Mirrors written by Elly Griffiths and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Another great series.” — San Jose Mercury News “A dazzlingly tricky mystery.” — Kirkus Reviews “A tremendous skein of red herrings, sharp and thorough police work, [and] mysterious connections.” — Bookgasm It’s Christmastime in Brighton, and the city is abuzz about magician Max Mephisto’s star turn in Aladdin. But the holiday cheer is lost on DI Edgar Stephens. He’s investigating the murder of two children, Annie and Mark, who were found in the woods alongside a trail of candy—a horrifying scene eerily reminiscent of “Hansel and Gretel.” Edgar has plenty of leads. Annie, a dark child, wrote gruesome plays based on the Grimms’ fairy tales. Does the key to the case lie in her final script? Or does the macabre staging of the bodies point to the theater and the capricious cast of Aladdin? Edgar enlists Max’s help in penetrating the shadowy world of the theater. But is this all just classic misdirection? “Excellent . . . Evoking both the St. Mary Mead of Agatha Christie and the theater world of Ngaio Marsh.” — Booklist

Download or read book The Book of Mirrors written by E. O. Chirovici and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Famous professor Joseph Wieder was brutally murdered, and the crime was never solved. Years later when literary agent Peter Katz receives an incomplete memoir written by a student of the murdered professor, he becomes obsessed with solving the crime.

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Dan Baum and published by Little Brown. This book was released on 1996 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that despite increasing levels of government action, illicit drugs are more readily available than ever, and analyzes the failure of our drug policy

Download or read book Smoke and Mirrors written by Michael Eley and published by . This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the UK theme park Alton Towers invested millions of pounds in their ground-breaking Haunted House, a new era of dark rides was born. The spectacular attraction amazed and spellbound theme park enthuisasts and dark ride fans for many years, with its breath-taking illusions and state-of-the-art technology. The original concept was retired in 2002 to make way for the interactive zombie blaster, Duel. However, the Haunted House left a lasting impression on some of those intrepid riders who braved the Poltergeist Room and were scared witless by the Grand Hallway's grinning demon.Michael P Eley was one of those riders. Through the pages of this book he will guide you back into the darkness, offering behind-the-scenes insights into the making of creator John Wardley's 'laff in the dark' attraction, as well as serving up a brief history of dark rides and haunted houses.

Download or read book Muscle Smoke Mirrors written by Randy Roach and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2008 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The research for this extensive, two volume project... represents a comprehensive effort to establish a complete context from which the sport of bodybuilding arose. "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is the rise and fall of what was truly once an extraordinary discipline associated with a term known as "Physical Culture". Experience what bodybuilding was originally and learn just exactly what "Physical Culture" really is. See what growing philanthropic power flexed its financial and political muscles to foster its corporate agenda, compromising human health internationally. Read how the merger of technology and politics culminated in the industrialization, commercialization, federalization, internationalization and finally the STERILIZATION of a nation's food supply, rendering it suspect not only to the general public; but also to the most elite of athletes. Whether you are a novice, an elite bodybuilder or simply sports-nutrition minded, learn how the emerging forces of the Iron Game evolved. Ultimately, the factions of this industry would grow powerful and manipulative while fighting for control over the Game. It took the running of several parallel histories on bodybuilding, nutrition, supplements and the role of drugs to offer a complete, first-time unraveling of the web of confusion and politics that still permeates the sport into the 21st century! Volume I of "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is truly the untold stories surrounding "Bodybuilding's Amazing Nutritional Origins."

Download or read book Wilderness of Mirrors written by David C. Martin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the dawn of the Cold War, the world’s most important intelligence agencies—the Soviet KGB, the American CIA, and the British MI6—appeared to have clear-cut roles and a sense of rising importance in their respective countries. But when Kim Philby, head of MI6’s Russian division and arguably the twenty-first century’s greatest spy, was revealed to be a Russian mole along with British government heavyweights Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, everything in the Western intelligence world turned upside down. Here is the true story of how the American James Bond—the colorful, foulmouthed, pistol-packing, alcoholic ex-FBI agent William “King” Harvey—put the finger on Philby; how James Jesus Angleton, the chain-smoking poet of Yale University and the CIA’s supposed “master spy” in charge of counterintelligence, began his descent into a paranoid wilderness of mirrors upon learning of family friend Kim Philby’s ultimate betrayal; and the devastating consequences of the loss of MI6 prestige and the CIA’s subsequent self-defeating witch hunts. Every revelation, every stranger-than-fiction twist and turn is all the more intriguing as truths become lies and unlikely scenarios are revealed as reality. With impeccable sourcing and the use of thousands of pages of declassified research, David C. Martin’s Wilderness of Mirrors is widely recognized as a masterpiece of intelligence literature.

Download or read book Amway Motivational Organizations written by Ruth Carter and published by Backstreet Publishing. This book was released on 1999 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: