Kill Boxes addresses the legacy of US-sponsored torture, indefinite detention, and drone warfare by deciphering the shocks of recognition that humanistic and artistic responses to violence bring to consciousness if readers and viewers have eyes to face them.Beginning with an analysis of the ways in which the hooded man from Abu Ghraib became iconic, subsequent chapters take up less culturally visible scenes of massive violations of human rights to bring us face to face with these shocks and the forms of recognition that they enable and disavow. We are addressed in the photo of the hooded man, all the more so as he was brutally prevented, in our name, from returning the camera's and thus our gaze. We are addressed in the screams that turn a person, tortured in our name, into howling flesh. We are addressed in poems written in the Guantánamo Prison camp, however much American authorities try to censor them, in our name. We are addressed by the victims of the US drone wars, however little American citizens may have heard the names of the places obliterated by the bombs for which their taxes pay. And we know that we are addressed in spite of a number of strategies of brutal refusal of heeding those calls.Providing intensive readings of philosophical texts by Jean Améry, Jacques Derrida, and Christian Thomasius, with poetic texts by Franz Kafka, Paul Muldoon, and the poet-detainees of Guantánamo Bay Prison Camp, and with artistic creations by Sallah Edine Sallat, the American artist collective Forkscrew and an international artist collective from Pakistan, France and the US, Kill Boxes demonstrates the complexity of humanistic responses to crimes committed in the name of national security. The conscious or unconscious knowledge that we are addressed by the victims of these crimes is a critical factor in discussions on torture, on indefinite detention without trial, as practiced in Guantánamo, and in debates on the strategies to circumvent the latter altogether, as practiced in drone warfare and its extrajudicial assassination program.The volume concludes with an Afterword by Richard Falk.

The United States has been invaded. The Russians have seized control. Now US Marine hero Tyce Asher has one final mission—to make America free again—in this explosive series from Lt. Col. Hunter “Rip” Ripley Rawlings IV . . . THE CITIES HAVE FALLEN. America is under new management. Russian forces have occupied both coasts. They are taking our weapons, pillaging our resources, and destroying our nation. Those who resist are swiftly punished. Those who revolt are savagely killed . . . THE HEARTLAND FIGHTS BACK. Marine Corp officer Tyce Asher is a lone wolf patriot who will never surrender. He’s assembled a ragtag team of long-haul truckers and citizen soldiers willing to die for their freedoms. Their network has learned that the invaders are planning to seize cargo that will bring America to its knees—and a sadistic Russian has marked Asher for death. There is only one way to stop them: Asher and his team must meet the enemy face-to-face—and enter the Kill Box . . . RAVES FOR ASSAULT BY FIRE “Exploding with action, Lt. Col. Rip Rawlings’s rapid-fire thriller, Assault by Fire, is a must read!” —Mark Greaney, #1 New York Times bestselling author of One Minute Out “Direct from his own combat experiences, Marine Lt. Col. Rip Rawlings brings the heat and fire to life." —Marc Cameron, New York Times bestselling author “Combat vet Rip Rawlings is a bang-up storyteller.” —Capt. Dale Dye USMC (Ret.), author and filmmaker “Rip Rawlings writes from experience, and blasts the reader straight into the fight and never lets up.” —New York Times bestselling author Larry Bond

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY LIBRARY JOURNAL • In an intense thriller that’s perfect for fans of Lee Child or Lisa Gardner, security specialist and PI Jamie Sinclair tackles a cold case that could cost her the one person who means the most to her. Hardworking Jamie Sinclair can’t wait for the weekend. She plans to be off the clock and on the road to wine country with handsome military police officer Adam Barrett. But when a strung-out soldier takes an innocent woman hostage and forces his way into Jamie’s bedroom, everything changes. Jamie’s never seen the soldier before. But he’s no stranger to Barrett—and with one word he persuades Barrett to pack a duffel and leave Jamie in the lurch. Jamie cannot fathom why Barrett would abandon her without explanation. But as the consequences of an unsolved crime threaten to catch up with him, a late-night phone call sends Jamie racing to Barrett’s hometown in upstate New York. In a tinderbox of shattered trust and long-buried secrets, Jamie must fight to uncover the truth about what really occurred one terrible night twenty years ago. And the secrets she discovers deep in Barrett’s past not only threaten their future together—they just might get her killed. Don’t miss any of Nichole Christoff’s white-knuckle Jamie Sinclair thrillers: THE KILL LIST | THE KILL SHOT | THE KILL BOX | THE KILL SIGN | THE KILL WIRE | THE KILL CHAIN Praise for The Kill Box “An edge-of-the-seat thriller that doesn’t let up until the very last page.”—Library Journal Praise for Nichole Christoff’s Jamie Sinclair novels “Intelligent and fast-paced, Nichole Christoff’s debut thriller takes off like a rocket and never slows down. I read The Kill List in a single sitting.”—New York Times bestselling author Karen Rose “Thanks to Christoff’s labyrinth-style of intrigue and mystery, the enjoyment is in trying to solve the puzzle. Good luck, because in The Kill Shot, Christoff doesn’t make the adventure a cake walk. She understands how to keep her readers riveted from beginning to end.”—USA Today

