Naked Prey

The #1 New York Times bestselling Lucas Davenport novel from John Sandford. Two people are found hanging naked from a tree in the woods of northern Minnesota. What makes the situation particularly sensitive is the bodies are of a black man and a white woman. Lynching is the word everyone’s trying not to say, but as Lucas Davenport begins to discover, the murders are not at all what they appear to be. And there is worse to come—much, much worse. “All but impossible to put down.”—The Washington Post “Fast paced and full of surprises, this may be Sandford’s best novel yet.”—Library Journal

From Double Indemnity (1944) to The Godfather (1972), the stories behind some of the greatest films ever made pale beside the story of the studio that made them. In the golden age of Hollywood, Paramount was one of the Big Five studios. Gulf + Western's 1966 takeover of the studio signaled the end of one era and heralded the arrival of a new way of doing business in Hollywood. Bernard F. Dick reconstructs the battle that reduced the studio to a mere corporate commodity and traces Paramount's devolution from freestanding studio to subsidiary—first of Gulf + Western, then of Paramount Communications, and currently, of Viacom-CBS. Dick portrays the new Paramount as a paradigm of today's Hollywood, where the only real art is the art of the deal. In modern Hollywood, former merchandising executives find themselves in charge of production on the assumption that anyone who can sell a movie can make one. CEOs exit in disgrace from one studio, only to emerge in triumph at another. Corporate raiders vie for power and control, purchasing and selling film libraries, studio property, television stations, book publishers, and more. The history of Paramount is filled with larger-than-life people, including Billy Wilder, Adolph Zukor, Sumner Redstone, Shari Redstone, Sherry Lansing, Barry Diller, Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and more.

Only three students had access to a teacher’s racy photos before they went viral. There’s Mouse, a brainy overachiever so desperate to escape his father and go to MIT that he would do almost anything, legal or not. Then there’s Drew, the star athlete who can get any girl’s number—and private photos—with his charm but has a history of passing those photos around. And finally there’s Jenna, a good girl turned rebel after her own shocking photos made the rounds at school last year, who is still waiting for justice. All three deny leaking the photos, but someone has to take the fall. This edgy whodunit tackles hot-button issues of sexting and gossip and will have readers tearing through the pages to reach the final reveal.

Years ago, Lucas Davenport almost died at the hands of Clara Rinker, a pleasant, soft-spoken, low-key Southerner, and the best hitwoman in the business. Now retired and living in Mexico, she nearly dies herself when a sniper kills her boyfriend, the son of a local druglord, and while the boy's father vows vengeance, Rinker knows something he doesn't: The boy wasn't the target-she was-and now she is going to have to disappear to find the killer herself. The FBI and DEA draft Davenport to help track her down, and with his fiancie deep in wedding preparations, he's really just as happy to go-but he has no idea what he's getting into. For Rinker is as unpredictable as ever, and between her, her old bosses in the St. Louis mob, the Mexican druglord, and the combined, sometimes warring, forces of U.S. law enforcement, this is one case that will get more dangerous as it goes along. And when the crossfire comes, anyone standing in the middle won't stand a chance.... Filled with the rich characterization and exceptional drama that are his hallmarks, Mortal Prey proves that John Sandford just keeps getting better.

He seems like such a nice man. You’d never guess what was going on in his mind… Art history professor James Qatar has a hobby: he takes secret photographs of women to fuel more elaborate fantasies. When he’s alone. Behind locked doors. Then one day, he goes a step further and... well, one thing leads to another. Qatar has no choice. He has to kill her. And you know something? He likes it. When Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport takes the case, he assumes it’ll be straightforward police work. He couldn’t be more wrong. As the investigation trail takes some unexpected turns, it becomes clear that nothing is straightforward about this killer, his victims, or his motives. And to stop him Lucas has no choice but to walk right into his lair. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY JOHN SANDFORD

Letty Davenport, the brilliant and tenacious adopted daughter of Lucas Davenport, takes the investigative reins in the newest thriller from #1 bestselling author John Sandford. By twenty-four, Letty Davenport has seen more action than most law enforcement professionals. Working a desk job for US Senator Christopher Colles, she’s bored and ready to quit. But when her skills catch Colles’ attention, she is offered a lifeline: real investigative work. Texas oil companies are reporting thefts of crude. Rumour has it that a sinister militia is involved. Who is selling the oil? And what are they doing with the profits? Letty is partnered with a Department of Homeland Security investigator, John Kaiser. When the case turns deadly, they know they're onto something big. The militia has an explosive plan... and the clock is ticking down. From the bestselling and unputdownable author of the Prey series, The Investigator is perfect for fans of James Patterson and Lee Child.

“One of the strongest in Sandford’s Prey series.”—Entertainment Weekly “Good, dark, perverse, bloody fun.”—The Washington Post Book World Theories abound when a Russian gets himself killed on the shore of Lake Superior—shot with fifty-year-old bullets. But when it turns out he had very high government connections, state troubleshooter Lucas Davenport gets the call. Well, Lucas and a mysterious Russian cop with secrets all her own. Together, they’ll follow a trail back to another place and another time, and battle the shadows they discover there—shadows that turn out to be both very real and very deadly.

Popular cinema is saturated with images and narratives of empire. With "Projecting Empire", Chapman and Cull have written the first major study of imperialism and cinema for over thirty years. This welcome text maps the history of empire cinema in both Hollywood and Britain through a serious of case studies of popular films including biopics, adventures, literary adaptations, melodramas, comedies and documentaries, from the 1930s and "The Four Feathers" to the present, with "Indiana Jones" and "Three Kings". The authors consider industry-wide trends and place the films in their wider cultural and historical contexts. Using primary sources that include private papers, they look at the presence of particular auteurs in the cinema of Imperialism, including Korda, Lean, Huston and Attenborough, as well as the actors who brought the stories to life, such as Elizabeth Taylor and George Clooney. At a time when imperialism has a new significance in the world, this book will fulfil the needs of students and interested filmgoers alike.