By Stephen Windwalker
Editor of Kindle Nation Daily ©Kindle Nation Daily 2010
Twenty years ago when Bantam began publishing Paul Levine‘saward-winning series of psychological courtroom thrillers starring Jake Lassiter as a former Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-boiled lawyer, readers had to wait a year or two for each new title.
Twenty years ago when Bantam began publishing Paul Levine‘saward-winning series of psychological courtroom thrillers starring Jake Lassiter as a former Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-boiled lawyer, readers had to wait a year or two for each new title.
Now, thanks to the Kindle revolution, thousands of readers are discovering Jake for the first time and we only have to wait a month or so for each new title to appear. And our Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature provides an excellent way to introduce or reunite readers with each new Lassiter episode, whether Jake is an old friend or a new acquaintance.
To Speak for the Dead and Night Vision, the first two novels in the series, have already proven to be huge hits with the citizens of Kindle Nation. This morning it’s a pleasure to introduce an inviting free
excerpt from False Dawn, the third Jake Lassiter thriller, which is now available in the Kindle Store at a $3.99 price point that’s actually lower than the price of these international bestsellers when they went to mass market in the 90s after their original hardcover release.Here’s the set-up:
Miami lawyer Jake Lassiter has plenty of clients who lie, but usually they deny their guilt. When Francisco Crespo admits killing a fellow warehouse worker with a forklift – speared like an olive on a toothpick – Jake is suspicious and won’t take “guilty” for an answer.
Determined to find the truth, Jake follows a trail of priceless Fabergé eggs to an international theft ring involving the CIA, Fidel Castro, and the Russian government. Through twisted revelations, deadly double crosses, and bizarre murders, Jake heads to Havana where he discovers that nothing is as it seems.
“Realistic, gritty, fun.” – New York Times Book Review
“A highly entertaining yarn filled with wry humor.” – Detroit Free Press
“Mystery writing at its very, very best.” – Larry King, USA TODAY
Click here to read the free excerpt, or click here to purchase the entire book for $3.99 from Amazon.
(UK Kindle Customers: Click here to download from the UK Kindle Store )
An Excerpt from
False Dawn
(a Jake Lassiter mystery)
By Paul Levine
Copyright 2010 by Paul Levine and reprinted here with his permission.
1
HOOKED
Vladimir Smorodinsky ducked to the left, and the grappling hook, rather than piercing his skull, bit into the fleshy meat of his trapezius, just missing the collarbone. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t Muhammad Ali in his prime, but still a pretty fancy move, since Smorodinsky was busy toting a hundred-fifty-pound crate of Mexican flatware at the time, expecting nothing worse than a hernia, and never seeing his assailant approach from behind.
Maybe the burly Russian felt something, air stirring or sneak ers squeaking. Maybe he caught a whiff of the café Cubano on his attacker’s breath, or possibly the last fragment of genetic matter derived from a hairy-knuckled Paleolithic hunter warned him of the danger. Whatever the reason, Smorodinsky ducked left, the grappling hook whizzed right and sliced through his blue chambray shirt, sinking into his shoulder.
He never cried out.
Not a sound.
Just the trace of a grimace, his jaw muscles tightening.
His assailant twisted the hook free, ripping out chunks of muscle and tendon and splattering himself with blood. Still, not a grunt from the big man, who dropped the wooden crate of knives and forks, turned, lowered his head, and like a wounded boar, attacked. The top of his skull caught the assailant squarely on the chin, knocking him backward and skittering the grappling hook across the floor and under a wooden pallet.
Both men stayed on their feet and, like cable TV wrestlers, clawed, gouged, and chewed on each other’s vulnerable spots. They toppled into a tower of Scotch whiskey cartons and bounced off a stack of rectangular boxes of Taiwanese bicycles. They slugged and kicked and cursed-one in Russian, the other in Spanish-as they scuffed and bruised each other with a series of pokes and punches. An elbow caught Smorodinsky in the Adam’s apple, but the Russian merely gagged before cuffing the smaller, darker man on the ear with a thunderous forearm that spun him sideways. Thirty pounds lighter than Smorodinsky, he threw a series of jabs, stinging the man’s face but inflicting little damage. When the Russian moved closer, the man aimed a kick at his groin but connected with the hipbone.
