Thirteen-year-old Boli and his friends are deep in the middle of a game of marbles. An older boy named Mosca has won the prized Devil's Fire marble. His pals are jealous and want to win it away from him. This is Izayoc, the place of tears, a small pueblo in a tiny valley west of Mexico City where nothing much happens. It's a typical hot Sunday morning except that on the way to church someone discovers the severed head of Enrique Quintanilla propped on the ledge of one of the cement planters in the plaza and everything changes. Not apocalyptic changes, like phalanxes of men riding on horses with stingers for tails, but subtle ones: poor neighbors turning up with brand-new SUVs, pimpled teens with fancy girls hanging off them. Boli's parents leave for Toluca and don't arrive at their destination. No one will talk about it. A washed out masked wrestler turns up one day, a man only interested in finding his next meal. Boli hopes to inspire the luchador to set out with him to find his parents. Phillippe Diederich was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Mexico City and Miami. His parents were forced out of Haiti by the dictatorship of Papa Doc Duvalier in 1963. As a photojournalist, Diederich has traveled extensively through Mexico and witnessed the terrible tragedies of the Drug Wars.

The first hours and days following the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944 have a strong claim to be amongst the most crucial in world history. Spearheading this vast undertaking were crack British and American airborne forces. The Day The Devils Dropped In examines in fascinating detail the pivotal role of the 9th Battalion of the Parachute Regiment over the first week of the landings. Tasked with neutralizing the mighty Merville Battery, capturing Le Plein and the Château St Côme on the Breville Ridge, failure by the Paras to achieve any of these key objectives could well have unraveled the whole OVERLORD operation with catastrophic consequences. In his quest to uncover the true story of the early days of the landings, Neil Barber has successfully tracked down surviving participants in the operation. As a result he is able to tell the full story of the fierce fighting that characterized the early days of the landings largely in the very words of those who lived through the experience. This adds much to the credibility and immediacy of this enthralling book, which paints a superb picture of what soldiers care to call 'the fog of war'. The result is an inspiring and revealing read and a fine tribute to those whose contribution must never be forgotten.

Harry Maul, also known as The Hawk, is a safe-breaker, forger, jewel thief, and one of the cleverest 'gentleman' crooks, wanted by the police and also by criminal gangs. He follows another band of criminals, cracks their communication code, keeps outsmarting them and getting to their target before they do. Frank Packard (1877-1942) was a Canadian novelist best known for his Jimmie Dale mystery series. As a young man he worked as a civil engineer for the Canadian Pacific Railway. His experiences working on the railroad led to his writing a series of railroad stories and novels. Packard also wrote number of mystery novels, the most famous of which featured a character called Jimmie Dale, a wealthy playboy by day and a fearless crime fighter by night. Jimmie Dale novels brought the idea of a costume and mask for hero's secret identity, and also established the concept of a hero's secret hideout or lair.