Big Max

The world's greatest detective solves another crime.

Big Max, the world's greatest detective, helps a king find his missing elephant.

Goliad's Revenge By: Richard Jensen Historically accurate, this novel treads its way back to the mid-19th century. Here we find our country embroiled in the tumultuous task of nation building. Texas had just been accepted as the 28th State and to protect it from a displeased Mexican government, General Zachary Taylor had some 3500 American troops guarding the southern border and assaulting important communities south of the Rio Grande. This assignment embodied intervals of both war and peace with an almost always unpredictable outcome. Not surprisingly, these transitional imponderables seemed to intensify nearly every emotion known to man. Our relatively young protagonist, JK, covered the entire gambit of these encounters with uncertain moments of loneliness and despair intermingled with eminent danger and intense fear. While frequently outnumbered, but employing the military genius of Zachary Taylor, JK survived a multitude of battles. Even more surprising, here in the heart of an adversarial country, he found himself deeply in love with a girl that he dreamed of taking home as his wife. Sadly, the ecstasy of this stormy romance was shattered by a cruel deception, and the most hurtful betrayal of a trust that could ever be imagined.

Revisit the popular Charleston Trilogy by #1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods in this heartwarming story of love, loss, and family rejuvenation. The moment Amanda defied her rich and powerful father to marry Bobby O’Leary, Big Max disowned her. Even now, with Bobby dead and Amanda mired in debt, he refuses to forgive her. But Caleb, the new man in Amanda’s life, is determined to mend fences between father and daughter. He also has a far more personal mission—to make Amanda and her family his own. But when she learns how close he is to Big Max and the secret Caleb’s been hiding, there’s every chance she could walk away. As a pastor, Caleb’s used to calling on a higher power for help, and heaven knows it’s going to take a miracle to fix this before it’s too late. Originally published in 2006.

Big Max, the world's greatest detective, must travel to the land of Ah-Ah-Achoo to find the king's missing pet giraffe.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times. When Death has a story to tell, you listen. It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still. Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement. In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time. “The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times “Deserves a place on the same shelf with The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.” —USA Today DON’T MISS BRIDGE OF CLAY, MARKUS ZUSAK’S FIRST NOVEL SINCE THE BOOK THIEF.

No Foreign Sky is an intense and compelling tale of love and war set against the savage backdrop of World War II's Eastern Front. Paul Heinrich, Olympic athlete and career soldier, leads a Panzer company spearheading Barbarossa, Hitler's doomed invasion of the Soviet Union. Early victories take him to Kiev, where he falls in love with Vera, a beguiling medical student and Ukrainian nationalist. Leaving her, Paul leads the German army deeper into Russia. Brutal winters and bitter resistance sap the German will and strength. But they press onward-to Stalingrad and disaster. In retreat, Paul witnesses the scope and savagery of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed by his countrymen. As he faces his growing uncertainties and doubts, Paul's odyssey evokes the full horror and valor of war in the East. Finally, he must search for redemption amid conflicting loyalties to his sacred oath, his moral code, and the woman he loves. Teeming with vivid characters both fictional and real, No Foreign Sky relates true stories of "that time, that place," their tragic power to shape the past and the future, and their relevance to modern times.

" West Virginia boasts an unusually rich heritage of ghost tales. Originally West Virginians told these hundred stories not for idle amusement but to report supernatural experiences that defied ordinary human explanation. From jealous rivals and ghostly children to murdered kinsmen and omens of death, these tales reflect the inner lives—the hopes, beliefs, and fears—of a people. Like all folklore, these tales reveal much of the history of the region: its isolation and violence, the passions and bloodshed of the Civil War era, the hardships of miners and railroad laborers, and the lingering vitality of Old World traditions.