Eventually, Smorodinsky got the better of it. He fractured two ribs with a decent right hook. He paralyzed the man’s right arm with a two-fisted blow that did nerve damage to the shoulder. Then, moving inside, he bear-hugged the fellow, crushing his bro ken ribs and raising him off the floor. He dragged the man’s face across the chicken-wire mesh of a freestanding refuse container, tearing off a goodly portion of mustache and some lower lip. With the man howling in pain, Smorodinsky did it again.
* * *
How do I know all this? I wasn’t there, of course. I never am. In my profession, I hear tales of mayhem after the fact. Clients, wit nesses, expert consultants all reconstruct what happened, seldom agreeing. They don’t necessarily lie, but, the power of observation being what it is, they don’t tell the literal truth either. Each of us sees reality through a lens of our own making. Our prejudices and self-interest shape the world into what we want it to be, or fear it is. So I was stunned that day when Francisco Crespo told a story guaranteed to get him twenty-five years to life.
Crespo sat in my office thirty-two floors above Biscayne Bay, watching me through eyes the color of burned toast, sipping a WASP law firm’s watery imitation of espresso through torn lips. He wore baggy khaki pants and a Disney World T-shirt-Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto-and was shivering in the air-conditioning. He had a grid of welts across his forehead and cheeks as if he’d been run over by a steel-belted radial tire. Good. That would help the self-defense claim, though it might be difficult to explain sneaking up on the Russian from behind.
I could think about that later, but the first task was to sum mon a photographer and tell him to beef up the contrast to em phasize the cuts and scrapes. The face should be shot in close-up to accentuate the damage. There’s a personal injury lawyer in town who once hired a professional makeup artist to crank up the color of his clients’ bruises. Using his experience with South Beach models who often tarnished their complexions with latenight drugfests before morning shoots, the artist found that re versing the process-adding eggplant-colored stains to perfectly fine skin-was easier and more profitable. But the lawyer got carried away, using a defrocked doctor to suture uninjured fender-bender clients, occasionally removing a healthy spleen or gall bladder. That seemed a tad excessive for the state bar, which suspended the fellow for sixty days or so.
For the full-body pictures, I told the photographer to stand on a ladder and angle down, making Crespo look even smaller. Up close, you could see my client was one of those sinewy guys who was plenty quick and twice as strong as he looked. All muscles and wires strung taut across a small bone structure. Work-hard ened hands, wrists thickened from his latest job, hauling crates at a customs broker’s warehouse for nonunion wages. The words “Cuba Libre” were crudely tattooed on his right tricep. His face was narrow, his complexion dusty, at least it had been before it had been bashed by the thick-necked Russian warehouseman. There was a gap where a front tooth should have been, but it didn’t matter. Crespo seldom smiled.
* * *
When Smorodinsky finished shaving Crespo with the chickenwire mesh, he just dropped him to the cement floor. While Crespo gagged and dry-heaved, the Russian gave him one good thwack to the temple with a reinforced work boot. The paramedics say the blow knocked Crespo unconscious, leaving him with a concussion. They found him that way, sprawled out alongside the refuse container. I would subpoena them as defense witnesses. Almost as good as alibi witnesses.
But no, Crespo insists, the lights never went out. Tucked into the fetal position, feeling the cold concrete floor against his bleed ing face, Crespo watched Smorodinsky dab at the blood on his own shoulder and lumber down the aisle between thirty-foot-high rolls of Haitian cotton.
* * *
You know it would help your case if you were unconscious just like the 911 boys said,” I told him, as nonchalantly as possible. Okay, okay, I know all about the canons of ethics. A lawyer shall not suborn perjury. But there’s a footnote. It’s okay to let the client know whether the truth will set him free or buy a one-way ticket to Raiford.
I learned my ethics watching Jimmy Stewart coach Ben Gazzara into his temporary insanity defense in Anatomy of a Murder, and if that’s too subtle for your tastes, how about James Mason teaching his client, a doctor accused of malpractice, a few courtroom tricks in The Verdict.
