Download or read book The Devil in the Wide City written by Justin Alcala and published by . This book was released on 2019-07 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Ned, a fallen angel who's as suave as he is brainy, accidentally starts the Great Chicago Fire during an assignment, he all but gives up on ever visiting Earth again- that is until his replacement goes missing, and Ned gets a chance at redemption.The Devil in the Wide City is an absurdist fictional piece about Ned, a fallen angel demoted from his job as a corruptor after starting the Great Chicago Fire. Fortunately, his replacement goes missing a century later, and Ned is sent back to Chicago in order to find out why. Only a lot has changed since the 19th century including the size of the city and its people. Incredibly, while tracking his replacement, Ned meets local celebrities like the ghost of Catherine O'Leary and John Dillinger the vampire. However, it's not until Ned crosses paths with Chelsea, an edgy, but lovable bookstore owner, that his world turns upside-down. Can Ned finally do his job right or will his heart get in the way?

Download or read book The Devil in the Wide City written by Justi Alcala and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-06 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Devil in the White City written by Erik Larson and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2004-02-10 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. “As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.” —San Francisco Chronicle Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction. Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.

Download or read book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God written by Juliana Barbassa and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-07-28 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From prizewinning journalist and Brazilian native Juliana Barbassa comes a deeply reported and beautifully written account of the seductive and chaotic city of Rio de Janeiro as it struggles with poverty and corruption on the brink of the 2016 Olympic Games. Juliana Barbassa moved a great deal throughout her life, but Rio was always home. After twenty-one years abroad, she returned to find her native city—once ravaged by inflation, drug wars, corrupt leaders, and dying neighborhoods—undergoing a major change. Rio has always aspired to the pantheon of global capitals, and under the spotlight of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games it seems that its moment has come. But in order to prepare itself for the world stage, Rio must vanquish the entrenched problems that Barbassa recalls from her childhood. Turning this beautiful but deeply flawed place into a pristine showcase of the best that Brazil has to offer in just a few years is a tall order—and with the whole world watching, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Library Journal called Dancing with the Devil in the City of God “akin to Charlie LeDuff’s Detroit”—a book that “combines history and personal interviews in an informative and engaging work.” This kaleidoscopic portrait of Rio introduces the reader to the people who make up this city of extremes, revealing their aspirations and their grit, their violence, their hungers, and their splendor, and shedding light on the future of this city they are building together. Dancing with the Devil in the City of God is an insider perspective from a native daughter and “a fascinating look at the people who live in and aspire to change one of the world’s most impressive cities” (Booklist, starred review).

Download or read book The Quaker City written by George Lippard and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Devil s Chain written by Keely Stauter-Halsted and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the half-century before Poland’s long-awaited political independence in 1918, anxiety surrounding the country’s burgeoning sex industry fueled nearly constant public debate. The Devil’s Chain is the first book to examine the world of commercial sex throughout the partitioned Polish territories, uncovering a previously hidden conversation about sexuality, gender propriety, and social class. Keely Stauter-Halsted situates the preoccupation with prostitution in the context of Poland’s struggle for political independence and its difficult transition to modernity. She traces the Poles’ growing anxiety about white slavery, venereal disease, and eugenics by examining the regulation of the female body, the rise of medical authority, and the role of social reformers in addressing the problem of paid sex. Stauter-Halsted argues that the sale of sex was positioned at the juncture of mass and elite cultures, affecting nearly every aspect of urban life and bringing together sharply divergent social classes in what had long been a radically stratified society. She captures the experiences of the impoverished women who turned to the streets and draws a vivid picture of the social milieu that shaped their choices. The Devil’s Chain demonstrates that discussions of prostitution and its attendant disorders—sexual deviancy, alcoholism, child abuse, vagrancy, and other related problems—reflected differing visions for the future of the Polish nation.

Download or read book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil written by John Berendt and published by Random House. This book was released on 1994-01-13 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A modern classic of true crime, set in a most beguiling Southern city—now in a 30th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author “Elegant and wicked . . . might be the first true-crime book that makes the reader want to book a bed and breakfast for an extended weekend at the scene of the crime.”—The New York Times Book Review Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. In this sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative, John Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman’s Card Club; the turbulent young gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the “soul of pampered self-absorption”; the uproariously funny drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young people dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight. These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is a sublime and seductive reading experience.

Download or read book The Devil s Tickets written by Gary M. Pomerantz and published by Crown. This book was released on 2009-06-09 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kansas City, 1929: Myrtle and Jack Bennett sit down with another couple for an evening of bridge. As the game intensifies, Myrtle complains that Jack is a “bum bridge player.” For such insubordination, he slaps her hard in front of their stunned guests and announces he is leaving. Moments later, sobbing, with a Colt .32 pistol in hand, Myrtle fires four shots, killing her husband. The Roaring 1920s inspired nationwide fads–flagpole sitting, marathon dancing, swimming-pool endurance floating. But of all the mad games that cheered Americans between the wars, the least likely was contract bridge. As the Barnum of the bridge craze, Ely Culbertson, a tuxedoed boulevardier with a Russian accent, used mystique, brilliance, and a certain madness to transform bridge from a social pastime into a cultural movement that made him rich and famous. In writings, in lectures, and on the radio, he used the Bennett killing to dramatize bridge as the battle of the sexes. Indeed, Myrtle Bennett’s murder trial became a sensation because it brought a beautiful housewife–and hints of her husband’s infidelity–from the bridge table into the national spotlight. James A. Reed, Myrtle’s high-powered lawyer and onetime Democratic presidential candidate, delivered soaring, tear-filled courtroom orations. As Reed waxed on about the sanctity of womanhood, he was secretly conducting an extramarital romance with a feminist trailblazer who lived next door. To the public, bridge symbolized tossing aside the ideals of the Puritans–who referred derisively to playing cards as “the Devil’s tickets”–and embracing the modern age. Ina time when such fearless women as Amelia Earhart, Dorothy Parker, and Marlene Dietrich were exalted for their boldness, Culbertson positioned his game as a challenge to all housebound women. At the bridge table, he insisted, a woman could be her husband’s equal, and more. In the gathering darkness of the Depression, Culbertson leveraged his own ballyhoo and naughty innuendo for all it was worth, maneuvering himself and his brilliant wife, Jo, his favorite bridge partner, into a media spectacle dubbed the Bridge Battle of the Century. Through these larger-than-life characters and the timeless partnership game they played, The Devil’s Tickets captures a uniquely colorful age and a tension in marriage that is eternal.

