Meeting an anonymous client on a sizzling summer night is asking for trouble. Especially when the client lies and tells V I Warshawski he s the prominent banker John Thayer, looking for his son s missing girlfriend. But V I soon discovers the real John Thayer s son and he s dead. As V I begins to question her mysterious client s motives, she sinks deeper into Chicago s darker side: a world of gangsters, insurance fraud and contract killings. And while she must concentrate on saving the life of someone she has never met, it becomes clear that she is in danger of losing her own.

‘Who’re you working for then, Warshawski?’ ‘My cousin.’ ‘Boom Boom? He’s dead.’ ‘I know. That’s why I’m working for him.’ Boom Boom’s body was found floating near the docks, chewed up and spat out by a ship’s propeller. More like brother and sister than cousins, Vic and Boom Boom looked out for each other. Boom Boom grew up to be an ice hockey hero, and Vic a private eye. And now V.I. Warshawski would like to know how, exactly, her cousin died . . .

V.I. Warshawski knows her friend Consuelo’s pregnancy is already risky—she’s sixteen and diabetic—but when the baby arrives prematurely, suddenly two lives are at stake. Despite V.I.’s efforts to provide Consuelo with proper care, both mother and daughter die in the local hospital. Suspecting malpractice, V. I. begins an investigation—and a reluctant romance with an ER doctor. But deadly complications arise when a series of vicious murders and an attack on a women’s clinic lead her to suspect a cold-blooded cover-up. And if V.I. isn’t careful, she just might have delivered her final case...

The feisty, tough and shrewd heroine is back in her fourth adventure in the V I Warshawski series, beautifully repackaged for a new generation. Consuelo is sixteen, heavily pregnant and married to an unemployed gangster. The last thing she needs is a negligent doctor. When she is rushed into the Friendship private hospital, the staff are reluctant to treat her. Fortunately she has Vic Warshawski, family friend and ex-lawyer, with her. But Consuelo and her baby are the tragic victims of a system so corrupt that it pays her husband to keep quiet. Anyone who can discover anything about the unorthodox dealings of the Friendship is in danger. And Vic's investigations are just about to begin

Classics, modern fiction, non-fiction and more. Written for secondary and adult students the Oxford Bookworms Library has seven reading levels from A1-C1 of the CEFR. V. I. Warshawski, private investigator, Chicago, USA. People imagine private detectives to be tired looking men in raincoats, but Vic is female. She's tough, beautiful, carries a gun - and goes on asking questions until she gets answers. When her cousin Boom Boom dies in an accident, Vic is naturally upset. She wants to know how and why the accident happened, and she isn't satisfied by the answers she gets. So she goes on asking questions ... and more people start to die. Retold by Rowena Akinyemi Word count 22,610

If every fiction is at heart a mystery, then the detective story is fiction distilled to its purest essence, combining the intellectual appeal of puzzles with the psychological fascination of human motivation. These sixteen classic tales of crimes and those who unravel them, collected from across the past two centuries, offer ample evidence of the form’s enduring allure. Beginning with modern masters such as Sara Paretsky, Ruth Rendell and Ian Rankin, Detective Stories works its way back through the golden age of the 1920s and ’30s to the genre’s iconic sources in Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle. The famous detectives who stalk these pages range from the eccentric (Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin) to the unlikely (Father Brown, Miss Marple), from the delightful (Inspectors Maigret and Ghote) to the absurd (Bret Harte’s Hemlock Jones). But among them all, whether in Chicago, New Delhi or London, the nineteenth century or the twenty-first, there is also an abiding human sympathy which engages the heart as well as the mind, making our favourite detectives and their prey not only diversions but also our lifelong imaginative companions.

She was found in the local diner. Brutally murdered. Ritually mutilated. And she won't be the last. The sleepy town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is jolted into panic when Sara Linton, paediatrician and medical examiner, finds a woman dead in the local diner. She has been cut: two deep knife wounds form a lethal cross over her stomach. But it's only once Sara starts to perform the post-mortem that the full extent of the killer's brutality becomes clear. Police chief Jeffrey Tolliver - Sara's ex-husband - is in charge of the investigation, and when a second victim is found, crucified, only a few days later, both Jeffrey and Sara have to face the fact that themurder wasn't a one-off attack. What they're dealing with is a seasoned sexual predator. A violent serial killer...

