The Madman And The Butcher

Based on newly uncovered sources, The Madman and the Butcher is a powerful double biography of Sam Hughes and Arthur Currie and the story of one of the most shocking and highly publicized libel trials in Canadian history. Sir Arthur Currie achieved international fame as Canadian Corps commander during the Great War. He was recognized as a brilliant general, morally brave, and with a keen eye for solving the challenges of trench warfare. But wars were not won without lives lost. Who was to blame for Canada's 60,000 dead? Sir Sam Hughes, Canada's war minister during the first two and a half years of the conflict, was erratic, outspoken, and regarded by many as insane. Yet he was an expert on the war. He attacked Currie's reputation in the war's aftermath, accusing him of being a butcher, a callous murderer of his own men. Set against the backdrop of Canadians fighting in the Great War, this engaging narrative explores questions of Canada's role in the war, the need to place blame for the terrible blood loss, the nation's discomfort with heroes, and the very public war of reputations that raged on after the guns fell silent.

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner (1871-1961) was a capable but controversial Canadian general who played a critical role in the development of the Canadian Corps up to 1917 and contributed significantly to its success thereafter. Despite his many accomplishments (including being awarded the Victoria Cross), Turner is often portrayed as a political appointee and repeated failure - representations that ignore, minimize, or misconstrue his successes as a combat commander and head of Canadian forces in England. In The Embattled General, William Stewart reveals Turner's tactical, operational, and administrative contributions to the Canadian war effort. Uniquely, Turner held senior commands in both combat arms and administration. Stewart narrates and analyzes Turner's successes and failures in the Boer War and the First World War's battles of Ypres, Festubert, St Eloi, and the Somme. He also studies Turner's career after his transfer to command Canadian forces in England in December 1916, where Turner reformed an administration in chaos. After the war, Turner post-war played a key role in the formation of the Royal Canadian Legion. Based on exhaustive research from over 1,200 volumes of material, including many previously untouched sources, The Embattled General provides a balanced and just re-evaluation of Turner, identifying his merits as well as his flaws.

For the British Empire and its allies of the Great War, 1917 was a year marked by crises. But here and there glimmers of light pierced the gloom. Soldiers began solving the problems posed by trench warfare. The dominions asserted themselves in the councils of imperial power. And the US finally entered the war. This book examines the British imperial war effort during the most pivotal and dynamic twelve months of the war. Written by internationally recognized historians, its chapters explore military, diplomatic, and domestic aspects of how the empire prosecuted the war. Their rich, nuanced analysis transcends narrow, national viewpoints to provide a multi-faceted perspective of events that laid the groundwork for victory.

No one could have imagined that the hardened heart of a sadistic serial killer beats in a small town like Huntington, West Virginia. Dubbed the Butcher by local media, the elusive murderer has somehow managed to evade the police and wreak havoc on the residents of Huntington. Ellie Stevens, a reporter for the Daily Chronicle newspaper, has been assigned the task of reporting on the beautiful and unfortunate victims of the Butcher. As she grows tired of standing on the sidelines, Ellie decides to launch her own investigation while her lifelong friend, homicide detective Tony Moretti, continues his dedicated mission to hunt down and arrest the killer. As Tony and Ellie walk a fine line between friendship and something deeper, they find themselves not only at odds about how to stop the Butcher, but also about their feelings for one another. But as Ellie edges closer to the Butcher, everything changes in an instant, leaving one of them clinging to life and the other with a monumental decision. In this suspenseful tale, a sadistic serial killer terrorizes a small town and forever changes the lives of a reporter and homicide detective determined to find him and seek justice.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER They call the ancient hills of Jerusalem the butcher’s theater. Here, upon this bloodstained stage, a faceless killer performs his violent specialty. The first to die brutally is a girl. She is drained of blood, then carefully bathed and shrouded in white. Precisely one week later, a second victim is found. “Crisp . . . suspenseful . . . intense.”—The New York Times Book Review From the sacred Wailing Wall to monasteries where dark secrets are cloistered, from black-clad Bedouin enclaves to labyrinthine midnight alleys, veteran police inspector Daniel Sharavi and his crack team plunge deep into a city simmering with religious and political passions to hunt for a murderer whose insatiable taste for bloodshed could destroy the delicate balance on which Jerusalem’s very survival depends.

The Photographer latest assignment: identify and kill The Butcher, a rival killer. Noting that The Butcher's victims show no signs of struggle, are all ugly, and wore topaz jewelry in bad taste, he deduces that The Butcher is a demented interior decorator. But nothing is ever quite as it seems...

A bloody death of an actress during a theatre show has DI Gilchrist and DS Heap investigate . . . but was it a bizarre accident or a deliberate attack? During a theatre performance Detective Inspector Sarah Gilchrist is reluctantly attending, blood begins soaking through a curtain startling one actor into falling to his death from the stage. The source of the blood: Elvira Wright, the lead actress, has been bludgeoned by a lead weight used for opening the curtain. Meanwhile former Hollywood actress Nimue Grace is attracting attention from a notorious gangster. When she stumbles across something horrific in the aptly named Butcher's Wood, she interprets it as a vicious message left for her. As Gilchrist and Detective Sergeant Bellamy Heap investigate, they find themselves running in circles. All the actors were disgruntled with the director of the play, Cat Pinter, and the way it was produced, but why would any of them target Elvira? And what is the meaning of the horrible discovery in Butcher's Wood?

In an age ruled by iron men, in a world of new discovery and Spanish gold, a young Irishwoman named Mary rises from the ashes of her broken childhood with ships and men-at-arms under her command. She and her loyal crew prowl the Caribbean and prosper in the New World for a time until the ugly past Mary has fled from in the old one finds her. Across the great ocean to the east, war is coming. The King of Spain is assembling the most powerful armada the world has ever seen - an enormous beast - to invade England and depose the “heretic” Protestant queen. To have any chance against the wealth and might of Spain, England will need every warship, she will need every able captain. To this purpose, Queen Elizabeth spares Mary from the headman’s axe for past sins in exchange for her loyalty, her ships and fighting men. Based on true historical events, this is an epic story about war, adventure, love and betrayal. This is a timeless story about vengeance. This is a tale of heartbreak…