A detective tail on a duplicitous spouse leads to murder, explosive secrets, and atomic-age paranoia in 1950s Manhattan. Lawrence Lariar was one the most popular cartoonists of the twentieth century. But from the 1940s through the 1960s, he also crafted a line of lean and mean detective and mystery novels under his own name as well as the pseudonyms Michael Stark, Adam Knight, Michael Lawrence, and Marston La France. Lariar now gets his due as a leading artist in hardboiled crime fiction. It sounds like a routine gig for private eye Steve Ericson. Dolly DePereyra has asked him to keep an eye on her cheating husband, Michael, on the overnight Chicago-to-New York Express. By the time the train rolls into Grand Central the case has already gone off the rails: Michael is dead, causes unknown. And with Dolly being eyeballed by the cops, she now needs Ericson to clear her name—which wasn’t all that untarnished to begin with. As Ericson’s investigation begins, he realizes that Michael, indeed, had a story. Low-profile hotel trysts and bombshell blondes come with the territory. But a high-profile conference with four atomic scientists? That’s a twist Ericson doesn’t see coming. Neither is the way Michael died. Or why. Or just how radioactive this case is going to get.

In a twisty tale of betrayal and vengeance, a cunning scientist orchestrates her escape from the isolated estate of a sociopathic tycoon. When Louise Mortensen’s kidnapper, Theo Viklund, drops dead, she glimpses her chance for freedom—by becoming him. Joining forces with Viklund’s sinister head of security and her hapless lab assistant, Louise makes a chilling pact to conceal her captor’s death. Once Louise assumes Viklund’s identity, her path to freedom will be ensured ... but first, she must access his biometrically protected computer accounts. The key seems out of reach ... until Theo’s brother arrives, searching for the truth behind Theo’s disappearance. Will he provide Louise the clue she needs to unlock Theo’s riches and his secrets? Louise finds herself navigating a high-stakes web of deception, treachery, and murder. And the closer she gets to claiming absolute power, the deadlier her web becomes. In this exhilarating thrill ride, a devious antiheroine with a murderous past must unravel a conspiracy of lies to claim a prize worth killing for.

Operation Desert Storm: Former prisoner of war David Sweet returns home, battered, bloodied, and haunted by memories of the savagery he has witnessed. But his trials have not yet ended. There are those who will do anything to keep the long-hidden secrets he possesses from seeing the light of day. Even if it means destroying him, and everything he holds dear.

Jack LeClere is a cop dodging bullets in what could best be described as friendly fire. He took out the serial killer who murdered his parents, and half of New Rhodes paid the price. Not to mention the rioting that gripped the city over the Julia Mae Jefferson murder, his last big case. So in the spirit of the aftermath, his superiors have called into question every sliver of his conduct. Jack is wealthy; he doesn’t need to be a detective, and the top brass are implying that maybe if he followed procedure like his livelihood depended on it, he wouldn’t want to be a cop. Leonard Beloit is a pillar of the community and a very wealthy man also, which does him no good when Jack gets called to the Grand Royal Theater to find him on the floor, his chest pierced with a gem pickaxe. Jack’s search for the person who killed Beloit starts with the search for the person who was Beloit. As he speaks with Beloit’s wife and daughter and digs even further, Jack finds a lustful, vagrant degenerate that would be unrecognizable in the society pages. Gangs, petty crimes, and not-so-petty crimes seem to be Beloit’s off-hours pastime. None of this would call for Beloit’s death, but Jack will keep digging, and soon realize he is peeling into the rot of the onion of New Rhodes high society, of which he is a reluctant member. The deeper he gets investigating what his peers are doing in the shadows, the more they investigate him, asking, in their own way, whether he’ll stop playing cop and do something with the vast inheritance he rarely uses, and claims to never want. Beloit’s exploits take a very dangerous turn in the form of a conspiracy to transport toxic chemicals through the Adirondacks; it may be that the smoking gun is wrapped up in a smokestack. The case to find, and hold accountable, Beloit’s killer will pit him against not only the killer, but a version of himself that it seems everyone around him sees, that perhaps he can’t remain blind to anymore.