Missive #732 Published 10 Jun 2026

Luke Stone was alone. And he liked it that way.An ex-bodyguard, sworn never to protect again after his last failure, Luke needed no one. Until he met Jessica Chan.A journalist with a dark past, Jessica had uncovered deadly information that made her a target. And only Luke stood between her and certain death. She was everything he didn't a woman who attracted trouble…and attracted him. But as assassins closed in and emotions ran high, Jessica might become everything he needed.….

Missive #731 Published 9 Jun 2026

She’s a friendly voice on the phone. But can you trust her?
The people who call End of the Line need hope. They need reassurance that life is worth living. But some are unlucky enough to get through to Laura. Laura doesn’t want them to hope. She wants them to die.
Laura hasn’t had it easy: she’s survived sickness and a difficult marriage only to find herself heading for forty, unsettled and angry. She doesn’t love talking to people worse off than she is. She craves it.

Missive #730 Published 8 Jun 2026

Sharpe's job as Captain of the Light Company is under threat and he has made a new enemy, a Portuguese criminal known as Ferragus. Discarded by his regiment, Sharpe wages a private war against Ferragus – a war fought through the burning, pillaged streets of Coimbra, Portugal's ancient university city.

Sharpe's Escape begins on the great, gaunt ridge of Bussaco where a joint British and Portuguese army meets the overwhelming strength of Marshall Massena's crack troops. It finishes at Torres Vedras where the French hopes of occupying Portugal quickly die.

Missive #728 Published 6 Jun 2026

In Deeds of Darkness Master Hugh learns that the Bampton coroner, an old friend, has been slain while traveling to Oxford. As he seeks the killer (or killers) he discovers a band of goliards in the area between Oxford and Bampton. But how to apprehend these youths? They have protectors far above Hugh's station. He must deal with the claims of justice on the one hand and the power of great men to protect their henchmen on the other.

Missive #726 Published 3 Jun 2026

In his boldest and most far-reaching book yet, world-famous economist Yanis Varoufakis argues that capitalism is dead and a new economic era has begun.

Insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. Capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents. Meanwhile, with every click and scroll, we labour like serfs to increase its power. Welcome to technofeudalism.

Missive #725 Published 1 Jun 2026

This is an interesting book but has it's downside. The author is more of a poet that a novelist and uses a lot of poems, or parts of poems, to make his points. That may be fine for those people that understand poetry but I'm not among them. He also uses fairy tales and other mythological tales as a base for the book. These stories I liked and they did help make his points. Recommended but with the qualifier.

Missive #723 Published 30 May 2026

…acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) — the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning... was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.