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A fresh, new look at gangs in every part of the world which deliberately avoids the stories that have been done to death - about Capone, Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde - and focuses on less well-known gangs such as 'Ma' Barker's Boys; the Smaldones of Denver; Scotland Yard's 1960s' Flying Squad, the so-called Firm within a Firm; Dr Death, the Melbourne drug dealer and Andre Stander, the former South African police officer who led a gang of bank robbers before being shot dead in Fort Lauderdale having fled a 17-year sentence.

An anthology focusing on newer elements of steampunk, one which deconstructs the staples of the genre and expands on them, rather than simply repeating them, with a greater spread both in terms of location and character. This is steampunk with a modern, post-colonial sensibility.Contributors include: Jeff VanderMeer, Caitl n Kiernan, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jay Lake, Cherie Priest, Cat Rambo, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine and many more.

The Victorian era is significant for the rise of the middle classes and marked changes in social relationships, both in the home and in wider society, with the proliferation of domestic help and the development of increasingly rigid gender roles. These are romances that chafe against the restrictions of the period, with heroes and heroines who defy social convention, igniting firestorms of gossip. The aristocrats, impostors, social climbers, domestic workers and undercover agents of these stories exist in an authentically lush world, depicted here with telling attention to detail. While most of the stories are strongly realistic, some incorporate elements of fantasy.

New mysteries, as well as variations on recurring ones, continue to surface on a weekly basis around the globe, from showers of frogs over Hungary to birds falling to earth in Arkansas. This compendious round-up of unexplained phenomena examines everything from the experiments being done with the Large Hadron Collider to classic maritime mysteries involving inexplicably missing crews, via UFOs, mediums, cryptozoology, panics, paranoia and a universe proving stranger in fact than we'd imagined.

Twenty-three spellbinding tales of sorcery, wizardry and witchcraft, of the ceaseless battle between good and evil. From dark lords and epic clashes between the forces of good and evil to a child's struggle to control magical powers for the first time this wonderfully varied collection comprises stories by the most outstanding writers of fantasy: A. C. Benson, James Bibby, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Louise Cooper, Ralph Adams Cram, Peter Crowther, Esther M. Friesner, Tom Holt, Doug Hornig, Diana Wynne Jones, Michael Kurland, Tim Lebbon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Richard A. Lupoff, Michael Moorcock, John Morressy, Tim Pratt, David Sandner, Lawrence Schimel and Mike Resnick, Darrell Schweitzer, Clark Ashton Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem and Robert Weinberg.

Funny, fearless and absolutely filthy-nearly 3,000 more uncensored, dirty, sick, and deeply politically incorrect jokes, covering just about every topic imaginable, from adultery to (sex in) Zoos, including an assortment of bad taste lists. A worthy, all-new follow-on to the first bestselling volume.

The biggest-ever selection of first-hand accounts and news reports of shark attacks, both recent and historical, shows how sharks are masters of the ocean and how we enter their domain at our own risk. Think you're safe in the Med? Read about the Great Whites that thrive near holiday beaches. Think you're safe in large groups? Read about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in 1945 when hundreds of sailors floated for days in shark-infested waters, being picked off one-by-one. Think you're safe at home? Read about the 69-year-old man, taking his regular evening swim, jumping off his backyard dock straight into the mouth of a bull shark. Many more extraordinary and gruesome accounts, including the shark-boat skipper who slit open the belly of a 360-kg tiger shark only to have a human head, pelvis, and arm come tumbling out, provide horrific and moving tales of shark encounters. The courage of survivors and those who have risked their lives to save shark attack victims is truly inspirational. Where can you find sharks? Features on different shark species with illustrations, fact boxes and maps show where they lurk around the world. Also included are a selection of full-colour photographs and special sections on the life cycle of a shark, how to avoid a shark attack and how to survive one.

