From the internationally bestselling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a novel of incomparable scope and beauty that takes the reader on an epic journey from war-ravaged nineteenth-century Europe to antebellum America. A bereft child, a freed African slave, and the rich history of Portugal's secret Jews collide memorably in Richard Zimler's mesmerizing novel--a dazzling work of historical fiction played out against a backdrop of war and chaos that unforgettably mines the mysteries of devotion, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness. Hunting Midnight At the dawn of the nineteenth century in Portugal, John Zarco Stewart is an impish child of hotheaded emotions and playful inquisitiveness, the unwitting inheritor of a faith shrouded in three hundred years of secrecy--for the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula have been in hiding since the Inquisition. But a season of loss and bitter discovery brings his innocence to an abrupt end. It is only the ministrations of a magical stranger, brought to Porto by his seafaring father, that restore his safety: Midnight, an African healer and freed slave, the man who will become John's greatest friend and determine the course of his destiny. When Napoleon's armies invade Portugal, violence again intrudes on John's fragile peace, and seals his passage into adulthood with another devastating loss. But from the wreckage comes revelation as he uncovers truths and lies hidden by the people he loved and trusted most, and discovers the act of unspeakable betrayal that destroyed his family--and his faith. And so his shattering quest begins as he travels to America, to hunt for hope in a land shackled by unforgivable sin. With stunning insight and an eye for rich historical detail--from the colorful marketplaces of Porto to the drowsy plantations of the American South, from the Judaism John discovers as a young man to the mystical Africa that Midnight conjures from his memories--in Hunting Midnight Richard Zimler has crafted a masterpiece. "From the Hardcover edition."

Howard Engel, an internationally published and award-winning mystery writer, takes dead aim, so to speak, at this fascination we all share, and produces a wonderfully wise and witty social history of the men and women who represent our agents of death, and have done our dirty work over the centuries. 60 photos and line drawings.

Homicide has many social and psychological implications that vary from culture to culture and which change as people accept new ideas concerning guilt, responsibility, and the causes of crime . A study of attitudes toward homicide is therefore a method of examining social values in a specific setting. Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860 is the first book to contrast psychological assumptions of imaginative writers with certain social and intellectual currents in an attempt to integrate social attitudes toward such diverse subjects as human evil, moral responsibility, criminal insanity, social causes of crime, dueling, lynching, the "unwritten law" of a husband's revenge, and capital punishment. In addition to works of literary distinction by Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, among others, Davis considers a large body of cheap popular fiction generally ignored in previous studies of the literature of this period. This is an engrossing study of fiction as a reflection of and a commentary on social problems and as an influence shaping general beliefs and opinions.

A convention-defying novel by bestselling writer Walter Mosley, John Woman recounts the transformation of an unassuming boy named Cornelius Jones into John Woman, an unconventional history professor--while the legacy of a hideous crime lurks in the shadows. At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets about reinventing himself--as Professor John Woman, a man who will spread Herman's teachings into the classrooms of his unorthodox southwestern university and beyond. But there are other individuals who are attempting to influence the narrative of John Woman, and who might know something about the facts of his hidden past. Engaging with some of the most provocative ideas of recent intellectual history, John Woman is a compulsively readable, deliciously unexpected novel about the way we tell stories, and whether the stories we tell have the power to change the world.

Based on the Sherlock Holmes film: Ellery Queen matches wits with the Baker Street sleuth to unmask Jack the Ripper. Ellery Queen is struggling over his latest book when a friend brings him a mystery. It is a journal, written by a Victorian doctor, of reports on the remarkable adventures of his close friend, a brilliant detective named Sherlock Holmes. Queen's surprise turns to amazement as he turns its pages and discovers the lost story of Sherlock Holmes's greatest case: the pursuit of Jack the Ripper. From the brothels and back alleys of fog-choked Whitechapel to the manor of one of England's greatest families, Holmes and Dr. Watson chase history's most fearsome killer. But it will take the brilliance of Ellery Queen to solve the case once and for all. Based on the Sherlock Holmes film A Study in Terror , this collaboration between two of the world's greatest detectives is one of the most original mystery novels of all time.

Swirling, curling brushstrokes. Vivid colors. Thick layers of paint. These are the hallmarks of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, whose work his fellow artist Paul Cézanne once called “that of a madman.” But Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists for Kids moves beyond the image of the mad pauper to reveal a complex young man who loved nature and reading, spoke four languages, and enjoyed a successful career as a gallery salesman before embarking on studies as a minister and, finally, finding his calling as an artist. Kids journey from the Netherlands to Paris to southern France as they learn about van Gogh’s friendships with four other like-minded painters who admired but were determined to depart from Impressionism: Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Émile Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Aspiring artists and history buffs learn not only how these Post-Impressionists’ daring shapes, colors, and techniques distinguished their work from what was painted before but also how the men helped one another and whether or not they always got along. Twenty-one creative projects bring history and art to life. Readers will create a Starry Night peep box, make a Pointillist sailboat (that can really sail!), craft a Japanese fold-out album, and much more. The text includes a time line, glossary, and reading list for further study.

