"To know things, for us to know things, is bad for them. We get to wanting and when we get to wanting it's bad for them. They thinks we want what they got . . . . That's why they don't want us reading." -- Nightjohn "I didn't know what letters was, not what they meant, but I thought it might be something I wanted to know. To learn."--Sarny Sarny, a female slave at the Waller plantation, first sees Nightjohn when he is brought there with a rope around his neck, his body covered in scars. He had escaped north to freedom, but he came back--came back to teach reading. Knowing that the penalty for reading is dismemberment Nightjohn still retumed to slavery to teach others how to read. And twelve-year-old Sarny is willing to take the risk to learn. Set in the 1850s, Gary Paulsen's groundbreaking new novel is unlike anything else the award-winning author has written. It is a meticulously researched, historically accurate, and artistically crafted portrayal of a grim time in our nation's past, brought to light through the personal history of two unforgettable characters.

Many readers of Nightjohn have wanted to know what happened to Sarny, the young slave whom Nightjohn taught to read. Here is Sarny's story, from the moment she leaves the plantation in the last days of the Civil War, suddenly a free woman in search of her sold-away children. Her search takes her to New Orleans and the home of the mysterious and remarkable Miss Laura. Like Nightjohn, Miss Laura changes Sarny's life, and she helps Sarny pass Nightjohn's gift on to new generations. This riveting saga follows Sarny until her last days in the 1930s and gives readers a panoramic view of America in a time of trial, tragedy, and hoped-for change.

Bold and inventive in style, City of Night is the groundbreaking 1960s novel about male prostitution. Rechy is unflinching in his portrayal of one hustling 'youngman' and his search for self-knowledge among the other denizens of his neon-lit world. As the narrator moves from Texas to Times Square and then on to the French Quarter of New Orleans, Rechy delivers a portrait of the edges of America that has lost none of its power. On his travels, the nameless narrator meets a collection of unforgettable characters, from vice cops to guilt-ridden married men eaten up by desire, to Lance O'Hara, once Hollywood's biggest star. Rechy describes this world with candour and understanding in a prose that is highly personal and vividly descriptive.

In a peaceful Vermont courtroom, humanity will be called to trial by endless evil. Ancient and implacable -- armed with sensuality, delusion and horrible death -- it will join itself to human weakness in an unholy alliance. Against it stand only imperfect human beings, caught in a world-spanning struggle in which they have everything to lose -- for all of us -- and only human strength to help them. Not since The Exorcist has there been such a powerful novel of demonic possession as Son of the Endless Night; perhaps never has there been a novel that so weds supernatural horror with human weakness as to make the two inextricably one.

A desperate ex-cop searches for a shadowy killer in a thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author: “One of the masters of the police novel.” —Ridley Pearson A killer dubbed “The Night Prowler” has turned the city that doesn’t sleep into a town kept awake by terror. Unseen, he enters couples’ homes. Unsuspected, he lingers until the perfect moment arrives. He leaves “gifts” for his victims—before taking their lives. Enter ex-homicide cop Frank Quinn, still reeling in the wake of an elaborate setup that ended his career. For Quinn, this isn’t just any job—it’s a last chance to salvage his reputation. As the investigation proceeds, the murderer loses no time stalking new prey: a loan officer and her high-earning husband; a couple who made a killing in the stock market; a pretty actress and her prosperous lover. With the body count rising, it’s up to Quinn to unlock the mystery of a madman’s past and end his bloody reign. Quinn’s got his work cut out—because in a city the size of New York, any one of eight million faces could be that of a killer—or his next target . . . “I’ve been a fan of John Lutz for years.” —T. Jefferson Parker “John Lutz just keeps getting better and better.” —Tony Hillerman “Some writers just have a flair for imaginative suspense, and John Lutz is one of them.” —Jeremiah Healy “John Lutz is the new Lawrence Sanders.” —Mystery Scene “Lutz knows how to seize and hold the reader’s imagination.” —The Plain Dealer “Lutz’s real gift is to evoke detective work better than anyone else.” —Kirkus R

