Literature Tragedy

Sheriff Harry Cosner and Undersheriff Harry Rutter fought Bill Hardee, a “demented criminal”, to bring justice to the raw frontier of Northeastern Montana. Bill was in the Valley County Jail in Glasgow, Montana, scheduled to be hung for the heinous murder of a teenage boy. He convinced the three other prisoners to escape with him.

The murder of a young Tibetan nun at the hands of Chinese border guards at the rooftop of the world offers a unique parable for the tale of modern Tibet. Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. When a group of climbers witness the murder of a young Tibetan nun who is fleeing to India, two men have a choice: turn a blind eye and preserve their climbing careers or alert the world to the grand scale of human injustice played out daily in Tibet.

When Downeast local Annette Fiorno is found at the bottom of a ravine, outsider and relapsed drug addict Jimmy Sedgwick is accused of murder. Unassuming Maine lawyer Rob Hanston and big shot attorney Shawn Marks form an unlikely legal team as they attempt to discredit the overwhelming evidence. Addiction on Trial, the first in a series of Shawn Marks Thrillers, revolves around the murder cases of attorney Marks, an egotistical yet likable high-powered Boston attorney who can juggle an array of female companions.

Written in 1898, Arthur Conan Doyle's classic tale of high adventure portrays an alarmist era of imperial sovereignty, invasive foreign policy, and religious extremism, positing the naivety of a group of Anglo-American holiday-makers against the unbending convictions of Middle Eastern banditti. Among others, a young American ingenue, her matronly aunt, a fusty old bachelor, a loving Irish couple, and an opinionated French graduate gather aboard the Korosko.

To the world it seems obvious: Kaylene Adams killed her daughter before taking her own life. Attorney Emilie Wesley knows a different story: Kaylene would never hurt anyone and was looking for a way out of a controlling, abusive relationship. Her death shakes Emilie’s belief that she can make a difference for women in violent marriages. Self-doubt plagues her as she struggles to continue her work in the wake of the tragedy.

Eldene McGrady is the mother of two teenage children. Taylor, a strapping six-foot 15-and-half-year-old, and his little sister, Patty, who is 14, just 11 months younger than Taylor. Eldene is suddenly widowed due to an accident in which her husband, Jake, is killed. Her grief is such that she just can't continue their life in Baltimoret, selling all her holdings and deciding, along with her children, to plan and join a wagon train and move West to the Oregon Territory.

From The New York Times best-selling author of Bird's-Eye View comes this twisting saga of a family changed forever by tragedy. When the husband and wife team of Walt and Jocelyn Gaines travelled to South America to contribute their archaeological expertise at a newly uncovered Mayan site, no one could have predicted what would happen next. Fallen Idols is a riveting novel of uncommon discoveries.

Step into a world of ancient wonders and heart-wrenching drama with "Escape from Pompeii: A Journey of Love and Tragedy." This captivating historical novel transports you from a quaint Bavarian village, where Anya, a young Celtic beauty, is brutally ripped from her loving home and family, captured by soldiers, and marched into Rome to be sold in the city’s slave market. Follow her plight as she’s purchased and enslaved by a powerful aristocratic family where she’s determined to survive the degradation and humiliation of slavery and servitude.

This is a collection of plays written by Jo and Meg March, often discussed and performed in the March family attic by the beloved Little Women as the Pickwick Players. Our cast returns as Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth to perform every role with dramatic flair from damsels in distress to evil villains, and no shortage of mistaken identities and sword fights.

A chance invitation from friends saves Ruth Averill's life on the night her uncle's old house in Starvel Hollow is consumed by fire, killing him and incinerating the fortune he kept in cash. Dismissed at the inquest as a tragic accident, the case is closed - until Scotland Yard is alerted to the circulation of bank notes supposedly destroyed in the inferno. Inspector Joseph French suspects that dark deeds were done in the Hollow that night and begins to uncover a brutal crime involving arson, murder and body snatching.

In this, perhaps Dickens' most profound and personal novel, we are invited to share in the sentimental education of Pip, the poor boy from the village forge who risks losing himself in snobbery and selfishness when he mysteriously inherits a fortune. The story moves from the bleak Kentish marshes of Pip's childhood to a thrilling climax that mingles tragedy and triumph.

On a hot, still morning on a beautiful beach in Jamaica, Decca Aitkenhead's life changed forever. Her four-year-old son was paddling peacefully at the water's edge when a wave pulled him out to sea. Her partner, Tony, swam out and saved their son's life - then drowned before her eyes. When Decca and Tony first met, a decade earlier, she was a renowned Guardian journalist profiling leading politicians of the day; he was a dreadlocked criminal with a history of drug dealing and violence. No one thought the romance would last, but it did.

Popular novelist Mark Twain will take you on a mesmerizing mystery story set in the small town of Dawson's Landing, Missouri, during the early 19th century, where you’ll follow the lives of two infants born on the same day. One is the privileged white son of Percy and Augusta Driscoll, while the other is the mixed-race child of their slave, Roxy. In an act of desperation to shield her son from the horrors of slavery, Roxy ingeniously swaps the babies' identities, an act destined to shape the course of their lives.

In Agatha Christie’s short story, “The Tragedy at Marsdon Manor,” Poirot investigates the case of a middle-aged man who died under suspicious circumstances just weeks after insuring his life for 50,000 pounds. Could the man, who was in financial straits, have killed himself to benefit his beautiful young wife? This short story originally appeared in the April 18, 1923 issue of The Sketch magazine.

Get ready to lose yourself in this collection of tragic stories from our authors that will fill your heart and tear it out at the same time. Sometimes a happy ending is not possible despite our best hopes, and things end in a way we never anticipated. Prepare to have your heart strings pulled and your resolve tested as these heart-breaking stories of love and tragedy leave you spinning.

When Dr. Watson returns to London from a weekend seminar, he finds hat Sherlock Holmes has been arrested. Inspector Lestrade refers Watson to a questionable psychiatric hospital where Holmes is jailed for mental incapacity.

The impossible has happened. Chief Inspector Reg Wexford has retired. He and his wife now divide their time between Kingsmarkham and a coachhouse in Hampstead belonging to their actress daughter, Sheila. For all the benefits of a more relaxed way of life, Wexford misses being the law. But a chance meeting in a London street, with someone he had known briefly as a very young police constable, changes everything. Tom Ede is now a detective superintendent, and is very keen to recruit Wexford as an adviser on a difficult case.

Archaeology student Chione has vivid dreams about the discovery of an opulent tomb. After the founder of the Institute of Archaeology learns that Chione’s dreams might be connected to events in Egypt, he accepts an offer to examine a mysterious site in the Valley of the Queens. When they discover a burial chamber, ancient spells transport Chione and her ex-boyfriend, archaeologist Aaron Ashby, 3,500 years into the past. There, they learn of Tutankhamon and Tauret, a priestess in Pharaoh's Court.

"The Tragedy of Macbeth" is a play written by William Shakespeare. Set mainly in Scotland, the play illustrates the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. The play was most likely written during the reign of James I, who had been James VI of Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. James was a patron of Shakespeare's acting company and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote during James's reign, "Macbeth" most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with the sovereign.

I thought I had life figured out: Finish high school, go to college, and become a Pulitzer prize winning journalist with a passion for activism. Simple, right? Then, my smart mouth got me in trouble and I wound up as the tutor for cocky star athlete Gabriel Johnson. I expected him to be unbearable. Thankfully, I was proven wrong when he gifted me a glimpse of his charming, softer side. What develops between us could truly be incredible...if he could shake off the persona others have cast him in.