“If you were seeing stars,” I continued, “somebody else must have-“
“Sí, yo se, pero no paso asi. The medics are wrong. I wasn’t going to let the bastard get away so he could drink vodka with his amigos and laugh at me.”
It got worse then, of course. It always does.
There was the Russian, heading for the exit, and here was my client, revving up his brain cells into the highest reaches of their two-digit IQ, seeking revenge on a guy who resented being mis taken for a side of beef.
Crespo said he watched the Russian turn left at the end of the aisle and head toward the loading dock. The Mitsubishi forklift was at the end of the second row. Crespo had used it that morn ing to move fertilizer crates, and now he wanted to cut Smorodin sky off before he reached the exit. Crespo ran to the forklift, started it up, and chased after the Russian, approaching him from behind. Why is it my clients are never inclined to face guys head-on?
“The big bastard heard me coming,” Crespo said. He seemed to be staring at or through the photo of my college football team on my office wall. On the credenza is a no-frills white helmet with a single blue stripe and a crack that would do the Liberty Bell proud. I don’t keep my diplomas here. My clients ask me to trust them; I figure they ought to have faith I studied some law, even if it was after the sun went down.
“He turned around,” Crespo continued, “said something in Russki, and jumped onto a rack of Japanese transmissions. A tough hombre, big through the shoulders, like you, but shorter, and slow. Heavy legs.” Crespo snorted, and his eyes focused somewhere else, probably remembering some barroom brawl where another big lug mistook him for an underfed exilado, then ended up with a busted nose or a shiv in the belly.
“You used the forklift merely to catch up with him,” I sug gested, helpfully. “You never intended to-“
“Estas loco? I intended to kill him.”
Oh, brother. What would Jimmy Stewart have done? I decided to listen. Francisco Crespo stood and walked around my office. He picked up a deflated football from a position of honor on a bookshelf and ran his finger over the white paint that told the score of a long-forgotten Dolphins-Jets game. He stood near the floor-to-ceiling window without getting too close, and he avoided the draft from the air-conditioning vent. Then he finished the story in a matter-of-fact voice. I studied his body language and watched his eyes. No sign of deception. But how could he be lying? With every word, he incriminated himself.
* * *
Smorodinsky grabbed the rack’s support strut like a rider pulling himself aboard a trolley car. Crespo zoomed past on the forklift and jerked it around, the back wheels whirling it into a steep turn. The Russian jumped down and was running the other way, grabbing wooden crates from the shelves, tossing them into the aisle behind him. The forklift smashed over them and caught up with Smorodinsky at an intersection of four aisles. He swerved right, wanting the forklift to rush past him. But the big Russian lost traction on the slippery concrete. I pictured his feet sliding out from under him, and I remembered trying to cut on artificial turf after a rain.
The fork was set about belly-high. It caught Vladimir Smorodinsky in midstep, slightly below the rib cage on the right side. The blade pierced the oblique muscles of the abdomen and just missed the liver, but, according to the medical examiner, plunged through the ascending colon, the right kidney, the duo denum, and worst of all, the inferior vena cava, which ordinarily carries blood to the heart from the lower extremities, but just then emptied itself all over cartons of beach towels from the Do minican Republic.
There is a lever to the right of the steering wheel, Crespo told me, happily demonstrating how he pulled it back, raising the fork, hoisting Smorodinsky off the floor. Crespo never hit the brakes. Instead, he accelerated, carrying the bleeding Russian with him.
“The bastard was stuck like, like . . .” He searched for an expression. “Like an olive on a toothpick,” he said with malicious glee.
The forklift careened down the aisle, sideswiping metal racks with the clang of screeching metal and finally smashing into the corrugated metal door near the loading dock. The bloody steel fork reverberated against the wall like a pealing church bell. Vla dimir Smorodinsky was impaled there, his feet four feet off the ground, his arms pinned to the wall in a macabre crucifixion, his insides oozing onto the concrete floor.
* * *
I peered out the window at Biscayne Bay three hundred feet be low. A southeast wind rippled small whitecaps across the green water. At Virginia Key, three multicolored sails shimmered in the afternoon sun. Boardsailors. On cue, they jibed, and one of the masts dipped into the water, dunking the sailor who had flipped his boom too late.
