Yuri Rasovsky
The insidious Fleet Street barber slit his first throat in an 1846 "penny dreadful," one of those gaudy serialized novels that gleefully offered thrills and gore to sensation-hungry Victorians. TitledThe String of Pearls, it told of Sweeney Todd, whose shop stood next to St. Dunstan's Church, just a few blocks from the Royal Courts of Justice. On this site, he robbed and murdered hundreds of customers. To dispose of their remains, he carried them
...Originally broadcast nationwide in 1993, this meticulously researched five-part historical drama is being published by Blackstone to commemorate Benjamin Franklin's 300th birthday
This production reveals the multifaceted, complex Franklin's little-known adventures in London before the Revolution. For fifteen years, he lived on Craven Street off the Thames, where he established a surrogate family, began his autobiography, and became America's
...6) Beowulf
The epic poem Beowulf is the tale of the life and great deeds of Beowulf, hero of the Geats. The first half of the poem focuses on Beowulf's aid to Hrothgar, king of the Danes, who has been terrorized by the creature Grendel. In the second half of the poem, after his heroic youth, an older Beowulf is serving as king of the Geats when his realm is attacked by an immense dragon, prompting Beowulf to once again take up arms.
Set in ancient Scandinavia,
...Olen Steinhauer's first two novels, The Bridge of Sighs and The Confession, launched an acclaimed literary crime series set in post–World War II Eastern Europe. Now he takes his dynamic cast of characters into the shadowy political climate of the 1960s. State Security Officer Brano Sev's job is to do what his superiors ask, no matter what—even if that means leaving his post to work the assembly line in a factory, fitting electrical
...Madame X, John Singer Sargent's most famous and scandalous portrait, caused an immediate furor when Sargent unveiled it at the 1884 Paris Salon.
The subject's bold pose, provocative dress, and decadent pallor shocked the public, and the critics panned the picture, smashing Sargent's dream of a Paris career.
Even before Sargent painted her portrait, Virginie Gautreau's reputation for promiscuity and showy self-display made her the subject
...10) Hour of the cat
On the eve of World War II, a murder in New York City draws two vastly different men, an American detective and a German intelligence officer, into the gathering storm.
The death of a spinster nurse killed in her apartment was one of hundreds of simple homicides, indistinguishable from any other in 1938. A suspect was caught and convicted. Then Private Investigator Fintan Dunne is lured in to the case, and coerced by conscience into unraveling
...11) The Lodger
12) The Confession
Eastern Europe, 1956 — Comrade Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar, a proletariat writer as well as a state militia homicide detective, is a man on the brink. Estranged from his wife, whom he believes is cheating on him with one of his colleagues, and frustrated by writer's block, Ferenc's attention is focused on his job. But his job is growing increasingly political, something that makes him profoundly uncomfortable.
When Ferenc is asked
From pre-Civil War Virginia to the prairies of the far west, this epic follows young Lew Dorset as he journeys in search of his father. Lew's skill with firearms gets him a job as a hunter with a trader heading onto the prairies to barter with the Indians. There he meets young Chuck Morris, and together they take on a Cheyenne attack party. Finding shelter in a Sioux village, they absorb the native culture. Lew comes to know the great Sioux
...More democracy means more freedom. Or does it?
American democracy is, in many people's minds, the model for the rest of the world. Fareed Zakaria points out that the American form of democracy is one of the least democratic in use today. Members of the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve, institutions that fundamentally shape our lives, are appointed, not elected. The Bill of Rights enumerates a set of privileges to which citizens are
...On a whim, aging director Dixon Greenwood accepted the three-month fellowship in post-wall Berlin, with the promise that nothing would be required of him but an interview about his moviemaking career. Thirty years had passed since he had directed his greatest film, a cult classic called Summer, about a group of German artists between the wars. Now, out of inspiration, in the dark Berlin winter, he sifts through past and present for a new
...In 1975, a People’s Militia homicide investigator is on a plane for Istanbul when it is hijacked by Armenian terrorists. Before the Turkish authorities can fulfill the hijackers’ demands, the plane explodes in midair.
Two investigators, a secret policeman and a homicide detective, are assigned to the case. Both believe that their superiors are keeping them in the dark, but they can’t figure out why…until they begin to realize that everything
...17) The Art of War
These are the words of ancient Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu, whose now-classic treatise, The Art of War, was written more than 2,500 years ago. Originally a text...
This is an exuberant group portrait of four extraordinary writers—Zelda Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, and Edna Ferber—whose loves, lives, and literary endeavors captured the spirit of the 1920s.
Marion Meade re-creates the aura of excitement, romance, and promise of the 1920s, when these literary heroines did what they wanted, said what they thought, and kicked open the door for twentieth-century women,
...ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance—a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the...
Blackstone is pleased to present the first ever audio recordings of the only two Holmes plays written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This specially commissioned production by the Hollywood Theater of the Ear is a unique, must-have audio for all Sherlockians.
In Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarity, the Napoleon of crime, plots with would-be blackmailers to have Holmes killed. And the normally love-proof Holmes falls for an exceptional woman.
What
...