The Death House

Toby’s life was perfectly normal… until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House; an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They’re looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it’s time to take them to the sanatorium. No one returns from the sanatorium. Living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes. Because everybody dies. It’s how you choose to live that counts.

The most pivotal and yet least understood event of Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated life involves the brutal murders in 1914 of seven adults and children dear to the architect and the destruction by fire of Taliesin, his landmark residence, near Spring Green, Wisconsin. Unaccountably, the details of that shocking crime have been largely ignored by Wright’s legion of biographers—a historical and cultural gap that is finally addressed in William Drennan’s exhaustively researched Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders. In response to the scandal generated by his open affair with the proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Wright had begun to build Taliesin as a refuge and "love cottage" for himself and his mistress (both married at the time to others). Conceived as the apotheosis of Wright’s prairie house style, the original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull. Supplying both a gripping mystery story and an authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, Drennan wades through the myths surrounding Wright and the massacre, casting fresh light on the formulation of Wright’s architectural ideology and the cataclysmic effects that the Taliesin murders exerted on the fabled architect and on his subsequent designs. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Outstanding Book, selected by the Public Library Association

FORMER TEXAS PRISON CHAPLAIN REV. CARROLL PICKETT, WORKING WITH TWO-TIME EDGAR AWARD WINNER AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR CARLTON STOWERS, PROVIDES THIS ELOQUENT, UNFLINCHING LOOK AT CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Within These Walls is the powerful memoir of Rev. Carroll Pickett, who spent fifteen years as the death house chaplain at “The Walls,” the Huntsville unit of the Texas prison system. In that capacity, Reverend Pickett ministered to ninety-five men before they were put to death by lethal injection. They came with sinister nicknames like “The Candy Man” and “The Good Samaritan Killer,” some contrite, some angry—a few who might even have been innocent. All of them found in Reverend Pickett their last chance for an unbiased confessor who would look at them only as fellow humans, not simply as the convicted criminals the rest of society had already dismissed them as. This firsthand experience gave Reverend Pickett the unique insight needed to write an impassioned statement on the realities of capital punishment in America. The result is a thought-provoking and compelling book that takes the reader inside the criminal mind, inside the execution chamber, and inside the heart of a remarkable man who shares his thoughts and observations not only about capital punishment, but about the dark world of prison society

A gripping inside look at people living every day in the shadow of capital punishment When a prisoner on death row gets executed, it's not just the families of the victim and the murderer who feel the effects. The attorneys, the jury, the law enforcement officers, the prison guards, the wardens overseeing the execution, the chaplains and advisors, even the technicians "who prepare the syringe and prick the vein" -- all of these people are affected, and they all have powerful stories to tell, stories that are beautifully woven together in the poignant narrative of Living Next Door to the Death House. Authors Virginia Stem Owens and David Clinton Owens live in Huntsville, Texas, which has earned a reputation as "the death penalty capital of the world." With the prison system there employing almost a quarter of the town's residents, the ultimate punishment -- meted out as often as once a week -- is always "next door" in Huntsville. Through candid interviews with Huntsville folks connected both personally and professionally to the Texas prison system and death row, the authors explore how the steady stream of executions in the town has affected these people and the community at large. As the Owenses show, the ever-present death chamber "reaches out like tentacles to touch the lives of everyone who lives here." Some of the people they talk to are in favor of the death penalty, some are against it, many are conflicted, and a few refuse to share their opinions. But this book is not first of all about people's opinions, nor is it about policy or polemic or issues. Rather, the focus is on personal stories. Living Next Door to the Death House unforgettably shows the human face of one of the mostcontroversial and hotly debated issues today in the U.S. Readers on all sides of the debate will be drawn in and moved by these stories arising out of life lived in the shadow of death.

Welcome to the Dead House. Three students: dead. Carly Johnson: vanished without a trace. Two decades have passed since an inferno swept through Elmbridge High, claiming the lives of three teenagers and causing one student, Carly Johnson, to disappear. The main suspect: Kaitlyn, "the girl of nowhere." Kaitlyn's diary, discovered in the ruins of Elmbridge High, reveals the thoughts of a disturbed mind. Its charred pages tell a sinister version of events that took place that tragic night, and the girl of nowhere is caught in the center of it all. But many claim Kaitlyn doesn't exist, and in a way, she doesn't - because she is the alter ego of Carly Johnson. Carly gets the day. Kaitlyn has the night. It's during the night that a mystery surrounding the Dead House unravels and a dark, twisted magic ruins the lives of each student that dares touch it. Debut author Dawn Kurtagich masterfully weaves together a thrilling and terrifying story using psychiatric reports, witness testimonials, video footage, and the discovered diary - and as the mystery grows, the horrifying truth about what happened that night unfolds.

Never-before-revealed facts and eyewitness testimony--as well as newly uncovered, controversial photos--highlight the story of the men who tried to escape the Huntsville Prison Walls Unit in 1934.

This is an exceptional, contemporary, heart-breaking novel. Toby's life was perfectly normal . . . until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House; an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium. No one returns from the sanatorium. Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes. Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts. You can learn more about Sarah Pinborough at www.sarahpinborough.com, or by following @SarahPinborough on twitter.

No. 7 Ocean Drive is a multimillion-dollar beachfront house in the Hamptons, but its beautiful exterior hides a horrific past. This house was the setting for a series of depraved killings that have never been solved. Neglected, empty and rumoured to be cursed, it's known as the Murder House, and locals keep their distance. Detective Jenna Murphy has moved to the area to escape her troubled past and rehabilitate a career on the rocks. But when a Hollywood power broker and his mistress are found dead in the abandoned Murder House, Jenna becomes involved in a case that at first seems open and shut, but reveals more secrets than she could possibly imagine. As more bodies surface and Jenna is drawn deeper into the dark history of No. 7, she must risk her own life to expose the truth - before the Murder House claims another victim.