Michael Bourne

The endangered lynx is at the center of an eco-terrorist plot gripping a small ski town, but publisher Tish Threadgill's insider information about a local literary malcontent leaves her upstart newspaper in a unique position to crack the case. "We Bring You an Hour of Darkness is my favorite kind of thriller — one that combines urgent social themes with smart dialogue and a page-turning mystery.” —Lauren Nossett, author of The Resemblance and The ProfessorIt’s 1993, and the ski company that runs Franklin, Colorado, plans to build a massive new resort in a pristine wilderness home to an endangered wildcat. When eco-terrorists begin a series of attacks on infrastructure and property, the FBI sets up a national task force. While the local police and politicians are melting down, five intrepid reporters at the town’s struggling newspaper must step in to solve the crime. With her newspaper on the brink of collapse, editor Tish Threadgill is under pressure from a rival publication to sell. But a local literary malcontent turns out to have a ringside seat to the eco-terrorist plot. While trying to stave off the town’s power brokers who would very much like her pesky paper gone, Tish soon finds the mystery at the heart of the attacks is far too close to home.

Trent Wolfer has blown it, in every possible way, over and over and over. And now he’s blowing it again. Fresh out of rehab, he’s back in his hometown working a dead-end job at a fast food joint and cutting out on his breaks to sneak airplane bottles of vodka and gin, when he looks up from his register one day to see Suze Randall, his closest friend from high school, now a radiant blonde single mother of two. Set in a small, sun-drenched Northern California town shifting from hippie haven to moneyed paradise, Blithedale Canyon asks whether a man who has spent his whole life screwing up can stop long enough to avoid destroying a woman he loves. Michael Bourne’s funny, edgy debut is a literary love story for every man who has ever wondered why he keeps smashing up the things he cares about, and for every woman who’s ever wondered what was going on in the head of that guy she spent her twenties trying to fix.

The right manufacturing strategy is vital to maintaining profitability and running an efficient business. Manufacturing, however, is a complex business, and it is often difficult to know where to start when reviewing and developing long term strategic plans. This industry guide explains in clear, simple stages how to review your current processes and procedures, and how to build on this information to develop, present and implement new manufacturing strategies. Based on a uniquely structured approach developed over many years with major industry clients, including Rolls-Royce and Federal Mogul, its holistic approach can be applied to every area of operations from the entire organisation down to individual business units or processes. Supporting material is available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521750295. Written for managers of small-medium sized businesses and industry consultants, this book also forms part of a three volume set covering business strategy, performance, and competencies.