Literature Tragedy

A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death.

It takes a split second for your life to change forever. And for Andrea Oliver that split second is a mass shooting in her local mall. But this shocking act is only the start. Because then, as the bodies fall around them, Andy’s mother Laura takes a step forward into the line of fire. Hours later, Laura is in hospital, her face splashed over the newspapers. But the danger has only just begun. Now Andy must embark on a desperate race against time to uncover the secrets of her mother’s past before any more blood is shed....

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.

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.

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 Valley of Fear is the fourth and final Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is loosely based on the Molly Maguires and Pinkerton agent James McParland. The story was first published in the Strand Magazine between September 1914 and May 1915. The first book edition was copyrighted in 1914, and it was first published by George H. Doran Company in New York on 27 February 1915, and illustrated by Arthur I. Keller. The novel starts with Sherlock Holmes receiving a cipher message from Fred Porlock, a pseudonymous agent of Professor Moriarty.

When the Rosens moved to New Rochelle, in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of professors, the boys were best friends and fierce rivals who soon followed each other to Yale University. Michael blazed through Yale in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. Then one day, Jonathan received a devastating call: Michael had suffered a psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Michael was still in hospital when he learned he'd been accepted to Yale Law School.

Nouvelle-Zélande, 1863. Carol et Linda vivent heureuses après que leurs mères, Cat et Ida, ont surmonté bien des embûches. Mais leur bonheur leur vaut aussi des ennemis, qui envient leur prospérité ou voient d'un mauvais œil leurs liens avec les Maoris.

Things are always odd and strange in Metamora, but when the proprietor of the curiosity shop, Odd and Strange Metamora, hosts a spring carnival showing off his collection of oddities, the day goes right in the garbage - or rather, out of the garbage when a raccoon overturns a trash can in the middle of town scattering human bones around the park. When it's discovered that the remains date back over a century, rumors start to run as rampant as the pack of furry bandits taking over the town at night.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A Christmas Eve party at Clevere Hall ends in tragedy when the host is found stabbed to death. Major Ceely certainly wasn’t short of enemies, but who hated him enough to commit the crime?

For years, timid Cary toiled away in a cold cubicle. He had dreams, but not the courage to pursue them. That is, until he lost his job and found his fortune in a most unexpected way. Now love, money, and fame come to Cory all too easily. But someone is out for blood. When unspeakable horrors and death start to befall everyone around Cary, everything slips from his grasp. His girlfriend, his fame, and finally...his sanity. All gone. Cary does everything he must do in order to uncover the truth about the murder that led to his great fortune.

Florence Stanville is a woman with a past. When she moves to Guisethorpe on the east coast of England, the townsfolk are intrigued by the glamorous and mysterious stranger, with her flame-red hair and abrupt manners. Florence doesn’t care about the gossips—she’s drawn to the peaceful seaside town by the pull of her childhood, when she lived for a brief but happy time with her beloved late mother. The riddle of those days remains, and now Florence can only snatch at half-remembered memories and shadowy figures in her dreams.

Blythe Connor is determined that she will be the warm, supportive mother she never had to her new baby Violet. But in the thick of motherhood's exhausting early days, Blythe doesn't find the connection with her daughter she expected. She's convinced that something is wrong with Violet—the little girl is distant, rejects affection, and becomes increasingly disruptive at preschool. Or is it all in Blythe's head?

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.

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.

When Caroline Sears receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970, and it seems that nothing can be done. But her brother-in-law, a physicist, tells her that perhaps there is. Hunter had appeared in their lives just a few years before - and his appearance was as mysterious as his past. With no family, no friends, and a background shrouded in secrets, Hunter embraced the Sears family and never looked back.

Sur une île de "l'Archipel du Chien" vit une petite communauté qui se pense à l'abri des soubresauts du monde. Lorsque la mer un matin rejette sur la plage trois cadavres de jeunes hommes noirs, c'est toute la tranquillité d'un quotidien réglé qui vole en éclats. Que faire de ces corps ? Les inhumer ? Les faire disparaître ? Doit-on garder le secret ou avertir les autorités ? Entre épopée, tragédie antique et thriller efficace, ce roman pose la question de notre responsabilité morale face aux grands drames d'aujourd'hui, et de notre soif de vérité qui se confronte à notre désir de préserver notre bonheur.

Ten years king, Malcolm sits on an uneasy throne. If Malcolm’s mind is haunted by the ghosts of his royal father (“gracious Duncan”) as well as the thane and lady who so bloodily betrayed him, Malcolm’s soul is sickened, as was Macbeth’s, by the witches’ prophecy that from Banquo’s seed would spring a line of Scottish kings. Macbeth, Part II, draws bold the tragedy of a powerful man undone by the terrors he imagines and the truths he fails to see.

Simple, potent, and direct to the heartstings, this mix of traditional and original tales draws the listener into a transformational journey of the soul. These six stories exemplify the meaning of true love, the selfless acts that accompany it, and the consequences that can follow.

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.