John M. Ford's The Scholars of Night is an extraordinary novel of technological espionage and human betrayal, weaving past and present into a web of unbearable suspense. Nicholas Hansard is a brilliant historian at a small New England college. He specializes in Christopher Marlowe. But Hansard has a second, secret, career with The White Group, a “consulting agency” with shadowy government connections. There, he is a genius at teasing secrets out of documents old and new—to call him a code-breaker is an understatement. When Hansard’s work exposes one of his closest friends as a Russian agent, and the friend then dies mysteriously, the connections seem all too clear. Shaken, Hansard turns away from his secret work to lose himself in an ancient Marlowe manuscript. Surely, a lost 400 year old play is different enough from modern murder. He is very, very wrong. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Madman's Obsession Is A City's Nightmare He comes out when the sun goes down. He's made New York City his shooting gallery. The Night Sniper threatens to increase the body count-unless legendary homicide detective Vin Repetto is willing to engage him in a lethal game of cat and mouse. When the next victim is murdered right before Repetto's eyes, the game is set to begin. But The Night Sniper doesn't realize they're playing by Repetto's rules. . . "A HEART-POUNDING ROLLER COASTER OF A TALE." --Jeffery Deaver on Night Victims "A PAGE-TURNER. . .TWISTY, CREEPY." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Mister X "LUTZ IS IN RARE FORM." -The New York Times Book Review on Chill of Night

Stoner author John Williams's first novel is a searing look at a man's relationship with his absent father, and how early trauma manifests throughout one's life John Williams’s first novel is a brooding psychological noir. Arthur Maxley is a young man at the end of his emotional rope. Having dropped out of college, he’s holed up in a big-city hotel, living off an allowance from his family, feeling nothing but alone and doing nothing but drinking to forget it. What’s brought him to this point? Something is troubling him, something is haunting him, something he cannot bring himself either to face or to turn away from. And now his father has come to town, a hail-fellow-well-met kind of guy. They’ve been estranged for years, and yet Arthur wants to meet—and so he does, reeling away from the encounter for a night of drinking and dancing and a final reckoning with the traumatizing past that readers will not soon forget. This edition of Nothing but the Night includes an interview with Nancy Gardner Williams, the author’s widow.

Australia has been invaded. Nothing is as it was. Six teenagers are living out their nightmare in the sanctuary of a hidden valley called Hell. Alone, they make their own rules, protect what is theirs, and struggle for courage and hope in a world changed forever. Seeking supplies, allies, and information, the friends make forays into enemy territory, drawing on nerve and resourcefulness they never even knew they had. As the risks become greater, so too do the sacrifices they must make. Intense, passionate, and compulsive, The Dead of Night continues the frighteningly real story begun in Tomorrow, When the War Began.

Discover the captivating treasures buried in the British Library's archives. Largely inaccessible to the public until now, these enduring crime classics were written in the golden age of detective fiction. With an introduction by Martin Edwards and featuring the Dickson Carr short story "The Shadow of the Goat" We are thrilled to welcome John Dickson Carr into the Crime Classics series with his first novel, a brooding locked room mystery in the gathering dusk of the French capital. In the smoke-wreathed gloom of a Parisian salon, Inspector Bencolin has summoned his allies to discuss a peculiar case. A would-be murderer, imprisoned for his attempt to kill his wife, has escaped and is known to have visited a plastic surgeon. His whereabouts remain a mystery, though with his former wife poised to marry another, Bencolin predicts his return. Sure enough, the Inspector's worst suspicions are realized when the beheaded body of the new suitor is discovered in a locked room of the salon, with no apparent exit. Bencolin sets off into the Parisian night to unravel the dumbfounding mystery and track down the sadistic killer. Penned during the golden age of mysteries, this thrilling investigation brings a detective face to face with the darkest parts of Paris. And after the thrilling conclusion of the locked room mystery, sit back and enjoy the short story "The Shadow of the Goat", also included in this exclusive British Library crime classic.