Combustible Punch by Paul Michael Peters

COMBUSTIBLE PUNCH

NEW THRILLER BY PAUL MICHAEL PETERS

HITTING SHELVES AUGUST 13, 2019

Rick Philips isn't a fighter - but he is a survivor

Haunted by memories of a high school shooting, not even the bottle can wash away the gnawing guilt and creeping feelings of inadequacy that batter Rick’s conscience daily. 

His life has been a mess of broken marriages, writer’s block, terrible choices, and the morbid pity of others.

When he meets Harriet at a writer’s conference, the record doesn’t scratch as he falls back – only this time, he may not get up.

Harriet Bristol Wheeler is a dark temptress – and self-confessed serial killer

Harriet has no problem killing – and even fewer issues blending back into the background after the act with the cool, calculating eye of a practiced social chameleon.

Manipulative, unpredictable, and exceptionally intelligent, she’s Rick’s worst nightmare – and the ideal subject for his next book.

A book that they are both desperate to write.

Time is running out – but the sadness will last forever

Rick has no choice but to enter the cracked twilight of Harriet’s world and confront the history of her murderous choices up close.

As Rick starts to gather the evidence for his long-anticipated book, he finds himself looking into answers that put him in even more danger than before – but this time, he may not survive at all.

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Operation X by Captain MNR Samant

Truth is stranger and more thrilling than fiction

HarperCollins India brings you

the explosive authentic account of the covert guerrilla operation

that went for the maritime jugular of Pakistan, and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh

THE HEROIC MISSION UNDERTAKEN BY CAPTAIN MNR SAMANT AND HIS BAND OF BRAVE MEN

About the Book

1971. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan has just won an electoral mandate to become the prime minister of Pakistan. Accustomed to treating the eastern wing of the country as a colony, the military dictatorship of General Yahya Khan in West Pakistan launches a genocide against the residents of its eastern wing, flooding India with lakhs of refugees. With the violence in East Pakistan reaching a crescendo, the Indian government is faced with a difficult option: remain a mute spectator to the savagery on its eastern borders, or take action and go to war against its western neighbour.

Thus was born Naval Commando Operations (X) – comprising Indian navy officers and divers, eight deserters from a Pakistani submarine, and a ragtag bunch of educated Bengali youth fleeing the genocide – one of India’s largest clandestine operations, meant to destabilize the West Pakistani efforts to bring East Pakistan to its knees.

Revealed for the very first time, here is the explosive authentic account of the covert guerrilla operation that went for the maritime jugular of Pakistan, and facilitated the birth of Bangladesh.

                           

“I had heard from sources about the exploits of the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini frogmen and the Indian Navy personnel in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. I was then pleasantly surprised to discover that Capt. MNR Samant (now 89), who headed the Naval Commando Operation X, was a neighbour of mine. I was introduced to him by Cdr Kapil, a mutual acquaintance. But at that point I had absolutely no idea how big the Operation X covert effort was, or how enormously significant its results were to the course of the war in 1971.

Operation X was a covert maritime warfare unit established in April 1971 and run directly by the Directorate of Naval Intelligence. The unit, a grouping of submariners, aviators and specialist divers, was tasked with waging strategic guerrilla warfare in the seas and rivers of erstwhile East Pakistan. They fought a tenacious four-month riverine guerrilla war which has few precedents in recent history, and which to a great extent determined the outcome of the 1971 war.

It took us nearly two years to put this book together. A lot of initial research had been done by Capt. Samant and Cdr Kapil, but a lot more additional information was needed. What made our task doubly difficult was the fact that almost fifty years have passed since the 1971 war: most of the principal characters are no longer there and few records have survived. Old diaries, notes and of course extensive interviews with the surviving personnel helped us reconstruct the events of 1971. Cdr Kapil and I toured Bangladesh in 2017 to visit key places associated with the operation and to meet with former naval commandos. The story that emerged was a breathtaking, thrilling one.

We hope this book will pay tribute to all the fearless men and women who fought the war for the liberation of Bangladesh.” – Sandeep Unnithan, co-author, Operation X

“It’s really exciting for us at HarperCollins to be publishing the untold story of Operation X, the covert naval intelligence operation that played a significant role in the 1971 war with Pakistan. Operation X reads like an edge-of-the-seat thriller, but everything in the book is true, and uncovered through meticulous research. The details of this stunning covert operation are now revealed to readers for the very first time. I’m truly grateful to Captain MNR Samant and Sandeep Unnithan for bringing this thrilling true story to light in such a remarkable way. This May, readers will be able to encounter an unrevealed glorious chapter of India’s naval intelligence triumph in the 1971 war with Pakistan, and appreciate the heroism and sacrifices made by the Mukti Bahini and the Indian Navy in the course of the Bangladesh Liberation War.” – Udayan Mitra, Publisher – Literary, HarperCollins India

About the Authors

Captain MNR Samant (1930-2019) was a recipient of India’s second-highest gallantry award, the Maha Vir Chakra, for conspicuous gallantry in the face of enemy fire during the 1971 India-Pakistan War. He was Staff Officer, G1 (Nav Ops X) of this covert naval warfare unit. He passed away on 20 March 2019.

Sandeep Unnithan is an executive editor with India Today where he writes on security-related issues. He is the author of Black Tornado: The Three Sieges of Mumbai 26/11.

