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Book The Devil s City

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sara Tantlinger
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2020-05-26
  • ISBN : 9781734811520
  • Pages : 82 pages

Download or read book The Devil s City written by Sara Tantlinger and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: n the latter half of the 19th century Chicago grew from a town of a few thousand farmers to a sprawling metropolis of skyscrapers and a population of over 500,000. Those final decades were associated with rampant growth, progress, and innovations culminating in the World's Exposition of 1893. Yet Chicago's emergence to prominence was not without tragedy. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 nearly reduced the city to embers. Riots and strikes broke out. And there was the World's Exposition.The bustle of the World's Expo hid an appalling snake in the grass, Mr. Herman Webster Mudgett, aka Dr Henry Howard Holmes. Holmes would become infamous as America's first serial killer and proprietor of The Murder Castle. He confessed to 27 murders, and was purported to have killed as many as 200 victims before his capture. Some believed he may have been Jack the Ripper. Others knew him as a devil.The Devil's City is an illustrated novella by Sara Tantlinger and Matt Corley. Within its pages the book follows H.H. Holmes as he stalks and captures five victims through chaos and confusion of the 1893 World's Exposition."The Devil's City is a helluva thrill ride, delving deep into the sick history of serial killer HH Holmes, brutally peeling back the layers of his evil legacy through a series of surprising character studies, viciously unraveling Holmes' evil blood lust, victim after victim, until it reveals an unexpected core lurking behind it all. Holmes experts Sara Tantlinger and Matt Corley have built a whole new underworld around the killer's infamous Murder Castle at turn of the century Chicago, and this book takes you straight down into the twisted intricacies its darkest abyss. LOVED IT."- Michael Arnzen, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Play Dead"In The Devil's City, Sara Tantlinger & Matt Corley have created a phantasmagoric fun house of a novel, heavy on the gore. The novella takes the story of H.H. Holmes and gives it an even darker twist. A suspenseful, highly recommended read."- John F.D. Taff, Multiple Bram Stoker Award Nominee, author of The Fearing.The book is illustrated by Daniele Serra, Francois Vaillancourt, Sam Araya, and others. To bring the reader further into the Holmes' lair, an appendix of exquisitely detailed hand drawn maps of the World's Fair Hotel are included.

Book The Devil In The White City

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 . . .

Book The Devil in the City of Angels

Download or read book The Devil in the City of Angels written by Jesse Romero and published by Tan Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Romero reveals the harrowing details of his experiences with the demonic while working for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Discover the true stories of spiritual warfare being waged in the streets and alleys of L.A."--Amazon website

Book Dancing with the Devil in the City of God

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 336 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).

Book The Devil s Dreamland

    Book Details:
  • Author : Sara Tantlinger
  • Publisher : Rooster Republic LLC
  • Release : 2018-11-19
  • ISBN : 9781946335302
  • Pages : 122 pages

Download or read book The Devil s Dreamland written by Sara Tantlinger and published by Rooster Republic LLC. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her second book of poetry from Strangehouse Books, Sara Tantlinger (Love For Slaughter) takes inspiration from accounts and tales which spawned from the misdeeds of one Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. Fact and speculation intertwine herein, just as they did during the man's own lifetime.

Book L A   56

    Book Details:
  • Author : Joel Engel
  • Publisher : Macmillan
  • Release : 2012-04-10
  • ISBN : 1250012457
  • Pages : 305 pages

Download or read book L A 56 written by Joel Engel and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles, 1956. Glamorous. Prosperous. The place to see and be seen. But beneath the shiny exterior beats a dark heart. For when the sun goes down, L.A. becomes the noir city of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential or Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins novels. Segregation is the unwritten law of the land. The growing black population is expected to keep to South Central. The white cops are encouraged to deal out harsh street justice. In L.A. '56, Joel Engel paints a tense, moody portrait of the city as a devil weaves his way through the shadows. While R&B and hot jazz spill out of record shops and clubs and all-night burger stands, Willie Fields cruises past in his dark green DeSoto, looking for a woman on whom he can bestow the gift of his company. His brilliant idea: Buy a tin badge in the five-and-ten to go along with his big flashlight and Luger and pretend to be an undercover vice cop. The young white girls doing it with their boyfriends in the lovers' lanes dotting the L.A. hills would never say no to a cop. Into the car they go for a ride downtown on a "morals charge," before he kicks out the young man in the middle of nowhere and takes the girl for a ride she'll spend a lifetime trying to forget. There's a bad guy on the loose in the City of Angels. Enter Detective Danny Galindo-he'd worked the Black Dahlia case back in '47 as a rookie. The suave Latino-one of the few in the department-is able to move easily among the white detectives. Maybe it's all those stories he's sold to Jack Webb for Dragnet. When Todd Roark, a black ex-cop, is arrested, Galindo knows he's innocent. But there's no sympathy for Roark among the white cops on the LAPD; Galindo will have to go it alone. There's only one problem: The victims aren't coming forward. The white press ignores the story, too, making Galindo's job that much more difficult. And now he's fallen in love with one of the rapist's first victims. If he's ever found out, he can kiss his badge good-bye. With his back up against a wall, Galindo realizes that it will take some good old-fashioned Hollywood magic to take down a devil in the City of Angels.

