Whirligig

To keep his wife in furs, a smuggler sneaks a painting across the Spanish frontier. It is 1948, and few in Belgium live ... (more)

To keep his wife in furs, a smuggler sneaks a painting across the Spanish frontier. It is 1948, and few in Belgium live comfortably enough to haggle over payment - particularly those who make their living outside the law. Kek Huuygens is an exception. As far as his wife knows, this dapper gentleman is an art appraiser who moves in the finest circles. But although Kek knows all there is to know about art, he does not appraise it. He moves it - from one thief to another. Kek is the finest smuggler in Europe, and he charges accordingly. After all, his wife has expensive taste. A miniature masterpiece by the Dutchman Frans Hals has gone missing from Sotheby's. Kek has twenty-four hours to move it from Brussels to Madrid, avoiding all the police of Western Europe and a murderous thief who feels he has been double crossed. The job will make him a fortune - if he survives long enough to collect it. (less)

New to town, Brent Bishop longs to stroll around school with the popular Brianna on his arm. But when Brianna begs him a... (more)

New to town, Brent Bishop longs to stroll around school with the popular Brianna on his arm. But when Brianna begs him at a party full of schoolmates to stop hounding her, Brent's hopes are shattered. Trying to escape his humiliation, he attempts to destroy himself in a car crash-and ends up killing Lea, an innocent teen unfortunate enough to cross his path. Lea's mother asks one thing of Brent: that he create four whirligigs from a picture of Lea and set them up at the four corners of the United States. Lea's mother believes that by spreading the joy that whirligigs gave Lea as a child, Brent will keep Lea's spirit alive. And so Brent goes off with an unlimited bus ticket and the tools he needs to memorialize Lea. On his journey, he rediscovers his own love of life, and he begins to realize how-like the pieces that form the intricate whirligigs-people come together to affect each other in surprising ways. (less)