Showing results by author "Andrew Scott" in All Categories

Recently retired Navy SEAL and pilot Steve Remington hoped for a quiet life on the island of St. John. But when his tugboat is attacked and he's left for dead, Remington learns he's the target of assassins searching for a hidden notebook. This notebook, left behind by a murdered DEA agent, holds details of a sinister plot to detonate a weapon of mass destruction on US soil—and frame a foreign nation to ignite a new conflict.

Some secrets are meant to be broken - the rewards outweighing the consequences. Some, however, bring about a change unlike any ever imagined. The Mating Games challenged me; not only physically, but mentally, and the emotional toll it wreaked was the hardest part. Yet, I was starting to realize that the worst...and best...was yet to come.

On February 15, 2003, a group of thieves broke into an allegedly airtight vault in the international diamond capital of Antwerp, Belgium and made off with over $108 million dollars worth of diamonds and other valuables. They did so without tripping an alarm or injuring a single guard in the process.

Thanks to increases in life expectancy, we can now expect to live for a long time. Most of us would welcome an extra day in the week, so why do so many of us view the prospect of additional years with fear and skepticism? The reason is simple: society is not currently structured to support long lives. Rather than thinking in terms of the needs of a rising number of older people, we must instead support the young and middle-aged to prepare differently for the longer futures they can expect.

In this remarkably human portrait of one of the 20th century's most complicated personalities, author Andrew Scott Cooper traces Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's life from childhood through his ascension to the throne in 1941. He highlights the turbulence of the postwar era, during which the shah survived assassination attempts and coup plots to build a modern, pro-Western state and launch Iran onto the world stage as one of the world's top five powers.

Fire is rarely out of the headlines, from large natural wildfires raging across the Australian or Californian countrysides to the burning of buildings such as the disasters of Grenfell tower and Notre Dame. Fire on these scales can represent a serious risk to human life and property. But the advent of fire made and controlled by humans also represented a crucial point in our evolution, allowing us to cook our food, forge our weapons, and warm our homes.

Struggling with a recession... European nations at risk of defaulting on their loans... A possible global financial crisis. It happened before, in the 1970s. The Oil Kings is the story of how oil came to dominate U.S. domestic and international affairs. Brilliantly reported and filled with astonishing details about some of the key figures of the time, this is the history of an era that we thought we knew, an era whose momentous reverberations still influence events at home and abroad today.

What will your 100-year life look like? Does the thought of working for 60 or 70 years fill you with dread? Or can you see the potential for a more stimulating future as a result of having so much extra time? Many of us have been raised on the traditional notion of a three-stage approach to our working lives: education, followed by work and then retirement. But this well-established pathway is already beginning to collapse.

When my best friend and the only person who knows who - and what - I really am gets selected for the Mating Games, I know the only way to save her is to try and win her for myself. All I need to do is navigate three trials while not letting anyone know I'm a woman, or, and this might be even more important, that I have magic. Easy, right? Easier than slaving away for all hours of the day swinging an ax in the mines. Or so I thought. I certainly didn't count on the one man I've longed for, the one man who stirs feelings of femininity and desire within me, to enter the games as well.

"Apollo's history is a confusing one," said the renowned poet and mythologist Robert Graves. This notion is also illustrated in a quote from the sixth century BCE Homeric Hymn to Apollo, which gives the listener a brief glimpse into the confusion surrounding Apollo's multi-faceted nature.

Soon after birth, tiger cubs are instinctively drawn to wrestling. Eventually their play transforms into real skills of potentially lethal efficiency. Humans have done the same. In this anthology, you will find unique combative techniques found in some cultures as well as some techniques that are universal. Allen Pittman gives a portrayal of Dr. Tim Geoghegan’s particular blend of Eastern and Western wrestling, and his formidable arsenal for grappling and throwing. In anther chapter, Pittman focuses on the shoulder throw. The technical variations seem endless for this valued movement. ...

The future William Gibson imagined in Neuromancer didn’t just reimagine the landscape of science fiction, it redefined how we think about the intersection of humanity and technology, and about the power of narrative to explore the consequences of living in a world dominated by digital networks, cybernetic enhancements, and artificial intelligence. In this anthology, we explore stories inspired by Gibson’s cyberpunk universe—a place where the boundaries between the real and the virtual, the human and the machine, are constantly shifting, often with unsettling results. They are steeped ...

I was taught to fear the truth, a lesson my mother instilled in me from birth, but that was before. Before she disappeared without a trace and left me to navigate a world she taught me was dangerous but never explained why. I thought I could handle it alone, with only my best friend to share my secrets, but that was before them - before the men that plowed into my life and found a place for themselves. They gave me everything - love, respect, but there was one thing I needed that they didn't have: answers.

The ancient Greeks used a number of forms of divination to determine the future and seek advice from the gods as to which actions they should take in any given situation. The most popular of these ways to consult the Gods was through a visit to an oracle - usually a person - at a fixed shrine. The oldest of these Greek sites was at Dodona in Epirus, and while it continued to be a major oracle for the Greek world through antiquity, it was quickly overtaken by the oracle at Delphi as the most consulted by kings, politicians, and ordinary Greeks alike.

A trusted member of Hitler’s inner circle, Artur Axmann, the head of the Hitler Youth, witnessed the Führer commit suicide in Berlin - but he would not let the Reich die with its leader. Evading capture, and with access to remnants of the regime’s wealth, Axmann had enough followers to reestablish the Nazi party in the very heart of Allied-occupied Germany - and position himself to become dictator of the Fourth Reich. U.S. Army Counter Intelligence Corps Officer Jack Hunter was the perfect undercover operative.

Attempting to cover all the forms the "Goddess of Love" encapsulates is no small affair. The roles she played in romance, marriage, procreation, and all of the other desires of humanity were myriad, but the aim of this book is to paint a slightly different, perhaps more esoteric version of Aphrodite from the usual image of her in mythology books.

The last century saw a revolution in life expectancy. Whether you are male or female, born in the global south or north, the chances are that you can expect to live much longer than previous generations. But instead of seeing this as a precious gift of extra life, we see it as a burden, with ageing populations dogged by infirmity, dependent on an ever-decreasing number of young people to support them. Andrew Scott argues it doesn't have to be like that.

Sniper Elite: Origins is three original stories set in the world of the hit video game that explore the beginnings of Karl Fairburne, the Sniper Elite. In Water Line, Karl Fairburn is a new recruit fighting on the front line. Battle weary, low on morale and holding a bridge in a rear-guard action to delay the German onslaught. This is where he comes to understand his place in the war. The beginning of his training for life behind the lines starts in Home Ground. Karl is recruited into the SOE to learn sabotage, espionage and assassination.

Private investigator Geronimo "Fitz" Fitzgerald plies his trade in the coastal Florida city of San Marco. No case is beneath his dignity: taking photos of cheating spouses or digging up dirt on local big shots or serving legal papers to the city's miscreants. They all pay the rent and keep the rum flowing to drown out the voices from his past. However, Fitz is reluctant to take a job helping high school football coach Mack Thorpe, mainly because of the coach's uncontrollable temper.

Much of what is known of the Norse myths comes from the 10th century onwards. Until this time and, indeed, for centuries afterwards, Norse culture (particularly that of Iceland, where the myths were eventually transcribed) was an oral culture. In fact, in all Scandinavian countries well into the thirteenth century laws were memorized by officials known as “Lawspeakers” who recited them at the “Thing.” The Thing was the legislative assembly in Scandinavia “held for judicial purposes”. One of the most famous of these lawspeakers was the Icelander Snorri Sturluson.