The Front Page Murders


Book Description

It takes a fearless mind to harbour such a dark heart, a heart that knows no nobility, no apology? Mumbai, April 2012. The gruesome murder of a senior citizen in a wealthy Mumbai neighbourhood leads the city?s Crime Branch to unearth several half-naked, mutilated and dismembered bodies rotting in the ravines of the Western Ghats on the outskirts of the city. A trail of missing suspects, a lethal honey-trap, and unexpected links with Mumbai?s film industry and the underworld, brings the investigators ? and the press, ever hungry for breaking news ? to Vijay Palande, a cold-blooded killer equipped with the sophistication of Charles Sobhraj, the manipulative genius of Ted Bundy and the cruelty of Jack the Ripper. In The Front Page Murders, Puja Changoiwala, who covered the incidents as they unfolded, recounts in gripping detail the story behind the sensational case of multiple murders that shocked the country. Startling and intensely sobering by turns, her compelling narrative explores not just the murky depths of a serial killer?s mind but, tellingly, the media?s frenzy for a juicy story and the insatiable human appetite for horror.




A Son of the Circus


Book Description

A Hindi film star and an American missionary are twins separated at birth; a dwarf — a former circus clown — mistakes the missionary for the movie star. And stalking one of them is a serial killer...




The Nurse Murders


Book Description

A sadistic killer is terrorizing Phoenix, and he's got Gene Hammons' number... It's 1936, and private investigator Gene Hammons has more work than he can handle. A crime syndicate, J. Edgar Hoover, a wealthy family from back East, and a wily stalker all want something from him. His capable-but-drug-addicted brother, still a homicide detective, is as much a hindrance as a help. Luckily, Hammons finds a professional ally in Pamela Bradbury, a fellow gumshoe with some new tricks to teach him. When the two pair up, there doesn't seem to be a case they can't solve, from kidnapping to blackmail to an intricate gold-smuggling operation. But then a young nurse with red hair is sadistically raped and killed, and Gene recognizes the signs of a "lust murderer," having famously solved the case of the University Park Strangler years earlier. When he's contacted by the killer, Hammons knows he and Pamela must work quickly to catch the brutal murderer before he strikes again. The two come to each other's rescue more than once, and as deep feelings develop between them, it's not lost on Gene that their relationship might well prove dangerous—especially for Pamela, with her lovely red hair. Rich in atmosphere and authentic period detail, THE NURSE MURDERS is a gritty, nail-biting race to catch a killer in a city struggling to assert itself amidst the hardships, corruption, and political machinations of post-World War I America.




The Soldier of Fortune Murders


Book Description

A true story of obsessive love & murder-for-hire.




Witchcraft Accusations from Central India


Book Description

This book unravels the institutions surrounding witchcraft in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh through theoretical and empirical research on witchcraft, violence and modernity in contemporary times. The author pieces together ‘fragments’ of stories gathered utilising ethnographic methods to examine the meanings associated with witches and witchcraft, and how they connect with social relations, gender, notions of agency, law, media and the state. The volume uses the metaphor of the shattered urn to tell the story of the accusations, punishment, rescue and the aftermath of the events of the trial of women accused of being witches. It situates the ṭonhī or witch as a key elaborating symbol that orders behaviour to determine who the socially included and excluded are in communities. Through the personal interviews and other ethnographic methods conducted over the course of many years, the author delves into the stories and practices related to witchcraft, its relations with modernity, and the relationship between violence and ideological norms in society. Insightful and detailed, this book will be of great interest to academics and researchers of anthropology, development studies, sociology, history, violence, gender studies, tribal studies and psychology. It will also be useful for readers in both historic and contemporary witchcraft practices as well as policy makers.




Mars Hill Murder


Book Description

Reporter Miles Harper is on probation at the northern Arizona daily newspaper where he works, because his lack of attention to detail has put him on ice as thin as his notebook pages. His boss wants him out, but gives him one more chance to redeem himself. Maddy Sullivan is new to town, on the run from a violent husband who wants her back. She and Miles meet at a coffee shop, and forge a hesitant friendship. Police Detective Luis Ortega, Miles’s former college roommate, just wants to solve crimes. And someone is supplying those crimes by murdering low-level Flagstaff workers. Will these three figure out who the killer is before more people die? Will Miles help solve the mystery, write about it, and save his career? And will Maddy stay safe from the horrid man she once loved?