Book Father Amorth

    Book Details:
  • Author : Fr. Gabriele Amorth
  • Publisher : Sophia Institute Press
  • Release : 2018-11-06
  • ISBN : 1622826094
  • Pages : 209 pages

Download or read book Father Amorth written by Fr. Gabriele Amorth and published by Sophia Institute Press. This book was released on 2018-11-06 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tall and balding with laughing eyes and a welcoming smile, Father Gabriele Amorth spent decades battling the Devil one-on-one, performing literally tens of thousands of exorcisms. When Father Amorth died in 2016, he was the world's most famous exorcist, a legendary, miraculous chaser of demons. To the many he served, Father was a godsend, freeing them from years of demonic oppression; to others, he was just a crank – an extremist priest who saw the Devil everywhere. Now, in these never-before-published interviews, Father Amorth takes you into his private world, giving you a harrowing vision of his daily battles with the Devil. Here you won't meet a wizard or a crazy man. Instead, you'll encounter a solid Christian and a humble priest, one who jokes and takes life as God – or the Devil! – hands it to him. Not only will you learn from Father how he proceeds and why; you'll discover the source of his profound faith and remarkable courage: strengths e

Book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes

Download or read book The Devil and Sherlock Holmes written by David Grann and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-01-11 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Wager—and one of the most gifted reporters and storytellers of his generation—comes a “horrifying, hilarious, and outlandish” (Entertainment Weekly) collection of gripping true crime mysteries about people whose obsessions propel them into unfathomable and often deadly circumstances. "[Grann is] one of the preeminent adventure and true-crime writers working today."—New York Magazine Whether David Grann is investigating a mysterious murder, tracking a chameleon-like con artist, or hunting an elusive giant squid, he has proven to be a superb storyteller. In The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, Grann takes the reader around the world, revealing a gallery of rogues and heroes with their own particular fixations who show that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Look for David Grann’s latest bestselling book, The Wager!

Book The Devil in Silver

    Book Details:
  • Author : Victor LaValle
  • Publisher : One World
  • Release : 2013-09-10
  • ISBN : 0812982258
  • Pages : 434 pages

Download or read book The Devil in Silver written by Victor LaValle and published by One World. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one. Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die? The Devil in Silver brilliantly brings together the compelling themes that spark all of Victor LaValle’s radiant fiction: faith, race, class, madness, and our relationship with the unseen and the uncanny. More than that, it’s a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons. Praise for The Devil in Silver “A fearless exploration of America’s heart of darkness . . . a dizzying high-wire act.”—The Washington Post “LaValle never writes the same book and his recent is a stunner. . . . Fantastical, hellish and hilarious.”—Los Angeles Times “It’s simply too bighearted, too gentle, too kind, too culturally observant and too idiosyncratic to squash into the small cupboard of any one genre, or even two.”—The New York Times Book Review “Embeds a sophisticated critique of contemporary America’s inhumane treatment of madness in a fast-paced story that is by turns horrifying, suspenseful, and comic.”—The Boston Globe “LaValle uses the thrills of horror to draw attention to timely matters. And he does so without sucking the joy out of the genre. . . . A striking and original American novelist.”—The New Republic

Book Building the Devil s Empire

Download or read book Building the Devil s Empire written by Shannon Lee Dawdy and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building the Devil’s Empire is the first comprehensive history of New Orleans’s early years, tracing the town’s development from its origins in 1718 to its revolt against Spanish rule in 1768. Shannon Lee Dawdy’s picaresque account of New Orleans’s wild youth features a cast of strong-willed captives, thin-skinned nobles, sharp-tongued women, and carousing travelers. But she also widens her lens to reveal the port city’s global significance, examining its role in the French Empire and the Caribbean, and she concludes that by exemplifying a kind of rogue colonialism—where governments, outlaws, and capitalism become entwined—New Orleans should prompt us to reconsider our notions of how colonialism works. "[A] penetrating study of the colony's founding."—Nation “A brilliant and spirited reinterpretation of the emergence of French New Orleans. Dawdy leads us deep into the daily life of the city, and along the many paths that connected it to France, the North American interior, and the Greater Caribbean. A major contribution to our understanding of the history of the Americas and of the French Atlantic, the work is also a model of interdisciplinary research and analysis, skillfully bringing together archival research, archaeology, and literary analysis.”—Laurent Dubois, Duke University

