Blood Of The Prodigal

Read P. L. Gaus's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.Book 1 of the Amish-Country Mysteries In the wooded Amish hill country, a professor at a small college, a local pastor, and the county sheriff are the only ones among the mainstream, or "English," who possess the instincts and skills to work the cases that impact all county residents, no matter their code of conduct or religious creed. When an Amish boy is kidnapped, a bishop, fearful for the safety of his followers, plunges three outsiders into the traditionally closed society of the "Plain Ones."

From the choppy waves of Lake Erie's Middle Bass Island to the too-tranquil farmlands of Holmes County's Amish countryside, mystery and foreboding lurk under layers of tradition and repression before boiling up to the surface with tragic consequences. For Jon Mills, the journey begins with his decision to retrieve his ten-year-old son from the hands of the Bishop who had ten years earlier cast Mills out of the Order, the same Bishop who is Jon Mills's father. When Mills turns up dead, dressed in Amish garb, and with the boy missing, Professor Michael Branden plunges headlong into the closed culture to unravel the mystery and find the boy. Working in tandem sometimes and at cross purposes at others with his old friend Sheriff Robertson, Professor Branden digs through the past, recent and otherwise, to uncover the truths that many would prefer to leave undisturbed. In the tradition of Tony Hillerman, P. L. Gaus depicts a culture that stands outside the norm, but one that is every bit as susceptible to the undertow of the human spirit as any we might know.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1860.

Nebula Award Finalist: A genetic engineering breakthrough may portend the destruction of humanity in this cyberpunk novel by the author of The Forge of God. This Hugo and Nebula Award finalist follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void it left behind. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear’s treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world.

The Broadview Anthology of Sixteenth-Century Poetry and Prose makes available not only extensive selections from the works of canonical writers, but also substantial extracts from writers who have either been neglected in earlier anthologies or only relatively recently come to the attention of twentieth- and twenty-first-century scholars and teachers. Popular fiction and prose nonfiction are especially well represented, including selections from popular romances, merchant fiction, sensation pamphlets, sermons, and ballads. The texts are extensively annotated, with notes both explaining unfamiliar words and providing cultural and historical contexts.