The Abbot's Gibbet aktm-5

The Abbot's Gibbet aktm-5

Michael Jecks

Mystery & Thrillers / Historical Fiction / Short Stories

The year is 1319 and Tavistock's fair has drawn merchants to Devon from all over England and beyond. Keeping the streets clean and the locals in order is no easy task, for the influx of visitors and their money puts temptation in the way of cut-purses and other villains. But no one expects a murder, and butcher Will Ruby is stunned to discover a corpse – a headless corpse at that. Former Knight Templar Sir Baldwin Furnshill, Keeper of the King's Peace, and Simon Puttock, bailiff of Lydford, have just arrived in Tavistock as guests of Abbot Robert Champeaux when the body is found. The crime falls within the Abbot's jurisdiction, and when he asks Simon and Baldwin to investigate, they can hardly refuse. But with an unidentifiable victim, they're badly hampered in their inquiries. Nonetheless there's no shortage of suspicious behaviour to spur them on. Elias, the cook near whose shop the gruesome remains were found, clearly has something to hide. A surprisingly aggressive young monk has been behaving in an ungodly fashion. And the town is awash with strangers, any one of whom could be concealing a sinister past. Can Simon and Baldwin unravel the complex web of intrigue that has brought death to Tavistock, as the undercurrents of anger and violence that lie beneath the bustling activity of the fair grow ever fiercer?
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Only Child b-14

Only Child b-14

Andrew Vachss

Literature & Fiction / Mystery & Thrillers / Short Stories

After years on the run, Burke is desperate to return to his native New York, the only way he can reconnect with his outlaw "family." But to survive in their part of the City, where reputation is everything, Burke must take major risks to reestablish his presence. So when a Mafia man contacts him about the murder-as-message of his sixteen-year-old daughter - the offspring of what he calls an "outside the tribe" affair that he must keep secret at all costs - Burke's depleted bankroll persuades him to step out of the shadows and do something he hasn't done in years...actually investigate a crime.Burke needs cover to penetrate the teenage subculture of the Long Island town where the girl lived and died, so he puts together a crew of gifted role-players, including a pair of lesbian "power exchangers" who market their special brand of sex on the Internet. When Burke himself surfaces as a casting director, seeking tomorrow's stars for a movie to be shot on location, the investigation quickly spins off into uncharted depths. What he discovers is a new kind of filmmaking, a new kind of violence, and a predator unlike any he's ever known. When they meet head-on over a brutal work of cinema verite, only one of them will survive the final cut.
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The Rot

The Rot

Kipp Poe Speicher

Horror / Short Stories

What starts as a normal morning turns into a complete nightmare, What would you do if you could not find a breath of fresh air, and all you could smell was The Rot.Review by: Chantale Reve on Mar. 21, 2011 : I have just read "The Rot" and am absolutely chilled to the bone. With an economy of words but an expanse of compassion, Speicher keeps the reader of this cryptic tale in suspense until the end. Palpable, odorous, stifling and frightening, Speich's masterful flash fiction left me wobbly in the shoes of his everyman protagonist. Also includes BONUS short stories "Closing My Eyes Helps Me To See Clearly, and a new edit of DIE ALREADY, and now my new short "i" and, "It Was The Dead Who Groaned Within" all five books in one collection.
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H. M. S. Ulysses

H. M. S. Ulysses

Alistair MacLean

Mystery & Thrillers / Biographies & Memoirs / Short Stories

The book that launched the career of one of the world's most popular thriller writers of all time, HMS Ulysses tells the story of enlisted men who rose to great heroism in savage conditions.Alongside The Caine Mutiny and The Cruel Sea, HMS Ulysses is one of the classic novels of the navy at war and a gripping survival tale. On a desperate voyage to Murmansk, the men of convoy FR77 are pushed to the limits of human endurance, crippled by relentless enemy attack and the bitter cold of the Arctic."A story of exceptional courage which grips the imagination." —Daily Telegraph"A brilliant, overwhelming piece of descriptive writing." —The Observer"It deserves an honorable place among twentieth-century war books." —Daily Mail
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Collected Poems

Collected Poems

Chinua Achebe

Fiction / History / Short Stories

A collection of poetry spanning the full range of the African-born author's acclaimed career has been updated to include seven never-before-published works, as well as much of his early poetry that explores such themes as the African consciousness, the tragedy of Biafra, and the mysteries of human relationships.
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The Amazing Web

The Amazing Web

Harry Stephen Keeler

Mystery & Thrillers / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Short Stories

How the Trigger-Finger of a Man Long Dead Sent Another Man To His DeathIn this gigantic mystery story, Mr. Keeler has employed atavism in his plot, a thing that has probably never before been attempted in mystery fiction. Starting in pirate days with the bitter enmity between Captain Kidd and Captain Quarlbush whom Kidd marooned on a desert island for mutiny and thus deprived of a share in the spoils, Mr. Keeler conjures up in modern times a descendant of each of them and shows how in a mysterious way Quarlbush was finally avenged.Standing one day before a strange beautiful Chinese cabinet, in which he was seeking some priceless papers, Kidd's descendant falls dead. With many dramatic suspenses, Mr. Keeler tells the story of how Captain Quarlbush, bent upon revenge, secretly built the beautiful Chinese cabinet, which he plotted to fall into Kidd's hands. This is the basis of the primary plot to which are interlaced many other plots in this incomparable book.
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