Phase Three Alert
authors: John Ball | ISBN: 1628150769 9781628150766 | publish : | page count:320
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Trouble for Tallon
A CASE OF PIOUS MURDER?When a City Councilman is killed, the citizens of Whitewater, Washington demand an immediate solution to the town's first unsolved murder in decades.Police Chief Jack Tallon's only clue implicates Dharmaville, a controversial religious cult led by an inscrutable swami. Was it a case of holy homicide?Tallon's bizarre investigation unearths a slew of skeletons in Whitewater's closets and produces more problems than answers. From the motorcycle arsonist to the kidnapped Hollywood starlet to the mistress in Spokane. It all adds up to... TROUBLE FOR TALLON.
Five Pieces of Jade
The body of an elderly Chinese importer of rare jade lies on the carpet of a quietly expensive house in Pasadena, California. In a rough semicircle around his head rest four pieces of jade; protruding from the heart is a fifth—the Ya-Chang ritual knife.Who murdered the importer? Was it Yumeko, the beautiful half-black, half-Japanese girl who lived with him? Johnny Wu, a rich Chinese-American? Another customer? Or a political enemy from overseas?Black homicide detective Virgil Tibbs finds himself in the middle of a deadly situation involving hard drugs, Communist Chinese agents, and the exotic settings of the jade trade as he coolly tracks down the murderer. Praise for John Ball"A nice tight murder puzzle."—Times Literary Supplement "A taut, dramatic yarn."—Charlotte Observer
The Eyes of Buddha
A partially decomposed body of a young woman is discovered in a park in Pasadena, California. The woman was strangled but not sexually assaulted. The police suspect she might be a missing heiress who disappeared over a year ago, but dental records prove them wrong. But who is she? And is there a link between the heiress and this corpse? The celebrated black detective Virgil Tibbs re-shapes the known facts regarding these two women and discovers astonishing connections. His quest leads him around the world to Katmandu where, beneath the searing "eyes of Buddha" at the famed Monkey Temple, he learns the truth in a striking denouement.
In the Heat of the Night
A 50th-anniversary edition of the pioneering novel featuring African American police detective Virgil Tibbs—with a foreword by John Ridley, creator of the TV series American Crime and Oscar-winning screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave “They call me Mr. Tibbs” was the line immortalized by Sidney Poitier in the 1967 Oscar-winning movie adaptation of In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award and was named one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Now fans of classic crime can rediscover this suspense-filled novel whose hero paved the way for James Patterson’s Alex Cross, George Pelecanos’s Derek Strange, and other African American detectives.A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It’s no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man—Virgil Tibbs—is not the killer but a skilled homicide detective, passing through racially tense Wells, South Carolina, on his way back to California. Even more surprising, Wells’s new police chief recruits Tibbs to help with the investigation. But Tibbs’s presence in town rubs some of the locals the wrong way, and it won’t be long before the martial arts–trained detective has to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The Kiwi Target
Sent to New Zealand by his company to avert a hostile takeover, Peter Ferguson stumbles upon love, murder and laundered money. Then when he discovers a multi-million dollar scheme to turn a stretch of beautiful coastline into a parade of neon signs, liquor stores and casinos, Ferguson thinks he can see through muscle men, lawyers and policemen all the way to a Chinese syndicate in Hong Kong."A top notch mystery."—News & Observer"A breathtaking suspense thriller."—Seattle Post-Intelligencer"The Kiwi Target is the last book that John Ball wrote. We shall miss his inspiration."—Mystery SceneJohn Ball's international bestseller In the Heat of the Night was made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier and became a high-rating television series.
