A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: Humanity has conquered all those things and has even conquered death. Now Scythes are the only ones who can end life - and they are commanded to do so in order to keep the size of the population under control. Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe - a role that neither wants. These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.

Exiled to four years in Siberia, but hailed by the end of his life as a saint, prophet, and genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky holds an exalted place among the best of the great Russian authors. One of Dostoevsky’s five major novels, Devils follows the travails of a small provincial town beset by a band of modish radicals - and in so doing presents a devastating depiction of life and politics in late 19th-century Imperial Russia.

In this remarkable novel, Mauriac brings his extraordinary talent for probing the inmost core of the human character to what is arguably the most exciting theme in the world: the battle for the human soul. In all of literature there can be few more appalling studies of a soul devoured by pride and avarice, corroded by hatred.

Amelia Peabody inherited two things from her father: a considerable fortune and an unbendable will. The first allowed her to indulge in her life's passion. Without the second, the mummy's curse would have made corpses of them all.

Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their "demons". This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence.

Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.

Having submitted himself to Freudian psychoanalysis, the narrator keeps a diary with the aim of conquering his addiction to smoking. He describes his marriage to the woman he didn't want to marry, how he drives his business partner to despair, and how his "last cigarette" turns out to be one of many. Zeno is the classic "schlemiel"; his erratic foibles, his questionable logic, and his curious inclination to self sabotage help shine a light on human behavior in general, and reveal the many subtle half-truths people may tell themselves in order to defend their own actions and egos.

In the tumultuous years of the Civil War, the streets of Chicago offer a woman mostly danger and ruin - unless that woman is Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective and a desperate widow with a knack for manipulation. Descending into undercover operations, Kate is able to infiltrate the seedy side of the city in ways her fellow detectives can't. She's a seductress, an exotic foreign medium, a rich train passenger - all depending on the day and the robber, thief, or murderer she's been assigned to nab.

Agatha Christie's first two Poirot novels, narrated with a general-American accent. The Mysterious Affair at Styles: Someone has poisoned wealthy Emily Inglethorp. But who? And how? Everyone suspects Emily's young husband, Alfred...and Alfred seems to be actually trying to get arrested and charged.... The Murder on the Links: Poirot comes to France in response to a desperate plea for help to find his client already murdered - stabbed in the back and lying in an open grave. Brusque, arrogant Inspector Giraud thinks he knows who did it.

Naples, 1931. A bitter wind stalks the city streets, and murder lies at its chilled heart. When Maestro Vezzi, one of the world's greatest tenors, is found brutally murdered in his dressing room at Naples' famous San Carlo theater, the enigmatic and aloof Commissario Ricciardi is called to investigate. Arrogant and bad-tempered, Vezzi was hated by many. But with the livelihoods of the opera at stake, who would have committed such a callous act?

Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy, The House of Special Purpose illuminates an empire at the end of its reign. Living in England with his beloved wife, Zoya, Georgy prepares to make one final journey back to the Russia he once knew and loved, the Russia that both destroyed and defined him. As Georgy remembers days gone by, we are transported to Saint Petersburg, to the Winter Palace of the tzar, in the early twentieth century - a time of change, threat, and bloody revolution.

When Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, learns from his butler that they're broke, he marries the beautiful Vivien Lancaster for her money, only to find that his muse has abandoned him. Distraught and contemplating suicide, Savage accidentally conjures the devil - the polite "Gentleman" of the title - who appears at one of the society parties Savage abhors. The two hit it off: The devil talks about his home, where he employs Dante as a gardener; Savage lends him a volume of Tennyson.

Miss Emma Harlow hasn't earned the reputation as a hoyden for nothing, so when the duke of Trent discovers her in his conservatory stealing one of his orchids, he isn't surprised - charmed, delighted and puzzled, yes, but not surprised. It is Emma who is amazed. But her vexation doesn't last long. For Emma is a practical young lady with a mission: to end her dear sister Lavinia's engagement to the villainous (and dreadfully dull!) Sir Waldo Windbourne, and she thinks that the famous libertine is just the man for the job.

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a party at their country estate, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.

For Emily, accepting the proposal of Philip, the viscount Ashton, was an easy way to escape her overbearing mother, who was set on a grand society match. So when Emily's dashing husband died on safari soon after their wedding, she felt little grief. After all, she barely knew him. Now, nearly two years later, she discovers that Philip was a far different man from the one she had married so cavalierly.

Madrid, 1980. Juan de Vere, nearly finished with his university degree, takes a job as personal assistant to Eduardo Muriel, an eccentric, once-successful film director. Urbane, discreet, irreproachable, Muriel is an irresistible idol to the young man. But Muriel's voluptuous wife, Beatriz, inhabits their home like an unwanted ghost, and on the periphery of their lives is Dr. Jorge Van Vechten, a family friend implicated in unsavory rumors that Muriel now asks Juan to investigate.

