The Icarus Agenda

The vicious-looking airCRaft shot aCRoss the sky at near supersonic speed.

It was a modified Hercules cargo plane, known as an MC-130 “Combat Talon,” the delivery vehicle of choice for U.S. Special Forces units.

This Combat Talon stayed high, very high, it was as if it was trying to avoid being seen by radar systems down at sea level. This was unusual, because there was nothing down there—according to the maps, the nearest land in this part of the Pacific was an atoll 500 klicks to the east.

Then the rear loading ramp of the Combat Talon rumbled open and several dozen tiny figures issued out from it in rapid sequence, spreading out into the sky behind the soaring plane.

The forty-strong flock of paratroopers plummeted to earth, men in high-altitude jumpsuits—full-face breathing masks; streamlined black bodysuits. They angled their bodies downward as they fell, so that they flew head-first, their masks pointed into the onrushing wind, becoming human spears, freefalling with serious intent.

It was a classic HALO drop—high-altitude, low-opening. You jumped from 37,000 feet, fell fast and hard, and then stopped dangerously close to the ground, right at your drop zone.

Curiously, however, the forty elite troops falling to earth today fell in identifiable subgroups, ten men to a group, as if they were trying to remain somehow separate.

On a sunny day in Hollywood, a gleaming Rolls-Royce convertible pulls through the gates of the magnificent estate known as The Cottage. The man behind the wheel is Hollywood’s ageless wonder, Cooper Winslow, a star of the silver screen for decades, a man whose allure to women is the stuff of legend. But today Coop Winslow is in for a surprise – he’s broke. With no major roles coming his way, Coop is faced with the heartbreaking prospect of selling his beloved home.

His new tenants, Mark Friedman and Jimmy O’Connor, have problems of their own. Mark’s wife of sixteen years just walked out, and Jimmy recently lost his own wife to a devastating illness. But then Mark’s teenage son and daughter move in – and everything changes. Music blasts from every corner, young starlets stream in and out, a scandal erupts and, unexpectedly, three men who never met are becoming friends… Then The Cottage welcomes a new houseguest with a secret of her own, who will change Coop’s life in unexpected ways.

Amid a glittering backdrop of celebrity and glamour, Danielle Steel digs deeper to tell a story of friendship and love, tragedy and second chances.

A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger. The inequities and betrayals of family life coalesce around and torment this magical being. An explosive act of violence follows, and its mysterious cause is unraveled as events progress toward a heartbreaking revelation.

Lyrical and bawdy, experimental and political, this extraordinary novel announces the arrival of a powerful new voice on the global literary stage.