Then Came Violence
Virgil Tibbs, the cool, highly-competent black detective of the Pasedena Police Department, returns one day to his bachelor apartment to find that it has been expertly stripped to the bare walls—not a thing remains to show that he has ever lived there. At headquarters he is given a cryptic note from Police Chief McGowan, sending him to a certain address in the better section of Pasedena. When he arrives he finds his possessions carefully installed in a fine new home. But that's not all. The door is opened by a very attractive young woman who informs him that she is Mrs. Virgil Tibbs. He has never seen her before, and he certainly isn't responsible for the two children who greet him as their father.Meanwhile, a brutal holdup is followed by an execution-type hanging of one of the bandits. More violence follows, and Pasedena's ace homicide investigator is tested to the limits by a double assignment calling for every bit of his tact, skill, and discipline."Tibbs is as much a model of perfection as the late Wimsey... A good detective who actually ratiocinates."—Times Literary Supplement (London)
Mark One: The Dummy
Ed Nesbitt has a problem.Nesbitt is the author of dozens of phenomenally successful suspense novels starring that lethal super-agent of the West, Mark Day, master of karate and aikido, and irresistible womanizer. Everyone loves his books—"So realistic," they say; "Day is so true-to-life." The problem is: he's too realistic. Everyone thinks Nesbitt is Mark Day. Even the enemy. And the enemy means to do something about it.Which explains what the large man with the very sharp knife is doing in Nesbitt's hotel room in Berlin. Which explains why Nesbitt's luggage and possessions are being ransacked.Which does not explain what happens the next moment, when Ed Nesbitt quite suddenly finds himself transformed into a man three inches taller, several years younger—and possessed of some of the most awesome fighting capabilities the West has ever known.Ed Nesbitt, meet Mark Day. You're about to save your own life—in a most remarkable fashion.
Johnny Get Your Gun
Alone in his bedroom, Johnny McGuire turned on his small transistor radio. In the few weeks that he and his parents had been in Pasadena Johnny had made few acquaintances and no friends; in his lonesome little life the radio had opened the door to a magnificent new world. People played music for him to listen to and they told him, play-by-play, what was happening in the big league games. Seated on the edge of the bed, he clutched the little set in both hands. This radio had been the only gift that could be afforded for his ninth birthday and already Johnny McGuire seemed old enough to understand why. He knew that life wasn't always fair, that there was little money to spend, that sometimes his father was angry, often afraid. This is the story, as only John Ball could tell it, of what happens when an older, bigger boy steals Johnny's proudest possession and Johnny sets out to even the score using his father's .38 Colt revolver. Told against the scene of black-white conflict in Pasadena, between poor whites and black militants, between rich whites and poor whites, and the highly topical and urgent problem of gun control, Johnny Get Your Gun is first-rate suspense. It is the chilling story of Johnny's adventures with his gun and of a murder and how the murder is solved by John Ball's cool, brilliant black homicide detective Virgil Tibbs. hero of In the Heat of the Night and The Cool Cottontail. There are riots, brutalities, an action-packed chase through Disneyland, and a heartwarming and heartbreaking scene at the end of the book in the baseball park of the California Angels. Perhaps the most important issue, described with sincerity and sensitivity by John Bad, is the terror and confusion in the mind of a nine-year-old boy—frightened, alone, hurt by the hatred around him, a fugitive from justice. Johnny Get Your Gun touches on some of the most urgent problems facing America today, and is told by one of America's most accomplished storytellers. John Ball is the author of Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms, hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "a very funny and tender story of what happens when East meets West," as well as author of In the Heat of the Night, made into a screenplay which won the Academy Award for best picture of 1967.
Police Chief
NIGHT STALKERDrug addicts, prostitutes, street gangs and shoot-outs. Police Sergeant Jack Tallon had had enough; he wanted out. He traded his L.A. beat for the quiet, wide-open spaces of Whitewater, Washington.And trouble followed. A few short days after his installment as Chief of Police, Tallon faced the toughest crisis of his career—suspicion and hostility from the very people he was hired to protect. Whitewater's first major crime in years—a series of vicious rapes—was accompanied by an equally-vicious rumor: Tallon was the criminal.From the author of IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT comes a fascinating study of police procedure, a suspenseful whodunit, an engrossing portrait of a small town paralyzed by fear.
Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms
She Broke an Ancient Tradition by Falling in LoveKanno Masayo, Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms, is the loveliest and most glamorous geisha in all of Japan. Dick Seaton is a shy, handsome American whose business takes him to Japan to close a very big deal. In violation of a timeless taboo, Dick and Kanno spend slow, tantalizing days falling in love.Then Dick discovers that Kanno’s love was paid for by his businessmen hosts. Sensing his rage and hurt, Kanno flees in confusion. And, too late, Dick realizes the truth—that she really loved him.Now, a stranger in a strange, exotic land, he must find her—and seduce her back into his life.Love her for a night… and you will remember her for a lifetime.Praise for Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms“A DELIGHTFULLY FUNNY... APPEALING, THOROUGHLY ENTERTAINING NOVEL.—The Washington Star“A very funny, tender love story“—Chicago Tribune
The Fourteenth Point
The Right Reverend Philip Roundtree, bishop of the Church of England, is not exactly your average clergyman. Unpredictability surrounds him like an aura. Whenever he steps into a pulpit to speak, anything can happen. And this time, anything does.Before an entire convocation of church dignitaries, he makes an incredible suggestion: He proposes a universal religion. A religion which all of the known faiths would adopt as their own, scrapping their dogmas and rites. A religion that would unite man-kind in a single, simple worship of God. One religion.Shocking, of course. Except to Philip Roundtree—and to Sir Cyril Throckmorton Plessey, the aged but extremely lively multi¬millionaire who takes it into his head to become Roundtree's sponsor. The bishop sparks an interest in Plessey, that interest sparks Plessey's money—and that money sparks one of the most momentous, earth-shaking conferences in the history of the world.How Roundtree manages to bring together leaders of all the world's religions in one place, what happens when the Orthodox Jews meet the Moslems, how the Christian Scientists get along with the Sunni sect of the Buddhists, what transpires when a strict young Anglican priest falls in love with a Buddhist Thai beauty, and finally, how the conference is shatteringly resolved—these are all parts of John Ball's provocative, inspiring and immensely exciting novel, The Fourteenth Point.
The Murder Children
Here is a frightening, realistic novel of terror in the streets, of the growing power wielded by lawless youth gangs.When newly-promoted Lieutenant Ralph Mott of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department was assigned to gang control in East Los Angeles, he knew little about the barrio or the extent of the violence there. Although he had heard of the seventeen warring youth gangs, he was unprepared for fourteen-year-old hitmen, for the savage brutality of boys still in their teens. Now with gang activity increasing, he plunged into the fight to control the armed robberies, the gang rapings, the shotgun attacks on houses, and the constant warfare between hostile gangs that raged on every street and hillside. Most of the people in the Mexican-American community were law-abiding, yet Mott soon learned that fear of gang vengeance kept them silent when they had witnessed a crime.Chillingly accurate in its detail, The Murder Children is a story of fast, exciting action. It is also a story of people—of individual gang members, of priests and prostitutes, of good citizens and bad. And it is the story of Lieutenant Mott, who with the men and women of the sheriff's forces, had the dangerous job of trying to contain a spreading evil.John Ball was sworn into the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and then spent more than two years working in the barrio, riding patrol units, meeting with gang members, riding in their cars, and sometimes helping to put their dead bodies into the coroner's wagons. The result of these experiences is this powerful book.
The First Team
Moscow has taken the USA without a shot. Student protesters are being slaughtered in the Midwest. The Jewish pogroms have begun. You are now living in Soviet–occupied America!One nuclear submarine and a handful of determined patriots against the combined might of Russia and Soviet–occupied America… The Most Explosive and Gripping “What If” Novel of Our Time!
