Kimberly Clark was born to the sound of cackling witches in 1984. Having moved to London to follow her heart's dream, the sweet-but-slow Stevie, she soon tires of him and decides to destroy the relationship from within by being as vile as is humanly possible. When this tactic leads to Stevie's violent death by his own hand, Kimberly's soul hangs in the balance - will she ultimately spend eternity in the great Topshop in the sky? Or will she be hurtled into an abyss of endless physical torture, sexual humilation and bad stand-up comedy? This is the story of Kimberly's redemption, or possibly the story of her damnation: it's up to you. There are six different endings to choose between. This is a shocking, laugh-out-loud, nightmare-and-nausea-inducing book; a wild narrative experiment that recalls taboo-busting writers from William Burroughs to Irvine Welsh to Chuck Palahniuk.

The history of the execution of women in the United States has largely been ignored and scholars have given scant attention to gender issues in capital punishment. This historical analysis examines the social, political and economic contexts in which the justice system has put women to death, revealing a pattern of patriarchal domination and female subordination. The book includes a discussion of condemned women granted executive clemency and judicial commutations, an inquiry into women falsely convicted in potentially capital cases and a profile of the current female death row population.

The issue of capital punishment is a continually-debated issue because it calls into question the values and direction of society. How is a civilisation supposed to handle lawbreakers? Are some crimes so heinous and some people so dangerous that the death penalty is the only appropriate response? The United States Constitution prohibits 'cruel and unusual punishment', but opinions on whether that includes capital punishment are vehement on both sides. Many states have some form of death penalty, and public opinion seems to indicate support of it in principle. However, many firestorms have erupted recently over the application of the penalty, including the topics of its use on minors and those with mental disabilities. There are also questions raised about how much of a factor race plays in a capital sentence. Internationally, several countries have foresworn the death penalty, with certain countries in Europe and the Americas refusing to extradite criminal suspects (including suspected terrorists) to the US if capital punishment is a possible sentence. With such politically flammable and ethically challenging issues hanging over it, capital punishment is a vitally important issue to understand. To help facilitate that study, this book assembles a carefully selected and substantial listing of literature focussing on the death penalty. Anyone researching this area of criminal justice will find this book an important tool as it offers easy access to the most relevant works about capital punishment. Following the bibliography, further access is provided with author, title, and subject indexes.

The essays selected for this volume develop conventional abolition discourse and explore the conceptual framework through which abolition is understood and posited. Of particular interest is the attention given to an integral but often forgotten element of the abolition debate: alternatives to capital punishment. The volume also provides an account of strategies employed by the abolition community which challenges tired methodologies and offers a level of transparency previously unseen. This collection tackles complex but fundamental components of the capital punishment debate using empirical data and expert observations and is essential reading for those wishing to comprehend the fundamental issues which underpin capital punishment discourse.

This updated encyclopedia provides ready information on all aspects of capital punishment in America. It details virtually every capital punishment decision rendered by the United States Supreme Court through 2006, including more than 40 cases decided since publication of the first edition. Entries are also provided for each Supreme Court Justice who has ever rendered a capital punishment opinion. Entries on jurisdictions cite present-day death penalty laws and judicial structure state by state, with synopses of common and unique features. Also included are entries on significant U.S. capital prosecutions; legal principles and procedures in capital cases; organizations that support and oppose capital punishment; capital punishment's impact on persons of African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American descent, on women, and on foreign nationals; and the methods of execution. Essential facts are also provided on capital punishment in more than 200 other nations. A wealth of statistical data is found throughout.

