Berthoud Community Library District

Opportunity knocks for an Iranian immigrant in California when the county offers for sale a seized house at a bargain price. It will serve as a launching pad for his real-estate business. When the county discovers it made an error, the drug-addicted woman who owned the house demands its return, but the Iranian refuses. Unfortunately for him, the woman's lover is a policeman who takes the law into his hands.

A turn-of-the-twentieth-century discovery of ancient jade artifacts on California's Monterey Peninsula by a Stanford marine biology professor is marked by violent debates and a tragic accident.

"When Henry Oades accepts an accountancy post in New Zealand, his wife, Margaret, and their children follow him to exotic Wellington... Their new home is rougher and more rustic than they expected, and a single night of tragedy shatters the family when the native Maori stage an uprising, kidnapping Margaret and her children. For months, Henry scours the surrounding wilderness, until all hope is lost and his wife and children are presumed dead. Grief-stricken,...