- Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of
a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself
surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come
in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you
discover that you are a wizard yourself!
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- #1
#2
#3
- The no
 vel begins
with Robbie Feaver seeking counsel from the narrator, attorney George Mason. For
years, Feaver has been bribing several judges in the Common Law Claims Division to win
favorable judgments. Now that U.S. Attorney Stan Sennett has uncovered Feaver's dirty
little secret, he wants to use Feaver to get at the man he believes to be at the center of
all the legal corruption in the metropolitan area, Brendan Tuohey, Presiding Judge of
Common Law Claims and heir apparent to the Chief Justice of Kindle County Superior Court.
With Mason as an advisor, Robbie assists Sennett and his team of FBI undercover agents in
crafting a massive sting operation that involves an FBI-manufactured lawyer named
"James McManis," a cast of fictional clients, and "Evon Miller"--a
deep cover agent (and former Olympic athlete)--who poses as Robbie's paralegal and
paramour.
   - #1
#2
#3
- Piloting his 747, Rayford Steele is musing about his
wife Irene's irritating religiosity and contemplating the charms of his "drop-dead
gorgeous" flight attendant, Hattie. First Irene was into Amway, then
Tupperware, and now it's the Rapture of the Saints--the scary last story in the Bible in
which Christians are swept to heaven and unbelievers are left behind to endure the
Antichrist's Tribulation. Steele believes he'll put the plane on autopilot and go visit
Hattie. But Hattie's in a panic: some of the passengers have disappeared! The Rapture has
happened, abruptly driverless cars are crashing all over, and the slick, sinister Romanian
Nicolae Carpathia plans to use the UN to establish one world government and religion.
Resembling "a young Robert Redford" and silver-tongued in nine languages,
Carpathia is named People's "Sexiest Man Alive." Meanwhile, Steele teams
up with Buck Williams, a buck-the-system newshound, to form the Tribulation Force, an
underground of left-behind penitents battling the Antichrist.
  - #4
#5
- When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam
wormhole," and step ou
 t in
feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in
precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and
be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits
all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch
over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher
of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage
and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats
are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat.
How can you join the ranks of America's wealthy (defi ned as
people whose net worth is over one million dollars)? It's easy, say doctors Stanley
and Danko, who have spent the last 20 years interviewing members of this elite club: you
just have to follow seven simple rules. The first rule is, always live well below your
means. The last rule is, choose your occupation wisely. You'll have to buy the book to
find out the other five. It's only fair. The authors' conclusions are commonsensical. But,
as they point out, their prescription often flies in the face of what we think wealthy
people should do. There are no pop stars or athletes in this book, but plenty of
wall-board manufacturers--particularly ones who take cheap, infrequent vacations! Stanley
and Danko mercilessly show how wealth takes sacrifice, discipline, and hard work,
qualities that are positively discouraged by our high-consumption society. "You
aren't what you drive," admonish the authors.
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