Charles Alcorn's debut collection is a ten-story road trip from ice-cold Oslo to the Philippine Sea, from Saint John the Baptist Parish to the sands of Sonora with lots and lots of South Texas, West Texas, rural Texas and urban Texas in the rear-view mirror. Morgan Wooten, the shape-shifting protagonist, weaves through 25 years of a peculiar American Dream before returning to his blood's country in search of peace with a dying father. "Charles Alcorn looks at the world through an oddly perceptive lens. Argument Against the Good-Looking Corpse is a collection to ponder created by a writer whose take on the American landscape calls to mind a young Larry McMurtry set loose in 21st century Texas."--Eric Miles Williamson "It's soothing to move through a collection with a narrator as beautifully-voiced as Morgan Wooten. Pero mios dio. What a strange world. This collection unpacks a time, place and people I know from points of view entirely new and revealing."--Macarena Hernandez

"The 1950s in South Africa was a time of optimism and hope that ended tragically with the massacre at Sharpeville. This book is about those years as seen through the microcosm of Drum, an illustrated magazine produced in Johannesburg for black readers".--BOOKJACKET.

From Christi Daugherty, author of The Echo Killing, comes another pulse-pounding suspenseful thriller featuring crime reporter Harper McClain. For a woman, being killed by someone who claims to love her is the most ordinary murder of all. With its antebellum houses and ancient oak trees draped in a veil of Spanish moss, Savannah’s graceful downtown is famous around the world. When a woman is killed in the heart of that affluent district, the shock is felt throughout the city. But for crime reporter Harper McClain, this story is personal. The corpse has a familiar face. Only twenty-four years old, Naomi Scott was just getting started. A law student, tending bar to make ends meet, she wanted to change the world. Instead, her life ended in the dead of night at the hands of an unseen gunman. There are no witnesses to the crime. The police have three suspects: Scott’s boyfriend, who has a criminal past he claims he’s put behind him, her boss, who stalked another young bartender two years ago, and the district attorney’s son, who Naomi dated until their relationship ended in acrimony. All three men claim to love her. Could one of them be her killer? With the whole city demanding answers, Harper unravels a tangled story of obsession and jealousy. But the pressures on her go beyond the murder. The newspaper is facing more layoffs. Her boss fears both their jobs are on the line. And Harper begins to realize that someone is watching her every move. Someone familiar and very dangerous. Someone who told her to run before it’s too late...

The second book in a rip-roaring adventure series set in the wild west! After escaping the ruthless desperados, P.K. finally feels safe in Virginia City and is ready to set up a new private eye business. But all the mysteries in town seem to be pranks—until the day P.K. meets a young maid named Martha. Martha’s employer has been found dead . . . and now the killer is after her. The mystery takes a grave turn when Martha disappears, so P.K. consults Poker Face Jace, an expert at people reading. With his help, P.K. inspects saloons and billiard rooms, and even tries sneaking into the coroner’s office. But time is quickly running out for P.K., and Martha’s life has never been in more danger.

The complete story behind the groundbreaking film Rebel Without a Cause is vividly revealed in this fascinating book as provocative as the film itself. The revolutionary film Rebel Without a Cause has had a profound impact on both moviemaking and youth culture since its 1955 release, virtually giving birth to our concept of the American teenager. And the making of the movie was just as explosive for those involved. Against a backdrop of the Atomic Age and an old Hollywood studio system on the verge of collapse, four of Hollywood's most passionate artists had a cataclysmic and immensely influential meeting. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and director Nicholas Ray were each at a crucial point in their careers. The young actors were grappling with their fame, burgeoning sexuality, and increasingly reckless behavior, and their on- and off-set relationships ignited as they engaged in Ray’s vision of physical melees and psychosexual seductions of startling intensity. Through interviews with the surviving members of the cast and crew and firsthand access to both personal and studio archives, the authors reveal Rebel's true drama: the director’s affair with sixteen-year-old Wood, his tempestuous “spiritual marriage” with Dean, and his role in awakening the latent sexuality of Mineo, who would become the first gay teenager to appear on film. This searing account of the upheaval the four artists experienced in the wake of Rebel is complete with thirty photographs, including ten never-before-seen photos by famed Dean photographer Dennis Stock.

The Devereux is a nice residential hotel which caters for a nice class of guest. But the arrival of Mrs Pargeter, an attractive widow, seems to act as a catalyst of disaster for everyone connected with the hotel. On the morning after her arrival, the corpse of one of the frailer residents is found at the foot of the main staircase, and shortly after that another death shakes the gentility of the hotel. Deciding to investigate herself, Mrs Pargeter discovers that more than one person in the Devereux has a motive for murder.

An NYRB Classics Original Winner of the 2014 PEN Translation Prize Winner of the 2014 Read Russia Prize The stakes are wildly high in Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s fantastic and blackly comic philosophical fables, which abound in nested narratives and wild paradoxes. This new collection of eleven mind-bending and spellbinding tales includes some of Krzhizhanovsky’s most dazzling conceits: a provincial journalist who moves to Moscow finds his existence consumed by the autobiography of his room’s previous occupant; the fingers of a celebrated pianist’s right hand run away to spend a night alone on the city streets; a man’s lifelong quest to bite his own elbow inspires both a hugely popular circus act and a new refutation of Kant. Ordinary reality cracks open before our eyes in the pages of Autobiography of a Corpse, and the extraordinary spills out.

“Deliciously macabre and utterly decadent.” —Kerri Maniscalco, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Stalking Jack the Ripper In this dark and twisty feminist historical mystery, a teenage girl starts a new life as a grave robber but quickly becomes entangled in a murderer's plans. Soon after her best friend Kitty mysteriously dies, orphaned seventeen-year-old Molly Green is sent away to live with her "aunt." With no relations that she knows of, Molly assumes she has been sold as a maid for the price of an extra donation in the church orphanage's coffers. Such a thing is not unheard of. There are only so many options for an unmarried girl in 1850s Philadelphia. Only, when Molly arrives, she discovers her aunt is very much real, exceedingly wealthy, and with secrets of her own. Secrets and wealth she intends to share—for a price. Molly's estranged aunt Ava, has built her empire by robbing graves and selling the corpses to medical students who need bodies to practice surgical procedures. And she wants Molly to help her procure the corpses. As Molly learns her aunt's trade in the dead of night and explores the mansion by day, she is both horrified and deeply intrigued by the anatomy lessons held at the old church on her aunt's property. Enigmatic Doctor LaValle's lessons are a heady mixture of knowledge and power and Molly has never wanted anything more than to join his male-only group of students. But the cost of inclusion is steep and with a murderer loose in the city, the pursuit of power and opportunity becomes a deadly dance.

Tom Tanner, the crime-scene-cleaning virtuoso of L.A. Rotten—hailed by Dianne Emley as “eloquent, profound, hilarious, and redemptive”—is going Hollywood. Because a psychopathic movie producer is planning a bloody blockbuster . . . with Tom in a starring role. Tom Tanner has a dark past but he’s no murderer. Unfortunately, Mikey Echo—the spoiled son of the most powerful man in Hollywood—seems to think otherwise. After a young actor suffers an untimely demise out a thirty-fourth-floor window, handsome ex-con Tom is summoned to scrub the splatter below. At the scene, he learns that producer Mikey has an indecent proposal to make—and for Tom, that means signing a deal with the devil. The rotten part is, things had finally been going Tom’s way. He’s got good steady work, a feisty woman to come home to, even a little notoriety for solving a string of grisly motel murders. Now Tom just wants this mad prince of Tinseltown to leave him alone. But the fatalist within braces for the inevitable: To get Mikey Echo off his back, someone must die. Praise for Jeff Klima’s L.A. Rotten “A really impressive debut . . . The book’s black humor reminded me a little of Donald E. Westlake, while the setting and dialogue could have come from Elmore Leonard. Those are two crime-writing legends whose names I don’t evoke lightly. Hopefully, L.A. Rotten is just the start for Jeff Klima.”—Crime Fiction Lover “Eloquent, profound, hilarious, and redemptive, L.A. Rotten has a heart of gold.”—Dianne Emley, bestselling author of the Nan Vining mysteries “A must-read novel for those who enjoy raw, ‘pulpy’ mysteries . . . Engrossing and satisfying, L.A. Rotten is a hard-boiled thriller that readers will be unable to put down.”—Gina Fava, author of The Sculptor

Bertram Cope’s Year chronicles the experiences of Bertram Cope, a young literature instructor who arrives in the fictional town of Churchton to pursue his graduate studies. Set in early 20th-century America, the novel explores Cope’s interactions with the town’s residents, where his charisma and charm quickly captivate those around him. As Cope navigates social engagements and forms close relationships, particularly with his friend Arthur Lemoyne, the narrative subtly examines themes of companionship, love, and societal expectations. Fuller’s writing is distinguished by its witty dialogue and astute social commentary, offering a critique of American social norms of the period. Published in 1919, Bertram Cope’s Year is recognized for its early portrayal of same-sex relationships in literature, depicting them with nuance and sensitivity uncommon for its time. The novel invites readers to reflect on the complexities of identity and relationships in an evolving society. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.