I asked, “So why did the paramedics find you unconscious back at the refuse container?”
Crespo shrugged. “No se. I must have walked back there and fainted.”
Right. You could cut off both his legs at the knees, and he wouldn’t faint.
“Francisco, listen to me. This isn’t a simple A and B. If you tell that story, you’ll take a fall for second-degree murder. Twenty-five years minimum. Now, I can’t tell you to go up there and lie, but maybe you don’t remember it all that well. You were under tremendous stress …”
He waved his hand as if to say it was no big thing, just a little fight to the finish in a warehouse hard by the docks of the Miami River. He wasn’t going to help me, and that made it hard to help him. Outside my windows, one wet boardsailor water-started and pumped his sail to catch up with his two buddies. They were headed on a broad reach across the channel to Fisher Island, once a Vanderbilt retreat, now a condo sanctuary of vacationing millionaires who want the security of a saltwater moat to keep out the riffraff. If the boardsailors didn’t have their papers in order, the security guards might pick them off for target practice.
“Here’s how I see it. I can just keep you off the stand, and based on the state’s case, all they’ve got is a fight between the two of you, and after you’ve passed out, somebody else came along and made shish kebab out of the Russian.”
“Pero, no one else was there.”
Sometimes, you just want to tell your clients to shut the hell up. “Someone had to be there. Someone in the office called the police, right?”
“No se, you gotta ask them.”
I already had. Somebody called 911 but wouldn’t leave a name. Somebody saw what happened, but who?
“If we can show who drove the forklift, or if we just raise enough doubt that you did, you’d walk on the murder charge. I could probably plead you to aggravated assault right now if you’d tell the prosecutor who it was. Abe Socolow isn’t stupid. An ass hole maybe, but not stupid. It’s a low-profile case. Nobody knew the victim. But if Socolow thinks you’re covering for someone who ordered the hit, he’ll go after the maximum.”
Crespo shrugged again and touched a finger to the welts on his face. “You’ll figure it out for me, numero cincuenta y ocho. You always do.”
I wasn’t getting through to him. “You have no lawful excuse for attacking Smorodinsky. You’re going-“
“He was a comunista.”
“I didn’t know there were any left …”
Crespo shrugged.
“Or that you were political,” I added.
Still, he didn’t respond.
I rubbed my temples and stared out the window again. The boardsailors were hidden in the shadows of the Fisher Island condos. In a perfect world, I would be on the water, the wind crack ling my sail. To the north, the cruise ships were lined up, single file, at the port along Government Cut, preparing for their Carib bean cruises, thousands of tourists clustered on the main decks, awaiting their prepackaged fun. For some reason, I thought of Pearl Harbor.
“So the two of you disagreed about politics,” I said. Take what they give you, get a few anti-Castro Cuban-Americans on the jury, who knows?
“No, we disagreed because the cocksucker stole twelve dollars from my locker.”
Oh, shit. I tried another theory. “You were defending your property. You caught him in the act, and in the heat of the mo ment-“
“No, he stole the money two months ago. Pero, I owed him thirty bucks at the time. He’d been bugging me about the eighteen I still owed him, and I just got tired of it. That’s all there is to it. I killed the hombre,” my client said, “because he was a pain in the ass.”
* * *
Atlantic Seaboard Warehouse was where it was supposed to be, on South River Drive, a pleasant thoroughfare if you like chainlink fences topped with barbed wire, vacant lots covered with broken beer bottles, and Doberman pinschers with psychopathic personalities. The warehouse opened to the rear, its loading docks fronting on the Miami River, home to rusty, overloaded freighters from the Caribbean and Latin America.
I had sent the photographer here the day after Crespo came to my office, but photos, diagrams, and police reports only take you so far. There’s no substitute for being there. Photos and sketches often mislead. You can’t pick up distances, lines of sight, the three-dimensional surroundings that make the setting real. That’s why jurors are sometimes taken to the scene of the crime.
