From Agatha Christie’s favorite American author—an amateur detective examines the mysterious reappearance of a woman who vanished 100 years ago. One hundred years earlier, a beautiful guest had disappeared from the wealthy Vauregard household, along with the second volume in a set of the collected works of Byron. Improbably enough, both guest and book seem to have reappeared, with neither having aged a day. The elderly Mr. Vauregard is inclined to believe the young woman’s story of having vacationed on an astral plane. But his dubious niece calls in Henry Gamadge, gentleman-sleuth, expert in rare books, and sufficiently well-bred to avoid distressing the Vauregard sensibilities. As Gamadge soon discovers, the household includes an aging actress with ties to a spiritualist sect and a shy beauty with a shady (if crippled) fiancé. As always in this delightful series, Gamadge comes up trumps, but only after careful study of the other players’ cards. “Delightfully original and suavely written.” —New York Times

Reason to be afraid - over 50 unsolved cases of serial murder Fact: murderers and serial killers do not always get caught. Behind every headline of a newsworthy conviction lie other cases of vicious murderers who got away, and who remain somewhere among us. Here in one giant volume are more than 50 of the most serious serial killings and other murder cases that continue to remain unsolved. The cases covered in this alarming book include: " Argentina's crazed highway killer, responsible for mutilating and killing at least five people since 1997, and dumping their bodies along remote highways " The Green River Killer, believed to be a middle-aged white man, who has claimed at least 49 lives to date in the Seattle-Tacoma area " South Africa's 'Phoenix Strangler', suspected of killing 20 women in the province of KwaZulu Natal. " The Twin Cities Killer - either one or several people responsible for a series of over 30 murders on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where the victims were mostly prostitutes " Costa Rica's elusive 'El Psicópata' (The Psychopath), thought to have murdered at least 19 people in this small quiet Central American country " 'The Monster of Florence', responsible for a series of 15 sexual slayings just outside Florence In each case it is not just the crimes that are horrifying and fascinating, but the response of local police and authorities to the lack of a conviction. Local authorities may fear to admit the continued existence of a serial killer at large; whilst police bodies face the temptation to 'tidy up' loose unsolved murders under the aegis of other admitted crimes.

There is little more terrifying than those who hunt, stalk and snatch their prey under the cloak of darkness. These hunters search not for animals, but for the touch, taste, and empowerment of human flesh. They are cannibals, vampires and monsters, and they walk among us. These serial killers are not mythical beasts with horns and shaggy hair. They are people living in society, going about their day-to-day activities until nightfall. They are the Dennis Rader's, the fathers, husbands, church-going members of the community. This A-Z encyclopedia of 150 serial killers is the ideal reference book. Included are the most famous true crime serial killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and Richard Ramirez, and not to mention the women who kill, such as Aileen Wuornos and Martha Rendell. There are also lesser-known serial killers, covering many countries around the world, so the range is broad. Each of the serial killer files includes information on when and how they killed the victims, the background of each killer, or the suspects in some cases such as the Zodiac killer, their trials and punishments. For some, there are chilling quotes by the killers themselves. The Big Book of Serial Killers is an easy-to-follow collection of information on the world's most heinous murderers.

The body snatcher who inspired Psycho, the noblewoman known as Countess Dracula, Jack the Ripper, and other killers for whom murder was just the beginning. From Gilles de Rais’ castle in fifteenth-century France to “the Bloody Benders’” eighteenth-century Kansas farm to Jeffrey Dahmer’s quiet apartment in twentieth-century Milwaukee, history is littered with serial murderers whose first impulse was to take a life. For some, it was never enough. The real thrill came after their victims were dead. In this shocking anthology, true crime journalist Nigel Blundell brings together more than two dozen chilling profiles of the world’s most unforgettable fiends, including: Ed Gein, the Plainfield necrophile and inspiration for The Silence of the Lambs; Andrei Chikatilo, the “Rostov Ripper”, whose uncontrollable hunger was satiated by more that fifty victims; Dennis Nilsen, whose London house of horrors so overflowed with body parts that they blocked the drains; Germany’s Fritz Haarmann who killed and consumed more than two dozen men, then peddled the left-over meat on the black market; Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory whose lust for the blood of virgins—a body count estimated to be in the hundreds—has branded her the most prolific female serial killer in world history; and many more human monsters whose appetites are still the stuff of nightmares.

Delves into the minds and crimes of the most dangerous and disturbed people who ever lived.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best nonfiction books of all time From the Modern Library’s new set of beautifully repackaged hardcover classics by Truman Capote—also available are Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Other Voices, Other Rooms (in one volume), Portraits and Observations, and The Complete Stories Truman Capote’s masterpiece, In Cold Blood, created a sensation when it was first published, serially, in The New Yorker in 1965. The intensively researched, atmospheric narrative of the lives of the Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas, and of the two men, Richard Eugene Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, who brutally killed them on the night of November 15, 1959, is the seminal work of the “new journalism.” Perry Smith is one of the great dark characters of American literature, full of contradictory emotions. “I thought he was a very nice gentleman,” he says of Herb Clutter. “Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.” Told in chapters that alternate between the Clutter household and the approach of Smith and Hickock in their black Chevrolet, then between the investigation of the case and the killers’ flight, Capote’s account is so detailed that the reader comes to feel almost like a participant in the events.

Beginning with anti-U-Boat efforts during the Battle of the Atlantic of World War II and ending with newly-developed tactics of the 21st Century, the authors examine the many facets of anti-submarine warfare.