Private Cities

Imagine a system in which a private company offers you protection of life, liberty, and property as a "government service provider". This service includes internal and external security, a legal and regulatory framework, and independent dispute resolution. You pay a contractually fixed fee for these services per year. The government service provider, as the operator of the community, cannot unilaterally change this "citizens' contract" with you later on.

Marla Bernstein is a pretty, dark-haired teenager who also happens to be the ward of Ben Morningstar - a semi-retired mobster who prefers to keep family business out of the newspapers. When Marla suddenly disappears, the gang boss is forced to call in private eve Amos Walker, who quickly learns his new employer doesn't take "no" for an answer when he offers a job opportunity. Unfortunately, the only clue to Marla's whereabouts is a pornographic photograph that clearly proves that she's become part of a world that disgusts even her criminal guardian....

When you get up in the morning, the last thing you expect to see is a murdered guy hanging outside your window. Things like that tend to draw the attention of the local police, and when you're squatting in your parents' old house until you can afford to buy it, another thing you can't afford is the attention of the cops. Oh yeah. Hi. My name is Pet. It's not my real name, but it's the only one you're getting.

Fans of New York Times best seller The Nanny Diaries will rejoice in this wickedly hilarious novel, which acclaimed author Katharine Weber says is "much funnier and darker". Optioned for a major motion picture starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, The Ivy Chronicles skewers the twisted priorities of America's well-heeled elite.

Four years ago, Detective Inspector Harlan Miller killed someone. Now - divorced, alone, consumed by guilt - the world outside his prison walls holds little for him. Until an eight-year-old boy is abducted. Ethan Reed. The son of the man he killed. Frustrated by a police search that finds nothing, Ethan's mother appeals to the man she hates most in the world. She has one question to ask - beg - of Harlan Miller. Find her little boy. Do whatever it takes.

Pete Fernandez is a mess. He’s on the brink of being fired from his middle-management newspaper job. His fiancée has up and left him. Now, after the sudden death of his father, he’s back in his hometown of Miami, slowly drinking himself into oblivion. But when a coworker he barely knows asks Pete to locate a missing daughter, Pete finds himself dragged into a tale of murder, drugs, double-crosses, and memories bursting from the black heart of the Miami underworld - and, shockingly, his father’s past.

Chicago, 1928. In the stifling summer heat, three disturbing events take place: a clique of city leaders is poisoned, a white gangster is found mutilated and a famous heiress vanishes without a trace. Detectives Michael Talbot and Ida Davis are hired to find the missing heiress, but it proves harder than expected, and so Ida must elicit the help of her friend Louis Armstrong. But will any of them find the answers they need in the capital of jazz, booze and corruption?

Former NYPD detective Thomas Austin is enjoying a rare date at a monday night football game in Seattle when the evening takes a horrifying turn. A team of merciless terrorists has taken over the stadium by force, blocking cellphone signals and sealing the exits. The terrorists have a single demand: release a high-ranking Al Qaeda operative from a US supermax prison. And they have a simple threat: do so in the next 24 hours or they will blow up the stadium, killing themselves along with tens of thousands of innocent victims.

Archie Goodwin is not overly fond of Theodore Horstmann, who takes care of the orchids on the rooftop of Nero Wolfe’s West 35th Street brownstone. But as loyal assistant to the legendary private detective, Archie will put his animosity aside when the surly orchid-keeper stumbles through the front door beaten within an inch of his life. While the gardener lies in a coma, Nero sends Archie to poke around his apartment near the river.

Private investigator Jim Bean is a straightforward, to-the-point man. He likes his cases to follow suit. But when his latest client, Sophie Evers, asks him to find her brother Daniel, Jim has no idea how complicated his life is about to become. As he falls deep into a manipulative game of cat and mouse, Jim uncovers the horrible truth about Sophie. Now he must set things right before her plan leads to the loss of innocent souls...even more than it already has.

When Vera Bodine, an elderly recluse with an exceptional memory, goes missing, detective duo Lillian Pentecost and her assistant Willowjean "Will" Parker are hired to track her down. But New York City in 1947 is a dangerous place, and there's no shortage of people who want to bury the secrets that Bodine has been keeping. As the clock is ticking to find Bodine alive, circumstances conspire to pull both investigators off the case.

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Lionel Essrog is Brooklyn's very own Human Freakshow, an orphan whose Tourettic impulses drive him to bark, count and rip apart language in startling and original ways. Together with three veterans of the St. Vincent's Home for Boys, he works for small-time mobster Frank Minna's limo service cum detective agency. Life without Frank, the charismatic King of Brooklyn, would be unimaginable. When Frank is fatally stabbed, Lionel's world is suddenly turned upside down.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers. For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext.

When Private Investigator Jim Bean is called to conduct a simple insurance investigation at a Nevada trailer park, he finds himself wrapped up in a case that’s more complicated than anything he could have imagined. There’s a torched trailer. A missing woman named Emilee who harbors a dark past. And the Ward family, with their own sinister secrets to hide. Jim quickly realizes that if he wants to find Emilee, he’s going to have to get closer to the Ward family - and untangle their twisted web of lies. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous things become.

There's a body beneath the skip bins. Fae on the forklift. A vampire in the manager's office. And there's definitely something skeevy going on in the locker rooms. Hi. I'm Pet. Well, not exactly Pet. I am a pet. I was meant to stay out of it, but somebody's gotta do something when humans are being killed by Behindkind creatures.

Stellen Sie sich vor, ein privates Unternehmen bietet Ihnen als „Staatsdienstleister“ Schutz von Leben, Freiheit und Eigentum in einem abgegrenzten Gebiet. Titus Gebel skizziert dieses Szenario in seinem Buch „Freie Privatstädte. Mehr Wettbewerb im wichtigsten Markt der Welt“ bis ins kleinste Detail.

The shot is impossible. In the middle of a blizzard, down a busy New York avenue, into a moving car. The agent in charge knows of only one man with the skills to work out where the bullet came from. Lucas Page, former child prodigy and physics professor, sees crime from a different angle - his ability to read a scene is uncanny. Page quit the FBI after it nearly cost him his life. He swore to stay away, but this victim is his former partner, and he can't resist the call to help.

Stella DeSoto has had it with Vegas and her life. She's experienced the worst of people, and now a sailboat in the Florida Keys is calling Stella's name. All she needs is the cash to buy it. And she's got an idea. It’s reckless, risky, and downright illegal. But big risks can mean big rewards…if you don’t get caught.

Freiheit und Demokratie, so der Investor Peter Thiel 2009, seien nicht länger kompatibel. Wer die Freiheit liebe, müsse daher versuchen, der Politik in all ihren Formen zu entkommen. Zuflucht suchen könnten Libertäre im Cyberspace, im Weltraum und auf dem offenen Meer. Das mag verblasen klingen, steht aber in einer jahrzehntealten Tradition marktradikaler Ideen: Denker wie Milton Friedman begeisterten sich für das noch unter britischer Oberhoheit stehende Hongkong; Margaret Thatcher träumte von einem Singapur an der Themse.