THE BROKEN COLUMN

Internationally bestselling author Wilbur Smith returns with Vicious Circle--a heart-racing story of family secrets, greed, and revenge. Hector Cross left behind a career of high risks and warfare when he married his beloved Hazel Bannock. But after his new life is tragically upended, he recognizes the ruthless hand of an old enemy behind the attack. Determined to fight back, Hector draws together a team of his most loyal friends and fellow warriors to hunt down those who pursue him and his loved ones. For he and Hazel have a child, a precious daughter, whom he will go to the ends of the earth to protect. Soon, however, Hector learns that the threat comes not just from his old enemies, but also Hazel's. Brutal figures from her family's past—thought long gone—are returning, with an agenda so sinister that Hector realizes he is facing a new type of adversary. One whose deadly methods and dark secrets will lead Hector to a series of crimes so shocking that he has no choice but to settle the score. ISBN:2147483647 Author:Wilbur Smith

As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the U.S. government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice strongly opposes a surge of additional U.S. forces and confronts the president, who replies that her suggestions would lead to failure. The president keeps his decision to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from Vice President Dick Cheney until two days before he announces it. A retired Army general uses his high-level contacts to shape decisions about the war, as Bush and Cheney use him to deliver sensitive messages outside the chain of command.For months, the administration's strategy reviews continue in secret, with no deadline and no hurry, in part because public disclosure would harm Republicans in the November 2006 elections. National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley tells Rice, "We've got to do it under the radar screen because the electoral season is so hot.""The War Within" provides an exhaustive account of the struggles of General David Petraeus, who takes over in Iraq during one of the bleakest and most violent periods of the war. It reveals how breakthroughs in military operations and surveillance account for much of the progress as violence in Iraq plummets in the middle of 2007.Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when ISBN:2147483647 Author:Bob Woodward

Dirk Pitt returns, in the thrilling new novel from the grand master of adventure and #1 New York Times bestselling author. While investigating a toxic outbreak in the Caribbean Sea that may ultimately threaten the United States, Pitt unwittingly becomes involved in something even more dangerous—a post-Castro power struggle for control of Cuba. Meanwhile, Pitt’s children, marine engineer Dirk and oceanographer Summer, are on an investigation of their own, chasing an Aztec stone that may reveal the whereabouts of a vast treasure. The stone was supposedly destroyed on the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which brings them both to Cuba as well—and squarely into harm’s way. The three of them have been in desperate situations before…but perhaps never quite as dire as the one facing them now." ISBN:2147483647 Author:Clive Cussler, Dirk Cussler