To stop a terrifying plot of global proportions, a Nazi secret must be unearthed in this time-shift thriller by the author of The Vestal Conspiracy. When a 100-year-old crucifix is discovered around the neck of a 500-year-old mummy, special investigator Brandon Walker once more calls on the expertise of librarian and researcher India Summers to solve the mystery. They soon discover that there is far more to this than a cruel hoax—and that the crucifix is linked to Hitler’s SS. The secrets India and Brandon begin to uncover are fiercely protected by a secretive group of dangerous men. They will stop at nothing to find the most powerful and dangerous artifact of all time, known simply as the Icon.
Long ago, curiosities were arranged in cabinets for display: a dried mermaid might be next to a giant's shinbone, the skeletons of conjoined twins beside an Egyptian mummy. In ten essays, Jan Bondeson brings a physician's diagnostic skills to various unexpected, gruesome, and extraordinary aspects of the history of medicine: spontaneous human combustion, colonies of snakes and frogs living in a person's stomach, kings and emperors devoured by lice, vicious tribes of tailed men, and the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal. Bondeson tells the story of Mary Toft, who gained notoriety in 1726 when she allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits. King George I, the Prince of Wales, and the court physicians attributed these monstrous births to a "maternal impression" because Mary had longed for a meal of rabbit while pregnant. Bondeson explains that the fallacy of maternal impressions, conspicuous in the novels of Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, has ancient roots in Chinese and Babylonian manuscripts. Bondeson also presents the tragic case of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican Indian woman with thick hair growing over her body and a massive overgrowth of the gums that gave her a simian or ape-like appearance. Called the Ape Woman, she was exhibited all over the world. After her death in 1860, Julia's husband, who had also been her impresario, had her body mummified and continued to exhibit it throughout Europe. Bondeson tracked the mummy down and managed to diagnose Julia Pastrana's condition as the result of a rare genetic syndrome.
In this conspiracy thriller, a special investigator and a librarian go in search of treasure, uncovering a mystery with global historical consequences. Incomparable riches, like none other in history, are close to being revealed . . . An email from a dead man, and an encrypted letter from the sixteenth century both hint at a treasure trail, leading back to the greatest Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. India Summers and Brandon Walker team up to attempt to locate the greatest treasure the world has ever seen, closely followed by a family of assassins. What they discover is a story of tragedy, adventure and intrigue, and one that would deny the entire world’s perception of recorded history. A jaw-dropping conspiracy thriller filled with action and suspense, ideal for fans of Chris Kuzneski, Steve Berry and Scott Mariani.
Rebellion is in the air once more in Wales... 1294 AD. After decades of fighting, Edward Longshanks of England has cemented his rule over Wales following the death of Prince Llewellyn at the Battle of Orewen Bridge in 1282 by undertaking a vast castle-building programme across the land. Fortresses have sprung up in Caernarfon, Conway and Harlech, bastions of English might. But a new resistance is rising. Its factions squabble and bicker, however, dashing any serious hopes of rebellion. Rumour reaches Garyn, now leader of a mercenary band called the Blaidd, of a fabled sword that would enable its wielder to unite the Welsh with a single purpose – the Sword of Macsen. But finding it will not be easy... The third gripping Welsh historical adventure from K. M. Ashman, perfect for fans of Michael Jecks and Angus Donald.
The Welsh rebellion spreads like wildfire... 1294 AD. Caernarfon Castle, a fortress in Edward Longshanks’ chain of fortifications around Wales known as the Ring of Steel, has fallen to Madog and the rebellion. In the south, Garyn languishes in a dungeon with only days left to live. It seems his fate is sealed, and the famed Macsen Sword is destined for the hands of the English king. As the four main warlords of Wales join forces to wreak havoc amongst the English settlers, rampaging across the country, Edward’s castles fall one by one before their onslaught. But across the border in England, Longshanks musters his armies and plans the re-taking of his Ring of Steel – and there will be no mercy. The epic conclusion to the Medieval Sagas, perfect for fans of Christian Cameron and Angus Donald.