The Monsoon Murders


Book Description

Dishonourably dismissed from the police force, Roy has been condemned to a life of obscurity. The twist in the tale comes with the murder of a well-known man in the Mumbai finance circle. Roy is hired by the self made tycoon Jayesh Kumar to probe the case. While Roy is excited at the chance at redemption, he fails to understand why he became the chosen one. What looks at first an open and shut case, quite rapidly evolves into a tale of deceit and revenge. Roy must take care not to fall for the suspect, and not to see things as they appear. As his personal life gets tied to the success of the case, the question becomes, not whether he can have faith in strangers, but whether he can trust his friends. Inspired from real life cases, The Monsoon Murders is a fast-paced detective novel, taking the Indian crime fiction genre to mysterious depths.




Prizing Literature


Book Description

When Canadian authors win prestigious literary prizes, from the Governor General's Literary Award to the Man Booker Prize, they are celebrated not only for their achievements, but also for contributing to this country's cultural capital. Discussions about culture, national identity, and citizenship are particularly complicated when the honorees are immigrants, like Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields, or Rohinton Mistry. Then there is the case of Yann Martel, who is identified both as Canadian and as rootlessly cosmopolitan. How have these writers' identities been recalibrated in order to claim them as 'representative' Canadians? Prizing Literature is the first extended study of contemporary award winning Canadian literature and the ways in which we celebrate its authors. Gillian Roberts uses theories of hospitality to examine how prize-winning authors are variously received and honoured depending on their citizenship and the extent to which they represent 'Canadianness.' Prizing Literature sheds light on popular and media understandings of what it means to be part of a multicultural nation.




Anil's Ghost


Book Description

With his first novel since the internationally acclaimed The English Patient, Booker Prize—winning author Michael Ondaatje gives us a work displaying all the richness of imagery and language and the piercing emotional truth that we have come to know as the hallmarks of his writing. Anil’s Ghost transports us to Sri Lanka, a country steeped in centuries of tradition, now forced into the late twentieth century by the ravages of civil war. Into this maelstrom steps Anil Tissera, a young woman born in Sri Lanka, educated in England and America, who returns to her homeland as a forensic anthropologist sent by an international human rights group to discover the source of the organized campaigns of murder engulfing the island. What follows is a story about love, about family, about identity, about the unknown enemy, about the quest to unlock the hidden past–a story propelled by a riveting mystery. Unfolding against the deeply evocative background of Sri Lanka’s landscape and ancient civilization, Anil’s Ghost is a literary spellbinder–Michael Ondaatje’s most powerful novel yet.




The Murderer and the Taoiseach


Book Description

'An incredible and compelling story' MATT COOPER 'Gripping, unpretentious, brilliant and unputdownable' BUSINESS POST A Murderer. A Leader. The Scandal of an Era. In the summer of 1982, Irish aristocrat Malcolm Macarthur embarked on a brutal killing spree in a doomed plan to remedy his financial woes. Two weeks later, in a sensational turn of events, he was arrested in the home of Attorney General Patrick Connolly. The scandal attracted worldwide headlines and resulted in untold damage to then Taoiseach Charles Haughey. The words he used to describe the dark events - grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented - coined the era-defining phrase GUBU. Here, award-winning political journalist Harry McGee retraces the happenings of that long hot summer and beyond. From the cat-and-mouse game to track down an unpredictable killer to Macarthur's extraordinary capture, he considers both the life and psyche of a murderer, and that of the leading political figure of the time - a man similarly driven by greed, status and a sense of himself as existing above the law. Including previously unknown aspects of the trial and interaction with Malcolm Macarthur himself, The Murderer and the Taoiseach is a compulsive journey through tragedy and scandal. 'Brisk, illuminating, crackling with detail' TONY CONNELLY 'A brilliant account of shocking crimes and the dramatic political crisis they caused' DAVID McCULLAGH




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