Paying The Piper

Its been years since the serial kidnapper known as the Piper taunted the FBI through Scott Fleetwoods newspaper column. The exposure made Fleetwood famous, but it turned out he was talking to the wrong man, allowing the Piper to escape. Now the Piper is back, and this time hes taken Fleetwoods children. Original.

"She's Agatha Christie with an attitude; outrageous and engrossing at the same time." Steven Womack, NASHVILLE BANNER Book four in Sharyn McCrumb's Elizabeth MacPherson murder mystery series. A motley crew of American and British professionals and amateurs gathers for an archaeological dig into prehistoric burial rites on a small Scottish island. Things already aren't going so well, when one of the strongest in the crew dies suddenly. Afraid for her life, fellow digger and forensic anthropologist Elizabeth MacPherson probes the rocky topsoil for a reason behind the evil aura of death that seems to hover over them. Is the excavation cursed by the ancient dead...or is there a more modern explanation behind the group's strangely rising mortality rate...?

When Callie interviews the band, Brass Rat, for her school newspaper, her feelings are ambivalent, but when all the children of Northampton begin to disappear on Halloween, she knows where the dangerous search must begin.

During the Cold War, freedom of expression was vaunted as liberal democracy's most cherished possession—but such freedom was put in service of a hidden agenda. In The Cultural Cold War, Frances Stonor Saunders reveals the extraordinary efforts of a secret campaign in which some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West were working for or subsidized by the CIA—whether they knew it or not. Called "the most comprehensive account yet of the [CIA's] activities between 1947 and 1967" by the New York Times, the book presents shocking evidence of the CIA's undercover program of cultural interventions in Western Europe and at home, drawing together declassified documents and exclusive interviews to expose the CIA's astonishing campaign to deploy the likes of Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, Leonard Bernstein, Robert Lowell, George Orwell, and Jackson Pollock as weapons in the Cold War. Translated into ten languages, this classic work—now with a new preface by the author—is "a real contribution to popular understanding of the postwar period" (The Wall Street Journal), and its story of covert cultural efforts to win hearts and minds continues to be relevant today.

Indeed, along the route to becoming one of Britain's best-known economists, he has found himself deeply involved with the economics and politics of culture and in close contact with composers and musicians in particular.

During Brian Monteith's eight years as a member of the Scottish Parliament, including periods as convener of the Parliament's powerful Audit Committee and as Conservative Finance spokesman, the Scottish Executive's ever-burgeoning kitty rose from £16 billion to £30 billion. The parliament's recent priority has been determining how to spend this money, prompting Monteith to pose and discuss fundamental questions about taxation and political accountability in Scotland. Does the current system in Scotland make national and local government accountable? Is there a moral case for lower taxes, and if there is, how can it be implemented? What is the moral case in a property-owning democracy for taking the public's money and can progressive taxation be justified to redistribute wealth? What taxes should therefore be available to the Scottish Parliament and what further powers might it require, if any, to deliver accountability—together with improved standards of living, especially for the poorest in society? What are the range and mix of taxes that would deliver such goals—including flat income taxes, local sales taxes and a host of alternatives? And this begs the question, is financial devolution within home rule enough or is full independence required? Monteith believes the devolution settlement can and must be improved upon and offers his own recipe that would reduce taxes and deliver greater accountability in local and national government.

If you do what you're taught, you save for retirement inside your workplace 401k plan. Unfortunately, what you may not understand is that you're creating a costly monster. You may be subject to lifetime income taxes in excess of eighty percent of the balance of your account. This book uncovers the reasons that cause these ongoing taxes and reveals specific strategies that allow you to take immediate action. The newest changes in our tax codes have created an unparalleled opportunity to save a lot of money for the rest of your life. The purpose of the book is to teach you simple steps that can be implemented to save literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of income taxes.