L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, lives her life by three rules: Fashion. Fashion. Fashion. But when she stumbles upon the work of a brutal killer, her life takes an unexpected turn from Manolos to murder. And things only get worse when her boyfriend disappears - along with $20 million in embezzled funds - and her every move is suddenly under scrutiny by the LAPD's sexiest cop. With the help of her post-menopausal bridezilla of a mother, a 300 pound psychic and one seriously oversexed best friend, Maddie finds herself stepping out of her stilettos and onto the trail of a murderer. But can she catch a killer before the killer catches up to her.

Fact: More people are killed annually by teddy bears than by grizzly bears. Fact: Each year, thousands of couch potatoes are admitted to emergency rooms for television-related injuries. Fact: There are more germs on your desk than there are on your toilet. Forget about lions, tigers, and sharks--in a world where vacuum cleaners are more dangerous than venomous spiders, and household cleaner is more deadly than anthrax, it pays to know the risks of daily living--and how to avoid them. In this witty and wonderfully practical guide, Laura Lee reveals the "100 Most Dangerous Things in Everyday Life and What You Can Do About Them. From rubber bands and paper clips to wading pools and holy water, readers will learn: - The probability of encountering each threat - How to determine the magnitude of danger - Expert advice on how best to minimize the hazard - Statistics on how many people have met their demise as a result of these risks Equipped with this" worst-case scenario guide to armchair misadventures, alarmists, hypochondriacs, paranoids, and skeptics alike will be prepared for anything that comes their way--at home, at work, or at play.

If your resolutions tend to look much the same from one year to another and you are suffering from the suspicion that someone, somewhere is having more fun that you, then you need something to revitalise your lust for life. A YEAR IN HIGH HEELS is here to help. This book will guide you through the months with a perfectly co-ordinated combination of culture and challenges. With a monthly muse to inspire, and a suggested title for that soon-to-be-formed book club, dumbing down is so last season. Erin O'Connor, Diane von Furstenberg, Matthew Williamson and others share their secrets about their favourite places - so the next time you check in you'll know what to check out - while Dita von Teese, Anya Hindmarch and Christian Lacroix show you how to undress, how to go green and how to appreciate opera. Eclectic, practical and fantastical, A YEAR IN HIGH HEELS is crammed with fascinating stories, inspiring ideas and surprisingly sensible advice. Forget who, when, why and what to wear. Get ready to wow!

Examines the diverse uses and abuses of risk by social actors across a wide range of cultural, ethnic, and geographical locales. The introductory chapter by the two co-editors analyzes and contextualizes current scholarly debates on the social, cultural, and political construction of risk. It is followed by an overview on the anthropology of harm reduction that outlines an innovative framework for culturally informed risk analysis. The remaining nine chapters are organized into three sections, The Cultivation of Fear, Perceptions of Health, Safety, and Hazard: Risk Makers and Risk Takers, and Regulating Risk and the Public's Health. The book aims to address a set of questions of theoretical and practical importance to anthropologists, sociologists, public health scholars and professionals, and public policy advocates, among others. These questions include: How do individuals conceptualize and respond to risk? Can risk be a tool of empowerment for individuals and communities who define themselves as at-risk? How has risk figured recently in the production of health inequality? Has the social contract to provide care in its broadest sense expanded or contracted around issues of risk? Are risk and the imperative to adhere to risk warnings used by experts as a means of social control? The volume's contributors, medical anthropologists and sociologists, provide rich, grounded ethnographic case material on the processes at work in everyday social life around the globe, as individuals and groups struggle to make saense of the health risks and inequities in their lives and communities. Authors address an array of urgent health concerns, ranging from food safety to environment, new technologies to infectious disease, in such contrasting locales as the US, Europe, South and Southeast Asia, and North Africa, and across diverse ethnicities and social classes.

Environmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the apparently excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.

Can you fall in love when everything is falling apart? Estelle Laure is a major new talent to rival John Green and Rainbow Rowell. Her debut novel, This Raging Light, is a heartbreakingly beautiful book that you'll devour in one sitting, but remember forever. How is it that you suddenly notice a person? How is it that one day Digby was my best friend's admittedly cute twin brother, and then the next he stole air, gave jitters, twisted my insides up? Lucille has bigger problems than falling for her best friend's unavailable brother. Her mom has gone, leaving her to look after her sister, Wren. With bills mounting up and appearances to keep, Lucille is raging against her life but holding it together - just.

Ragle Gumm is an ordinary man leading an ordinary life, except that he makes his living by entering a newspaper contest every day - and winning, every day. But he gradually begins to suspect that his life - indeed his whole world - is an illusion, constructed around him for the express purpose of keeping him docile and happy. But if that is the case, what is his real world like, and what is he actually doing every day when he thinks he is guessing 'Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?'

In book two in the Daniel Swann series, former British agent Daniel Swann is living in semi-retirement in Hong Kong when he receives a call for help from his old friend Thai drug lord Sami Somsak. Sami’s stepbrother and his family have been murdered, and Sami’s brainchild, the $6-billion Intella Island project, Singapore’s largest offshore construction, is in jeopardy. When Swann attempts to retrieve vital evidence hidden in Fort Siloso, a bloody gun battle erupts on Sentosa island, and staid, quiet Singapore becomes a raging battlefield. Chinese Triads, a ruthless Colombian drug cartel and a shipping container holding $2 billion dollars converge on Singapore as Swann and his associates battle to save the Intella Island project and seek their revenge on Singapore’s unscrupulous Thomas Lu—the man they call The Undertaker.