32 Thrilling Hardboiled Stories by Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson and many more.

This compendious celebration of ineptitude includes some of history s most spectacularly ill-conceived expeditions and entirely useless pursuits, and features tales of black comedy, insane foolhardiness, breathtaking stupidity and relentless perseverance in the face of inevitable defeat. It rejoices in men and women made of the Wrong Stuff: writers who believed in the power of words, but could never quite find the rights ones; artists and performers who indulged their creative impulse with a passion, if not a sense of the ridiculous, an eye for perspective or the ability to hold down a tune; scientists and businessmen who never quite managed to quit while they were ahead; and sportsmen who seemed to manage always to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Like Walter Oudney, one of three men chosen to find the source of the River Niger in Africa, who could not ride a horse, nor speak any foreign languages and who had never travelled more than 30 miles beyond his native Edinburgh; or the explorer-priest Michel Alexandre de Baize, who set off to explore the African continent from east to west equipped with 24 umbrellas, some fireworks, two suits of armor, and a portable organ; or the Scottish army which decided to invade England in 1349 during the Black Death. Entries include: briefest career in dentistry; least successful bonding exercise; most futile attempt to find a lost tribe; most pointless lines of research by someone who should have known better; least successful celebrity endorsement; least convincing excuse for a war; worst poetic tribute to a root vegetable; least successful display of impartiality by a juror; Devon Loch sporting metaphor for blowing un unblowable lead; least dignified exit from office by a French president; and least successful expedition by camel.

Everyone s heard of Usain Bolt, but how many people know about Dineka Maguire? Like Bolt, the Irish woman is a world record holder but in the rather lesser known sport of bog snorkelling. She is just one of the hundreds of unsung heroes featured in this book chronicling the people who go to bizarre lengths to break world records in the weirdest categories; people who devote hours of intense training to spitting dung, eating cockroaches, sniffing feet or tossing tuna in the hope of one day being recognised as the best in the world. This astonishing compendium of the weirdest, wackiest and most disgusting world records will amuse and astound in equal measure.Entries include:Longest ear hairFastest marathon while wearing a deep-sea diving suitFastest bog snorkellerFarthest distance skateboarding by a goatMost bees on bodyMost milk crates balanced on head Fastest 5-km run while dressed as a penguin and jugglingHeaviest airplane pulled with teethFastest shopping trolleyLongest backwards motorcycle rideMost stairs climbed by bicycleFastest 30 metres on a scooter by a dogFirst water-skiing squirrel

Fact is never more strange than fiction than when it comes to crime, and the crimes described here are so bizarre it's inconceivable that they could have been made up. In this all-new collection of truly unusual crimes, a sequel to the bestselling Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes, Odell and Donnelley tell the extraordinary stories of criminal acts far stranger than any fiction, including the murder of Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace by spree-killer Andrew Cunanan and the killing of intern Chandra Ann Levy, who had had an affair with US Representative Gary Condit, though he was cleared of any involvement in her murder.They reveal how Danilo Restivo was eventually convicted of the murder of Heather Barnett in England after the ritualistic placing of hair connected him to another murder in Italy. They tell the terrible story of the inexplicably brutal murder, over a number of days, of 15-year-old Kristy Bamu by his sister and her lover because they believed him to be practising 'witchcraft'. They also give a chilling account of the thirty-one-year-old mother-of-two, Joanna Dennehy, who killed three men. 'I started killing,' she said, 'to see if I was as cold as I thought I was. Then it got moreish and I got a taste for it.'

Frankenstein . . . his very name conjures up images of plundered graves, secret laboratories, electrical experiments and reviving the dead.Within these pages, the maddest doctor of them all and his demented disciples once again delve into the Secrets of Life, as science fiction meets horror when the world's most famous creature lives again!The Mammoth Book of Frankenstein collects together for the first time twenty-fourelectrifying tales of cursed creation that are guaranteed to spark your interest - with classics from the pulp magazines by Robert Bloch and Manly Wade Wellman, modern masterpieces from Ramsey Campbell, Dennis Etchison, Karl Edward Wagner, David J. Schow and R. Chetwynd-Hayes, and contributions from Graham Masterson, Basil Copper, John Brunner, Guy N. Smith, Kim Newman, Paul J. McAuley, Roberta Lannes, Michael Marshall Smith, Daniel Fox, Adrian Cole, Nancy Kilpatrick, Brian Mooney and Lisa Morton.Plus you're sure to get a charge from three complete novels: The Hound of Frankenstein by Peter Tremayne, The Dead End by David Case, and Mary W. Shelley's original masterpiece Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.As an electrical storm rages overhead, the generators are charged up, and beneath the sheet a cold form awaits its miraculous rebirth. Now it's time to throw that switch and discover all that Man Was Never Meant to Know.

In this wonderful anthology of new stories, Sherlock Holmes travels to the far ends of the Earth in search of truth and justice. A host of singularly talented writers, while remaining respectful towards Conan Doyle's work, present a new and thrilling dimension to Holmes's career.Full list of contributors:Simon Clark; Andrew Darlington; Paul Finch; Nev Fountain; Carole Johnstone; Paul Kane; Alison Littlewood; Johnny Mains; William Meikle ;David Moody; Mark Morris; Cavan Scott; Denis O. Smith; Sam Stone and Stephen Volk.