The warehouse was cavernous, piled high with goods from dozens of countries. Crates of foodstuffs-cereals, canned vegeta bles, bottled juices-filled several acres along the western wall. You could feed a starving country with the inventory. In another section, boxes of bicycles from Taiwan were piled to the ceiling, and nearby, thousands of concrete fence posts from Colombia were crisscrossed in stacks that resembled a house of Popsicle sticks. The open doors, the width of a tractor trailer, admitted the brackish stench of Biscayne Bay and the thick smell of diesel fuel from the river. I heard three toots of a horn, then the coughs and sputters of a tugboat nudging a barge under the Second Avenue drawbridge.
I retraced the steps, starting with the grappling hook attack, ending with the forklift. The layout was just the way Crespo de scribed it. Once Crespo-or whoever-mounted his trusty steed of a forklift, Smorodinsky never had a chance to get to the exit. I heard an electric buzz behind me, and whirled just in time to see a forklift approach the intersection of two aisles. The machine carried a pallet of dog food cans, and the driver, a young His panic with a mustache, expertly steered the load around a corner.
The concrete floor was remarkably clean, but as I neared the cartons of beach towels, I saw the black spots. Co
Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert: 2 Brand New Full-Length 5-Star Freebie, plus False Dawn from Paul Levine’s Jake Lassiter series (Today’s Sponsor)
Two brand new, full-length 5-star free books that are well worth highlighting in the Kindle Store this morning….
But first … a word from Today’s Sponsor
By Paul Levine
Twenty years ago when Bantam began publishing Paul Levine’s award-winning series of psychological courtroom thrillers starring Jake Lassiter as a former Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-boiled lawyer, readers had to wait a year or two for each new title.
Now, thanks to the Kindle revolution, thousands of readers are discovering Jake for the first time and we only have to wait a month or so for each new title to appear. And our Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature provides an excellent way to introduce or reunite readers with each new Lassiter episode, whether Jake is an old friend or a new acquaintance.
To Speak for the Dead and Night Vision, the first two novels in the series, have already proven to be huge hits with the citizens of Kindle Nation. This morning it’s a pleasure to introduce an inviting free excerpt from False Dawn, the third Jake Lassiter thriller, which is now available in the Kindle Store at a $3.99 price point that’s actually lower than the price of these international bestsellers when they went to mass market in the 90s after their original hardcover release.
Here’s the set-up:
Miami lawyer Jake Lassiter has plenty of clients who lie, but usually they deny their guilt. When Francisco Crespo admits killing a fellow warehouse worker with a forklift – speared like an olive on a toothpick – Jake is suspicious and won’t take “guilty” for an answer.
Determined to find the truth, Jake follows a trail of priceless Fabergé eggs to an international theft ring involving the CIA, Fidel Castro, and the Russian government. Through twisted revelations, deadly double crosses, and bizarre murders, Jake heads to Havana where he discovers that nothing is as it seems.
“Realistic, gritty, fun.” – New York Times Book Review
“A highly entertaining yarn filled with wry humor.” – Detroit Free Press
“Mystery writing at its very, very best.” – Larry King, USA TODAY
Now, thanks to the Kindle revolution, thousands of readers are discovering Jake for the first time and we only have to wait a month or so for each new title to appear. And our Free Kindle Nation Shorts feature provides an excellent way to introduce or reunite readers with each new Lassiter episode, whether Jake is an old friend or a new acquaintance.
To Speak for the Dead and Night Vision, the first two novels in the series, have already proven to be huge hits with the citizens of Kindle Nation. This morning it’s a pleasure to introduce an inviting free excerpt from False Dawn, the third Jake Lassiter thriller, which is now available in the Kindle Store at a $3.99 price point that’s actually lower than the price of these international bestsellers when they went to mass market in the 90s after their original hardcover release.
Here’s the set-up:
Miami lawyer Jake Lassiter has plenty of clients who lie, but usually they deny their guilt. When Francisco Crespo admits killing a fellow warehouse worker with a forklift – speared like an olive on a toothpick – Jake is suspicious and won’t take “guilty” for an answer.
Determined to find the truth, Jake follows a trail of priceless Fabergé eggs to an international theft ring involving the CIA, Fidel Castro, and the Russian government. Through twisted revelations, deadly double crosses, and bizarre murders, Jake heads to Havana where he discovers that nothing is as it seems.
