The Shadow. The Green Hornet and Kato. Black Terror. The Spider. Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt. Miss Fury. These are just a few of the masked vigilantes drawn into a mystery that spans the decades. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's infamous short story and able to kill thousands of people in mere seconds, the Red Death hosts a bizarre masquerade across the 1930s, 1970s, modern day, and beyond, exposing her hapless victims to plague and threatening a legacy of costumed heroes. Over a dozen crime-fighters must risk their lives, hurling themselves into the time stream, to halt the madwoman's bloodbath!

The novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch and the painter Harry Weinberger engaged in over twenty years of close friendship and intellectual discourse, centred on sustained discussion of the practice, teaching and morality of art. This book presents a reappraisal of Murdoch’s novels – chiefly, three mature novels, The Sea, The Sea (1978), Nuns and Soldiers (1980) and The Good Apprentice (1985), and two enigmatic late novels, The Green Knight (1993) and Jackson’s Dilemma (1995) – which are perceived through the prism of her discourse with Weinberger. It draws on a run of almost 400 letters from Murdoch to Weinberger, and on Murdoch’s philosophical writings, Weinberger’s private writings, the remarks of both artists in interviews, and other material relating to their views on art and art history, much of which is unpublished and has received no previous critical attention. Scrutiny of their shared values, methods and the imagistic dialogue that takes place in their art provides original perspectives on Murdoch’s creativity, and new ways of understanding her experimentation with the visual arts. This book offers a new line of enquiry into Murdoch's novels, and into the relationship between literature and the visual arts.

Nearly three hundred illustrations and a text reveal the entire range of the Vatican's artistic holdings, replete with priceless masterworks from all periods.