A grisly murder reveals the hateful secrets that lie beneath a small town’s surface The locals call her the Ballou. An illustrator for a high-fashion magazine, she has been the talk of the upstate town of Sutton ever since she first appeared, paying cash for one of the finest houses on Nicholas Street. Daring, gaudy, and grand, she inspires envy in the women and lust in the men. And in one member of this quiet town, she is about to inspire murder. The trouble starts when her rakish New York lover moves in full time, scandalizing the prudish Ayers family next door. When the Ayers’ maid pays a social call to the Ballou, she finds her lying dead at the foot of a staircase—gray, cold, and fabulous no more. Suspicion falls on the Ayerses, whose starched exterior hides a wealth of ugly secrets. From this interlocking narrative told from the perspectives of the citizens of Sutton comes a reminder that no town is too small for murder.

This volume describes the challenges the Catholic Church has faced in the past and analyzes the religious, social, and political significance of each Pope's reign. Besides the history of the Papacy, this book provides the reader with a glimpse into European history as it intersects with the story of the Church.

Forget naughty or nice; this is a battle of good and evil. Luminary Joyce and co-author Geringer deliver the first book in a new series. Before Santa was Santa, he was Nicholas St. North--a daredevil swordsman whose prowess with double scimitars was legendary. Illustrations.

When Alexi learns from his babuskha that a Russian village church has been closed for sixty years, the resourceful young boy decides to prepare it for a Christmas miracle.

A collection of stories, legends, fairy tales, fables, and poems for young children, including Shakespeare, and Robert Herrick through Blake, Keats, and Tennyson, as well as anonymous authors of folk tales and old carols.

The detective story--the classic whodunit with its time-displacement structure of crime--according to most literary historians, is of relatively recent origin. Early in its development, the whodunit was harshly criticized for its tightly formula-bound structure. Many critics prematurely proclaimed "the death of the whodunit" and even of detective fiction altogether. Yet today, the genre is alive, as contemporary authors have brought it into modern times through a significant integration of elaborate character development and psychology. With the modern psychological detective story emerging from the historical cauldron of detective fiction and early psychology, the genre continues to develop a complexity that reflects and guides the literary sophistication needed. This book, the first of its kind, analyzes over 150 whodunit novels and short stories across the decades, from The Moonstone to the contemporary novels that saved the genre from an ignominious death.

An international manhunt sets the scene for an explosive thriller in the second Brit in the FBI novel featuring Special Agent Nicholas Drummond. After working with Special Agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, Nicholas Drummond has joined the FBI. Now, he and partner Mike Caine are in an eleventh-hour race to stop a madman from finding a cache of lost World War I gold—and a weapon unlike anything the world has ever seen... “A thriller packed with nonstop action, real-life name-dropping and enough cutting-edge science to make you wonder how much of it could be true.”—Kirkus Reviews

Film noir is more than a cinematic genre. It is an essential aspect of American culture. Along with the cowboy of the Wild West, the denizen of the film noir city is at the very center of our mythological iconography. Described as the style of an anxious victor, film noir began during the post-war period, a strange time of hope and optimism mixed with fear and even paranoia. The shadow of this rich and powerful cinematic style can now be seen in virtually every artistic medium. The spectacular success of recent neo-film noirs is only the tip of an iceberg. In the dead-on, nocturnal jazz of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, the chilled urban landscapes of Edward Hopper, and postwar literary fiction from Nelson Algren and William S. Burroughs to pulp masters like Horace McCoy, we find an unsettling recognition of the dark hollowness beneath the surface of the American Dream. Acclaimed novelist and poet Nicholas Christopher explores the cultural identity of film noir in a seamless, elegant, and enchanting work of literary prose. Examining virtually the entire catalogue of film noir, Christopher identifies the central motif as the urban labyrinth, a place infested with psychosis, anxiety, and existential dread in which the noir hero embarks on a dangerously illuminating quest. With acute sensitivity, he shows how technical devices such as lighting, voice over, and editing tempo are deployed to create the film noir world. Somewhere in the Night guides us through the architecture of this imaginary world, be it shot in New York or Los Angeles, relating its elements to the ancient cultural archetypes that prefigure it. Finally, Christopher builds an explanation of why film noir not only lives on but is currently enjoying a renaissance. Somewhere in the Night can be appreciated as a lucid introduction to a fundamental style of American culture, and also as a guide to film noir's heyday. Ultimately, though, as the work of a bold talent adeptly manipulating poetic cadence and metaphor, it is itself a superb aesthetic artifact.

This companion to the history of Ipswich will prove and indispensable guide for residents and visitors alike to the past and present of a town that in the 2000 celebrated the 800th anniversary of its first charter. Essential information on people who have played key roles in the story, on the streets and lanes, and on events that have occurred over the centuries are to be found here, presented in a convenient A to Z format. The events range from the presentation of King John's charter to the lighting of the fist gas jet with a pound note, and from the Danish takeover of the town in the ninth century to Ipswich Town's FA Cup victory in 1978. The book will answer many of the questions so often asked: where was the castle? who were the bailiffs who ruled the town for more than 600 years? what were the Cold Dunghills? when did Ipswich Town Football Club turn professional? how did Ipswich Witches come to ride at Foxhall?