Diane and Joseph Pikul seem to have it all. But what looked like a dream was really a nightmare of murder, madness, and dispair.

In this true-life account, Donita Woodruff reveals how her picture-perfect romance with her new husband is shattered after she discovers he is having an affair with a transsexual, who is also a suspect in a 20-year-old murder case. Includes an 8-page photo insert.

"The Masque of the Red Death", originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy", is an 1842 short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague, known as the Red Death, by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, hosts a masquerade ballwithin seven rooms of the abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure disguised as a Red Death victim enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. Prospero dies after confronting this stranger, whose "costume" proves to contain nothing tangible inside it; the guests also die in turn. Poe's story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the titular disease. The story was first published in May 1842 in Graham's Magazineand has since been adapted in many different forms, including a 1964 film starring Vincent Price.

A stolen book. A desperate killer. And two very meddlesome parents. Dashiell Dawson Dane might have a problem. It’s not a huge problem. In fact, all things considered, life is good—he’s got a wonderful boyfriend, fantastic friends, and a home where he’s genuinely happy, maybe for the first time ever. He’s even writing regularly. (Okay, mostly regularly.) There is, however, the teensiest issue with money—in that, he doesn’t have any. And it turns out Dash isn’t the only one strapped for cash. The Hastings Rock Public Library has recently been defunded by the mayor and the city council, and the town is in an uproar. To keep the library open, Dash hosts a charity auction at Hemlock House. But disaster strikes when an exceptionally valuable book is stolen before the fundraiser can begin. And when Dash finds the mayor dead—and Hastings Rock’s head librarian refuses to provide an alibi—he quickly becomes tangled in yet another murder investigation. How could things get any worse? Oh. Right. A surprise visit from his parents.

Detective Daniel Dillon has made it his life's work understanding the human mind. Trapped with seventy-eight other hostages inside a restaurant that has been wired to explode in twenty-four hours, he has only a short time to figure out the motives of this eerily brilliant madman who calls himself Abraham. Andrea 'Andie' Taylor, a romance novelist visiting Washington, D.C., is one of the other hostages. She survived a hellish childhood only to find herself embroiled in this terrifying situation in ways that even she could not have imagined in one of her books. She feels uncharacteristically drawn to the detective, but at the same time, she has to forge a connection with Abraham in order to keep the two men from turning a dangerous situation into a deadly, explosive one. Three extraordinary minds brought together by extraordinary circumstances, none of them sure who they can trust. It's a dangerous game they're all playing, a game that no one is guaranteed to survive.

Traditionally, terrorist bands operating in rural or urban areas use vio lence to cast themselves as a legitimate political force. Necklacing, plac ing an oil-soaked tire around the neck of an informer and then igniting it, and knee-capping, positioning a handgun behind the kneecap of a "tout" (a police informer) and then squeezing the trigger, are among the enforcement methods used by clandestine groups to administer "revo lutionary justice." Necklacing is used by the African National Con gress (A.N.C.). Knee-capping is a traditional Irish Republican Army (I. R. A.) tactic. Governments frequently lend credibility to the terrorists' claim of legitimacy by not implementing measures intended to extirpate them. Frequently, democratic societies fear that rigid control measures pose a threat to civil liberties. Reluctant to move, a democracy is often ham strung by terrorists bent on manipulating its values. A media campaign, intended to mobilize public opinion against the terrorists and garner mass support for the government and its control measures, is the linchpin of any antiterrorist campaign. Centralized intelligence-gathering is another essential component. Terrorism, when it becomes a regular campaign of bombings and other atrocities, is no longer a problem for just the police and the army. The entire society is affected. For example, all groups comprising the multi ethnic popu- vii viii PREFACE tion of Sri Lanka and South Africa are presently exposed to the terror ist threat.

This is a story of people sent out of their ancestral land as refugees. So the cover design will show women carrying their babies on the backs, typical of African women, with loads on their heads. Men carrying their loads on their heads. The background has to be a beach, a river bank as they arrive from Bakassi. At the bank of the river are mangrove trees. In the river more people are paddling their boats heading to the same river bank..