The Odd Job

The basis of the 1978 British comedy film starring Monty Python member Graham Chapman. Arthur Harris is a happily married man whose wife, Fiona, decides to leave him. Devastated by this, he tries to commit suicide. After a few failed attempts, one day the doorbell rings. An "odd job man" asks if there are any odd jobs that he can perform, so Arthur decides to hire the man to kill him. When his wife returns, Arthur is unable to cancel the contract, and the man he hired still tries to kill him.

One of Boston’s landmark museums is shaken by a savage murder When the doddering patrons of the Wilkins Museum learned that dozens of their priceless masterworks had been stolen and replaced by forgeries, there was no one to turn to but Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn—the savviest art detectives of the Boston upper crust. Nabbing the crooks was easy, but finding the missing paintings has proven trickier. Years later, the collection’s prized Titian is still lost, and the new director, loudmouthed cattle baron Elwyn Fleesom Turbot, is getting impatient. And things get even more troublesome when members of his staff begin to die. It starts when Dolores Tawne, the elderly, bossy museum administrator, is stabbed through the base of her skull with an antique hatpin. Inside the dead woman’s safe deposit box Sarah finds clues to a conspiracy that stretches back decades and a way to stop the murders that are still to come.

College student Kevin Davenport is working any and every odd job to make it through school. He discovers who killed his father while working at the corrupt, mob-controlled, Kosher World Meat Factory. Now he will stop at nothing to prevent the killers from ruining other families and to get his revenge. Going to the police and conventional methods have not only been ineffective for others, but has proven to be virtual suicide for them. So all bets are off and Davenport uses the grittiest and strangest tools to bring down the killers. The characters, misadventures and odd jobs will have the readers laughing, but the hazard is real and Davenport is in over his head.

Who blows the bugle at the Kentucky Derby? Who dusts the dinosaur bones at the Smithsonian? Who sniffs dog breath for a living? Who measures the breasts of real models? ODD JOBS introduces you to the real people who perform these truly peculiar jobs. In 65 intimate portraits, photo essayist Nancy Rica Schiff captures the personalities and occupations of these oddball professionals, providing a short profile of each. A 20-year photography veteran, Schiff has spent the better half of that time discovering the behind-the-scenes people who do what others can't (or won't) do. No one can say that America isn't the home of the free, the brave, and the quirky, who will do almost anything to make an honest buck.• Profiles 65 of the most unique jobs in America.• Jobs include duck walker, coin polisher, doll doctor, and artificial inseminator.

In 1989, deep in the South American jungles of Suriname, a former commando and Falklands War veteran discharged from the SAS found himself with a group of contract soldiers training a rebel army against a violent dictator regime. Things were not so clear cut in this war-torn country and as cracks began to appear in finding out who had the moral high ground, cracks also began to appear in the team itself. It seemed the leader of the group had other agendas which he was keeping from the mixed bag of former British commandos and French Foreign Légion soldiers. Now, as all-out war has got ever closer, this becomes increasingly difficult for the author, as he too, has not been totally truthful with the others.

Ella has moved to the spooky town of Windy Hollow to live with her Great Aunt Raven. She is kept busy by a series of odd jobs arranged by her mysterious aunt. Alphabetizing the shelves at Simon's Book Store seems like a simple odd job. But then Ella meets a little girl who wants to tell Ella a story. But then she stumbles upon the surprise ending of the little girl's untold story! Aligned to Common Core standards and correlated to state standards. Spellbound is an imprint of Magic Wagon, a division of ABDO.

Entitled An Odd Job for Bob and Benny, this text is part of the Treetops series of fiction with built-in progression for pupils aged seven to 11. Specially written for children who need the support of carefully monitored language levels, the stories are accessible, motivating, and humorous. The series is organized into Oxford Reading Tree stages (from stage ten to stage 14), with each stage introducing more complex narrative forms, including flashbacks and changes in viewpoint; descriptive writing; extended reading vocabulary; and more pages, more text, and fewer illustrations. Each stage is supported by the teacher's guide, which offers guidance on using Treetops to assess children's reading ability, and includes a variety of activities (comprehension, writing for a range of audiences and in different forms, discussion and role play) many on photocopiable sheets.