“Realistic, gritty, fun.” – New York Times Book Review
“A highly entertaining yarn filled with wry humor.” – Detroit Free Press
“Mystery writing at its very, very best.” – Larry King, USA TODAY
Click here to read the free excerpt, or click here to purchase the entire book for $3.99 from Amazon.
Free Today in the Kindle Store!
From Dust and Ashes: A Story of Liberation
by Tricia Goyer
by Tricia Goyer 4.9 out of 5 stars (20 customer reviews)
Nazis flee under cover of darkness as American troops near the town of St. Georgen. A terrible surprise awaits the unsuspecting GIs. And three people—the wife of an SS guard, an American soldier, and a concentration camp survivor—will never be the same. Inspired by actual events surrounding the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp, From Dust and Ashes shows the healing power of forgiveness.
shows the healing power of forgiveness. 
by Edward D. Hess and Charles F. Goetz
From Booklist: Two former corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and now professors Hess and Goetz combine their wisdom and experience to offer new and wannabe business owners some critical thinking, management strategies, and tried-and-tested pointers. Their book is written in a simple albeit very academic style, with logical headlines, practical sidebars, and summarized “lessons learned” at the end of each chapter. Although the authors are generous about sharing the ABC’s of business, whether it’s how to find and keep good employees or explanations of financial gotta-haves, the overall subtitle—8 Steps to Take—gets buried in a welter of other numbers: the 8 mistakes business owners make (e.g., pricing incorrectly), the 7 techniques to get a customer to try your product (references/testimonials), the rule of 3s and the rule of 7s (only manage 7 or fewer people at any given time). Use this as a novice’s springboard (and remind the authors to follow their own advice: keep it simple!). –Barbara Jacobs
Weekend Problems with Kindle Nation Post Updates
Good morning from Kindle Nation.
We’ve had some issues over the weekend with the automatic feed mechanism that serves updated Kindle Nation Daily posts up to Kindle edition subscribers. We are working on the problem and hope to have it resolved today.
Thank you for reading Kindle Nation Daily!
Sincerely,
Steve Windwalker
A Stirring Video Trailer for today’s sponsoring novel, State of Rebellion – Book One – American Voices Trilogy, by Gordon Ryan
For video book trailer fans, here’s a terrific Youtube intro to today’s sponsoring novel, State of Rebellion – Book One – American Voices Trilogy, by Gordon Ryan! If you are viewing this post on your Kindle, you’ll want to type http://bit.ly/Ryan-SOR into the browser of your computer or Youtube-compatible device:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQgo8VhWUXg?fs=1]
by Gordon Ryan
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
Digital List Price: $2.99 Kindle Price: $2.39
You Save: $0.60 (20%)
You Save: $0.60 (20%) Text-to-Speech: Enabled
A runaway federal government …
Western states in revolt …
California ready to secede …
Martial law in Sacramento …
America in a …
“Had the gallows knot been placed to the side, behind the ear, Richard McFarland’s neck would have snapped, delivering a swift death. As it was, the young California National Guard lieutenant twisted and convulsed for a long, agonizing two minutes before he died.”
Daniel Rawlings is a twelfth generation American whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and the settlement of California. With a growing economy exceeding that of many third world nations, an independent Republic of California could become a major economic and political player on the world stage. The Western Patriot Movement, a militia cadre for whom insurrection is a dream come true takes up the challenge. Torn between his allegiance to the Union and his California roots, Rawlings must decide which faction he’ll support, a decision that places him in harm’s way.
Daniel Rawlings is a twelfth generation American whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and the settlement of California. With a growing economy exceeding that of many third world nations, an independent Republic of California could become a major economic and political player on the world stage. The Western Patriot Movement, a militia cadre for whom insurrection is a dream come true takes up the challenge. Torn between his allegiance to the Union and his California roots, Rawlings must decide which faction he’ll support, a decision that places him in harm’s way.
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UK Kindle customers: click here to download State of Rebellion – Book One – American Voices Trilogy!
!
