The small, close-knit community of Torrance, Florida, is torn asunder by a cold-blooded killer targeting teenage girls, and with gossip and fear gripping its citizens, high school teacher Sandy Crosbie vows to protect her family and find the attacker.

Hello, my name is Zita. But here, at the La Gaufre hospital, everyone calls me "Baldy" I have a type of leukemia that seems to be especially fond of my body. Because of all the treatments I have undergone, I now only have a few tufts of hair left on my head. So I prefer to shave my head bald. Hence my nickname.

Jay "Flash" Reynolds has a brilliant future as a trauma surgeon until a truck on a rainy night changes her life. Assistant chief medical examiner Olivia Price is more at ease with the dead than the living—at least the dead never lie. All she needs to do is listen to their stories. What she doesn't need is a surly new resident who would rather be somewhere else. Two women, one with a damaged body, the other a damaged spirit, challenge each other to dare to live again.

THE HEARTSTOPPER MCQ (MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS) SERVES AS A VALUABLE RESOURCE FOR INDIVIDUALS AIMING TO DEEPEN THEIR UNDERSTANDING OF VARIOUS COMPETITIVE EXAMS, CLASS TESTS, QUIZ COMPETITIONS, AND SIMILAR ASSESSMENTS. WITH ITS EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF MCQS, THIS BOOK EMPOWERS YOU TO ASSESS YOUR GRASP OF THE SUBJECT MATTER AND YOUR PROFICIENCY LEVEL. BY ENGAGING WITH THESE MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS, YOU CAN IMPROVE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECT, IDENTIFY AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT, AND LAY A SOLID FOUNDATION. DIVE INTO THE HEARTSTOPPER MCQ TO EXPAND YOUR HEARTSTOPPER KNOWLEDGE AND EXCEL IN QUIZ COMPETITIONS, ACADEMIC STUDIES, OR PROFESSIONAL ENDEAVORS. THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS ARE PROVIDED AT THE END OF EACH PAGE, MAKING IT EASY FOR PARTICIPANTS TO VERIFY THEIR ANSWERS AND PREPARE EFFECTIVELY.

The 2/1 Game Force bidding system is an improvement over the Standard American System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. The advantage of the 2/1 system is that it allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid. In this book, I have tried to present the fundamental aspects of the bidding structure for playing a pure Two-Over-One Game Force system of bidding. In this book, I have tried to change behavior by presenting a series of bids geared toward the 2/1 bidding structure that includes Bergen, Reverse Bergen, and Combined Bergen Raises, inverted minor suit raises with crisscross and flip-flop, cuebidding, modified scroll bids, and many more methods not used in Standard American or Precision. In the fourth edition, the Minorwood Convention has been expanded and several variations of the Flannery Convention are included in this edition. I have added the Hello and SCUM conventions used to interfer over strong notrumps and a Modified Landy convention designed to compete over partnerships that employ a weak notrump bid. The Equal Level Conversion (ELC) double is discussed in Chapter 6 and additional material on slam bidding has been added to Chapter 3. The material on two-way new minor forcing and the Gazilli Convention has been expanded upon in Chapter 1 and Jacoby transfers with a superaccept structure has been added to Chapter 2. Finally, a new chapter that reviews the new Italian System of bids called Fantunes has been included in this edition. The System has been modified to be in compliance with the General Convention Chart.

My goal in writing this book is to provide a careful organization of topics so that one may easily convert from any standard two club opening system and in particular the 2/1 Game Force bids to Precision. In the process, one may keep most of their natural bidding sequences and the conventions they currently use with minor modifications. I have tried to eliminate the fear of the memory features used by many variations of Precision by presenting a series of bids that are geared toward simplicity and allow the reader to integrate the Precision system into their more familiar natural bidding system using the 2/1 Game Force bidding structure which includes Combined Bergen Raises, inverted minor suit raises with criss-cross, cue bidding, modified scroll bids, and many more familiar methods.

