Fit To Kill

Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire," Laughing Fit to Kill illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--the absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes--to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present. Focusing on representations of slavery in the post-civil rights era, Carpio explores stereotypes in Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up act and the outrageous comedy of Chappelle's Show to demonstrate how deeply indebted they are to the sly social criticism embedded in the profoundly ironic nineteenth-century fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice. With an abundance of illustrations, Carpio also extends her discussion of radical black comedy to the visual arts as she reveals how the use of subversive appropriation by Kara Walker and Robert Colescott cleverly lampoons the iconography of slavery. Ultimately, Laughing Fit to Kill offers a unique look at the bold, complex, and just plain funny ways that African American artists have used laughter to critique slavery's dark legacy.

Thriller / 1m, 2f / Interior Fit to Kill is a thriller about strategy, deception, and betrayal. Adrian, a charming but self-indulgent chess master, enjoys a life of luxury thanks to his marriage to Janice, an older but still sexy and vibrant woman who has made her fortune as the CEO of an exercise empire. The arrival of Amy, a reporter with an agenda of her own, unleashes a whirlwind of deadly schemes that will keep audiences guessing until the final seconds. "Deliciously scary...an event wo

A journalist finds himself in the midst of the hunt for a brutal serial killer who is murdering women in Vancouver's West End.

Sign up for the course conducted by Sergeant "Sally" Cusani and Professor Percival Trout at a famous Eastern university -- whose academic serenity is shattered by a series of exceedingly brutal killings!

A friend’s disappearance sends Mike Shayne to the Caribbean Timothy Rourke made his name as a Miami crime reporter, but he never knew true evil until he came to the Caribbean. In a corrupt tropical country, where beatings and murders pass for ordinary politics, a student group begs him to report the truth about the dictatorship. Rourke has never been one to refuse a story—or a beautiful blonde—but he soon discovers that the men who run this country are experts in more than hiding the truth; they also know how to make a reporter disappear. When Rourke’s investigations get the best of him, it falls to Mike Shayne to save his life. As revolution simmers under the tropical sun, Shayne takes on the worst the dictatorship has to offer. The officials may be ruthless killers, but they have never met the likes of Shayne. Fit to Kill is the 31st book in the Mike Shayne Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

A brutal serial killer is murdering women in Vancouver's West End. On a seemingly insane rampage, he leaves their headless bodies to be found and writes taunting letters to the police. It soon becomes apparent that all his victims are members of the neighborhood fitness center. Sebastian Casey, a reporter with the weekly community newspaper, has just begun to work out at the center. As he gets to know some of the others who use the facility, Casey finds himself drawn into the search for the killer. His interest intensifies when he begins a tentative relationship with Emma Shaughnessy, a local schoolteacher, whose good looks and fitness regime makes her a prime candidate to be the killer's next victim.

Covering over 10,000 idioms and collocations characterized by similarity in their wording or metaphorical idea which do not show corresponding similarity in their meanings, this dictionary presents a unique cross-section of the English language. Though it is designed specifically to assist readers in avoiding the use of inappropriate or erroneous phrases, the book can also be used as a regular phraseological dictionary providing definitions to individual idioms, cliches, and set expressions. Most phrases included in the dictionary are in active current use, making information about their meanings and usage essential to language learners at all levels of proficiency.