Dieselpunk: an emerging retro-futuristic sub-genre, similar to steampunk, based on the era between the First World War and the start of the Atomic Age, merging elements of noir, pulp, and the past with today s technology . . . and sometimes a dash of the occult. Award-winning editor Wallace presents a cutting-edge collection of twenty-five vibrant stories that explore the possibilities of history while sweeping readers into high-powered hydrocarbon-fuelled adventures. Join us in an era when engines were huge, fuel was cheap and plentiful, and steel and chrome blended with the grit and grease of modern machines.Praise for The Mammoth Book of Steampunk:'World Fantasy Award-winning editor Wallace has compiled an outstanding anthology . . . sure to satisfy even the most jaded steampunk fans and engage newcomers and skeptics. Each story exemplifies steampunk s knack for critiquing both the past and the present, in a superb anthology that demands rereading.' Publishers Weekly

Outrageous, even shocking confessions of uniform fantasies and amazing sexual adventures, from what happens when an English Rose is cuffed in the backwoods of Georgie by a Texas Highway Patrol trooper to a waitress at a wedding reception rescued from a night of boredom in an ill-fitting uniform by members of a rugby club. As well as uniforms, the stories involve every kind of kink imaginable, and then some: from straightforward spanking to domination and submission, from solo experiences to group games, and from guilty secrets to sex in public places.These are vivid accounts of sexual encounters and sexy secrets involving uniforms to startle, amuse, shock and excite. Whatever your kink voyeurism, first-times, oral sex, hotels, good friends, secret mistresses, domination and submission, threesomes, anal, outdoor sex, forbidden fantasies, spanking or downright sadism you ll find what you re looking for here, in uniform!Svetlana joined the army to help her fellow men and women, but exactly how becomes clear to the sergeant when he finds out about her escapades. Charlene tries out as a strip-o-gram nun, but makes so many mistakes that she ends up bent over the boss s knee.Alan loved to admire the cute little uniforms of waitresses in old-fashioned tea rooms, then one day the phrase at your service takes on a new and more exciting meaning.A young tourist likes the look of an uptight Life Guard she helps him to let go a little with a public blow job. Buff Darren has had limited sexual experience until he becomes the manager of an Italian restaurant . . . and the waitresses lock him in as he s shutting up.

Human mummies, preserved by both accident and intent, have been found on every continent except Antarctica. These enigmatic remains of humanity have fascinated people for centuries. Shrouded in history they have acquired meaning and symbolism quite separate from their value as a source of historic knowledge, inspiring tales of reanimation, reincarnation, loves that outlive death, and curses that bring vengeance from the past.As a figure of horror and the supernatural the mummy has attained iconic status in the popular imagination. The Mammoth Book of the Mummy presents a collection of tales written for the twenty-first century - including some brand-new stories - that explore, subvert and reinvent the mummy mythos; some delve into the past, others explore alternative histories, and some bring mummies into our own world.Here you will find stories of revenge, romance, monsters and mayhem, ranging freely across time periods, genres and styles, by Kage Baker, Gail Carriger, Paul Cornell, Carole Nelson Douglas, Terry Dowling, Noreen Doyle, Steve Duffy, Karen Joy Fowler, Will Hill, Stephen Graham Jones, John Langan, Joe R. Lansdale, Helen Marshall, Kim Newman, Norman Partridge, Adam Roberts, Robert Sharp, Angela Slatter, Keith Taylor and Lois Tilton.