Rescue Mission
"The guy certainly knows his airplanes well and he held my interest very tightly as he developed the story."—RICHARD BACH, author of Stranger to the Ground and BiplaneThe hurricane warnings were up in the Caribbean when Herb Stallings brought his crippled Constellation in for a landing on Tres Santos. The Connie wasn't safe to fly farther, and the nearest parts for repairing it were in Miami. Stallings decided he'd tie the big plane down on the sheltered side of the hangar, fill the tanks for ballast, and hope the plane would ride out the storm safely.With the plane well anchored, its captain, crew, and the airfield staff flew out ahead of the storm in a DC-3, to the mainland and to safety.Meanwhile two Civilian Air Patrol pilots, who had been on a rescue mission over the water searching for some men adrift in a rubber raft, realized that the wind was increasing and that they had better head for land. The nearest land was Tres Santos.When the CAP pilots arrived at Tres Santos, they found the airfield deserted: only the giant Constellation was there... which was bewildering.Then they were approached by two of the islanders and a priest—who begged them to fly a very sick man and a badly burned little girl out of the storm's path to the mainland and a doctor.The CAP pilots knew that men whose only flight experience and training had been in one-engine planes could not possibly handle anything the size of a Constellation. They protested—said they couldn't do it.But it seemed to be a matter of life and death. Foolhardy and dangerous though they knew the attempt to be, they finally agreed to try to fly the big plane out. They didn't know its condition—and one of them certainly didn't have any idea what his passenger list was like.Desperately they began the terrifying task of getting the Connie up into the air to outrace the hurricane.John Ball (who has flown many air rescue missions himself) knows what he's writing about—and his exciting novel lets the reader share a pilot's experiences with unusual immediacy.
The First Team
Moscow has taken the USA without a shot.Student protesters are being slaughtered in the Midwest.The Jewish pogroms have begun.You are now living in Soviet–occupied America!One nuclear submarine and a handful of determined patriots against the combined might of Russia and Soviet–occupied America… The Most Explosive and Gripping “What If” Novel of Our Time!
The Cool Cottontail
Sun Valley Lodge, run by Forrest Nunn and his wife Emily, with the assistance of their three children—Linda, a most attractive teenager, her twenty-four-year-old brother George, and small Carole—was in a nudist park which had an excellent reputation (except with a few people) and a most careful screening of members, so that sudden and murderous death had certainly never intruded upon it before. Though the body floating in the pool was nude, it was not the body of one of the members. The dead man was well-to-do, perhaps even prominent. But not only was he nude; his clothing was nowhere to be found; and someone had tried to prevent his being identified. And, oddly enough, no one came forward to identify him, or to report that a man like the dead man was missing. It was going to be a hard murder to solve. But Virgil Tibbs, moving expertly and patiently, was determined to solve it—and even to get used to carrying on his investigations in the midst of a nudist park, which added certain problems of its own. Tibbs is a detective who won friends and admirers immediately—and will go on to win more.
In the Heat of the Night
A 50th anniversary edition of the classic crime novel that inspired the Oscar-winning film starring Sidney Poitier.'They call me Mr Tibbs!'A small southern town in the 1960s. A musician found dead on the highway. It's no surprise when white detectives arrest a black man for the murder. What is a surprise is that the black man - Virgil Tibbs - is himself a skilled homicide detective from California, whom inexperienced Chief Gillespie reluctantly recruits to help with the case. Faced with mounting local hostility and a police force that seems determined to see him fail, it isn't long before Tibbs - trained in karate and aikido - will have to fight not just for justice, but also for his own safety.The inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Sidney Poitier, this iconic crime novel is a psychologically astute examination of racial prejudice, an atmospheric depiction of the American South in the sixties, and a brilliant, suspense-filled read set in the sultry heat of the night.
A Killing in the Market
MONEY, MANIPULATION, AND MURDER A successful Wall Street speculator is turning his custom-built car into the private drive of his vast Long Island estate when a bomb blasts him and the vehicle to bits. In nearby Westchester another financial manipulator is executed in the back seat of his Cadillac. Police specialist John Harbizon is called in to investigate. He soon realizes that he has a difficult task before him; the careers of both men consisted mainly in taking away other people's money, and many had cause to hate them. Then the vice president of an L.A. brokerage firm is electrocuted while taking a shower and another financial advisor leaps or is pushed from the twenty-third floor of his Chicago penthouse. Harbizon recognizes the frightening potential of the pattern that is emerging. Police specialists from New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles and two eager journalists join the investigation as the series of murders stuns the financial world. Someone seems to be more interested in collecting death certificates than stock certificates. A novel of ruthlessly professional murders, brilliant police work, and swift suspense by the author of In the Heat of the Night.
Chief Tallon and the S.O.R.
