americans

Patty and David Monroe have flown to Moscow to repair a business deal which has gone bad $1 (Bwhen it suddenly turns nightmarish. Shooting David and kidnapping Patty, their Russian business partners drive her to a ramshackle dacha twenty miles east of Moscow. There, her captors $1 (Balong with brutal Islamic terrorists $1 (Bwill attempt to ransom her. Patty will face the most frightening ordeal imaginable. For the first time in history, FBI agents must work with Russian security forces. In an atmosphere of violent mistrust and political hatred, only their burning desire to rescue Patty Monroe will hold the operation together. Burned is inspired by the horrifying ordeal of Yvonne Bornstein. Kidnapped in Russia in the 1990s by Islamic terrorists, Yvonne and her husband were held for ransom. During her captivity she was tortured, starved, and abused. Her captors were affiliated with early al Qaeda partisans. While this book is fiction, Burned captures the spirit of Yvonne $1 (Bs resistance and ultimate triumph.

In 1917 Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, was executed by revolutionaries. Now, in response to the collapse of the country's economy, the people have voted to instate a new Tsar, one who will be chosen from the descendents of Nicholas II. But a powerful group of Western businessmen want to make sure he is a candidate they can control, and hire African-American lawyer Miles Lord, with his knowledge of Russian language and history, to check the background of their chosen man. Miles is thrilled with his assignment ... until he becomes the target of an assassination attempt, and must run for his life, guided by a cryptic phrase penned by Rasputin, a bizarre prophecy that the Tsar will return to the throne and that Miles himself will see to it.

Guest editor Jamaica Kincaid, novelist and travel writer, selects the best works of American travel writing from 2004, presenting twenty-five pieces by such writers as Seth Stevenson, Madison Smartt Bell, Pam Houston, and Simon Winchester.

Eugene Sledge chronicles the experiences he had while serving as a young marine in the First Division during the battle of the Pacific.

A young boy in Depression-era Chicago begins a career marked by failure until he finally achieves his success.

The author offers a memoir of the Vietnam War and its devastating impact on his family, chronicling a 1992 railway journey from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City, a return to his former station at Cu Chi and its famed tunnels, and a climb up a local sacred mountain.

Louise Canova feels the uncertainty and insecurity of her youth coming back to haunt her when her actor husband becomes more distant, until she finds a faded book entitled "Elegance", which seems to hold the answer to all her problems.