Business Fiction

History meets comedy meets hitman. Martin Williams often finds himself in deadly historical events, with a good chance his mark will die without any intervention. But professionals don’t leave things to chance, and Martin is a motivated worker for his paymasters, the Firm. Follow Martin’s lethal career across four decades, three continents, and thousands of cigarettes.

The story wars are all around us. They are the struggle to be heard in a world of media noise and clamor. Today, most brand messages and mass appeals for causes are drowned out before they even reach us. But a few consistently break through the din, using the only tool that has ever moved minds and changed behavior - great stories. With insights from mythology, advertising history, evolutionary biology, and psychology, viral storyteller and advertising expert Jonah Sachs takes listeners into a fascinating world of seemingly insurmountable challenges and enormous opportunity.

Within months of having taken control of the family detective business, Izzy Spellman is accused of embezzling from a former client, the ridiculously wealthy Mr. Slayter, who happens to have Alzheimer's, which Izzy and he are diligently trying to keep under wraps. Not only is Slayter's business and reputation on the line, but if Izzy gets indicted for embezzlement, she'll lose everything - her business, her license, and her family's livelihood. Is this the end of Izzy Spellman, PI?

Like the Rockefellers and the Kennedys, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of the modern age, but they have never been the subject of a major biography... until now. Not long after the death of his father, Charles Koch, then in his early 30s, discovered a letter the family patriarch had written to his sons. "You will receive what now seems to be a large sum of money," Fred Koch cautioned. "It may either be a blessing or a curse."

A woman in the business of love that’s never been in a real relationship. Check. That’s me. Nessa Night. Now I know what you’re thinking. That sounds like a stripper name. Hold up. Let me explain. It’s my radio talk-show name. My incognito way of helping the world love deeper and more often. Though my love life is like a 10-year-old fall leaf trapped between the pages of an old journal.

Anna Bright is committing fraud. But nobody knows it yet. Not the board of her multibillion-dollar company, not her investors, not the public breathlessly anticipating the launch of BrightSpot, and not the media—including Jamie Roman, a hardworking journalist for BusinessBerry. But when Jamie does learn about Anna’s misconduct, she embarks on a bicoastal journey to expose the crimes and make a name for herself as a journalist. It’s not long before Anna learns what the reporter is up to, however—and she’ll do anything to stop Jamie. Especially now that BrightLife’s IPO is days away.

They were paid to bring me home safe. They decided to keep me instead. I thought I could run away from the marriage the mafia arranged for me, but I ended up held prisoner in a foreign country by someone far more dangerous than the man I tried to escape. Then Jack and Diego came for me. They didn't ask if I wanted to be theirs. They just took me.

We Are All Weird is a celebration of choice, of treating different people differently and of embracing the notion that everyone deserves the dignity and respect that comes from being heard. The book calls for end of "mass" and for the beginning of offering people more choices, more interests, and giving them more authority to operate in ways that reflect their own unique values.

In today's troubled economic market, everything is a tough sell. From products to services, everyone is consuming less as they tighten their belts. In this respect, it's easy to forget that the job interview is becoming more and more like the showroom - where the interview itself is the pitch, and the product you're selling is yourself. The Art of Selling Yourself will provide you with the knowhow you need to navigate today's tough business terrain and achieve success in your career and your life.

An avid golfer with a demanding career in the greeting card business, Mike Keiser found a new calling on the authentic links courses of Scotland and Ireland. Seized by the beauty of the landscape and the holes running through it, he determined this was how golf was meant to be: inclusive, not private; played on foot, not riding a cart; the courses natural, neither lavish nor contrived. Vowing to transplant this experience to the States, Keiser entered the golf business and, ignoring the advice of experts, built a true links course in Oregon.

Abbey Glen and her handsome new business partner, Grant MacEwan, head off to a whisky industry competition together. The night before the award presentations, with foreign and domestic whisky makers at one another's throats, two judges are found dead under mysterious circumstances. What started with three dream-come-true nominations for Abby Glen’s whisky soon turns into a nightmare for Abi. With a killer on the loose, she must call on her investigative skills to stop another murder - before she gets taken out of the running herself.

The death of a powerful Chinatown crime boss thrusts private eye Lydia Chin and her partner, Bill Smith, into a storm of double-dealing, subterfuge, murder, and New York City real estate scandal. Choi has left the Tong headquarters building to his niece, who hires Lydia and her partner, Bill Smith, to accompany her to inspect it. The building is at the center of a tug-of-war between Chinatown preservation interests - including Lydia’s brother, Tim - and a real estate developer who’s desperate to get his hands on it.

The eight business maharajas profiled here are among Asia's most powerful industrial tycoons. Their combined turnover runs into billions of rupees, and between them they employ some 650,000 people, while indirectly affecting the lives of millions more. Sip a cup of tea, drive to work, listen to music, build a house and the chances are that in these and a myriad other ways you are using products that they manufacture or market. By any yardstick, the achievements of these men would rank among the great business stories of our time. How did these men build their enormous empires?

When her husband goes missing, Marissa Creighton fears the worst. Tell me you trust me was the last thing Ethan said to her, and she’d shrugged it off. Now she can’t get those words out of her head. Marissa’s family has always been her rock. But when they come to help her with eighteen-month-old Logan, their overprotectiveness borders on oppression—occupational hazard of the family’s surveillance business, or is it? Seeking comfort in the playlist she and Ethan share, Marissa is shocked to find a new song there: “Trust Me.” She’s certain it’s a message.

Funny Business is based around the theme of - what else? - humor, and if you’re familiar with Jon and the Guys Read Library, you already know what you’re in store for: 10 hilarious stories from some of the funniest writers around. Before you’re through, you’ll meet a teenage mummy; a kid desperate to take a dip in the world’s largest pool of chocolate milk; a homicidal turkey; parents who hand over their son’s room to a biker; and more.

Photographer Cassie Harris loves her job - her company Buxom Boudoir makes people look beautiful and feel empowered with her modern twist on classic pinup photography. Cassie’s best friend, Dana, is about to launch her own dangerously dreamy lingerie line and wants Cassie to shoot and direct the career-changing national campaign. But company politics and Dana’s complicated pregnancy interfere, and Cassie finds herself - a proud plus-size Black woman - not behind the camera but in front of it.

With Normal Gets You Nowhere, Kelly Cutrone invites us to get our freak on. History is full of successful, world-changing people who did not fit in. Think Nelson Mandela, Joan of Arc, Eleanor Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, John Lennon, and Rosa Parks. Instead of changing themselves to accommodate the status quo or what others thought they should be, these people hung a light on their differences - and changed humanity in the process. “I know you don’t feel normal, so why are you trying to act it and prove to everyone you are?” Cutrone says.

I’m not boyfriend material. If a trail of broken hearts and a piss-poor record of failed relationships have taught me anything, it’s this. My buddies are happy to give me shit about my latest breakup from here to next Sunday. Thanks, but I’d rather have a root canal. And a vasectomy. At the same time. Relief comes in an unlikely package - the gorgeous and feisty Maren. She just so happens to be my best friend’s sister, so that’s not awkward at all.

Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world of the 1960s and '70s from Jane Maas, a female copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male environment portrayed by the hit TV show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: did people really have that much sex in the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally yes....

When a band of backwoods hunters crash a corporate retreat in the wilderness, executives find themselves held hostage by men who will do anything to get the largest ransom in history. The corporate big shots hadn't wanted junior exec Jake Landry there. But now he's the only one who can save them.