Credible Threat

Ali Reynolds and her team at High Noon Enterprises must race against the clock to save an archbishop who faces mysterious death threats in this “masterly study of the effects of grief, rage, and the power of forgiveness” (Publishers Weekly) by New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance. Years after her son’s fatal overdose, grieving mother Rachel Higgins learns that his addiction may have grown out of damage suffered at the hands of a pedophile priest while he was in high school. Looking for vengeance, she targets the Catholic Church’s most visible local figure, Archbishop Francis Gillespie. When the archbishop begins receiving anonymous threats, local police dismiss them, saying they’re not credible. So he turns to his friends, Ali Reynolds and her husband, B. Simpson. With B. out of the country on a cybersecurity emergency, it’s up to Ali to track down the source of the threats. When a shooter assassinates the archbishop’s driver and leaves the priest himself severely injured, Ali forms an uneasy alliance with a Phoenix homicide cop in hopes of preventing another attack. But Ali doesn’t realize that the killer has become not only more unhinged but also more determined to take out his or her target. Credible Threat is another “terrific entry in a series distinguished by its consistent quality, [and] sensitive treatment of a difficult subject makes this an extraordinary literary experience” (The Providence Journal).

Greta Thunberg. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anita Sarkeesian. Emma Gonzalez. When women are vocal about political and social issues, too-often they are flogged with attacks via social networking sites, comment sections, discussion boards, email, and direct message. Rather than targeting their ideas, the abuse targets their identities, pummeling them with rape threats, attacks on their appearance and presumed sexual behavior, and a cacophony of misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic stereotypes and epithets. Like street harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace, digital harassment rejects women's implicit claims to be taken seriously as interlocutors, colleagues, and peers. Sarah Sobieraj shows that this online abuse is more than interpersonal bullying--it is a visceral response to the threat of equality in digital conversations and arenas that men would prefer to control. Thus identity-based attacks are particularly severe for those women who are seen as most out of line, such as those from racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups or who work in domains dominated by men, such as gaming, technology, politics, and sports. Feminists and women who don't conform to traditional gender norms are also frequently targeted. Drawing on interviews with over fifty women who have been on the receiving end of identity-based abuse online, Credible Threat explains why all of us should be concerned about the hostile climate women navigate online. This toxicity comes with economic, professional, and psychological costs for those targeted, but it also exacts societal-level costs that are rarely recognized: it erodes our civil liberties, diminishes our public discourse, thins the knowledge available to inform policy and electoral decision-making, and teaches all women that activism and public service are unappealing, high-risk endeavors to be avoided. Sobieraj traces these underexplored effects, showing that when identity-based attacks succeed in constraining women's use of digital publics, there are democratic consequences that cannot be ignored.

Greta Thunberg. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Anita Sarkeesian. Emma Gonzalez. When women are vocal about political and social issues, too-often they are flogged with attacks via social networking sites, comment sections, discussion boards, email, and direct message. Rather than targeting their ideas, the abuse targets their identities, pummeling them with rape threats, attacks on their appearance and presumed sexual behavior, and a cacophony of misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, and homophobic stereotypes and epithets. Like street harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace, digital harassment rejects women's implicit claims to be taken seriously as interlocutors, colleagues, and peers. Sarah Sobieraj shows that this online abuse is more than interpersonal bullying--it is a visceral response to the threat of equality in digital conversations and arenas that men would prefer to control. Thus identity-based attacks are particularly severe for those women who are seen as most out of line, such as those from racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups or who work in domains dominated by men, such as gaming, technology, politics, and sports. Feminists and women who don't conform to traditional gender norms are also frequently targeted. Drawing on interviews with over fifty women who have been on the receiving end of identity-based abuse online, Credible Threat explains why all of us should be concerned about the hostile climate women navigate online. This toxicity comes with economic, professional, and psychological costs for those targeted, but it also exacts societal-level costs that are rarely recognized: it erodes our civil liberties, diminishes our public discourse, thins the knowledge available to inform policy and electoral decision-making, and teaches all women that activism and public service are unappealing, high-risk endeavors to be avoided. Sobieraj traces these underexplored effects, showing that when identity-based attacks succeed in constraining women's use of digital publics, there are democratic consequences that cannot be ignored.