HarperCollins Publishers India
www.harpercollins.co.in

The Hour of Daydreams by Renee Macalino Rutledge

At a river near his home in the Philippine countryside, respected doctor Manolo Lualhati encounters the unthinkable—a young woman with wings. After several incredible visits, he coaxes her to stay behind—to quit flying to the stars with her sisters each night—so they can marry. Tala agrees, but soon finds herself grounded in a new life where she must negotiate Manolo’s parents’ well-intentioned scrutiny. As Tala tries to keep long-held family secrets from her new husband, Manolo begins questioning the gaps in her stories, and his suspicions push him even further from the truth. Weaving in the perspectives of Manolo’s parents, Tala’s siblings, and the all-seeing housekeeper, The Hour of Daydreams delves into contemporary issues of identity and trust in marriage, while exploring how myths can take root from the seeds of our most difficult truths.

ADVANCE PRAISE

“With its enticing undertow of secrets and magic, The Hour of Daydreams will seduce readers with its reverence for mystery, its gentle humor, and its deep empathy for its characters’ longings and losses. Sometimes it takes a village to tell a story as extraordinary as this—and Renee Macalino Rutledge has managed to do just that.”
– Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban

“The Hour of Daydreams isn’t just a wonderful book—it’s a lyrical and poetic journey, one that’s simultaneously magical, surprising, and mesmerizing. It’s a love story, fable, fairy tale, and contemporary novel woven together with seamless thread, reminiscent of Isabel Allende. A brilliant start to a beautiful literary career.”
– Erin Entrada Kelly, author of The Land of Forgotten Girls

“Macalino Rutledge’s debut novel is a tale of dreams and secrets and what is hidden inside a marriage, and what cannot be denied. The writing is vivid and evocative, the world richly textured and alive. Here the duende speaks!”
– Micheline Aharonian Marcom, author of Three Apples Fell From Heaven

“Renee Macalino Rutledge’s The Hour of Daydreams is a stirring and haunting exploration of marriage, culture, and gender roles. You will find yourself cheering for Tala and Manolo as they stumble through fears and desires, and you will celebrate the choral narration with its multiple perspectives on love and community. This debut novel is a delicate weaving of mythology and everyday lives and it is a necessary addition to the literature of the Filipina diaspora.”
– Daisy Hernández, author of A Cup of Water Under My Bed: A Memoir

“A beautiful book that collapses the boundaries between reality and fairy tale, The Hour of Daydreams is both gritty and poetic. The atmosphere is fresh and vivid, like a broad green leaf shimmering with raindrops.”
– Elena Mauli Shapiro, author of 13, Rue Therese and In the Red

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

Renee was born in Manila, Philippines and raised in Alameda, California, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. She received her bachelor of arts in English from UC Berkeley and master of fine arts in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, where she received an Alumnae Scholarship and was the prose editor for 580 Split. A long-time local journalist, her articles on arts and culture, parenting, and lifestyle have appeared in ColorLines, Filipinas Magazine, Oakland and Alameda Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The East Bay Monthly, The Children’s Advocate, Parents’ Press, and others. Her reporting on minority issues facing Filipinos was nominated for a New American Media Award and New California Media Award by the editors of Filipinas Magazine. Her creative writing has been published in Red Earth Review, Mutha Magazine, and Ford City Anthology, and is forthcoming in the 2017 Women of Color Anthology.

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

A modern American epic set against the panorama of contemporary politics and culture—a hurtling, page-turning mystery that is equal parts The Great Gatsby and The Bonfire of the Vanities
 
On the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from foreign shores takes up residence in the architectural jewel of “the Gardens,” a cloistered community in New York’s Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is a bubble within a bubble, and the residents are immediately intrigued by the eccentric newcomer and his family. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent, and unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya, whose rambling soliloquies are the curse of a tortured mind; Apu, the flamboyant artist, sexually and spiritually omnivorous, famous on twenty blocks; and D, at twenty-two the baby of the family, harboring an explosive secret even from himself. There is no mother, no wife; at least not until Vasilisa, a sleek Russian expat, snags the septuagenarian Nero, becoming the queen to his king—a queen in want of an heir.

Our guide to the Goldens’ world is their neighbor René, an ambitious young filmmaker. As research for a movie about the Goldens, he ingratiates himself into their household. Seduced by their mystique, he is inevitably implicated in their quarrels, their infidelities, and, indeed, their crimes. Meanwhile, like a bad joke, a certain comic-book villain embarks upon a crass presidential run that turns New York upside-down.

Set against the strange and exuberant backdrop of current American culture and politics, The Golden House also marks Salman Rushdie’s triumphant and exciting return to realism. The result is a modern epic of love and terrorism, loss and reinvention—a powerful, timely story told with the daring and panache that make Salman Rushdie the standard-bearer of our dark new age.

PRAISE FOR SALMAN RUSHDIE
 
“A glittering novelist—one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling.”—The New Yorker
 
“[A] writer of courage, impressive strength . . . and sheer stylistic brilliance.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, Voltaire in Candide, Sterne in Tristram Shandy . . . [Rushdie] is very much a latter-day member of their company.”—The New York Times Book Review
 
“One of the major literary voices of our time.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Rushdie’s synthesizing energy, the way he brings together ancient myth and old story, contemporary incident and archetypal emotion, transfigures reason into a waking dream.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“The most original imagination writing today.”—Nadine Gordimer
 
“Rushdie is our Scheherazade.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian
 
“Everywhere he takes us there is both love and war, in strange and terrifying combinations, painted in swaying, swirling, world-eating prose that annihilates the borders between East and West, love and hate, our private lives and the history we make.”—Time