Alamosa Public Library

The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations,...

"Samuel Pipps is the greatest detective of his day...but now he's a prisoner, accused of an unknown crime by one of the world's most powerful men. Along with his faithful sidekick, Arent Hayes, they're sailing back to Amsterdam from the East Indies, where he'll stand trial. But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. Still shackled in his cell, Pipps sends Hayes to solve a mystery that connects every passenger on board....

Ship's doctor Stephen Maturin, a British intelligence agent, stands as the sole bulwark against the sabotage of his friend Captain Jack Aubrey's mission in Malta

At French instigation, an ambitious Tongan chief captures a British whaler in the Friendly Isles, and Captain Aubrey is dispatched from Australia to restore order. But a spirited female convict unexpectedly joins Aubrey and Maturin as a stowaway. To the officers, Clarissa Harvill is an object of awkward courtliness and dangerous jealousies. Aubrey himself is won over, while only Stephen Maturin fathoms her secrets.

Looking for adventure and a new life, Ishmael, the story's narrator, decides to find work on a whaling boat. On arriving at the Massachusetts harbour to begin his search, the only bed available is already half occupied by a "cannibal" named Queequeg. Although Queequeg has limited English, a friendship forms and the two men sign up for work together aboard the Pequod under the infamous Captain Ahab. Consumed by an insane rage, Captain Ahab has but...

Since the loss of her fiance, Anna has been shipwrecked by grief. When a reminder goes off about a trip they were supposed to take together, Anna impulsively goes to sea in their sailboat, intending to complete the voyage alone. After a treacherous night's sail she realizes she can't do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Keane is also struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises...

"Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is considered by many readers to be the Great American Novel. But most don't know that since its appearance in 1851, it has been revised in substantial ways that alter its original meaning. Melville's masterpiece is described as a "fluid text": it exists in multiple versions, each revealing shifting intentions. The new Longman Critical Edition offers unprecedented access to the revisions that Melville made, the further...

"Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon are back with a new adventure in this thrilling suspense novel in Clive Cussler's #1 New York Times bestselling series"-- When the CIA realizes the identities of three American spies in Brazil have been compromised, they turn to Juan Cabrillo and the crew of the Oregon to rescue the agents. What seems a routine operation turns out to be a trap designed by Juan Cabrillo's greatest enemy, a man driven by hate...

"After six months on leave in Maine, Homicide Detective Brie Beaumont returns home to Minnesota to make decisions about her life and career within the Minneapolis Police Department. But her partner's death still haunts her, and she soon reqlizes that, to be whole again, she must solve the case of Detective Phil Thatcher's murder--a case that went cold eighteen months ago. But threatening letters, a shadowy characater, and a shooting on the North Shore...

"Crisscrossing the Great Lakes onboard her father's freighter ship, the Mary Elise, Elise Wright has grown up cooking and caring for the crew. It is a life she loves. Unlike her estranged sister, Elise has turned down numerous opportunities for a 'respectable life' with their wealthy relatives. And now, because of promises she made to her dying mother, she's bound to the ship and her deeply grieving father more than ever. Nick Clark is grateful to...