Kindle Nation Free Book Alert for Sunday, September 19, 2010: Soul Identity explores the question, “What if you could take it with you?” plus an introduction to Gordon Ryan’s dazzling novel State of Rebellion (Today’s Sponsor)
You can’t take it with you…but what if you could?
That’s the question behind the compelling premise for today’s latest addition to our Kindle Nation Free Book Alert listings….
But first … a word from Today’s Sponsor
by Gordon Ryan
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
Digital List Price: $2.99 Kindle Price: $2.39 You Save: $0.60 (20%)
You Save: $0.60 (20%) Text-to-Speech: Enabled
A runaway federal government …
Western states in revolt …
California ready to secede …
Martial law in Sacramento …
America in a …
“Had the gallows knot been placed to the side, behind the ear, Richard McFarland’s neck would have snapped, delivering a swift death. As it was, the young California National Guard lieutenant twisted and convulsed for a long, agonizing two minutes before he died.”
Daniel Rawlings is a twelfth generation American whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and the settlement of California. With a growing economy exceeding that of many third world nations, an independent Republic of California could become a major economic and political player on the world stage. The Western Patriot Movement, a militia cadre for whom insurrection is a dream come true takes up the challenge. Torn between his allegiance to the Union and his California roots, Rawlings must decide which faction he’ll support, a decision that places him in harm’s way.
Daniel Rawlings is a twelfth generation American whose ancestors fought in the Civil War and the settlement of California. With a growing economy exceeding that of many third world nations, an independent Republic of California could become a major economic and political player on the world stage. The Western Patriot Movement, a militia cadre for whom insurrection is a dream come true takes up the challenge. Torn between his allegiance to the Union and his California roots, Rawlings must decide which faction he’ll support, a decision that places him in harm’s way.
*
UK Kindle customers: click here to download State of Rebellion – Book One – American Voices Trilogy!
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Each day’s list is sponsored by one paid title. We encourage you to support our sponsors!
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Authors, Publishers, Kindle Accessory Manufacturers:
Click here to sponsor a Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Alert!Click here to see all Free Titles in the Kindle Store!
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(Sponsorship can take a number of different forms and implies no endorsement either of or by Kindle Nation or a sponsoring company or individual.)
Today’s Free and Bargain Listings in the US Kindle Store!
3.9 out of 5 stars (122 customer reviews)
Kindle Price: $0.00 Text-to-Speech: Enabled
ForeWord CLARION reviews: “Batchelder has a flair for telling a story and involving his readers. Right from the get-go of a riveting prologue there are the elements of suspense, sexiness, and humor that abound throughout the book.”
American Chronicle: “Fantasy and spirituality with even a touch of a philosophical twist.”
Armchair Interviews: “Twists and turns, deception and murder mixed with new age double-speak and new millenium techno-savvy.”
You can’t take it with you…but what if you could? Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling. Scott Waverly isn’t like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client’s claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years. Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job? Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people’s lives.
Kindle Nation Free Book Alert for Saturday, September 18, 2010: Mind Candy Alert! 12 Free Full-Length Romance Novels from Harlequin and Other Publishers! plus Diane Chamberlain’s Book-of-the-Month Club Fave Secret Lives (Today’s Sponsor)
Romance and mind candy fans, we’re bringing back 12 free full-length romance novels from Harlequin and other publishers, just in case you just got your Kindle or missed these freebies the first time around, to top this morning’s Free Book Alert listings….
But first … a word from Today’s Sponsor
“Are you wondering what my books are about?” asks today’s author, Diane Chamberlain. “One of my readers in Japan had this to say about my work: ‘You make me believe life is beautiful even if it is full of pain and rage.’ Her words touch me deeply. They hang on the wall above my computer and help me remember exactly what it is I’m trying to achieve in my stories. I hope you’ll enjoy them.”
Today we feature her highly rated novel Secret Lives
, a former Book-of-the-Month club alternate selection. If it touches your heart or your fancy (or both), it could serve as a bridge to a dozen other of Diane’s novels that are now available in the Kindle Store with 5-star ratings from hundreds of reviews.
, a former Book-of-the-Month club alternate selection. If it touches your heart or your fancy (or both), it could serve as a bridge to a dozen other of Diane’s novels that are now available in the Kindle Store with 5-star ratings from hundreds of reviews.
5.0 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews) Kindle Price: $4.69
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Actress Eden Riley’s decision to make a film about her mother plunges her into a shattering confrontation with her own past, irrevocably altering her life and the lives of those she loves. Her mother, Katherine Swift, was a renowned children’s author who died when Eden was very young. Now Eden, recovering from a divorce and disillusioned with her glamorous life, returns to the childhood home of the mother she barely knew. She moves in with her uncle, archaeologist Kyle Swift and his wife, Louise.
Eden gets more than she bargained for when Kyle gives her the journal her mother had kept from the age of thirteen until her death. Eden is spellbound by the powerfully written, intimate diary that chronicles a life of hardship, madness and tragedy. But her fascination turns to horror when she discovers the shocking truth about her mother’s life.
Eden turns for comfort to Ben Alexander, Kyle’s colleague, not knowing that Ben has a secret of his own that could ruin Eden and her career. Now Eden must make a heartbreaking decision as she struggles to lay the ghosts of the past to rest and come to terms with her own future.
Shifting gracefully between Eden’s world and Katherine’s, Secret Lives seduces with the power of its images and the lyricism of its prose.
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Today’s Free and Bargain Listings in the US Kindle Store!
3.2 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews) Kindle Price: $0.00 Text-to-Speech: Enabled
Captured and sold into slavery in Shanghai, an Englishwoman finds power, freedom, and most of all love through ancient Taoist sex practices. (Romance)
If you like word scrambles then Every Word
is the game for you. Test your vocabulary as you try to find as many words from the scrambled letters in this fun and fast-paced word game.
is the game for you. Test your vocabulary as you try to find as many words from the scrambled letters in this fun and fast-paced word game.You are given six or seven scrambled letters with the goal of finding as many words as you can. You score points by filling out the words in each empty spot on the board using only the letters that appear at the top of the game board. Keep at it until time runs out or until you fill up the board. The more words you make, the higher your score!
Your score is comprised of two components: first make a lot of words, second try to make the longest word possible. The best way to increase your score is to do both. Why? Because when you do, you earn the right to play a new level with a brand new set of letters. As long as you keep finding the longest word, you can move on to a new level and push your score higher and higher.
Please note: Every Word may contain content inappropriate for children.
by Elisabeth Naughton
How to Donate a Kindle 2 to Troops Deployed Overseas
The following post is reprinted from http://ebooksfortroops.org at the request of several of our readers:
by on AUGUST 19, 2010 · 3 COMMENTS
in EB4T UPDATES
We are very excited to announce that E-Books for Troops has launched a great new program, Kindle 2 for Troops (K24T), which provides an opportunity to donate your pre-owned Kindle 2 to a solider who is currently deployed overseas.
The impetus for this new program was observing the overwhelming demand and response to Amazon’s recently announced third generation Kindle. We instantly recognized this created a terrific opportunity for current owners of Kindle 2s who are upgrading to the new model to donate them to our deployed soldiers.
Here are the highlights of the program. It is really easy to participate:
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Read the details of the program on the Kindle 2 For Troops information page.
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If you have a Kindle 2 U.S. or Kindle 2 International that is in good, working condition (no damage, please) and you are a U.S. citizen, you are eligible for the program. (Note: first generation Kindles or Kindle DXs are not eligible).
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Complete our K24T Kindle donation form, and we will then email you with shipment instructions for your pre-owned Kindle.
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You will then mail your Kindle 2 to EB4T, and once received we will email you a receipt that you can use as proof of donation
(note: EB4T has a 501c3 application pending and is authorized to operate as a tax-deductible organization per IRS publication 4220).
UPDATE: Our 501(c)(3) application has been approved! -
We will then distribute your Kindle, along with a case and light donated by M-Edge Accessories, as part of a future donation to a sponsored EB4T unit.
We are so excited to announce this program, and know it will be very successful, but it will only be active for a limited time.
We are accepting donations only through Thanksgiving Day 2010, so please contact us now.
For more information or questions, please contact us today.