My goal for “The Modified Optimal 2/1-Club System” is to show how to use the Optimal Point Count (OPC) method of hand evaluation developed by Patrick. Darricades in his book “Optimal Hand Evaluation” (2019) to improve the dialogue between two players to achieve an optimal bridge contract. The primary objective is to demonstrate how to apply the new system approach to contract bridge by illustrating a more accurate method of hand evaluation whether you play 2/1, Standard American (SA), Acol or Precision, among others. The Two over One (2/1) Game Force bidding system was an improvement over the SA System that has been in effect and played by bridge players for many years. Many claim that the advantage of the 2/1 system allows the partnership to know that game is possible with only a single bid provided one has 13+ points. As we shall see for suit contracts it is only true if the opening 2/1 bidder has 15 points, not 12/13 points since 25/26 points do not result in game whenever a singleton in one hand finds “wasted honor points” in partner’s hand. Yet, most 2/1 conventions call for 13+ High Card Points (HCP). Another flaw of the 2/1 approach is the fact that opening 1-level suit bids have a wide bidding range (12-21). To eliminate this flaw, the principles of Pinpoint Precision with 1*= 18+ points and new responses associated with a new and improved hand evaluation method. A major flaw of most Strong Club opening bids is that they are based solely on HCPs with opening bids of 1*=16/17+ HCP. To correct these flaws among others, the search for a better hand evaluation method and a better bidding system has been unrelenting. Hand evaluation methods have been popularized by Milton Work, Charles Goren, Marty Bergen, and Petkoy Zar, and others. All falling short when applied to the commonly used “dialogue” bidding systems. The Optimal Point Count (OPC) method of hand evaluation corrects the many flaws of prior hand evaluation methods when applied to any bidding system. In this book many “traditional/standard” bidding practices that do not help to show suit fi t and distribution are to be avoided or re-defined. Splinters and mini splinters which show the location of voids and singletons to help locate wasted honors, the XYZ bidding convention, cue bidding, and new bids for the investigation of game and slam are among the cornerstone conventions reviewed in this book. Newly defined 2 and 3-level bids to show hands with 6/7+card suits are defined to prevent the opponents from finding their optimal contract and to improve upon difficult bidding sequences using traditional bidding strategies. The evaluation of one’s Offense to Defense Ratio (ODR), why many well-known bidding sequences must be avoided, and an analysis of several old “standard” bridge laws/rules are reviewed to show why they need not be used to improve one’s judgement if one employs the OPC method.

In this book, Miles addresses the complex arena of competitive bidding methods for the more advanced player. He discusses current thinking, and recommends methods which will continue to be playable as bridge enters its second century. This book will appeal to fairly serious players only. There are two earlier books on this topic by the same author, 5 and 10 years old respectively, and therefore superseded by this new work.

This book contains an innovation that makes it much easier to bid slams. This innovation will enable the bridge community to dramatically increase its bidding of grand slams. This book incorporates the 2/1 Game Force bidding system for major suit opening. This book also expands the Game Force system to partners holding 5 spades and an opening hand. The forcing response when R has 6-12p and a spade response is modified to show if O has 3-card spade support. The traditional 2/1 system is modified by the mechanics of a fast arrival convention to show game-level points. In addition, a simple worthless suit convention using a single bid is employed to show a worthless suit as opposed to the more complicated control system used in traditional 2/1. For minor suit openings, the book presents a simple method for using reverses. The book also shows how to use the Jacoby Transfer mechanism to show R’s 5-card major. The book then shows how R can effectively use inverted minors to hamper the opponents’ bidding. The book next shows how to bid overcalls of a 4-card heart suit to hamper the opponents from finding their spade suit. The book outlines the Kantar slam bids and shows how to locate the trump Queen after a 4NT bid. Finally, the book shows how to improve slam bidding using the Minorwood convention. Ken has published 5 core books on how to play bridge: “Beginning Bridge” (5th ed. 2023), “Tournament Bridge for Intermediate Players (5th ed. 2021), “Advanced Bridge” (4th ed. 2021), “Bridge Defense” (4th ed. 2020) and “Bridge for Notrump Contracts” (4th ed. 2020). Ken served as a Russian interpreter during the Vietnam War and then spent over 30 years practicing as a tax attorney. Ken also has an MBA in accounting and a CPA.