James Bennett Bücher

Set in Front Royal, Virginia, between 1958 and 1960, this true story explores the impact of racism on a small Southern community. It follows the lives of two boys, Davey MacLaren and Jackie King, as they navigate the turmoil surrounding their high school's closure to avoid integration. The narrative highlights the personal and societal struggles during this pivotal moment in history, showcasing the friendship between the boys against a backdrop of deep-seated racial tensions.

The story follows Boz Bright, a top-secret agent for a cutting-edge U.S. intelligence agency, as he faces formidable adversaries, including Russian operatives, American religious extremists, white supremacists, and Nazis. The narrative escalates with the introduction of supernatural elements, challenging his skills and resolve. The blend of espionage and the supernatural creates a gripping conflict that tests not only his tactical abilities but also his understanding of good and evil in a chaotic world.

In a land where settlers seek freedom from the oppressive Fae, young warrior-priest Bugen faces a grim reality filled with mystery and danger. As he investigates a series of mysterious kidnappings and murders, he uncovers the darker truths behind the promises of prosperity. The story delves into themes of courage and the struggle against malevolent forces, highlighting Bugen's journey as he confronts both external threats and the underlying challenges of his society.

Billy Boyle, World War II US Army detective and ex-Boston cop, faces his toughest investigation yet: infiltrating enemy lines in France as the Allies invade Normandy. May 1944: Captain Billy Boyle is convicted on spurious charges of black market dealings stripped of his officer’s rank, reduced to private, and sentenced to three months’ hard labor. But Billy is given an opportunity: if he takes on the incredibly dangerous mission of investigating a set of murders at the Allies’ safe house in the French town of Chaumont, he can avoid his punishment. Parachuted in as part of a three-man team the night before the Normandy invasion, he has very little time to find the killer’s identity and lead a group escape back to England, with a whole army of foes nipping at his heels.

Will Billy risk everything to save his girlfriend, a British spy, even possibly getting the Vatican involved in the war? When an American monsignor with high-level political contacts is found murdered at the foot of Death's Door, one of the five entrances to Saint Peter's Basilica, Lieutenant Billy Boyle is put on the case. To solve this murder, Boyle first has to be smuggled into Rome, while avoiding the Gestapo and Allied bombs. Then he must navigate Vatican politics and personalities—some are pro-Allied, others pro-Nazi, and the rest steadfastly neutral—further complicated by the Vatican's tenuous status as neutral territory in German-occupied Rome. But Boyle's ready to risk it all because of one simple fact: Diane Seaton, his lover and a British spy, has gone missing while undercover in the Vatican. After he discovers that she's being held in the infamous Regina Coeli prison, just a short walk from the Vatican border, Boyle must decide whether he dares attempt a rescue, even though a failed effort would alert the Germans to his mission and risk an open violation of Vatican neutrality.

When an unidentified corpse washes ashore at Slapton Sands on England's southern coast, US Army Captain Billy Boyle and his partner, Lieutenant Piotr "Kaz" Kazimierz, are assigned to investigate. The Devonshire beach is the home to Operation Tiger, the top-secret rehearsal for the approaching D-Day invasion of Normandy, and the area is restricted; no one seems to know where the corpse could have come from. Luckily, Billy and Kaz have a comfortable place to lay their heads at the end of the day: Kaz's old school chum David lives close by and has agreed to host the two men during their investigation. Glad for a distraction from his duties, Billy settles into life at David's family's fancy manor, Ashcroft, and makes it his mission to get to know its intriguing cast of characters.Just when Billy and Kaz begin to wrap up their case, they find themselves with not one soggy corpse on their hands but hundreds following a terrible tragedy during the D-Day rehearsal. To complicate things, life at Ashcroft has been getting tense: secret agendas, buried histories, and family grudges abound. Then one of the men meets a sudden demise. Was it a heart attack? Or something more sinister?

A murder in wartime Switzerland reveals Swiss complicity with the Nazis in World War II, and US Army detective Billy Boyle is called to investigate. Europe, 1944: Captain Billy Boyle and his friend Lieutenant Piotr “Kaz” Kazimierz are sent to neutral Switzerland to work with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), investigating Swiss banks that are laundering looted Nazi gold. The US and Swiss governments are about to embark on diplomatic discussions regarding the Safehaven Protocols, aimed at limiting the amount of war materials exported by Switzerland to the Nazis, stemming the tide of looted gold, and preventing postwar use of Nazi wealth by war criminals. With the talks about to begin and the Gestapo ever present, the OSS wants Billy and Kaz to protect the participants, which turns out to be a very deadly task. The plans go wrong from the beginning when Billy and Kaz crashland in France. As they make their way through occupied territory to the border, they meet Anton Lasho, a member of the Sinti ethnic group, whose family was slaughtered by the Nazis, and who is, in turn, a one-man Nazi-killing machine. They’ll need his help, because as they find once they make it across the border, Swiss banks are openly laundering gold “harvested” from concentration camps, and those who are profiting will do everything they can to protect their wealth and hide their dark secrets.

Explores the contours of religious and cultural transformation in traditional China from the point of view of an everyday commodity. The work traces the development of tea drinking from its mythical origins to the nineteenth century and examines the changes in aesthetics, ritual, science, health, and knowledge that tea brought with it.