When a dispute among the Fellows of St. Severin's College, Oxford University, reaches a stalemate, Lord Peter Wimsey discovers that as the Duke of Denver he is "the Visitor"—charged with the task of resolving the issue. It is time for Lord Peter and his detective novelist wife, Harriet, to revisit their beloved Oxford, where their long and literate courtship finally culminated in their engagement and marriage. At first, the dispute seems a simple difference of opinion about a valuable manuscript that some of the Fellows regard as nothing but an insurance liability, which should be sold to finance a speculative purchase of land. The voting is evenly balanced. The Warden would normally cast the deciding vote, but he has disappeared. And when several of the Fellows unexpectedly die as well, Lord Peter and Harriet set off on an investigation to uncover what is really going on at St. Severin's. With this return in The Late Scholar to the Oxford of Gaudy Night, which many readers regard as their favorite of Sayers's original series, Jill Paton Walsh at once revives the wit and brilliant plotting of the Golden Age of detective fiction.

Peter Wimsey is pleased to discover that along with a Dukedom he has inherited the duties of 'visitor' at an Oxford college. When the fellows appeal to him to resolve a dispute, he and Harriet set off happily to spend some time in Oxford. But the dispute turns out to be embittered. The voting is evenly balanced between two passionate parties - evenly balanced, that is, until several of the fellows unexpectedly die. The Warden has a casting vote, but the Warden has disappeared. And the causes of death of the deceased fellows bear an uncanny resemblance to the murder methods in Peter's past cases - methods that Harriet has used in her published novels.

When Peter discovers that as the Duke of Denver he is the Visitor - that is, the ultimate regulator - of St Severin's College, and the fellows appeal to him to solve a dispute, he and Harriet set off happily to spend some time in Oxford, the city of their engagement and wedding. But the dispute turns out to be embittered. It concerns a valuable manuscript that some of the fellows regard as nothing but an insurance liability which shoud be sold to finance a speculative purchase of land. The voting is evenly balanced between the party that would sell and the party that would keep it - evenly balanced, that is, until several of the fellows unexpectedly die. And the causes of death of the deceased fellows bear an uncanny resemblance to the murder methods in Peter's past cases - methods that Harriet has used in her published novels.

In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was discovered in her agent's safe in London, and award-winning novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it. The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh was the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations. Now, following A Presumption of Death, set during World War II, comes a new Sayers-inspired mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, revisiting his very first case. . . . It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury Emeralds. The recovery of the gems in Lord Attenbury's dazzling heirloom collection made headlines—and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective. Thirty years later, a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Suddenly, the new Lord Attenbury—grandson of Lord Peter's first client—seeks his help to prove who owns the emeralds. As Harriet and Peter contemplate the changes that the war has wrought on English society—and Peter, who always cherished the liberties of a younger son, faces the unwanted prospect of ending up the Duke of Denver after all—Jill Paton Walsh brings us a masterful new chapter in the annals of one of the greatest detectives of all time.

From international #1 bestselling author of The Ruin and The Murder Rule comes a compulsive crime thriller set in the fiercely competitive, cutthroat world of research and academia, where the brightest minds will stop at nothing to succeed. When Dr. Emma Sweeney stumbles across the victim of a hit-and-run outside Galway University early one morning, she calls her boyfriend, Detective Cormac Reilly, bringing him first to the scene of a murder that would otherwise never have been assigned to him. The dead girl is carrying an ID that will put this crime at the center of a scandal--her card identifies her as Carline Darcy, heir apparent to Darcy Therapeutics, Ireland's most successful pharmaceutical company. Darcy Therapeutics has a finger in every pie, from sponsoring university research facilities to funding political parties to philanthropy--it has even funded Emma's own ground-breaking research. As the murder investigation twists in unexpected ways and Cormac's running of the case comes under scrutiny from the department and his colleagues, he is forced to question himself and the beliefs that he has long held as truths. Who really is Emma? And who is Carline Darcy? A gripping and atmospheric follow-up to The Ruin, an "expertly plotted, complex web of secrets that refuse to stay hidden" (Karen Dionne, author of The Marsh King's Daughter), The Scholar is perfect for fans of Tana French and Flynn Berry.

The impact of The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the "no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade." For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding -- all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ. The years since have confirmed Lindsey's insights into what biblical prophecy says about the times we live in. Whether you're a church-going believer or someone who wouldn't darken the door of a Christian institution, the Bible has much to tell you about the imminent future of this planet. In the midst of an out-of-control generation, it reveals a grand design that's unfolding exactly according to plan. The rebirth of Israel. The threat of war in the Middle East. An increase in natural catastrophes. The revival of Satanism and witchcraft. These and other signs, foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus, portend the coming of an antichrist . . . of a war which will bring humanity to the brink of destruction . . . and of incredible deliverance for a desperate, dying planet.

In this thrilling tale of fear, a desperate scholar is driven by love into the darkest corners of the world When Aurek Nuiken travels to Richemulot to search for a spellbook that lies buried within the dark bowels of the undercity, little does he know the horrors that await. As two beautiful women vie for the interest of the enigmatic scholar and his handsome younger brother, a family of wererats and a double dose of sibling rivalry conspire to endanger not only Aurek but the object he holds most dear: his wife, who has been attacked and made prisoner by an evil mage. Faced with his own personal torment and the all-too-real monsters of Ravenloft, the scholar is pushed to the edge of madness and a choice no man should ever have to make.

"One afternoon, Laurie Patton, then chair of the religious studies department at her university, sat in her office collating death threats. A colleague had come under attack by members of the Hindu diaspora for a scholarly study that they judged offensive. A global petition demanded that the book be withdrawn, and threats against the author included explicit calls for his execution. This case is one of many in which the secular study of religion has scandalized-and been passionately refuted by-the very communities it had imagined itself embracing. Authors of seemingly arcane studies on subjects like the origins of the idea of Mother Earth or the sexual dynamics of mysticism have been targets of hate mail and topics of book-banning discussions. As a result, scholars of religion have struggled to describe their own work even to themselves. In this book, scholar and noted university administrator Laurie Patton looks at the cultural work of religious studies through scholars' clashes with religious communities, especially in the late 1980s and 90s. These kinds of controversies emerged with new frequency and passion during this period because of two conditions: 1) the rise of the multicultural politics of recognition, which changed the nature of debate in the public sphere and created the possibility for Patton calls "eruptive" public spaces; and 2) the emergence of the Internet, which changed the nature of readership. "Others" about whom scholars wrote to their colleagues were now also readers who could agree or condemn in public forums. These controversies were also fundamentally about something new: the very rights of secular, Western hermeneutics to interpret religions at all. Patton's book holds out hope that scholars can find a space for their work between the university and the communities they study. Their role, she suggests, is similar to that of the wise fool in many classical dramas and indeed in many religious traditions. Scholars of religion have multiple masters and must move between them while speaking a truth that not everyone may be interested in hearing"--

In imperial China, intellectuals devoted years of their lives to passing rigorous examinations in order to obtain a civil service position in the state bureaucracy. This traditional employment of the literati class conferred social power and moral legitimacy, but changing social and political circumstances in the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) periods forced many to seek alternative careers. Politically engaged but excluded from their traditional bureaucratic roles, creative writers authored critiques of state power in the form of fiction written in the vernacular language. In this study, Liangyan Ge examines the novels Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Scholars, Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as Story of the Stone), and a number of erotic pieces, showing that as the literati class grappled with its own increasing marginalization, its fiction reassessed the assumption that intellectuals' proper role was to serve state interests and began to imagine possibilities for a new political order. The open access publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation.