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Pete Amsterdam, world’s most reluctant private eye, is living the bachelor dream in Key West, Florida. Then his mother, the undaunted Gertie, shows up with her new hip, her large suitcase, and her gift for cutting remarks.

From his hardscrabble NYC upbringing, through the NYPD ranks, to command of America's first ever joint task force on terrorism alongside the FBI, Kevin M. Hallinan lived a lot of history. From beat cop to detective, Hallinan maneuvered through some of America's most volatile decades and saw from the inside the tenuous gray line between law and order.

The essence of being street smart is the ability to take advantage of lucky breaks. And everyone—at least once in their lifetime—gets a lucky break. What they do with that lucky break varies tremendously from individual to individual. Street smart people don't just sit around waiting for something to happen and fall into their laps—they create their lucky breaks. It's certainly not taught in school and formal education!

All Mapleton Police Chief Gordon Hepler wants is to enjoy a rare quiet moment and have a peaceful lunch. Before he can finish his sandwich, Angie, his wife, calls to say her business partner is going to be arrested at a wedding reception they’re catering. Seems her partner stumbled upon the body of one of the guests - the mother of the groom. Was it a natural death? Suicide? Homicide?

Contained herein are tales of the history of mankind's future first colony, from the first failed attempt at colonization, to the rise in crime, to the rise in terrorism, to its descent into widespread civil war and rebellion...and ultimately, liberation. As with most of human history, this history is messy, with good men and women turning bad, bad men and women inadvertently doing good, and blood flowing in the streets.

When you start a new business, you need to jump out of the gate fast. You need to understand exactly what's needed to be successful from the very first day. But if you've been running your business for years, and feel like you're spinning your wheels, never able to catch a break or get ahead of your competitors, it's a massive shift in thinking about how you run the important areas of your business that's needed. What you need is a turning point....

Someone is playing a game with Mapleton’s Chief of Police...and it’s deadly. For Mapleton Police Chief Gordon Hepler, life has become predictably boring - despite being a newlywed. Being a husband is great. Dealing with nothing but parking violations, speeders, and the occasional disorderly complaint is monotonous. Gordon wonders if he’s been so busy dealing with “Chief Stuff” that he’s lost his edge as a street cop. Especially when his biggest challenges are handling the penny-pinching mayor and deciding what goes into the station’s vending machines.

Mapleton police chief Gordon Hepler and the mayor can’t agree about what being a cop means. To Gordon, it’s keeping his citizens safe. To the mayor, it’s generating revenue by issuing speeding and parking tickets. When two runaway dogs waylay Gordon on the way to what he hopes will be an uneventful afternoon at a backyard barbeque, more than his afternoon is interrupted. As dogs will do, these have uncovered a bone.

Life is a balancing act. When you’re a cop, the choices can be deadly. Ed Solomon, long-time police officer in the small town of Mapleton, Colorado, has been ribbed for thinking there’s a ring of assassins out killing deadbeat dads. However, he’s convinced these killers exist and they’re doing their dirty work from behind an innocuous-looking travel blog. Proving the ring exists has been a sideline investigation for him, but it’s shoved further onto the back burner when Ed is forced to assume the duties of Chief.

Lucas Walker's life couldn't be more different from a few years ago. Now married and expecting his first child, he wants nothing more than to provide a good home for his family. With Christmas coming, he sets off to find the perfect surprise for his wife. As Tori Walker approaches the time for her baby to be born, she is comforted by the expert care that surrounds her. However, winter in the mountains can turn deadly at the blink of an eye. When her prankster husband fails to return from a short hunting trip, she doesn't know whether to be angry or worried.

When a member of the film crew is found dead, everything goes sideways. The mayor pushes Gordon to adopt a business as usual mentality, and let the film company handle the investigation. But a murder on Mapleton soil makes it Gordon's jurisdiction, and nothing the mayor says can make him halt his investigation. When other members of the cast and crew haven't reported in, Gordon wonders if he's looking for more suspects or more victims. Will Gordon listen to the mayor, or risk his job to find the truth?

Solving a crime is like piecing together a puzzle. But what happens if the pieces don't fit? When police chief Gordon Hepler's doctor orders him to cut down on the stress in his life or risk losing his vision, Gordon books a winter retreat at a remote bed and breakfast. Hours away from Mapleton, where nobody knows he's a cop, he plans to relax and try to forget about his eyes.

The Soviet Union delivers an ultimatum to the president of the United States: Surrender unconditionally within 72 hours, or a secret weapon of unprecedented capabilities will take millions of American lives. President William Mellon Stark ran on a campaign of peace and kept his promises, slashing the military budget and pouring millions into domestic programs. Now the nation is years behind in the technology of mass destruction.

Fate was working against little Brian Mauretti. The food that was meant to nourish him was poisoning him instead, and the doctors said the damage was devastating and absolute. Fate had written off Brian. But fate didn’t count on a woman as determined as Brian’s grandmother, Angela DiMartino - who everyone knew as Mama. Loving her grandson with everything she had, Mama endeavored to battle fate. Fate had no idea what it was in for.

In 1948, American polls rated Bing Crosby "the most admired man alive", and it's no surprise given how popular he was across every major form of entertainment during the decade. With a string of major hits, Crosby was the most popular singer in the country during that era, with classic songs like "White Christmas" helping pave the way for other singers as varied as Bob Hope, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra. In fact, young Sinatra modeled his clothing and style after Crosby, who was his idol growing up.

Of all the show business icons in American history, one of the most beloved was Bob Hope, whose career spanned over six decades across film, television, vaudeville, comedy, and touring and earned him too many accolades to count. On the day of his 100th birthday, more than half of the states in America declared it "Bob Hope Day", a sign of just how monumental and influential he was as an entertainer.

Rommel, Guderian, Liddell-Hart and JFC Fuller were all early exponents and practitioners of armored warfare, tactics that were to break the stalemate that had characterized World War I. Advocates of the tank and above all speed, it was their ideas which decimated Saddam Hussein's forces in the 1990 Gulf War. But among the proponents and practitioners of armored warfare, the brash, bold, arrogant and eccentric George S. Patton remains the world's greatest armored commander by the one yardstick that really counts: the battlefield.

Calling all pet lovers! Are you looking for the very best holistic home remedies for your pet? If so, then this book is what you've been waiting for! Essential oils are a great choice to make when it comes to the health of your pet. Instead of worrying about the harmful side effects of prescription medication, you can get an essential oil that is safe and effective no matter what you are using it for.

Aikido Au Revoir is the fifth novel of the Aikido Mystery Series with Sensei Parker. He is in France on the Cote d'Azur teaching a pair of aikido seminars. It's tough work, but someone has to do it, right? Why not Parker? He is a master of the art, after all, and although he has his own school back in Orlando, Florida, it isn't doing as well as it was before the economy tanked. He is taking a break from his day job with this trip to France. He has had to resort to being a Private Detective to make ends meet, and this is going to be a vacation as well as a teaching job. Or is it?

The Aikido-Ka is the second book in The Parker Mystery Series featuring Aikido Sensei Parker, a sometimes Private Eye. Parker's old friend Derek Gunner comes to Parker with a request to find the long lost son of his former army Captain who is dying. Barely excaping that meeting with his life Parker figures his job is done, only to find that instead of going back home and teaching aikido he now has to head to the Chicago suburbs and get the young man out of big time trouble.