When organized crime comes to England, two brothers face off At eighty years old, Professor Tillizini is Italy's foremost authority on the nefarious practices of the underworld. His life's work has been to root out the secret society known as the Red Hand, a blackmailing outfit that has terrorized the country for centuries, and he has finally pinpointed its source. When Tillizini goes to arrest Count Festini, the cagey old criminal sends his two sons into the other room, where they hear the gunshot with which their father ends his own life of crime. One son vows to take up his father's mantle and give himself over to the Red Hand. The other will dedicate his life to stopping him. When the Red Hand surfaces in England, its schemes threaten to tear the country apart. Here two brothers will have their final showdown, and the Festini legacy will be settled, for good or evil. This ebook features a new introduction by Otto Penzler and has been professionally... Views: 67
In the third crime novel in the critically acclaimed Bernard Martin mystery series, young immigrant girls are disappearing into the depths of turn-of-the-century Paris.On a sultry night in June 1897, Pyotr Ivanovich Balenov, a young Russian, and two young women transport a dead man through the narrow streets of a working class neighborhood in northeastern Paris. They throw the body into the canal and the girls flee to the Latin Quarter to hide with one of the Russian’s anarchist “comrades.” They do not realize they, too, are being watched. Their subsequent disappearance and the violent acts that follow will set Clarie Martin, a teacher and mother of a toddler, and her husband, magistrate Bernard Martin (last seen in Cezanne's Quarry and The Blood of Lorraine) on a dangerous quest to rescue them from a vicious killer.Review“Paris, 1897: France is bursting with Republican fervor and a plethora of initiatives for the promotion of so-called social equality. Enter Clarie Martin, wife, mother and schoolteacher. Clarie considers herself fortunate: Her husband, a former judge and now a labor union lawyer, supports her career teaching history at a prestigious girls' school. But when one of the lycée's charwomen asks Clarie to help find her two missing daughters, Clarie runs up against the limits of her husband's modern-mindedness. She is left wondering: "Where were all those Republican men with their high-flown rhetoric about equality and justice when it came to these girls?" Clarie's sense of justice takes over, and she charges headlong into a clandestine investigation. Author Barbara Corrado Pope plots Clarie's search with precision and restraint, giving just enough detail to move the events along but never to the degree that the ending is obvious. The true draw here, though, is not so much the mystery as its portrait of women—and their not-so-equal rights—at the turn of the last century. Clarie, too, is a wonderfully engaging heroine. Her love for her family, her intellectual integrity and her stubbornness prove that even in the face of senseless limitations, it's possible to find joy, truth—and even oneself.” (O, The Oprah Magazine )“An unlikely sleuth is drawn into another murder mystery in turn-of-the-century France…Pope's third mystery featuring Clarie (The Blood of Lorraine, 2010, etc.) expertly doles out pieces of its complex plot, a picaresque puzzle with satisfying period flavor.” (Kirkus Reviews )“Deeply atmospheric. Pope moves through the dark side of fin-de-siecle Paris. The musings of Clarie about the wrenching inequity between the pampered women she teaches and those she and Bernard search for in back alleys gives us a window in to this glamorous yet perilous time. Engrossing.” (Booklist )“Pope’s engaging third mystery featuring magistrate Bernard Martin (after 2011’s The Blood of Lorraine) shines a light on both the glamor and the grime of late-19th-century Paris. Two Italian sisters who have grown up in a Paris slum, 17-year-old Maura and 18-year-old Angela Laurenzano, enlist the aid of accused Russian anarchist, Pyotr Ivanovich, in disposing of the body of Angela’s abusive seducer in a canal. After Pyotr disappears, they fear that the police will charge them with murder. When the sisters themselves go missing, Francesca—Maura and Angela’s charwoman mother—turns to Clarie, Bernard’s wife, for assistance. Clarie, who is used to her genteel life as a teacher, must confront a bewildering world of revolutionaries and radicals, of the desperate and the devious. Clarie’s struggle to balance her role as a bourgeois wife and mother against her investigative instincts will entice readers.” (Publishers Weekly )“PAST PRAISE FOR BARBARA CORRADO POPE A highly accomplished, compelling novel. Beneath an exquisite veneer of historical detail lurks a thoughtful exploration of religion.” (Boston Globe )“A fascinating look at the rise of anti-Semitism in France after the arrest of Alfred Dreyfus for treason in 1894. Pope with great skill makes the atmosphere of the times both palpable and tragically prophetic.” (Publishers Weekly, (starred review) )“Fascinating. With a bleak view of humanity similar to Emile Zola’s, this story of tortured love and repressed violence resembles Iain Pears at his darkest.” (Booklist (starred review) )“An intriguing, richly drawn historical mystery. Pope handily blends genuine figures and events into her fictional bouillabaisse of art, science and mystery.” (The Seattle Times ) About the AuthorBarbara Corrado Pope is a historian and the founding director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Oregon. She is the author of the novels Cézanne’s Quarry and The Blood of Lorraine. Barbara lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband. Views: 67
Consistently hailed as "wonderful" (The New York Times Book Review), the Fielding mysteries are a magical combination of period ambiance, vivid characterization, and intriguing plotlines. In An Experiment in Treason, a packet of incendiary letters is stolen from the London residence of a prominent official, and turns up in the colony of Massachusetts. Why are the contents so controversial? Why has a suspect in the theft turned up dead? And what should Sir John do about his feeling that Benjamin Franklin himself is somehow complicit? While the political tensions rise, Sir John searches for answers and finds that justice isn't always served by the letter of the law. Views: 67
TO: UNIT 3 ChicagoFROM: DIRECTORIMPORTANCE: CriticalSUBJECT: Specimen RetrievalTARGET: Shadowy hunter-killer teams, ID'ed via signature kills worldwide. Identifiable only by skull-spine removal from victims. No witnesses, no forensics, no particular race targeted. On rare occasions, scraps of what appear to be playing cards found at murder sites.OBJECTIVE: Locate and capture any member of such teams. MUST be taken alive for study and observation.AUTHORIZATION APPROVED FOR USE OF OUTSIDE CONTRACTOR: Individual ID'ed only as "Cross" and his team. A pure mercenary outfit, well known throughout criminal underworld--no inside informants available. Ruthless, undeterred by risk, rumored never to fail, but UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES to be trusted. No known political or social objective, but has proven treacherous when retained by government in the past.UPDATE: Cross and his team claim... Views: 67
Halloween is right around the corner when Lady Elsmere throws an elaborate Civil War costume ball. Wearing a nineteenth-century ball gown, Josiah ventures into the party's corn maze to find her dog, Baby, and take him home, only to find Baby standing over a fallen scarecrow. But is it really a scarecrow? Josiah doesn't have time to find out because someone dressed as the Grim Reaper bolts out of the shadows, swinging a scythe and heading straight for her. Our heroine picks up her skirts and flees, yelling, "Murder! Murder in the corn maze!" Views: 67
Life was pretty average for Andrew. Until the morning he woke up undead. First there were bite marks on his neck. Then he tried to eat garlic--but that didn't work out so well. And now he's got this weird urge to sleep upside down....Andrew's kind of excited about being a vampire. He'll get to fly, stay up all night, and totally scare his sister. But when he meets his vampire teacher, Andy realizes that being a vampire isn't as all it's cracked up to be.... Views: 67
After donning a cursed necklace for the cameras, a silent screen starlet and her entourage are terrorized by an ancient demonIt is 1923, and silent film reigns in Hollywood. Of all the starlets, none is more beloved than Chrysanda Flamande, a diva as brilliant as she is difficult to manage. Handling her falls to Norah, widow of Chrysanda’s dead brother. She has always done her job well, but she was never equipped to deal with murder. When a violent killing shocks Chrysanda’s entourage, and other weird happenings swiftly follow, Norah begins to suspect that some strange power is stalking the star. In Chinatown she receives warning that a curse has been placed on the actress as vengeance for wearing a sacred amulet in one of her films—and this curse could mean death for all who surround her. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Barbara Hambly, including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection. Views: 67
In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator Lucy (a.k.a. Lady Gerald) head off for several days at stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of follies (architectural), they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple. At the home, they find themselves faced with a curious assortment of people including the abominable, tactless Lord Rydal, who is rumored to be having an affair with one of the guests while at the same time in ardent and artless pursuit of the hand in marriage of another. When the grotto explodes with Lord Rydal in it, it's not a question of who would do it--as most who've met him would be sorely tempted--but who actually did do it. Views: 67
