This book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard. Sound effects should not resound from scene to scene without examination, any more than a pun can be reshaped in dialogue without acknowledgement of its shifting connotations. This book listens to sound as a rhetorical device, able to penetrate the ears and persuade the mind, to influence and to affect.

A cowboy wanted for murder turn to the one woman who can help clear his name in the New York Times–bestselling author’s Western romantic suspense. Determined to see ranch hand Nick Coleman jailed for her sister’s murder, Adrienne Bailey introduces herself with a quick jab that leaves him black-eyed and bewildered. Still, the injured cowboy wants to prove his innocence and suggests they work together to find the real killer. Reluctantly, the grieving sister agrees. As other credible suspects emerge, Adrienne’s distrust of Nick turns to a surprising attraction. He’s too handsome, and one night of passion awakens unfamiliar emotions for them both. But until they catch the killer plaguing the ranch, neither she nor Nick is safe.

The book consists of 51 financial articles that Charles Klotsche has written detailing the abuses found on Wall Street and in the executive suites of corporate America in general. Many of these articles cover the regulatory agencies, stock exchanges, and trade organizations that have developed a indifferent attitude to the investing consumers in general.

In this collection of urban fantasy stories, editors George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois explore the places where mystery waits at the end of every alley and where the things that go bump in the night have something to fear... In “Death by Dahlia,” #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris takes vampire Dahlia Lynley-Chivers to a lavish party that turns deadly. And with so many creatures of the night in attendance, Dahlia will have a hard time identifying the most likely suspect! #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs thrills in “In Red, with Pearls,” as a werewolf PI races to crack a case involving zombies, witches, and the most horrifying creatures of them all—lawyers. In “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies,” New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon follows Lord John as he journeys to the beautiful but faintly sinister island paradise of Jamaica, where he’s soon investigating a mystery with no shortage of spiders, snakes, revolutionaries, and, of course, zombies. With these and thirteen more original tales, Down These Strange Streets takes you to the cities where fantasy and mystery collide and where private eyes who have seen it all find something lurking that is stranger still...

With the discovery of a young girl’s body by a group of young neighborhood boys, it became the starting point for what would be a lifetime of adventure. This adventure would be filled with the unexplainable and one that would become all-consuming for the young boy named Alex. The old wives’ tale of a crying woman who threw her children into the river became a search for answers and a journey to discover if the events actually occurred. The old dance hall sat boarded up for over twenty years as it stood across the river from the brick pits, the area that served as the playground for the boys. When young Alex began hearing all the legends about a man in black—a man who would kidnap women from dances—curiosity got the best of him. With this curiosity came obsession, one which would be the force that led the young man and his childhood buddies into pursuits beyond their imaginations. The further along they went into the realms, it wasn’t long before characters from past times began to manifest into his world—characters with malevolent intentions and an agenda that required the total destruction of the young man’s bloodline. The young boy came to know and understand that he was the focus of all that was evil and that it began many centuries ago in the holy land. He learned of the man from the past whom people throughout history would refer to as the Demon Dancer. It would be the pursuit that would lead to...