William S. Burroughs is consistently thought of as a novelist who is gay, rather than a gay novelist. This distinction is slight, yet remarkable, since it has meant that Burroughs has been excluded from the gay canon and from the scope of queer theory. In this intelligent book, Jamie Russell offers the first queer reading of Burrough's novels. He explores how the novels of Burroughs can be seen as a sustained attempt to offer a very personal rethinking of gay subjectivity, and as an attempt to overturn stereotypes of gay men as effeminate. Yet in his celebration and appropriation of some of the most violent, misogynistic, and effeminaphobic elements of heterosexually-identified masculinity, Burroughs's life and writing suggests a subjectivity which has been deeply troubling to many in the gay community.
From 1928 through 1982, when Columbia Pictures Corporation was a traded stock company, the studio released some of the most famous and popular films dealing with horror, science fiction and fantasy. This volume covers more than 200 Columbia feature films within these genres, among them Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and The Revenge of Frankenstein. Also discussed in depth are the vehicles of such horror icons as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and John Carradine. Additionally highlighted are several of Columbia's lesser known genre efforts, including the Boston Blackie and Crime Doctor series, such individual features as By Whose Hand?, Cry of the Werewolf, Devil Goddess, Terror of the Tongs and The Creeping Flesh, and dozens of the studio's short subjects, serials and made-for-television movies.
“Exposes the culpability of scholars who collaborated with Nazi race policy . . . an excellent [book] . . . to understand the mentality of ‘desk murderers.’” (Claudia Koonz, author of The Nazi Conscience) Early in his political career, Adolf Hitler declared the importance of what he called “an antisemitism of reason.” He hoped that his exclusionary and violent policies would be legitimized by scientific scholarship. The result was a disturbing, and long-overlooked, aspect of National Socialism: Nazi Jewish Studies. Studying the Jew investigates the careers of a few dozen German scholars who forged an interdisciplinary field, drawing upon studies in anthropology, biology, religion, history, and the social sciences to create a comprehensive portrait of the Jew?one with devastating consequences. Working within the universities and research institutions of the Third Reich, these men fabricated an elaborate empirical basis to support the Nazi campaign against Jews by defining them as racially alien, morally corrupt, and inherently criminal. A chilling story of academics who distorted their research in support of persecution and genocide, Studying the Jew explores the intersection of ideology and scholarship to provide a new appreciation of the horrors perpetrated in the name of reason. “This brilliant new book reveals how the academy became nazified, shaping a new interdisciplinary enterprise: pathologizing the Jew.” —Susannah Heschel, author of Abraham Geigerand theJewish Jesus “An essential sequel to Max Weinreich's classic of 1946, Hitler's Professors. [Studying the Jew] is a valuable contribution to the extensive history of politicization of scholarship in modern dictatorships.” —Jeffrey Herf, author of The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust
The Third Reich proves Lord Byron's maxim that truth is stranger than fiction. Hitler's mania made the Reich surreal. This book documents his neuroses, charisma, ruthlessness, and "storybook" rise to power. It's alarming that an astute psychopath with acting ability became an absolute dictator in a modern European state. German political naivety contributed to his miraculous ascent. During election campaigns between 1927 and 1933 Hitler posed as an anti-Communist savior, while concealing his real agenda of war, genocide, and quack "eugenics." The Surreal Reich closely examines all leading Nazis. It shows how Hitler had different sets of favorites at various times. Dietrich Eckart, Rudolf Hess, and Ernst Rohm in the early years; Hermann Goering and Josef Goebbels through the middle period, then Heinrich Himmler and Martin Bormann from 1939 to 1945. Nazism's heyday occurred during an era of supposed progress. Yet escalating war casualties in that "enlightened age" tell a different story. 620,000 people died in America's Civil War, only 5% of them civilians. World War I caused approximately 16 million fatalities. Most of the 5 million non-combatants succumbed from starvation or Spanish Influenza. World War II resulted in 60 million deaths, 52% of them civilians. One warped "idealist" sparked that fruitless orgy of destruction: Adolf Hitler.