"Years after her son's fatal overdose, grieving mother Rachel Higgins learns that his addiction may have grown out of damage suffered at the hands of a pedophile priest while he was in high school. Looking for vengeance, she targets the Catholic Church's most visible local figure, Archbishop Francis Gillespie. When the archbishop begins receiving anonymous threats, local police dismiss them, saying they're not credible. So he turns to his friends, Ali Reynolds and her husband, B. Simpson. With B. out of the country on a cybersecurity emergency, it's up to Ali to track down the source of the threats. When a shooter assassinates the archbishop's driver and leaves the priest himself severely injured, Ali forms an uneasy alliance with a Phoenix homicide cop in hopes of preventing another attack. But Ali doesn't realize that the killer has become not only more unhinged but also more determined to take out his or her target."--Provided by publisher.

"Daryl G. Press uses historical evidence to answer two crucial questions: When a country backs down in a crisis, does its credibility suffer? How do leaders assess their adversaries' credibility? Press illuminates the decision-making processes behind events such as the crises in Europe that preceded World War II, the superpower showdowns over Berlin in the 1950s and 60s, and the Cuban Missile Crisis."--Page 4 of cover.

They're going to assassinate the president. Can Blake Jordan stop them? After he's fired from the Department of Domestic Counterterrorism, former agent Blake Jordan heads to DC for President-elect Keller's inauguration. But there are men in power who won't let that happen. When Keller asks Blake to create an off-the-books black ops team to stop terrorists, he refuses. But when someone tries to take Blake out of the picture, he learns of a plot to assassinate Keller. If he wants to stop the killers, Blake must form a team to save his friend. But the terrorists have something far more sinister planned... and it can't be stopped because it's already been done. CREDIBLE THREAT is a fast-paced thriller you'll be reading late into the night. Here's what readers are saying... ★★★★★ "It drew me in, I could not put it down." ★★★★★ "Well crafted, full of twists and turns." ★★★★★ "...a real page-turner." ★★★★★ "I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller." ★★★★★ "Read in one sitting, couldn't put it down." ★★★★★ "It held my attention beginning to end." ★★★★★ "...great storytelling." ★★★★★ "Fast-paced, highly recommended!" ★★★★★ "You won't want to put this book down." ★★★★★ "A great book in the Blake Jordan series!" Are you ready for a great story? Start reading now.

What do you do when a nuclear weapon detonates nearby? During the early Cold War years of 1945-63, Civil Defence Canada and the Emergency Measures Organization planned for just such a disaster and encouraged citizens to prepare their families and their cities for nuclear war. By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the civil defence program was widely mocked, and the public was vastly unprepared for nuclear war. Canada’s civil defence program was born in the early Cold War, when fears of conflict between the superpowers ran high. Give Me Shelter features previously unreleased documents detailing Canada’s nuclear survival plans. Andrew Burtch reveals how the organization publicly appealed to citizens to prepare for disaster themselves -- from volunteering as air-raid wardens to building fallout shelters. This tactic ultimately failed, however, due to a skeptical populace, chronic underfunding, and repeated bureaucratic fumbling. Give Me Shelter exposes the challenges of educating the public in the face of the looming threat of nuclear annihilation. Give Me Shelter explains how governments and the public prepared for the unexpected. It is essential reading for historians, policymakers, and anybody interested in Canada’s Cold War home front.

The game-theoretic modelling of negotiations has been an active research area for the past five decades, that started with the seminal work by Nobel laureate John Nash in the early 1950s. This book provides a survey of some of the major developments in the field of strategic bargaining models with an emphasize on the role of threats in the negotiation process. Threats are all actions outside the negotiation room that negotiators have ate their disposal and the use of these actions affect the bargaining position of all negotiators. Of course, each negotiator aims to strengthen his own position. Examples of threats are the announcement of a strike by a union in centralized wage bargaining, or a nation’s announcement of a trade war directed against other nations in negotiations for trade liberalization. This book is organized on the basis of a simple guiding principle: The situation in which none of the parties involved in the negotiations has threats at its disposal is the natural benchmark for negotiations where the parties can make threats. Also on the technical level, negotiations with variable threats build on and extend the techniques applied in analyzing bargaining situations without threats. The first part of this book, containing chapter 3-6, presents the no-threat case, and the second part, containing chapter 7-10, extends the analysis for negotiation situations where threats are present. A consistent and unifying framework is provided first in 2.