Notable Reprobates examines the pathological phenomena of serial killing and mass murder. It provides detailed case studies of notorious multi-murderers Elizabeth Bathory, H. H. Holmes, Belle Gunness, Ted Bundy, and Joseph J. DeAngelo Jr. Chapter 6 explains DNA and other modern methods of crime detection. The final section deals with heinous political regimes that have resorted to serial mass murder as a matter of policy, including Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, Mao Zedong’s Red China, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge Movement in Cambodia. In the final analysis, criminal despots such as Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were exponentially worse for humanity than the likes of John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

'A major talent' Irvine Welsh 'Remarkable, beautiful, magic. Like Ulysses for those who can't cope with reading Ulysses' Paolo Hewitt 'We're all in the gutter but some of us are ogling the sparkles.' Set at the fag-end of the 1960s and framed as a novel within a novel published by a seedy London purveyor of pulp fiction, MAN-EATING TYPEWRITER is a homage to the avant-garde counterculture of the 20th century. Told in Polari, it is the story of an anarchist named Raymond Novak and his plan to commit a 'fantabulosa crime' in 276 days that will revolt the world. A surrealistic odyssey that stretches from occupied Paris to the cruise-liner SS Unmentionable to lawless Tangier before settling in Swinging London, the book casts Novak as an agitator and freedom fighter - but, as his memoirs become more and more threatening, his publishers find themselves far more involved in his violent personality cult than they ever intended. Constructed like a hallucinogenic cocktail of A Clockwork Orange, Pale Fire and Jean Genet's jailbird fantasies, MAN-EATING TYPEWRITER is an act of seductive sedition by a writer with unfathomable literary talent and boldness. Wild, transgressive, erotic and resolutely uncompromising, this marks the return of a writer who is out there on an island of his own making; a book that will be talked about, celebrated and puzzled over for decades.

One For The Trouble is the first in a series of newly-commissioned writing from Book Slam authors. Writers include leading names such as William Boyd, Irvine Welsh, Patrick Ness, Hari Kunzru and Jon Ronson; to rising stars like Helen Oyeyemi, Joe Dunthorne and Tim Key; plus exciting newcomers like Sophie Woolley, Kate Tempest and Luke Wright. Book Slam has a long-established reputation as London's best book event, bringing together storytellers in every form, including novelists, journalists, poets, comedians and songwriters. The decision to extend the brand into publishing is a natural one and reflects the changing nature of publishing and bookselling. For the last eight years, Book Slam has worked to promote literature in a way that bookshops cannot do, and break down the imagined boundaries between 'literary' and 'popular' culture. The nature of publishing and bookselling has evolved, and with numerous new platforms, outlets and production tools, access to both the publication and consumption of the written word has widened like never before. One For The Trouble grants Book Slam the opportunity to showcase a diversity of the best contemporary literature in a way that ensures writers are given fair reward for their work and that is both financially and technologically accessible to all. Writers were asked to take inspiration from a favourite song to create new pieces exclusive to Book Slam. Simon Armitage's poem, for example, reflects hauntingly on the suicide of Joy Division's Ian Curtis, while award-winning YA author, Patrick Ness, stretches his skills with a darkly comic take on Let Me Entertain You. One For The Trouble will be published as a beautifully realized, limited edition hardback, signed by all the short story writers - highly prized and collectible. It will also be simultaneously released as an eBook, multi-platform App and audio download, allowing stories and poems to be purchased individually or as part of the whole. This is a genuinely innovative take on the new possibilities of publishing, distribution and reward - one of a kind and the first in an annual series!

This fifth edition of the first true textbook on the death penalty engages the reader with a full account of the arguments and issues surrounding capital punishment. The book begins with the history of the death penalty from colonial to modern times, and then examines the moral and legal arguments for and against capital punishment. It also provides an overview of major Supreme Court decisions and describes the legal process behind the death penalty. In addressing these issues, the author reviews recent developments in death penalty law and procedure, including ramifications of newer case law, such as that regarding using lethal injection as a method of execution. The author’s motivation has been to understand what motivates the "deathquest" of the American people, leading a large percentage of the public to support the death penalty. The book educates readers so that whatever their death penalty positions are, they are informed opinions.

"Against Capital Punishment offers an innovative argument against the death penalty that sidesteps questions about the morality of execution itself. Benjamin S. Yost argues that the irrevocability of the death penalty calls for its abolition. In so doing, he explores the extent of legal institutions' responsibility to remedy their mistakes and solves the problems that sabotage other versions of procedural abolitionism."--