Simon Vance

Spring, 1921. Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Rutledge to the sea-battered village of Walmer on the coast of Essex. At Benton Abbey, a grand manor with a storied past, the lady of the house claims she saw a violent murder-- but there is no body, no blood. She also insists she recognized the killer: Captain Nelson. Only it could not have been Nelson because he died during the war. Everyone in the village believes that the losses of the grieving widow...

In 18th-century England, when Lady Farrell's husband becomes the prime suspect in the murder of Sir Edward Crick, she enlists the help of Dr. Thomas Silkstone--an anatomist and pioneering forensic detective--to solve the murder.

"Florence, Italy, 1944: The city is under heavy Nazi occupation, but for thirteen-year-old Paolo, war is a long and boring wait. Too young to fight for the resistance, yet desperate for action and adventure, he sneaks out each night to ride his bicycle along the darkened city streets. For Paolo, the risk is thrilling. But when he is accosted by Partisans--covert members of the anti-Nazi movement--thrilling quickly becomes dangerous as Paolo and his...

The Battle of Hastings has been lost and the iron fist of William the Bastard has begun to squeeze the life out of England, but there is one who still stands against the foreign invasion --Hereward, The Winter Warrior.

"Hardy's penultimate work, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is arguably the greatest tragedy of all Victorian literature. It tells the story of Tess, an impoverished woman whose past relations and miscarriage cause her to be rejected by her husband on their wedding night. Touching upon the themes of class, religion, gender, and sexuality, the novel was highly controversial for its time and is held in high esteem by literary scholars to this day."--Publisher...

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary...

"A swashbuckling epic of chivalry, honor, and derring-do, it is set in France during the 1620s and richly populated with romantic heroes, unattainable heroines, kings, queens, cavaliers, and criminals in a whirl of adventure, espionage, conspiracy, murder, vengeance, love, scandal, and suspense. Dumas transforms major and minor historical figures into larger-than-life characters: the brave d'Artagnan, an impetuous young man in pursuit of glory; the...

"Japanese POW camp Changi, Singapore: hell on earth for the soldiers contained within its barbed wire walls. Officers and enlisted men, all prisoners together--yet the old hierarchies and rivalries survive. An American corporal, known as the King, has used his personality and wiles to facilitate trading with guards and locals to get needed food, supplies, [and] even information into the camp. The imprisoned upper-class officers have never had to do...

"A man staggers out of his cottage into the streets of Oxfordshire, shattering an otherwise peaceful evening with the terrible sight of his body shaking and heaving, eyes wild with horror. Many of the villagers believe the Devil himself has entered Joseph Makepeace, the latest victim of a "great fog" that darkens the skies over England like a Biblical plague. When Joseph's son and daughter are found murdered - heads bashed in by a shovel - the town's...

Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol is the most famous, heart-warming and chilling festive story of them all. In these pages we meet Ebenezer Scrooge, whose name is synonymous with greed and parsimony: 'Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart'. This attitude is soon challenged when the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley,...