Chinese government officials have played a crucial role in China's economic development, but they are also responsible for severe problems, including environmental pollution, violation of citizens' rights, failure in governance, and corruption. How does the Chinese Party-state respond when a government official commits a duty-related malfeasance or criminal activity? And how does it balance the potential political costs of disciplining its own agents...

A rebellious survivor of North Korea's brutal totalitarian regime, Inspector O, a state security officer, risks his life and career to solve a case that begins innocuously enough when he is asked to photograph a certain vehicle.

"A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime--the largest act of mass murder in the history of the San Juan Islands. Forensic profilers know there are two types of domestic terrorists: those who use violence to instill fear for political purposes but stop at murder because...

Not only does government bureaucracy often make hiring a cumbersome, slow-moving process, but poor performers enjoy more protection from losing their jobs than their counterparts outside of government. With over thirty years' experience as a federal government employee, insider Stewart Liff offers a solution to the government talent shortage--enabling government managers to cut through the red tape and take advantage of the best government employees...

"In London's MI5 headquarters a scandal is brewing that could disgrace the entire intelligence community. The Downing Street superforecaster-a specialist who advises the Prime Minister's office on how policy is likely to be received by the electorate-has disappeared without a trace. Claude Whelan, who was once head of MI5, has been tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads him straight back to Regent's Park itself, with First Desk Diana Taverner...

For Kimberly Quincy, FBI Special Agent, it all starts with a pregnant hooker. The story Delilah Rose tells Kimberly about her johns is too horrifying to be true--but prostitutes are disappearing, one by one, with no explanation, and no one but Kimberly seems to care.

Acclaimed by critics as a second F. Scott Fitzgerald, Billy Lee Brammer was once one of the most engaging young novelists in America. "Brammer's is a new and major talent, big in scope, big in its promise of even better things to come," wrote A. C. Spectorsky, a former staffer at the New Yorker. When he published his first and only novel, “The Gay Place”, in 1961, literary luminaries such as David Halberstam, Willie Morris, and Gore Vidal hailed...

Ordered out of retirement to Pyongyang to cover up a crime of passion committed by the young leader of a transitional government vital to a tenuous peace agreement between the two Koreas, Inspector O finds his life threatened when the case tests his loyalties.

"Beautiful views, deadly encounters. Grief-stricken over her mother' s death and bruised by her failure on her most recent case, Special Agent Emmeline Helliwell with the National Park Service returns to her Utah hometown to heal and regroup. She's determined to turn in her badge and take over her mother' s bakery for a much quieter life . . . until the body of a childhood friend turns up in The Narrows of Zion National Park. The case is too personal...