Amory Ames is a wealthy young woman who questions her marriage to her notoriously charming playboy husband Milo. Looking for a change, she accepts a request for help from her former fiance, Gil Trent. Amory accompanies Gil to the luxurious Brightwell Hotel in an attempt to circumvent the marriage of his sister Emmeline to Rupert Howe, a disreputable ladies' man. Amory sees in the situation a grim reflection of her own floundering marriage.

When Lionel Savage, a popular poet in Victorian London, learns from his butler that they're broke, he marries the beautiful Vivien Lancaster for her money, only to find that his muse has abandoned him. Distraught and contemplating suicide, Savage accidentally conjures the devil - the polite "Gentleman" of the title - who appears at one of the society parties Savage abhors. The two hit it off: The devil talks about his home, where he employs Dante as a gardener; Savage lends him a volume of Tennyson.

When Mordecai Tremaine emerges from the train station, murder is the last thing on his mind. But he has never been able to resist anything in the nature of a mystery - and a mystery is precisely what awaits him in the village of Dalmering. Rehearsals for the local amateur dramatic production are in progress. When the star of the show is found dead, the spotlight falls on Mordecai, whose reputation in the field of crime-solving precedes him.

When a maid in the upper class Ellison household is strangled, Inspector Pitt is called in to investigate. He finds a world ruled by strict manners and social customs, where the inhabitants of the Ellison's neighborhood appear to be more outraged by the thought of scandal than they are by murder. Inspector Pitt finds a most unlikely ally in Charlotte, the Ellison's spirited daughter. But as the murders continue, Charlotte and Pitt find themselves drawn together by more than the investigation.

With An Heiress at Heart, Jennifer Delamere delivers the first in a historical romance series sure to set hearts aflame. After five years in exile for a youthful indiscretion, Lizzie Poole is given a second chance to join London society when her best friend, Ria, takes to her death bed and asks Lizzie to assume her identity. Ria wants Lizzie to carry out her final wishes, but neither knows that Lord Somerville has designs on Ria - and that maintaining the ruse will put Lizzie’s heart at risk.

London, 1851. With the opening of the Great Exhibition at hand, interest in mounting in the engineering triumphs of the railways, but not everyone feels like celebrating. In an audacious attack, the London to Birmingham mail train is robbed and derailed, causing many casualties. Planned with military precision, this crime proves a challenge to Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck who fights to untangle a web of murder, blackmail and destruction.

Exiled to four years in Siberia, but hailed by the end of his life as a saint, prophet, and genius, Fyodor Dostoevsky holds an exalted place among the best of the great Russian authors. One of Dostoevsky’s five major novels, Devils follows the travails of a small provincial town beset by a band of modish radicals - and in so doing presents a devastating depiction of life and politics in late 19th-century Imperial Russia.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was the greatest writer ever to come from Brazil and one of the masters of nineteenth-century fiction. Susan Sontag calls him "the greatest writer ever produced in Latin America", surpassing even Borges. Harold Bloom says that Machado is "the supreme black literary artist to date". And Allen Ginsburg calls him "another Kafka". And The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas is his masterpiece, a dazzling, tragic, and profound novel that belongs next to the greatest works of his contemporaries Melville and Dostoevsky.

He's insisting he's a Tide Lord and he's begging us to try again...to kill him, that is. When a routine hanging goes wrong, the survivor announces he is Cayal the immortal Prince, a Tide Lord. However, the only known record of the immortal beings of Amyrantha is the Tide Lord Tarot...and everyone knows it is only a parlour-game, an amusement. Arkady Desean, an expert on the legends of the Crasii - a part-animal, part-human race - is sent to interrogate Cayal.

In the late seventies an extraordinary document came to light which for fifty years had been held on deposit by the bankers of the deceased John Herbert Watson MD - better known to devotees of Conan Doyle as Dr Watson. A continuous narrative in the doctor’s own hand, the story opens in the East End of London in 1888. Three women have been savagely murdered by Jack the Ripper.

He enters her home without warning or invitation - a stranger of shadowy motives and commanding sensuality. Within hours, Alexia Welbourne is penniless, without any hope of marriage. Until Hayden Rothwell takes her to bed. When one impulsive act of passion forces Alexia to marry the very man who has ruined her, Hayden's seduction of Alexia is nearly complete. What Alexia doesn't know is that her irresistible new husband is driven by a secret purpose - and a debt of honor he will risk everything to repay.

He was a gossip columnist’s dream. Piccadilly Jim’s life was a collage of broken promises and drunken brawls. And his straight-laced Victorian aunt was not amused. So, she decided to reform him. Unfortunately, her reform project started at a time when Jim had fallen in love and had already decided to reform himself. Thus, life became complicated. Jim pretends to be himself - a beautiful display of Wodehousean logic; hilarious indeed!

A century after it first appeared, Crime and Punishment remains one of the most gripping psychological thrillers. A poverty-stricken young man, seeing his family making sacrifices for him, is faced with an opportunity to solve his financial problems with one simple but horrifying act: the murder of a pawnbroker. She is, he feels, just a parasite on society. But does the end justify the means? Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov makes his decision and then has to live with it.