For more than 80 years H. P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of horror and supernatural fiction with his dark vision of humankind's insignificant place in a vast, uncaring cosmos. At the time of his death in 1937, Lovecraft was virtually unknown, but from early cult status his readership expanded exponentially; his nightmarish visions laying down roots in the collective imagination of his readers. Now this master of the macabre is accepted as part of the literary mainstream, as an American author of note, and the impact of his work on modern popular culture - in literature, film, television, music, the graphic arts, gaming and theatre - has been profound. As Stephen King wrote in Danse Macabre, the shadow of H. P. Lovecraft 'underlies almost all of the important horror fiction that has come since.'Today, Lovecraft's themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history remain not only viable motifs for modern speculative fiction, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal.This outstanding anthology of original stories - from both established award-winning authors and exciting new voices - collects tales of cosmic horror inspired by Lovecraft from authors who do not merely imitate, but reimagine, re-energize, and renew the best of his concepts in ways relevant to today's readers, to create fresh new fiction that explores our modern fears and nightmares. From the depths of R'lyeh to the heights of the Mountains of Madness, some of today's best weird fiction writers traverse terrain created by Lovecraft and create new eldritch geographies to explore . . .With stories by: Laird Barron, Nadia Bulkin, Amanda Downum, Ruthanna Emrys, Richard Gavin, Lois H. Gresh, Lisa L. Hannett, Brian Hodge, Caitl n R. Kiernan, John Langan, Yoon Ha Lee, Usman T. Malik, Helen Marshall, Silvia Moreno, Norman Partridge, W. H. Pugmire, Veronica Schanoes, Michael Shea, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Sandra McDonald, Damien Angelica Walters, Don Webb, Michael Wehunt and A.C. Wise Praise for the editor:'For fans of Lovecraftian fiction and well-wrought horror' - Library Journal'Guran smartly selects stories that evoke the spirit of Lovecraft's work without mimicking its style.' - Publishers Weekly'It's a pretty impressive line-up, with nary a clunker to be found. . . . You don't have to be a Lovecraft fan to enjoy this anthology... You'll find alienation, inhumanity, desperation, cruelty, insanity, hopelessness and despair, all set against the backdrop of a vast, unknowable universe filled with vile, indifferent monstrosities. You'll also find beauty, hope, redemption, and the struggle for survival. What more can you ask for?' - Tor.com'I highly recommend this collection... If you have even the slightest interest in contemporary horror fiction, you'll want to try this one on for size!' - BookGuide

Over 25 short story masterpieces from writers such as Louis de Berni res and Ian Rankin - modern literary tales to chill the blood.This spine-chilling new anthology of 20th and 21st century tales by big name writers is in the best traditions of literary ghost stories. It is just a little over a hundred years ago that the most famous literary ghost story, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, was published and in the intervening years a great many other distinguished writers have tried their hand at this popular genre - some basing their fictional tales on real supernatural experiences of their own.

Bored by sudoku number-crunching? Tired of crosswords requiring arcane knowledge? This collection of over 400 codeword puzzles provides the perfect antidote!

Native Americans make up less than one per cent of the total US population but represent half the nation's languages and cultures. Here, in one grand sweep, is the full story of Native American society, culture and religion. Here is everything from the land-based spirituality of their early creation myths and the late rise of Indian Pride, to the 88 uses to which the Sioux put the flesh and bones of the buffalo and the practice of berdache (men adopted as women). The book offers a chronological history of America's indigenous peoples. It covers their dramatic early entry into North America, out of the now submerged continent of Beringia, then in more recent times the 'forgotten wars' of the 16th and 17th centuries, which wiped many tribes from the face of the East Coast, and finally describes to the last struggles of the Cheyenne and the Comanche. Celebrating these peoples' way of life rather than focusing narrowly on the manner of their genocide, it does not ignore uncomfortable facts of the Amerindian past - including the cannibalism believed to have been practised by some tribes and the Native Americans' part in the decimation of North America's buffalo herds.

The best recent tattoos and paintings of the world's leading tatoo artists

First-hand accounts of football violence, from infamous Millwall to Man U. Once dubbed 'the English disease', British match-day thuggery has spread right across Europe and beyond. Here is the inside story of that phenomenon from those that were there, taking part in the mayhem. 'Yob Laureate' Dougie Brimson and his brother Eddy offer a compelling description of match-day madness; Colin Ward goes steaming in, while other pieces detail the irresistible aggro of the local Derby, the tragedy inside Heysel Stadium and the violence surrounding England's 1998 World Cup match against Tunisia. Finally, Dougie Brimson asks if the police are not just another 'firm', simply participants in the violence.

The 125 greatest chess games of all time, selected, analysed, re-evaluated and explained by a team of British experts and illustrated with over 1,000 chess diagrams. Join the authors in studying these games, the cream of two centuries of international chess, and develop your own chess-playing skills - whatever your current standard. Instructive points at the end of each game highlight the lessons to be learned.First published in 1998, a second edition of The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games in 2004 included an additional 12 games. This edition includes a further 13 games as well as some significant revisions to the analysis and information regarding other games in earlier editions of the book, facilitated by the use of a variety of chess software.