This eBook edition has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. As a young man Henry Dunbar, heir to the London banking house, was spoiled and arrogant. When he fell into debt he convinced his friend Joseph Wilmot, a clerk with a gift for reproducing handwriting, to help him create forged bonds that he could use to pay off his creditors. When the bank uncovered the fraud Henry blamed Wilmot for everything. His uncle still banished Henry to the firm's Indian office and dismissed Wilmot. Thirty years later, upon his father's death, Henry Dunbar is returning to London in order to inherit the family business. Wilmot, who was never able to get a decent job after the fraud incident, hears of Henry's return, so he decides to meet him and confront him. The bank also sends a man to welcome Henry to England. Two men head off to meet Henry, but only one of them would get to meet him. And only one of those three will return to London, leaving a murder mystery behind.

As a young man Henry Dunbar, heir to the London banking house, was spoiled and arrogant. When he fell into debt he convinced his friend Joseph Wilmot, a clerk with a gift for reproducing handwriting, to help him create forged bonds that he could use to pay off his creditors. When the bank uncovered the fraud Henry blamed Wilmot for everything. His uncle still banished Henry to the firm's Indian office and dismissed Wilmot. Thirty years later, upon his father's death, Henry Dunbar is returning to London in order to inherit the family business. Wilmot, who was never able to get a decent job after the fraud incident, hears of Henry's return, so he decides to meet him and confront him. The bank also sends a man to welcome Henry to England. Two men head off to meet Henry, but only one of them would get to meet him. And only one of those three will return to London, leaving a murder mystery behind.

With the Christmas season upon him, Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson of Edinburgh's finest is gearing up socially—kicking things off with a week of sex and drugs in Amsterdam. There are some sizable flies in the ointment, though: a missing wife and child, a nagging cocaine habit, some painful below-the-belt eczema, and a string of demanding extramarital affairs. The last thing Robertson needs is a messy, racially fraught murder, even if it means overtime—and the opportunity to clinch the promotion he craves. Then there's that nutritionally demanding (and psychologically acute) intestinal parasite in his gut. Yes, things are going badly for this utterly corrupt tribune of the law, but in an Irvine Welsh novel nothing is ever so bad that it can't get a whole lot worse. . . .In Bruce Robertson Welsh has created one of the most compellingly misanthropic characters in contemporary fiction, in a dark and disturbing and often scabrously funny novel about the abuse of everything and everybody. "Welsh writes with a skill, wit and compassion that amounts to genius. He is the best thing that has happened to British writing in decades."—Sunday Times [London] "[O]ne of the most significant writers in Britain. He writes with style, imagination, wit, and force, and in a voice which those alienated by much current fiction clearly want to hear."—Times Literary Supplement "Welsh writes with such vile, relentless intensity that he makes Louis-Ferdinand Céline, the French master of defilement, look like Little Miss Muffet. "—Courtney Weaver, The New York Times Book Review "The corrupt Edinburgh cop-antihero of Irvine Welsh's best novel since Trainspotting is an addictive personality in another sense: so appallingly powerful is his character that it's hard to put the book down....[T]he rapid-fire rhythm and pungent dialect of the dialogue carry the reader relentlessly toward the literally filthy denouement. "—Village Voice Literary Supplement, "Our 25 Favorite Books of 1998" "Welsh excels at making his trash-spewing bluecoat peculiarly funny and vulnerable—and you will never think of the words 'Dame Judi Dench' in the same way ever again. [Grade:] A-. "—Charles Winecoff, Entertainment Weekly

A reimagining of one of Shakespeare's most well-read tragedies, by the contemporary, critically acclaimed master of domestic drama Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he hands over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan, but as relations sour he starts to doubt the wisdom of past decisions. Now imprisoned in Meadowmeade, an upscale sanatorium in rural England, with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape. As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels. But who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate? Edward St Aubyn is renowned for his masterwork, the five Melrose novels, which dissect with savage and beautiful precision the agonies of family life. His take on King Lear, Shakespeare’s most devastating family story, is an excoriating novel for and of our times – an examination of power, money and the value of forgiveness.

Musaicum Books presents to you this unique collection, designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: Mary Shelley: Frankenstein The Mortal Immortal… John William Polidori: The Vampyre Bram Stoker: Dracula The Jewel of Seven Stars… Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera Marjorie Bowen: Black Magic James Malcolm Rymer & Thomas Peckett Prest: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart The Murders in the Rue Morgue The Black Cat… Henry James: The Turn of the Screw The Ghostly Rental… H. P. Lovecraft: The Dunwich Horror The Shunned House… Algernon Blackwood: The Willows A Haunted Island Ancient Sorceries… Théophile Gautier: Clarimonde The Mummy's Foot Richard Marsh: The Beetle Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles The Silver Hatchet… Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla Uncle Silas… Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho The Italian M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary A Thin Ghost and Others Wilkie Collins: The Haunted Hotel The Devil's Spectacles Émile Erckmann & Alexandre Chatrian: The Man-Wolf The Waters of Death… Amelia B. Edwards: Monsieur Maurice The Phantom Coach… Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: The Wind in the Rose-bush The Shadows on the Wall Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan The Terror… William Hope Hodgson: The House on the Borderland The Night Land M. P. Shiel: Shapes in the Fire Ralph Adams Cram: Black Spirits and White Grant Allen: The Reverend John Creedy Wilhelm Hauff: The Severed Hand Adelbert von Chamisso: Shadowless Man Edward Bulwer-Lytton: The Haunted and the Haunters… Robert E. Howard: Beyond the Black River Devil in Iron People of the Dark David Lindsay: The Haunted Woman Marie Belloc Lowndes: From Out the Vast Deep Edward Bellamy: Dr. Heidenhoff's Process