The New York Times comes each morning and never fails to deliver news of the important dead. Every day is new; every day is fraught with significance. I arrange my cup of tea, prop up my slippers. Obituaries are history as it is happening. Whose time am I living in? Was he a success or a failure, lucky or doomed, older than I am or younger? Did she know how to live? I shake out the pages. Tell me the secret of a good life!Where else can you celebrate the life of the pharmacist who moonlighted as a spy, the genius behind Sea Monkeys, the school lunch lady who spent her evenings as a ballroom hostess? No wonder so many readers skip the news and the sports and go directly to the obituary page. The Dead Beat is the story of how these stories get told. Enthralled by the fascinating lives that were marching out of this world, Marilyn Johnson tumbled into the obits page to find out what made it so lively. She sought out the best obits in the English language and chased the people who spent their lives writing about the dead. Surveying the darkest corners of Internet chat rooms, surviving a mass gathering of obituarists, and making a pilgrimage to London to savor the most caustic and literate obits of all, Marilyn Johnson leads us into the cult and culture behind the obituary page. The result is a rare combination of scrapbook and compelling read, a trip through recent history and the unusual lives we don't quite appreciate until they're gone.

DEAD BEATS is a 168-page anthology of music-themed horror comics stories, ranging in tone from grim to darkly comic but all centering around the curiosities for sale at one peculiar record store. Best described as Tales from the Crypt meets High Fidelity, DEAD BEATS will appeal to fans of classic comics horror anthologies like Vault of Horror, Creepy, and Eerie, and of more modern fare like Flinch. Edited by Eric Palicki (All We Ever Wanted) and Joe Corallo (Ringo Award-winning editor of Mine!), DEAD BEATS features all-new original stories by Magdalene Visaggio (GLAAD award nominee for Kim & Kim, Eisner award nominee for Eternity Girl), Rachel Pollack (Doom Patrol, Arthur C. Clarke award winning novelist of Unquenchable Fire) and Richard Case (Doom Patrol, The Sandman), Vita Ayala (Livewire, James Bond), Daniel Kibblesmith (Santa's Husband, writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), Ivy Noelle and Steenz (Dwayne McDuffie award-winning creators of Archival Quality), Tony Patrick (Batman and The Signal), Kwanza Osajyefo (Black, Ignited), Sweeney Boo (Eat and Love Yourself, Captain Marvel), Tres Dean (For Your Consideration: Dwayne the Rock), Nadia Shammas (Squire, Care Bears) and many other new and veteran creators.

Pundits will argue that the 2008 financial crisis was the first crash in American history driven by consumer debt. But in this spirited, highly engaging account, Scott Reynolds Nelson demonstrates that consumer debt has underpinned almost every major financial panic in the nation’s history. From William Duer’s attempts to profit off the country’s post-Revolutionary War debt to an 1815 plan to sell English coats to Americans on credit, to the debt-fueled railroad expansion that precipitated the 1857 crash: in each case, the chain of banks, brokers, moneylenders, and insurance companies that separated borrowers and lenders made it impossible to distinguish good loans from bad. Bound up in this history are stories of national banks funded by smugglers, fistfights in Congress over the gold standard, America’s early dependence on British bankers, and how presidential campaigns were forged in controversies over private debt. An irreverent, wholly accessible, eye-opening book.

On the run from the mob, a trio of 1920's Chicago Jazz musicians take a job from an elderly reverend, playing for what they think is his wife's funeral in the backwoods of Illinois. Unfortunately, the funeral is actually an elaborate cult ritual to raise the spirit of an evil sorcerer who swiftly begins raising the dead and terrorizing the innocent townsfolk.

“The wildest, strangest, best Dresden adventure to date...Butcher’s blending of modern fantasy with classic noir sensibilities ensures that there’s never a dull moment.”—SF Site Paranormal investigations are Harry Dresden’s business and Chicago is his beat, as he tries to bring law and order to a world of wizards and monsters that exists alongside everyday life. And though most inhabitants of the Windy City don’t believe in magic, the Special Investigations Department of the Chicago PD knows better. Karrin Murphy is the head of S. I. and Harry’s good friend. So when a killer vampire threatens to destroy Murphy’s reputation unless Harry does her bidding, he has no choice. The vampire wants the Word of Kemmler (whatever that is) and all the power that comes with it. Now, Harry is in a race against time—and six merciless necromancers—to find the Word before Chicago experiences a Halloween night to wake the dead...

The Shoppe Keeper crosses the pond in search of even more mysterious artifacts and musical instruments with a haunted past. So put on your favorite album, pull up a chair, and immerse yourself in these 24-chilling tales that will have you questioning everything you think you know about music.

The stunning first novel in the Kate Brannigan series, from No.1 Sunday Times bestseller Val McDermid. ‘This is crime writing of the very highest order’ The Times