Ladies and Gentlemen...I have to state that Mrs Lovett' s pies are made OF human flesh ! ' This shocking announcement provides the stunning d' enouement TO a narrative first published OVER a period OF four months IN the winter OF 1846 - 7. The revelation marked ONLY the beginning, however, OF the notorious career OF Sweeney Todd, soon known TO legend AS the ' Demon Barber ' OF London ' s Fleet Street.The story OF Todd ' s entrepreneurial partnership WITH neighbouring pie - maker Margery Lovett - at ONCE inconceivably unpalatable AND undeniably compelling - has subsequently provided the substance FOR a seemingly endless series OF successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs AND ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, AND musicals.Both gleeful AND ghoulish, the original tale OF Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String OF Pearls, IS an early classic OF British horror writing.It combines the story OF Todd 's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victims with a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London' s dark AND unsavoury streets.This edition provides an authoritative text OF the first version OF the story ever TO be published, AS well AS a lively introduction TO its history AND reputation.
Returning to her small home town in Vermont to care for her Alzheimer's patient mother, reserved forty-one-year-old nurse Kate finds herself inadvertently drawn into the murder investigation of a young girl, a case that reminds her of the death of an impoverished childhood friend years earlier.
Investigating allegations of lewd conduct on the part of the local junior high principal, police chief Jesse Stone finds efforts to bring the woman to justice thwarted by a high-powered attorney, a case that is further complicated by the activities of a twisted voyeur. 300,000 first printing.
“Oliver Twist with a twist…Waters spins an absorbing tale that withholds as much as it discloses. A pulsating story.”—The New York Times Book Review The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith, directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Tae-Ri, is now available. Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home. One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum. With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.
Joe Pitt’s life sucks. He hasn’t had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it’s that or your neck–you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe’s local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is. So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.
Forty years after the disappearance of Harriet Vanger from the secluded island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family, her octogenarian uncle hires journalist Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander, an unconventional young hacker, to investigate
"In late nineteenth century Europe, Jack the Ripper stalks the streets of London and the city of Paris marvels at a new spectacle: the Eiffel Tower. As visitors are drawn to glimpse the centrepiece in an exhibition of wonderful scientific creation, another momentous gathering is taking place in the city. Twelve of the world's greatest sleuths have gathered to discuss their most famous cases and debate the nature of mystery. When one of them is found viciously murdered, however, the symposium becomes an elite task force dedicated to solving the outrage. For a young apprentice detective, Sigmund Salvatorio, this is the chance to realize a dream of working with some of the finest criminologists to ever practice. But as, one by one, members of the committee fall prey to the mysterious killer, the dream becomes a shocking nightmare."--BOOK JACKET.
The anonymous caller has an ominous tone and an unnerving message about something "real dead ... buried in your marsh." The eco-volunteer on the other end of the phone thinks it's a prank, but when a young woman's body turns up in L.A.'s Bird Marsh preser
“Gothic tale, psychological study, puzzle narrative…This is gripping, astute fiction that feeds the mind and senses.”—The Seattle Times An upper-class woman recovering from a suicide attempt, Margaret Prior has begun visiting the women’s ward of Millbank prison, Victorian London’s grimmest jail, as part of her rehabilitative charity work. Amongst Millbank’s murderers and common thieves, Margaret finds herself increasingly fascinated by on apparently innocent inmate, the enigmatic spiritualist Selina Dawes. Selina was imprisoned after a séance she was conducting went horribly awry, leaving an elderly matron dead and a young woman deeply disturbed. Although initially skeptical of Selina’s gifts, Margaret is soon drawn into a twilight world of ghosts and shadows, unruly spirits and unseemly passions, until she is at last driven to concoct a desperate plot to secure Selina’s freedom, and her own. As in her noteworthy deput, Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters brilliantly evokes the sights and smells of a moody and beguiling nineteenth-century London, and proves herself yet again a storyteller, in the words of the New York Times Book Review, of "startling power."