Then the test results come back time and again to show that no one in their family is a match for Kate. If they are to find a donor for the crucial bone marrow transplant she needs, there is only one option: creating another baby, specifically designed to save her sister. For Sara, it seems the ideal solution. Not only does Kate live, but she gets a beautiful new daughter, Anna, too. Until the moment Anna hands Sara the papers that will rock her whole world. Because, aged thirteen, Anna has decided that she doesn't want to help Kate live any more. She is suing her parents for the rights to her own body.

Poems of the Pulitzer Prize winner, American poetess Sara Tisdale (1884—1933) began to be translated into Russian only at the beginning of the XXI century. This book includes translations of all the poems from her poetry collection "Flame and Shadow", released in 1920, and also several poems from other books. Sara Tisdale's poetry attracts by its simplicity, depth of thought, sincerity, openness, passionate and romantic plot. I hope that the readers, who have not yet been familiar with the subtle lyrics of this wonderful author, will find here many frank and tender words consonant with their emotions and world perception. Enjoy reading!

Translations from English Poems of the Pulitzer Prize winner, American poetess Sara Tisdale (1884 — 1933) began to be translated into Russian only at the beginning of the XXI century. This book includes translations of all the poems from her poetry collection "Flame and Shadow", released in 1920, and also several poems from other books. Sara Tisdale's poetry attracts by its simplicity, depth of thought, sincerity, openness, passionate and romantic plot. I hope that the readers, who have not yet been familiar with the subtle lyrics of this wonderful author, will find here many frank and tender words consonant with their emotions and world perception. Enjoy reading!

Harry Goldfarb, heroin addict and son of lonely widow Sara, cares only about enjoying the good life with girlfriend Marion and best friend Tyrone C Love, and making the most of all the hash, poppers and dope they can get. Sara Goldfarb sits at home with the TV, dreaming of the life she could have and struggling with her own addictions - food and diet pills. But these four will pay a terrible price for the pleasures they believe they are entitled to. A passionate, heart-breaking tale of the crushing weight of hope and expectation, Requiem for a Dream is a dark modern-day fable of New York.

Translations from English Poems of the Pulitzer Prize winner, American poetess Sara Tisdale (1884 — 1933) began to be translated into Russian only at the beginning of the XXI century. This book includes translations of all the poems from her poetry collection "Flame and Shadow", released in 1920, and also several poems from other books. Sara Tisdale's poetry attracts by its simplicity, depth of thought, sincerity, openness, passionate and romantic plot. I hope that the readers, who have not yet been familiar with the subtle lyrics of this wonderful author, will find here many frank and tender words consonant with their emotions and world perception. Enjoy reading!

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter. .Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara’s farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she’s not the only person looking for someone that they’ve lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter. .Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara’s farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she’s not the only person looking for someone that they’ve lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.

Chicago is the city of broad shoulders, but V.I. Warshawski knows its politics: "Pay to Play". Money changes hands in the middle of the night; by morning, buildings and parks have been replaced by billion-dollar projects. Private investigator V.I. gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals when her impetuous goddaughter Bernie tries to rescue a famed singer-songwriter, now living on the streets. Thanks to Bernie, V.I. finds herself in the path of some developers whose negotiating strategy is simple: they bulldoze - or kill - any obstacle in their way. Questions pile up almost as fast as the dead bodies. When she tries to answer them, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago’s parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in the American government’s interference in South American politics. Before finds answer, V.I. will be pushed closed to breaking point. People who pay to play take no prisoners.

Chicago is the city of broad shoulders, but V.I. Warshawski knows its politics: "Pay to Play". Money changes hands in the middle of the night; by morning, buildings and parks have been replaced by billion-dollar projects. Private investigator V.I. gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals when her impetuous goddaughter Bernie tries to rescue a famed singer-songwriter, now living on the streets. Thanks to Bernie, V.I. finds herself in the path of some developers whose negotiating strategy is simple: they bulldoze - or kill - any obstacle in their way. Questions pile up almost as fast as the dead bodies. When she tries to answer them, the detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago’s parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in the American government’s interference in South American politics. Before finds answer, V.I. will be pushed closed to breaking point. People who pay to play take no prisoners.