Near The Exit

1989. Severin Boxx is the seventeen-year-old son of an Air Force pilot who lives on a military base in Japan. He loves -- from afar -- Virginia Kindwall, the daughter of the general who runs the base. Virginia is tough and sophisticated beyond her years, and when she falls in with the Japanese underground her dealings result in her disappearance and Severin is forced to return to America. 2006. Unhappily married and living in San Francisco, Severin's life is turned upside-down by the arrival of a postcard from General Kindwall, now dying in a hospital in Vietnam, asking him to find his daughter before he dies. But the search for Virginia will take him back to the country of his youth, and to unexpected consequences for both. Suffused with the same intensity of emotion and facility with language as Jarhead, Anthony Swofford's debut novel marks the arrival of a major new voice in fiction.

"An ideal guidebook to facing the inevitable." Foreword Reviews After her brother died unexpectedly and her mother moved into a dementia-care facility, spiritual travel writer and Episcopal deacon Lori Erickson felt called to a new quest: to face death head on, with the eye of a tourist and the heart of a pastor. Blending memoir, spirituality, and travel, Near the Exit examines how cultures confront and have confronted death, from Egypt's Valley of the Kings and Mayan temples, to a Colorado cremation pyre and Day of the Dead celebrations, to Maori settlements and tourist-destination graveyards. Erickson reflects on mortalityâ€"the ways we avoid it, the ways we cope with it, and the ways life is made more precious by accepting itâ€"in places as far away as New Zealand and as close as the nursing home up the street. Throughout her personal journey and her travels, Erickson  helps us to see that one of the most life-affirming things we can do is to invite death along for the ride.

Perfect for fans of Ben Winters and Cory Doctorow. In this thrilling near-future novel, the secret to eternal life is closely guarded by people who will do anything to protect it--even if it means destroying everything in their path. Set in Washington D.C. in the near future, climate change has hit hard, fires are burning, unemployment is high, and controversial longevity treatments are only available to the very rich. Enter resourceful young police detective, Jen B. Lu, and her 'partner', Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain and her instant link to the Internet and police records, and constant voice inside her head. He's an inquisitive tough guy, with a helluva sense of humor and his own ideas about solving crimes. As a detective in the Elder Abuse unit, Jen is supposed to be investigating kids pushing their aging parents to "exit" so they are eligible to get the longevity drug. But what really has her attention are the persistent rumors about Eden, an illegal version of the longevity drug, and the bizarre outbreak of people aging almost overnight, then suddenly dying--is this all connected? Is Big Pharma involved? When Jen's investigations of Eden take her too close to the truth, she is suspended, Chandler is deactivated, and her boyfriend is freaked out by "the thing inside her brain." This leaves Jen to pursue a very dangerous investigation all by herself.

Some people love goodbyes...23-year-old Catherine is mainly interested in Facebook and flirting, but she reluctantly takes a job at a local care home after her mother puts her foot down - and soon discovers that her new workplace contains many secrets.One of the residents at the home, 82-year-old Rose, is convinced that something sinister is going on in Room 7 and that her own life is under threat. But Rose has dementia - so what does she actually know, and who would believe her anyway?As Catherine starts investigating Rose's allegations, terrible revelations surface about everyone involved. Can Catherine find out what's really going on before it's too late?

In The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer—twice nominated for the Edgar Award—tackles an intricate story of betrayal and manipulation, loyalty and risk, in an utterly compelling novel that is both thoroughly modern and yet also reminiscent of the espionage genre's most touted luminaries. “Here’s the best spy novel I’ve ever read that wasn’t written by John le Carré.” —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly In Olen Steinhauer's explosive New York Times bestseller, Milo Weaver has tried to leave his old life of secrets and lies behind by giving up his job as a "tourist" for the CIA—an undercover agent with no home, no identity—and working a desk at the CIA's New York headquarters. But staying retired from the field becomes impossible when the arrest of a long-sought-after assassin sets off an investigation into one of Milo's oldest colleagues and friends. With new layers of intrigue being exposed in his old cases, he has no choice but to go back undercover and find out who's been pulling the strings once and for all. *BONUS CONTENT: This edition of The Tourist includes a new introduction from the author and a discussion guide

Milo Weaver has nowhere to turn but back to the CIA in Olen Steinhauer's brilliant follow-up to the New York Times bestselling espionage novel The Tourist The Tourist, Steinhauer's first contemporary novel after his awardwinning historical series, was a runaway hit, spending three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and garnering rave reviews from critics. Now faced with the end of his quiet, settled life, reluctant spy Milo Weaver has no choice but to turn back to his old job as a "tourist." Before he can get back to the CIA's dirty work, he has to prove his loyalty to his new bosses, who know little of Milo's background and less about who is really pulling the strings in the government above the Department of Tourism—or in the outside world, which is beginning to believe the legend of its existence. Milo is suddenly in a dangerous position, between right and wrong, between powerful self-interested men, between patriots and traitors—especially as a man who has nothing left to lose.