Death Mask

The Dresden Files have taken the genre of paranormal mystery to a new level of action, excitement, and hard-hitting magical muscle. Now, in Death Masks, Jim Butcher’s smart-guy private eye may have taken on more than he can handle... Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But he also knows that whenever things are going good, the only way left for them to go is bad. Way bad. Such as: • A duel with the lethal champion of the Red Court, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards... • Professional hit men using Harry for target practice... • The missing Shroud of Turin—and the possible involvement of Chicago's most feared mob boss... • A handless and headless corpse the Chicago police need identified... Not to mention the return of Harry’s ex-girlfriend Susan, who’s still struggling with her semi-vampiric nature. And who seems to have a new man in her life. Some days, it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed. No matter how much you’re charging.

The creator of the Forgotten Realms leads readers through a rollicking fantasy adventure and murder mystery set in the city of Waterdeep Revealed in death to have been Masked Lords, three more citizens had been murdered over the preceding day and night: the Sembian wine-seller and collector Oszbur Malankar; the half-elf sorceress and artisan Dathanscza Meiril; and the moneylender, landlord, and investor Ammasker Gwelt. All of Waterdeep now knew someone was killing the Lords of Waterdeep, one by one. Yet that was about where truth ended and speculation—however plausible—began. The broadsheets were full of wild conjecture. Who's behind this? The ousted Lord Neverember? The Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon or some other Outland Power? The Xanathar? Some cabal of guilds or nobles planning a coup? The rumors would rage on, whether the Open Lord Laeral Silverhand did something or not. That was the trouble with rumors; once loosed, they roamed free like snarling, untamed beasts, with no simple way of stopping them. And all rumors aside, Waterdeep has become . . . a City of Murderers. Death Masks is loosely connected to the Elminster series and Sage of Shadowdale series.

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death", Prince Prospero isolates himself and his wealthy guests to avoid a deadly plague. Despite his efforts to escape death, it invades his masked ball, proving that no one can escape fate.

The face of evil. And the face of greed… The video showed a nearly naked man bloodied and beaten. Even as archaeologist and TV presenter Annja Creed watched, the clock on his suicide vest ticked down, and precious seconds were lost. But this was no stranger. Garin was her friend. Their fates had been bound by the secrets of Joan of Arc's sword. And Annja had less than twenty-four hours to save his life…. The price for Garin's life was the lost mask of Torquemada, rumored to have been cast by the Grand Inquisitor himself, five hundred years ago during the Spanish Inquisition. Abandoned crypts, lost palaces and a cruel and ancient brotherhood: all clues to the mask's complicated and deadly mystery that Annja, and her mentor, Roux—using all of their considerable resources and cunning—must solve before Garin runs out of time. Annja Creed is facing her greatest trial. And not even the holy sword of Joan of Arc can spare her from the final judgment.

A troubled English boy sets out to uncover the truth about his father’s death, from the Edgar Award–winning author of the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael. Following the death of his father at an archaeological dig in Greece, young Crispin Almond returned to England and the mother he barely knew. Now a difficult, morose, and unreachable teenager, he has been expelled from every school he’s attended. At her wits’ end, his mother decides Crispin needs a positive male role model and turns to a former friend, who disappeared from her life sixteen years earlier when she rejected his proposal of marriage. Hired by the woman he always loved to be her son’s tutor, Evelyn Manville is determined to break through Crispin’s protective shell. But the closer he gets to the troubled teen, the more unsettling their relationship becomes. Because, despite having no evidence, Crispin believes his father’s death in Greece was no accident, and he’s been secretly manipulating events to prove it. And now his plan could be drawing a murderer into all of their lives. With Death Mask, the Edgar, Agatha, and Gold Dagger Award–winning author of the Brother Cadfael Mysteries delivers a stand-alone novel that is “a literate and original piece of work” (Kirkus Reviews).

Throughout the centuries, different cultures have established a variety of procedures for handling and disposing of corpses. Often the methods are directly associated with the deceased's position in life, such as a pharaoh's mummification in Egypt or the cremation of a Buddhist. Treatment by the living of the dead over time and across cultures is the focus of study. Burial arrangements and preparations are detailed, including embalming, the funeral service, storage and transport of the body, and forms of burial. Autopsies and the investigative process of causes of deliberate death are fully covered. Preservation techniques such as cryonic suspension and mummification are discussed, as well as a look at the recycling of the corpse through organ donation, donation to medicine, animal scavengers, cannibalism, and, of course, natural decay and decomposition. Mistreatments of a corpse are also covered.

An award-winning journalist tells the story of Andrew Crispo, one of the wealthiest power brokers in the New York art scene, and Bernard LeGeros, the street-wise tough who became his partner in sex and depravity. What results is the chilling true tale of an orgiastic night of sadomasochism and violence that ended in the brutal death of Norwegian fashion student Eigil Vesti in 1985. Updated to include new information. of photos.