While SHIELD’s hacked network is down, Aja and Marsha take time off. But it’s short-lived as they discover a new threat in a most unlikely place. Aja and her SHIELD colleagues successfully rescued 50 trafficked children in their last mission. But it was not without significant losses or loose ends. So, while Cybersecurity Specialists try to restore SHIELD’s hacked network, Aja and Marsha take some well-deserved time off to recover and recharge. Unfortunately, criminals who prey on children never take a vacation, and while on hiatus, they inadvertently discover a new threat in a most unusual setting. Tarnishing what was touted as a monumental achievement in our country’s progress toward unprecedented levels of efficient and environmentally friendly mass transportation. But like their previous missions, nothing ever is exactly what it seems or as easy as it might first appear. And loose ends eventually come home to roost. Will Aja and the SHIELD team tie up the loose ends and surmount this new threat to vulnerable children? Or will the loose ends and their new nemesis finally win out and bury Aja and SHIELD forever? Aja Minor: Off the Rails is the seventh book in the Aja Minor psychic crime thrillers series. Fans of fierce female protagonists with unique powers who overcome adversity will find a home in this series. A portion of the proceeds from this series are donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, established in 1984 to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Aja has disturbing powers. She feels cursed, but the FBI thinks otherwise. Will she stop a serial rapist and killer or become his next victim? Aja’s life has been one misfortune after another. She was dropped at birth, scarring her face. Her father left when she was 7 years old. Now, as a teenager, not only does she have to contend with puberty, but certain people experience pain or become sick in her presence. Desperate to find answers to her distressing effect on people, she finds them in a most unlikely place, the FBI Academy. There, she discovers her powers may actually be a gift. A gift that, if harnessed, may help the FBI track down the Peace Sign Killer - a serial rapist and murderer. Can Aja successfully exploit her powers to stop the Peace Sign Killer? Or will Aja’s misfortune continue making her his next victim? Aja Minor: Gifted or Cursed is the first book in a psychic crime thriller series. Pitting a coming-of-age girl with an extraordinary gift and indomitable spirit against some of the most depraved criminals imaginable. A portion of the proceeds from this series is donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, established in 1984 to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Aja and the SHIELD team embark on a high-stakes mission. One that could turn the tables in the war against sexual predators or sentence them to death. Aja’s frustration boils over when a new child trafficking network is discovered. She feels like the team is fighting a losing battle. For each predator they get off the streets, ten more take their place. But when Aja suggests what sounds like an outlandishly impossible solution, she is surprised when the powers that be agree to marshal the necessary resources to investigate its viability. Concurrently, Aja and the team are tasked with bringing the Spider’s Web network to justice. And saving hundreds of girls subjected to unimaginable abuse, including two missing girls from the team’s last mission. Risking their lives once again. Will Aja’s pie-in-the-sky idea revolutionize the fight against sexual predators? Or will the effort fail, jeopardizing the support of the novel CIA-FBI team? And will Aja and the team exterminate the Spider’s Web network and rescue its victims? Or will they be the ones eliminated? Aja Minor: Spider’s Web is the fourth book in the Aja Minor psychic crime thrillers series, including Aja Minor: Gifted or Cursed, Aja Minor: Fountain of Youth, and Aja Minor: Predatorville. Fans of fierce female protagonists with unique powers who overcome adversity will find a home in this series. A portion of the proceeds from this series is donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, established in 1984 to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Teen heroine Aja Minor returns to crack the case of a spike in assaults and missing children only to have the huntress become the hunted. When the joint CIA-FBI task force that brought down the Fountain of Youth network is disbanded, Aja Minor is devastated. She doesn’t want to go back to FBI Academy. Nor does she want to live apart from Marsha, her partner, and CIA counterpart. Her devastation turns to delight when the CIA and FBI create the Sexual Harm Intervention Enforcement and Liaison Division (SHIELD). Not only does it allow Aja and Marsha to stay together, but it preserves their mission and keeps intact the core members of the former task force. However, just as they start their investigation, Aja and the team learn of a threat to their lives. Who could have known? Is there a mole in their midst who has put them in the crosshairs? And will Aja and the team get out of Predatorville alive? Aja Minor: Predatorville is the third book in the Aja Minor psychic crime thrillers series, including Aja Minor: Gifted or Cursed and Aja Minor: Fountain of Youth. Fans of fierce female protagonists with unique powers who overcome adversity will find a home with this series. A portion of the proceeds from this series are donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, established in 1984 to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation, and prevent child victimization.

Parts of crossed-leg chairs and richly decorated fragments of bone and ivory excavated at Kenchreai, the Eastern port of Corinth, include scenes of an emperor and a miniature ivory Corinthian arcade that decorated luxurious furniture produced in late Roman Egypt.

Hundreds of richly decorated ivory and bone fragments from furniture and parts from at least three crossed-leg chairs, survived under seawater in an apsidal room at Kenchreai, the Eastern port of ancient Corinth. These excavated remains include fragments of an incised bone panel with a scene of an emperor and attendants, a thiasos, bucolic and hunt scenes, seated philosophers, erotes, and a miniature ivory Corinthian order supporting a bone arcade decorated with erotes. Decorative moldings and large bone rings suggest that most of these belonged to a luxuriously decorated chest. Dating to the fourth century, these objects provide an important addition to our knowledge of the artistic production of late Roman Egypt and the working of ivory, bone, and wood.

Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians in 1972. The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo's songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs? Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen's story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Walter Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band's break-up in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen's parallel solo career are covered in detail. Author Peter Jones seeks to explain the public's continuing fascination with Fagen's music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.

This volume looks at battle speech in major Greek historians as well as the pictorial representations of Thermopylai.