Set in Regency England, this story finds Beau Brummell in the middle of a murder investigation involving a countess who has been poisoned, allegedly by her paid companion. The Duchess of York, who hired the girl, stands to lose her good name. So she calls in Brummell, who uncovers other suspects.

Secrets, Magic and Murder… The gentleman’s clubs of Scott and Griswold’s Gaslamp fantastical London are full of secrets and the ones that Julian Lynes and Ned Mathey and their circles frequent are even moe hidden than most. Beneath their respectable, or less respectable, façades, they are a haven…or a torment for men who desire each other’s company. Now someone is leaving a trail of murder victims, each one found without a heart. Each one somehow connected to Lynes, Mathey, their friends, their enemies and the communities that they belong to. Finding the murderer could reveal everything, leading to certain ruin for some, and the loss of all they hold dear for Julian and Ned. How far will they go to solve the mystery and stop a killer?

Mystery, Murder and Magic… When his nemesis from schoolboy days hires metaphysician Ned Mathey to investigate his father’s murder, Ned turns to his friend and sometime lover, detective Julian Lynes, for help. Together, they must navigate a magical maze of deceit, danger, the pain of their past and, perhaps, a chance at a future together, in an Edwardian London as full of peril as it is with magic. Can they solve the mystery at the heart of the murders that follow on the heels of the first to forge a new kind of partnership or will the pain of the past and society’s disapproval send them off on separate paths? Winner of a Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ SF/F/Horror.

The Thing. Daredevil. Captain Marvel. The Human Fly. Drawing on DC and Marvel comics from the 1950s to the 1990s and marshaling insights from three burgeoning fields of inquiry in the humanities—disability studies, death and dying studies, and comics studies—José Alaniz seeks to redefine the contemporary understanding of the superhero. Beginning in the Silver Age, the genre increasingly challenged and complicated its hypermasculine, quasi-eugenicist biases through such disabled figures as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Matt Murdock/Daredevil, and the Doom Patrol. Alaniz traces how the superhero became increasingly vulnerable, ill, and mortal in this era. He then proceeds to a reinterpretation of characters and series—some familiar (Superman), some obscure (She-Thing). These genre changes reflected a wider awareness of related body issues in the postwar U.S. as represented by hospice, death with dignity, and disability rights movements. The persistent highlighting of the body's “imperfection” comes to forge a predominant aspect of the superheroic self. Such moves, originally part of the Silver Age strategy to stimulate sympathy, enhance psychological depth, and raise the dramatic stakes, developed further in such later series as The Human Fly, Strikeforce: Morituri, and the landmark graphic novel The Death of Captain Marvel, all examined in this volume. Death and disability, presumed routinely absent or denied in the superhero genre, emerge to form a core theme and defining function of the Silver Age and beyond.

Zoe is wary when, in the dead of night, the beautiful yet frightening Simon comes to her house. Simon seems to understand the pain of loneliness and death and Zoe's brooding thoughts of her dying mother. Simon is one of the undead, a vampire, seeking revenge for the gruesome death of his mother three hundred years before. Does Simon dare ask Zoe to help free him from this lifeless chase and its insufferable loneliness?

Hitting the books. Solving murders. Counting calories. It's all in a day's work for Tara Holloway, the U.S. Treasury's latest, greatest, soon-to-be-skinniest weapon against the biggest, richest tax cheats in the nation... When she joined the Criminal Investigations Division, Tara knew she'd be investigating some very real crooks. Forget about waitresses hiding tips from the IRS or babysitters not declaring income! Tara and her partner, Eddie, are going after one of country's richest, dirtiest felons. Being on a diet doesn't help Tara's mood much. Hopefully, by the time the investigation is over, she'll be sitting somewhere in a string bikini, far, far away... "PREPARE TO LAUGH YOUR ASSETS OFF."—Jana DeLeon, author of the Ghost-in-Law mysteries But first: Reality. Marcos Mendoza is a suspected loan shark with connections across the Mexican border. He's never been accused of any crimes, yet his business associates have a history of disappearing...and resurfacing...in body bags. Will Tara risk life, limb, and the pursuit of filing a joint tax return with her maybe-serious boyfriend Brett? Fighting crime, like drinking a cup of coffee with low-fat milk and artificial sweetener, is often bittersweet... "HUNTING DOWN TAX CHEATS HAS NEVER ADDED UP TO SO MUCH FUN!"—Robin Kaye, award-winning author of The Domestic Gods series