DIVA Chicago socialite braves death to save her beloved from the gallows/divDIV/divDIVSearch Abbott is high over Chicago when Howland proposes marriage, but her heart is far away. Since childhood she has loved Richard Bohan, and her passion has not dimmed in the three years since he made the mistake of marrying Eve. Howland has few kind words for Richard, but Search’s heart cannot be moved. She declines him, and leaves to visit her Aunt Ludmilla, a kindly old woman who claims she is being poisoned./divDIV /divDIVShe finds Richard staying at Ludmilla’s estate, and all her old feelings come rushing forth. His marriage is finished, he says, as he takes Search in his arms. But joy is fleeting—Eve will never let him go. Search’s hatred for her rival evaporates the moment she finds Eve dangling from a hangman’s noose. The woman was murdered, and the police are going to take Richard away./div

Between 1929 and 1988, American mystery writer Mignon Good Eberhart wrote fifty-nine mystery novels, at least as many short stories, and served a term as president and Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. This study of Eberhart's life and work considers the influence of her childhood in Nebraska, her marriage and frequent travels, and her various professional and personal contacts in Chicago and on the East Coast. Eberhart's friendships with well-known literary figures, including mystery and romance authors, provide a fascinating glimpse into the social matrix of a bygone publishing world. Eberhart's experiences with Hollywood and Broadway show how the mystery genre, and writer, were transformed in an alternate medium. Leading women's magazines of the day also sought Eberhart's talent and inevitably transformed her writing. Eberhart's novels and correspondence provide insight into the social mores of her day, in particular about women's friendships, repressed sexuality, and closeted homosexuality. Those interested in cultural studies, women's studies, and twentieth-century popular literature will find this book valuable.

The Hangman’s Psalm: The Girl at the Gallows By: Carter J. Gregory Public hangings were great sport in 18th century London. Mobs of cursing men and shrieking women would turn out to witness a doomed man being hauled to the scaffold where the hangman, Jack Ketch, awaited him. The spectacle was given an aura of sanctity when choirs and bells pealed out hymns in praise of God, and the doomed man was required to recite the damning words of the biblical Psalm 51: “Behold I was shapen in wickedness and in sin did my mother conceive me”—or be lashed with a Cat o' nine tails if he refused. The Psalm was called The Hangman's Psalm. NOTE: Psalm 51 has been misunderstood for centuries. It is an example of Hebrew poetry, which is alive with dramatic hyperbole and metaphor, and not to be taken literally. It's a pity that neither the Crown nor jack Ketch knew the entire Psalm, which begins with an affirmation of God's mercy and ends with the ecstatic cry: “Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness, and the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” A desperate thief, his dead father, a beautiful young girl, a priest, and a hangman are destined to meet at the foot of the gallows—so claims a gypsy fortune teller whose tarot card predicts that someone will die a fool's death...but who? In 18th century London a thief could be hanged for stealing a kerchief, a hat, a bolt of cloth—and the thief in this story, Daniel Tavard, is guilty of such crimes. A bounty of 250 Guineas is offered by the Crown for his capture. But the bounty-hunters are not the ones who bring the thief to the hangman and collect the Guineas. Daniel's birth and death are shrouded in mystery. Why did his father Joseph flee France? Where is his mother? Only Maggie Quinn knows—Joseph's mistress(whore). When Daniel was little he thought Maggie was his mother—she quickly disabused him of that notion. But Maggie knows who his mother is, and why Joseph fled France, and she swore she would never tell the boy. Daniel goes about searching for answers, but as he does so, two bounty-hunters lay a plot to seize him. A young girl, Catherine, enters Daniel's life, and for the love of her he risks his fate at the hands of the bounty-hunters.

‘They wanted me dead. I don’t mean physical death. I’m not afraid of that any more ... The death they wanted for me was spiritual – I think that’s what I mean – to have me beset by fears, doubts; the insecurities of action and word that take their toll and make you live a life of death.’