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald is an unlikely force for justice in Washington D.C's predominantly male police force. As a Senator's daughter and top investigator in the homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, Fiona maneuvers between two vastly different worlds, moving quickly from opulent State galas to gritty crime scenes. Born into the elite social circles of the nation's capital, and armed with intimate knowledge of the true face of the political establishment, Fiona is determined to expose the chicanery concealed within the highest echelons of the American political aristocracy. When a string of inexplicable murders rocks the hallowed streets of central D.C., Fiona finds herself charging through shadows of a mysterious conspiracy. Faced with an investigation with no leads and a rising body count, Fiona's reputation as top investigator of the Homicide Division is called into question. At the brink of professional ruin, an encounter with the eccentric yet charismatic Thaddeus Remington III at his museum-like mansion sends Fiona hurtling headlong through a whirlwind of clues. Where once the desperate detective blundered through traceless footsteps of a triple murderer, the answers to her case now seem to be whispered from bloodstained graves of fallen Presidents. Fiona stands ready, her finger on the trigger, as an assassination plot decades in the making is about to change history forever. American Quartet is the first book in the Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series.

Product Description According to News Week, in fifty years, the number of people over sixty-five will be greater than the number of people under twenty-five for the first time in history. This novella is a look at what MIGHT happen. Detective Vickey Grip has never been very fond of the elderly. She blames them for every bad thing that has ever happened to her, and holds them singularly responsible for ruining the United States. But even she never would have believed what's going on in the small town of Boiling Springs. There's something in the water, and it isn't good! About the Author Selina Rosen lives in rural Arkansas with her partner of over 8 years and her nearly grown son. Her work has appeared in several magazines and anthologies. Selina is also the author of several novels, QUEEN OF DENIAL from Meisha Merlin Publishing,and THE HOST, FRIGHT EATER, and GANG APPROVAL, from Yard Dog Press. All titles are available from Amazon.com. Selina's hobbies include gardening, sword fighting, and hanging out in bars. She's not much of a gardener, mediocre at sword fighting, however rumor has it that she is actually guite good at hanging out in bars. (For those of you who are humor challenged, that was a joke.)

In this next thrilling story from Alan Gold and Mike Jones, we meet Shalman, a freedom-fighter turned peacenik and archaeologist, and his young beautiful wife, Judit, a refugee from the horrors of Stalin's USSR. As the Second World War draws to a close, and the world begins to learn the truth about Hitler's genocide, the foundation of the State of Israel as a permanent home for what's left of the Jewish people becomes increasingly urgent. In Palestine, Arab and Jewish forces fight each other and the British for supremacy and the right to own the land, causing a nightmare environment of hatred and suspicion. But a deeply buried global conspiracy, which has its origin in Stalin's Russia, seeks to undermine Israel's future as an independent nation. A plot to fashion the fledgling nation as a puppet of the Soviet Union rests upon a handful of committed Jewish Communists, led secretly by Judit. But is she a heartless assassin, a disciple of the evils of Beria and the Kremlin, or a committed fusion of Zionist and Communist? And in the darkest recesses of ancient history, we meet Shalman's ancestors, themselves descendants of the builders of Solomon's Temple. As the family escapes the nightmare of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem, it witnesses the glories of the Islamic renaissance in Baghdad and the rampages of the Crusaders through the region. Another exciting instalment in this story of the births of nations and of the strength of their people.

"She's beautiful," writes Irish-American art historian Patricia Dolan in the first of the journal entries that form The Music Lesson. "I look at my face in the mirror and it seems far away, less real than hers." The woman she describes is the subject of the stolen Vermeer of the novel's title. Patricia is alone with this exquisite painting in a remote Irish cottage by the sea. How she arrived in such an unlikely circumstance is one part of the story Patricia tells us: about her father, a policeman who raised her to believe deeply in the cause of a united Ireland; the art history career that has sustained her since the numbing loss of her daughter; and the arrival of Mickey O'Driscoll, her dangerously charming, young Irish cousin, which has led to her involvement in this high-stakes crime. How her sublime vigil becomes a tale of loss, regret, and transformation is the rest of her story. The silent woman in the priceless painting becomes, for Patricia, a tabula rasa, a presence that at different moments seems to judge, to approve, or to offer wisdom. As Patricia immerses herself in the turbulent passions of her Irish heritage and ponders her aesthetic fidelity to the serene and understated pleasures of Dutch art, she discovers, in her silent communion, a growing awareness of all that has been hidden beneath the surface of her own life. And she discovers that she possesses the knowledge of what she must do to preserve the things she values most.