The Little Death

Henry Rios is introduced as a troubled San Francisco public defender, burnt out and battling alcoholism. While investigating the murder of an old friend, he traces clues back to the man's own wealthy family. It is here that we first encounter Rios's disenchantment with a legal system caught between justice and corruption.

Death arrives in this darkly humorous and brilliantly illustrated tale created by Nicholas Gurewitch, author of The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack! Death becomes a patient of a recently-bereaved psychoanalyst. The topic of discussion? His frolicsome child, who has no apparent interest in grim-reaping! Featuring an unfathomable number of lines which have been hand-chiseled into inked clay, this labor of love by Nicholas Gurewitch invokes the morbid humor of his comic strip (The Perry Bible Fellowship) and the spooky silent-film qualities of the late Edward Gorey.

Police discover a headless corpse in glamorous Palm Beach and Louis Kincaid must find the killer to save an innocent man. When the headless corpse of a young man is discovered in glamorous Palm Beach, Louis sets his sights on his most likely suspect—a prominent female U.S. Senator with a history of scandal and a known penchant for sadistic and dangerous sex. Then a second headless body turns up and the trail runs cold, allowing the real killer to slip in dangerously close, intent on making Louis’s best friend the next victim. Beautifully written yet packed with raw power, The Little Death is a suspenseful thriller of the highest order and will satisfy fans of writers such as Ed McBain, James Patterson, and Michael Connolly.

It's 1965 in a tight-knit working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, and Ruth Malone -- a single mother who works long hours as a cocktail waitress -- wakes to discover her two small children, Frankie Jr. and Cindy, have gone missing. Later that day, Cindy's body is found in a derelict lot a half mile from her home, strangled. Ten days later, Frankie Jr.'s decomposing body is found. Immediately, all fingers point to Ruth. As police investigate the murders, the detritus of Ruth's life is exposed. Seen through the eyes of the cops, the empty bourbon bottles and provocative clothing which litter her apartment, the piles of letters from countless men and Ruth's little black book of phone numbers, make her a drunk, a loose woman -- and therefore a bad mother. The lead detective, a strict Catholic who believes women belong in the home, leaps to the obvious conclusion: facing divorce and a custody battle, Malone took her children's lives. Pete Wonicke is a rookie tabloid reporter who finagles an assignment to cover the murders. Determined to make his name in the paper, he begins digging into the case. Pete's interest in the story develops into an obsession with Ruth, and he comes to believe there's something more to the woman whom prosecutors, the press, and the public have painted as a promiscuous femme fatale. Did Ruth Malone violently kill her own children, is she a victim of circumstance -- or is there something more sinister at play? Inspired by a true story, Little Deaths, like celebrated novels by Sarah Waters and Megan Abbott, is compelling literary crime fiction that explores the capacity for good and evil in us all.

The blues were born out of pride, anger, and need. Murder comes from those same dark places. One of Memphis' most seductive and notorious socialites has disappeared. She's either off on another of her drunken escapades or the disappearance is something much more frightening. What begins as an ordinary day's work for Detective Billy Able of the Memphis P.D. quickly grows into a high-level spider's web of tragedy, mystery, suspicion, passion, and sordid secrets--including a few of Billy's own. Along with Mercy Snow, the estranged sister of the missing socialite, Billy follows a twisted path of human frailty and corruption to disturbing truths that undermine everything he thought he knew about himself and the people he loves.

Shortlisted for the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original and the CWA Ellis Peters Award for Historical Crime Fiction. London, 1955. Three bodies are found in a house - but when the police search for the murder weapon, vital evidence is destroyed. One of the victims is former society beauty Georgina Gresham, prime suspect in the notorious murder of her husband, James, almost thirty years earlier. Beside her lie the bodies of her brother Edmund and housekeeper Ada. But there is a link with the past. In the 1890s, in a beautiful garden, three children played together. Their lives were secure, their future certain - until the youngest child was found with fatal head injuries...

This little book is a repository of intriguing, fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts and trivia about the one certainty in all our lives - death. Within this volume are some horrible, unfortunate and downright ludicrous ends. Find out what body parts of the departed great and famous are still with us (and, in some cases, what they sold for). Learn of odd last requests, burials, epitaphs and death rites from around the world, as well as the strange fates of some cadavers – and a whole host of horrible tales about mummies, vampires, zombies, auto-icons and body-snatchers. Anyone brave enough to read this book will be entertained and enthralled and never short of some frivolous fact to enhance a conversation or quiz! With 50 chilling illustrations, get out of your crypt and buy it whilst you can!

Marianne Boruch indulges in the joy of the short leap between poetry and the essay