GOOD AND EVILThe sleepy town of Whitewater is hosting the annual convention for the S.O.R., the Society for Open Relationships, an intimate group of radical sexual practitioners. As soon as television evangelist Ezekiel Moses finds out about it, he sends in his Morality Strike Force to disrupt the proceedings.When the convention turns into chaos, Police Chief Jack Tallon steps in to take control. But he's too late, because now there's a murder to be solved...
Singapore
When Madame Motamboru, widow of the assassinated President of Bakara, is framed for murder in Singapore, she requests that her old friend Virgil Tibbs take part in the investigation. Because of U.S. interests in the area, Tibbs is cleared for passage.Upon arrival, Tibbs finds that the police there are convinced of Madame Motamboru's guilt. All the evidence says that only she could have shot the man who visited her hotel suite. It's up to Tibbs to save her from hanging by uncovering the truth and outwitting the sinister organization that wants her dead.And when Tibbs gets involved in another more bizarre murder case, it will take all of his legendary intelligence and cool-headed savvy to find the answers to two deadly and, apparently, unsolvable puzzles.
Last Plane Out
This is the gripping, compelling saga of men and their machines and their lonely women. Men who have only one goal—get up in the sky in anything that flies!The Captain—a man not to be grounded, determined to fly the last plane out of the war; Jennings—survivor of a terrifying crash, who kept his eyes turned to the skies all his life; The copilots, navigators, technicians, ground crews—and the two young women who tie together the threads of their lives.They could live no other way. Praise for Last Plane Out"As exciting a story of adventure in the sky as anything ever given us..."—Chicago Tribune (Last Plane Out)
The Van: A Tale of Terror
The Van: A Tale of TerrorJohn Ball said of this novel: "The series of bizarre and frightful murders described in the pages that follow is based on an actual case, the complete file of which is shattering reading."The setting for the powerful story is the Los Angeles area. The van, a dark-colored one, basic to much of the horror, was not much of a van.The many victims whose mutilated bodies were discovered were chosen haphazardly. There were two killers. The Los Angeles sheriff’s office and homicide bureau included many able, well-trained men, used to dealing with murders. But when the tapes the killers enjoyed making were found and played, they were the most horrifying piece of evidence the technicians had ever listened to.The victims were always young ladies—often very young.Working with the police department was Dr. Flavia de la Torre, a sociologist who had been given a grant to do a study on the incidence of serious crimes committed by men on parole. She was an attractive woman who was an asset—but who wasn't really aware (were any of them?) of the criminal minds she'd be encountering.The reader should be prepared, too, as he (or she) reads ahead.
The Winds of Mitamura
In this haunting novel, John Ball returns to the setting he evoked so beautifully in his earlier success, Miss One Thousand Spring Blossoms. Set against the exquisite landscape of rural Japan, The Winds of Mitamura weaves an engrossing contemporary story of how people from radically different backgrounds seek in individual ways for respect, mutual understanding, and love.Peter Storm, an assistant professor of sociology, receives the plum assignment of his career: to study at first hand the effects of modern technology on a remote Japanese rice farming village. His partner on the project is a young black graduate student named Marjorie Saunders. Because the sponsors of the project do not want "expert" preconceptions to interfere with fresh observations, both Peter and Marjorie are ignorant of a crucial prejudice: the rural Japanese have a deep-rooted fear of dark-skinned people. Worst of all, the inhabitants of this particular village, Mitamura, have a very special reason to dread blacks—a reason that almost costs Peter and Marjorie their lives.From the moment the two Americans set foot in Mitamura, they are caught up in the task of overcoming the villagers' distrust of strangers. Only with the help of Akitoshi Ko-jima, an artist living in the village, do they begin to find acceptance from the members of the community. They come to appreciate the rhythms and customs of life in the village, the arduous work in the rice paddies, and, surrounding them, the undisturbed order of the countryside—a serenity which all but conceals the village's terrible secret. Peter and Marjorie also discover new loves that intensify their experiences in Mitamura, experiences ultimately threatened by a ferocious typhoon.Two sensitive love stories, the climactic typhoon that crashes down on Mitamura, and, above all, the author's deep understanding of a rich, complex culture combine to make The Winds of Mitamura one of John Ball's most satisfying novels.