Charles Armstrong

Sera Skohlidon longs for adventure, to be like the brave crusaders of ancient lore. In her guarded, imaginative core, fauns have rejected the nefarious Royal Coven, the Coven's magick, and the questionable trades faunkind makes for it. One day, her quest for answers unearths a family secret that ignites an earth-shattering adventure. With the help of a shapeshifting deadringer, Sera embarks on a journey that sharpens her self-image, strengthens her...

In 1867, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published the first American edition of The Inferno, Dante was almost unknown in this country. The New England poet and educator, who taught Italian literature at Harvard, introduced Dante's literary genius to the New World with this vibrant blank verse translation of the first and most popular book of the three-part Divine Comedy. Expressed in haunting poetry of great emotional power, The Inferno chronicles...

Christie's third novel, "The Murder on the Links," published in 1923, is a pivotal work in the development of her iconic detective, Hercule Poirot. This intricate mystery, set in northern France, showcases Christie's evolving mastery of the whodunit format and her skill in crafting complex, misleading plots. The novel is particularly noteworthy for its use of multiple narrators and its exploration of the unreliable narrator trope, techniques that...

The last great literary work of the Middle Ages and the first important book of the Renaissance, Dante's Divine Comedy culminates in this third and final section, Paradiso. The 14th-century allegory portrays a medieval perspective on the afterlife, tracing the poet's voyage across three realms - Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise - to investigate the concepts of sin, guilt, and redemption. Expressed in sublime verse, the trilogy concludes with this challenging...

Agatha Christie's beloved detective does it again! Hercule Poirot solves the murder of a wealthy American socialite by staging an eerie reenactment of the journey with the killer along for the ride. When the luxurious overnight passenger train from Calais to the Riviera, known as the Blue Train, arrives in Nice, a guard goes into the compartment of American heiress, Ruth Kettering and attempts to wake her. Unfortunately, she will never wake up,...

In the first major history of crime fiction in fifty years, The Life of Crime: Detecting the History of Mysteries and their Creators traces the evolution of the genre from the eighteenth century to the present, offering brand-new perspective on the world's most popular form of fiction. "The Life of Crime is the result of a lifetime of reading and enjoying all types of crime fiction, old and new, from around the world. In what will surely be regarded...

This collection of 25 Hercule Poirot adventures by Agatha Christie are compiled from short stories written for The Sketch magazine from March to December 1923. In these stories, including "The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim," "The Veiled Lady," and "The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb," the eccentric private detective slowly and surely solves mysteries involving jealousy, revenge and greed. These stories were well-received at the time and cemented...

The incredible story of a once-venerable Swiss bank that produced a litany of financial scandals and whose collapse reveals the amorality at the heart of the global banking system. Credit Suisse was a 166-year-old bastion of global banking. But a veneer of high-class service disguised a darker, much dirtier reality. From its sterile Zurich headquarters, Credit Suisse banked dictators and drug dealers, hid stolen Nazi gold, and helped corrupt bankers...

In Agatha Christie's short story, "The Adventure of the Cheap Flat," Poirot's suspicions are aroused when he hears of a sweetheart deal on a flat. Doing a little freelance investigating, he soon learns that the flat is at the center of a case of international espionage and a potentially fatal double-cross. This short story originally appeared in the May 9, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.

In Agatha Christie's short story, "The Double Clue," Poirot investigates the robbery of a collection of medieval jewelry from the safe of a dealer. Since the theft occurred during a dinner party, the suspects could be any of the guests. But which one? This short story originally appeared in the December 5, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.