Download or read book The Devil s Punchbowl written by Greg Iles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawyer Penn Cage goes up against a mix of murder, racial tension, double-crosses, illicit sex ... and all of the ensuing violent consequences in the kudzu-strangled, snake- rat- and armadillo-infested hole of the Devil's Punchbowl.

Download or read book Fargo Rock City written by Chuck Klosterman and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-11 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The year is 1983, and Chuck Klosterman just wants to rock. But he's got problems. For one, he's in the fifth grade. For another, he lives in rural North Dakota. Worst of all, his parents aren't exactly down with the long hairstyle which rocking requires. Luckily, his brother saves the day when he brings home a bit of manna from metal heaven, SHOUT AT THE DEVIL, Motley Crue's seminal paean to hair-band excess. And so Klosterman's twisted odyssey begins, a journey spent worshipping at the heavy metal altar of Poison, Lita Ford and Guns N' Roses. In the hilarious, young-man-growing-up-with-a-soundtrack-tradition, FARGO ROCK CITY chronicles Klosterman's formative years through the lens of heavy metal, the irony-deficient genre that, for better or worse, dominated the pop charts throughout the 1980s. For readers of Dave Eggers, Lester Bangs, and Nick Hornby, Klosterman delivers all the goods: from his first dance (with a girl) and his eye-opening trip to Mandan with the debate team; to his list of 'essential' albums; and his thoughtful analysis of the similarities between Guns 'n' Roses' 'Lies' and the gospels of the New Testament.

Download or read book The Devil In The White City written by Erik Larson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

Download or read book The City of God written by Saint Augustine (Bishop of Hippo.) and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 590 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Little Demon in the City of Light written by Steven Levingston and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delicious true crime account of a murder most gallic—think CSI Paris meets Georges Simenon—whose lurid combination of sex, brutality, forensics, and hypnotism riveted first a nation and then the world. In 1889, the gruesome murder of a lascivious court official at the hands of a ruthless con man and his pliant mistress launched the trial of the century. When Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé entered 3, rue Tronson du Coudray, expecting a delightful assignation with the comely Gabrielle Bompard, he was instead murdered by Gabrielle and her lover, Michel Eyraud. An international manhunt chased the infamous couple from Paris to America’s West Coast, culminating in a sensational trial that investigated the power of hypnosis to possess, control, and even kill. As the inquiry into the guilt or innocence of the woman the French tabloids dubbed the “Little Demon” intensified, the most respected minds in France vehemently debated: Was Gabrielle Bompard the pawn of her mesmerizing lover or simply a coldly calculating murderess capable of killing a man in cold blood?

Download or read book Devil s Right Hand written by M. William Phelps and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Devil's Right Hand chroniclesthe legacy of death and destruction in the gunmaking Colt family during the nineteenth century, a legacy largely remembered for a lurid murder case that inspired Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Oblong Box”—but one that encompassed much more. . . New York Times and nationally bestselling author M. William Phelps reveals an unfathomable pattern surrounding repeating arms inventor Samuel Colt—from the death of all his children, including Sam’s sea captain son’s mysterious demise aboard his yacht, to the eccentric life of his widow. But the tip of this iceberg was the 1841-42 murder case of brother John C. Colt, one of New York’s most sensational scandals. Printer Samuel Adams went to collect a debt from bookkeeper and author John Colt and was never seen alive again. Shocking revelations followed: Did John shoot Adams with one of his brother’s Colt firearms before hacking him up and packing him in an oblong box? Did Sam Colt invent the revolving pistol, or steal the idea? Part historical true-crime, part family biography and cultural history, The Devil’s Right Hand is a stirring narrative about a darkly cursed American dynasty.

Download or read book Brazil s Dance with the Devil written by Dave Zirin and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Boston Globe’s Best Sports Books of the Year: “Incisive, heartbreaking, important and even funny” (Jeremy Schaap, New York Times–bestselling author of Cinderella Man). The people of Brazil celebrated when it was announced that they were hosting the World Cup—the world’s most-viewed athletic tournament—in 2014 and the 2016 Summer Olympics. But as the events were approaching, ordinary Brazilians were holding the country’s biggest protest marches in decades. Sports journalist Dave Zirin traveled to Brazil to find out why. In a rollicking read that travels from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the fabled Maracanã Stadium to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Zirin examines Brazilians’ objections to the corruption of the games they love; the toll such events take on impoverished citizens; and how taking to the streets opened up an international conversation on the culture, economics, and politics of sports. “Millions will enjoy the World Cup and Olympics, but Zirin justly reminds readers of the real human costs beyond the spectacle.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book The Devil To Pay written by Harold Robbins and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-08-28 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mysterious inheritance of the Columbian coffee plantation from the father she has never met comes at the same time as a criminal conspiracy is turning Nash Novaks life into a living hell, as he tackles organized crime and police agencies on two continents.

Download or read book The Devil s Tarot written by Marcvs Hackett and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: