The Devil Himself

"I'll talk to anybody, a priest, a bank manager, a gangster, the devil himself, if I can get the information I need. This is a war." -- Lt. Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden, Naval Intelligence Unit, B-3 In late 1982, a spike in terrorism has the Reagan Administration considering covert action to neutralize the menace before it reaches the United States. There are big risks to waging a secret war against America's enemies---but there is one little-known precedent. Forty years earlier, German U-boats had been prowling the Atlantic, sinking hundreds of U.S. ships along the east coast, including the largest cruise ship in the world, Normandie, destroyed at a Manhattan pier after Pearl Harbor. Nazi agents even landed on Long Island with explosives and maps of railways, bridges, and defense plants. Desperate to secure the coast, the Navy turned to Meyer Lansky, the Jewish Mob boss. A newly naturalized American whose fellow Eastern European Jews were being annihilated by Hitler, Lansky headed an unlikely fellowship of mobsters Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, and naval intelligence officers. Young Reagan White House aide Jonah Eastman, grandson of Atlantic City gangster Mickey Price, is approached by the president's top advisor with an assignment: Discreetly interview his grandfather's old friend Lansky about his wartime activities. There just might be something to learn from that secret operation. The notoriously tight-lipped gangster, dying of cancer, is finally ready to talk. Jonah gets a riveting---and darkly comic---history lesson. The Mob caught Nazi agents, planted propaganda with the help of columnist Walter Winchell, and found Mafia spies to plot the invasion of Sicily, where General Patton was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of the Axis. Lansky's men stopped at nothing to sabotage Hitler's push toward American shores. Based on real events, The Devil Himself is a high-energy novel of military espionage and Mafia justice.

Nicholas Dukes and Captain Adam Nutt were two men with much in common. Both were prominent members of Pennsylvanian society in the 1880s, both had studied law under the same mentor, and both shared an intimate connection to the beautiful Lizzie Nutt: Dukes was her debonair fiancé, Nutt her doting father. Yet Dukes soured on Lizzie during their engagement and resolved to rid himself of his betrothed. He penned a scandalous letter to Captain Nutt accusing Lizzie of sexual transgressions with no fewer than seven suitors, himself included. Nutt was not one to suffer lightly an affront to his family. In their shared village of Uniontown, Nutt confronted Dukes in a duel that would lead to one man's death and the other's sensational murder trial. Using the Dukes-Nutt affair, the book explores the role of honor in a society hesitating at the threshold between past and future.--Publisher's description.

The inspiration for the Netflix series The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself “An enthralling fantasy in the Harry Potter tradition.”—Time magazine “A bewitching new thriller.”—The Wall Street Journal In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live alongside humans, one sixteen-year-old boy is trapped between the two sides. Nathan's father is the world’s most powerful and cruel witch, and his mother is dead. Both groups of witches see Nathan as their greatest threat—or their greatest weapon. Trapped in a cage, beaten and handcuffed, he must escape before his seventeenth birthday, at which point he will receive three gifts from his father and come into his own as a witch—or else he will die. But how can Nathan find his father when his every action is tracked, when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves? In the tradition of Patrick Ness and Markus Zusak, Half Bad is a gripping tale of alienation and the indomitable will to survive, a story that will grab hold of you and not let go until the very last page. Now streaming on Netflix as The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself. Cover may vary.

For Fans of Brian Panowich and Ron Rash. Southern Noir at its finest, The Devil Himself, sizzles with page-burning suspense and bewitching characters. Deep in the forest of South Georgia, barely eighteen-year-old Maya narrowly escapes a savage end. The victim of a vast human trafficking operation managed out of Mexico, Maya had the misfortune to discover the dark plans of a high-ranking client. Her fate seemed sealed, until Leonard Moye, a lonely eccentric who tolerates no one on his land, takes the young woman under his protection. Both having lived lives that have left deep scars, each consumed by anger, they soon develop a bond that makes them, as a pair, a formidable foe, even for hardened criminals and professional scumbags. Maya knows too much and the old man lives on land in the crosshairs of narco machinations. As the heavies seek to finish the job, they find they may be no match for the resourcefulness of a disturbed old man and a cunning young woman. Written with a skilled combination of breakneck pace and mind-searing detail, Farris has created a wicked and compassionate novel of redemption. First published in France with enormous critical acclaim and winning multiple literary awards, The Devil Himself will mark Peter Farris as a major crime writer in America as well.

Following the success of his 1937 landmark bestseller, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill wrote Outwitting the Devil, an exposé on the methods the Devil uses to ensnare and control the minds of human beings. Exploring the innermost depths of the psychology of motivation to understand why so many individuals, including himself, cannot find the initiative and courage they need to consistently implement the philosophy of individual achievement, Hill went so far as to interview the Devil himself. The resulting confession from the Devil made this book so controversial as to remain unpublished for over 70 years. Now it is your turn to break the Devil’s code and free yourself from the hidden methods of control that lead to ruin. In this reproduction of the complete text of Hill’s original manuscript is laid out the exact nature of the power by which the Devil disarms human beings with fear, procrastination, anger, and jealousy so that they do not reach their full potential. This is the same power that paralyzed millions of individuals with fear and despondency during the Great Depression and continues to hold people back from their dreams. Complacency and mediocrity are not the root issue; they are symptoms of deeper ills that we are conditioned by society to accept. But you must open your mind to acquire knowledge and consider facts that might not harmonize with your personal beliefs in order to access a greater truth that will, as Hill said in his original preface, “bring harmony out of chaos in this age of frustration and fear.” If you have been the victim of lost courage, weakened enthusiasm, and lack of self-discipline—if you are demoralized and plagued by fear, anxiety, overwhelm, or apathy—the seven principles to freedom detailed in this book herald your redemption. You will finally become independent of the causes of failure and misery, break the bonds of destructive habits, and unlock the secret of a natural law as significant as the law of gravity so that you can outwit the devil once and for all.

Originally written in 1938 but never published due to its controversial nature, an insightful guide reveals the seven principles of good that will allow anyone to triumph over the obstacles that must be faced in reaching personal goals.

THE STORY: Jabez Stone, young farmer, has just been married, and the guests are dancing at his wedding. But Jabez carries a burden, for he knows that, having sold his soul to the Devil, he must, on the stroke of midnight, deliver it up to him. Shortly before twelve Mr. Scratch, lawyer, enters and the company is thunderstruck. Jabez bids his guests begone; he has made his bargain and will pay the price. His bride, however, stands by him, and so will Daniel Webster, who has come for the festivities. Webster takes the case. But Scratch is a lawyer himself and out-argues the statesman. Webster demands a jury of real Americans, living or dead. Very well, agrees the Devil, he shall have them, and ghosts appear. Webster thunders, but to no avail, and at last realizing Scratch can better him on technical grounds, he changes his tactics and appeals to the ghostly jury, men who have retained some love of country. Rising to the height of his powers, Webster performs the miracle of winning a verdict of Not Guilty.

FOR SEVENTY YEARS, HE HAS WAITED...In Sharon Vallery, at teen slumber parties and around campfires, the story is told. Seventy years ago, on Halloween night, Nathaniel and Myrantha Ober made a pact sealed by bloody human sacrifice...a pact with the devil himself.THIS HALLOWEEN, EVIL WILL RETURN...Nancy Snell is the most popular girl in high school. She is beautiful and wealthy, and she has discovered the key to unlimited power. The occult force that was summoned to this sleepy town decades ago. She has already chosen the perfect victim needed to perform the ritual: the new girl in town, Lana Bremmers.THE DEVIL'S ENDOnce again the town of Sharon Valley will be the doorway to the legions of darkness. And the devil will have his payment in blood, on an even more terrifying Halloween night.