Bøger af Richard Sanders

The Russian streltsy had a short, interesting, and later troubled history. Known as Orthodox 'old believers' that resented and refused western traditions, they were Russia's first permanent standing infantry with firearms - and this shows in their name, which roughly translates from the Russian word for 'shooter.' Created by Ivan the Terrible, this armed force was never disbanded, even in times of peace. Soldiers served for life, and they were nicknamed as 'stirrup' troops because they were usually always near the tsar's own stirrups. Often wielding both a musket and a poleaxe, they were a destructive force in Russia's army in the 16th and 17th centuries - fighting often behind a 'walking city' of wooden frames against forces such as the Tartars. However, their staunch believe in rejecting western ideology caused them to alienate themselves from Peter the Great, slaughtering his mother's family and dubbing him the Anti-Christ, ultimately leading to a failed rebellion and their complete dissolution from the Russian Army by 1720.The author of this book dives into the history of the streltsy, their outfits, and their weaponry; he presents images of what remains of streltsy flags; as well as showcases both flat and 3D miniatures of the streltsy in wargaming. Fifty pages of color plates and illustrations.

Or, how a kidnapped actress, a crazy director, a native healer, a psychedelic berry and a wind spirit that follows me from Chinatown to the mountains outside LA nearly cost me my sanity and my life.

Do you really know who's writing what you read? Do you know who's writing this? When a media executive killed himself on live national TV, I believed what I read on my favorite crime blog. Then the blog took on a different voice, began saying the suicide was murder. Then it took on all kinds of voices charging all kinds of crazy crimes. By the time I was writing it, and people were trying to kill me for doing it, I knew things had gone way out of control.

Just before he dies in a downtown hospital, a doctor passes along the half-formula for a powerful new hallucinogenic drug. Find the other half, and you've got a miracle drug-one that can save lives, save the world, and make a lot of money. Which, of course, makes it worth killing for.

Anarosa Morales was 8 when she was kidnapped in Mexico, drugged, tortured with a hot knife and brought to the U.S. as a prostitute. By the time I met her she was 22, known as Burn Unit for the scars on her face, and was running her own stable of kid prostitutes. She was tired and addicted and she wanted out of the business. She did get out, but not the way either of us expected.

A Steve Jobs-level genius is missing, last seen walking his pet salamander on a leash. (Or without the leash, accounts differ.) Has he been kidnapped? Gone into hiding? Lost his mind? Is he dead? As I'm trying to track him across the country, I'm thinking, how about all of the above?

THE LIT-CRIT TAKE: A character-driven thriller, centering on the themes of terrorism, understanding and hope. THE PURE PLOT PITCH: Here's bad day: Guy sets out to rob a bank but ends up pulling a carjacking, and when he's arrested a body is found in the trunk. The victim is a Sunni community leader, and why was he killed? Who killed him? The search for answers takes me into the homegrown Islamic underground, into plots, counterplots, deceptions and love affairs, all leading to an attack on a major NYC landmark.

Who killed JFK? Did Hitler really commit suicide? Was Kurt Cobain murdered? Hell, as long as we're asking, did Jesus actually live and if so how did he die? I didn't think we'd ever answer those questions, until I met a savant physicist who could unlock memories coded in DNA. The results were world shaking, to say the least. Too bad the secrets in his own past were just as mysterious, just as deadly.

The sex tape of a famous actress suddenly turns up on the internet, showing her on the last night of her life. The full version is being offered for sale, and the reason for its high price goes way beyond celeb voyeurism. The video also contains a clue to who killed her. That's why everyone is--literally--dying to see it.

Grown in the hills of Galilee, Dead Mother is a strain of cannabis whose psychoactive properties are too strong to be legal anywhere. Which means that people will do anything to control the U.S. market-lie, steal, blackmail, kill, even kidnap their own children. It's that last one that really sticks in my heart.

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven thriller about memory, identity and making peace with the past. The Pure Plot Pitch: Sure, we all know about arrogant, self-centered media executives. But how about one who served time as a teen for murdering her sister? And who suddenly believes she's possessed by the spirit of Indira Gandhi? And now, at the height of her power, a secret from her past is threatening to destroy her empire, while someone from that past is trying to take her life. Stop the damn presses!

He was told he had exactly eight days to live. By a blind psychic photographer. Okay, Wooly Cornell was plenty crazy-not to mention a huge asshole-but he asked me to help him. So I did. And as the countdown to his death began and I found myself facing threats, shootouts, a mysterious scarred woman and weird predictions that somehow managed to come true, I could only come to one conclusion: Fate is one strange thing to fight.

What do you do when clues to an unsolved murder have been coded in a stolen $50 million painting? You try to steal it back. Only you have to deal with corrupt collectors, crazy thieves, lust-powered women, shootouts, betrayals, double-crosses and surprises. And a psychic dog named Hillary.It's not as easy as it sounds.

The classic book on hypnosis had been written by Ibn Rushd in 1175 A.D., and had passed through the hands of Freud, Jung, the Inquisition, the Freemasons and the CIA. Now I've got it in my hands, and with people willing to kill to get it in their hands, the book's keeping me up at night.

The Lit-Crit Take: A genre-bending, character-driven, word-burning thriller about politics, love and the haunting pain of memory. The Pure Plot Pitch: I didn't know-or care-much about the tight race for governor of New York until someone took a shot at one of the candidates and killed his wife instead. The main suspect, it turns out, was an anti-government crazy (and a devoted quilter-yes, you heard that right) I once did time with. Searching for the killer, hoping to stop another attack, I was suddenly sucked into the panicky heart of a closely fought election campaign, an affair with a troubled political operative and the dangerously surreal world of people who prefer casting their vote with a sniper's bullet.

Nearly five hundred years later, the game may still seem furious and violent, but it has also become the most popular sport on the planet. This is the story of how the modern, professional, spectator sport of football was born in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century.