Book Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work

Download or read book Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work written by Jason Brown and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Brown’s comic take on America today is both amazing and memorable . . . One of the most brilliant and original new writers to appear for a long time.” (Alison Lurie, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) “Everything Natalie said seemed, to herself, to have been said better by him. He was less fond of speaking, however, than he was of hitting people in the face, which seemed a more likely source of her love to those of us who knew him,” begins Jason Brown’s linked collection of beautifully haunted, violent, and wry stories set in the densely forested lands of northern New England. In these tales of forbidden love, runaway children, patrimony, alcohol, class, inheritance, and survival, Brown’s elegant prose emits both quiet despair and a poignant sense of hope and redemption. These vivid accounts of troubled lives combine the powerful family drama of Andre Dubus and Russell Banks, the dark wit of Denis Johnson, the lost souls of Charles D’Ambrosio, and the New England gothic of Nathaniel Hawthorne. “One quality that makes these stories feel unmistakably new is Brown’s . . . seamless, oddly cinematic shifts among points of view . . . He has a gift for crisp, angular sentences, some of which are embedded with a quiet humor.” —Time Out New York “In Jason Brown’s fine story collection . . . the inhabitants of Vaughn, Maine, are stalked not by Stephen King horror but by intimate afflictions of blood, accident, and history. Yet their stories are too vivid to be entirely bleak. Maine’s woods and rivers, its changing light, are the beautifully rendered constants in a harsh, even malevolent, world.” —The Boston Globe

Book The Devil s City

    Book Details:
  • Author : Megan Linski
  • Publisher : Crystallite Publishing LLC
  • Release : 2024-07-05
  • ISBN : 1960731033
  • Pages : 1096 pages

Download or read book The Devil s City written by Megan Linski and published by Crystallite Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2024-07-05 with total page 1096 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love is villainy. Ava-Marie I escaped the Institute with my partners in crime, and now we’re going to make the world pay. We’ve never had more fun than when we’re out on the streets, committing crimes and robbing banks. My husband and I have sworn to become the greatest supernatural crime lords the magical world has ever seen, and we plan to make good on that dark promise. I have thousands at my command, but even in the midst of my rule, I fear Charlie is taking things too far. Reality is beginning to bend, and I’ve decided to craft this world to what I decide it should be. I promised that I'd make our enemies burn for what they did to us. Now I'm going to love igniting the flames. Charlie The magical community is ours for the taking. I’ve stepped into the position I was born for, and have become a mob boss operating within shades of gray. I’ve chosen to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps, to obtain power and lead the Elven crime family back into glory. To steal the vampire key, we’ll have to pull off the perfect heist, and go deep into the criminal vampire nest known as The Devil’s City. No crime is off the table. Nothing is going to stop me from achieving what we set out to do, because I’m willing to gamble everything I have. But I never thought one mistake would cause my luck to run out. *** Ava reigns over a villainous empire and Charlie dominates the magical mafia in Book Five of the Prison for Supernatural Offenders series. Ava and Charlie’s smoldering love story comes to a dramatic climax in this new adult fantasy book of supernatural crime, paranormal mystery, and dark romance! This series takes place in the Hidden Legends Universe, along with the Academy of Magical Creatures series, the University of Sorcery series, and the College of Witchcraft series. The Hidden Legends universe features college-aged protagonists attending magical academies, dual points-of-view, disabled and diverse main characters, and steamy, empowering romances. Each series stands on its own and can be read in any order. This is a full-length novel over 700 pages. Recommended reading age 18+ Pull off the perfect heist and order today!

Book The Devil s Playground

    Book Details:
  • Author : James Traub
  • Publisher : Random House
  • Release : 2007-12-18
  • ISBN : 0307432130
  • Pages : 336 pages

Download or read book The Devil s Playground written by James Traub and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Times Square turns 100, New York Times Magazine contributing writer James Traub tells the story of how this mercurial district became one of the most famous and exciting places in the world. The Devil’s Playground is classic and colorful American history, from the first years of the twentieth century through the Runyonesque heyday of nightclubs and theaters in the 1920s and ’30s, to the district’s decline in the 1960s and its glittering corporate revival in the 1990s. First, Traub gives us the great impresarios, wits, tunesmiths, newspaper columnists, and nocturnal creatures who shaped Times Square over the century since the place first got its name: Oscar Hammerstein, Florenz Ziegfeld, George S. Kaufman, Damon Runyon, Walter Winchell, and “the Queen of the Nightclubs,” Texas Guinan; bards like A. J. Liebling, Joe Mitchell, and the Beats, who celebrated the drug dealers and pimps of 42nd Street. He describes Times Square’s notorious collapse into pathology and the fierce debates over how best to restore it to life. Traub then goes on to scrutinize today’s Times Square as no author has yet done. He writes about the new 42nd Street, the giant Toys “R” Us store with its flashing Ferris wheel, the new world of corporate theater, and the sex shops trying to leave their history behind. More than sixty years ago, Liebling called Times Square “the heart of the world”—not just the center of the world, though this crossroads in Midtown Manhattan was indeed that, but its heart. From the dawn of the twentieth century through the 1950s, Times Square was the whirling dynamo of American popular culture and, increasingly, an urban sanctuary for the eccentric and the untamed. The name itself became emblematic of the tremendous life force of cities everywhere. Today, Times Square is once again an awe-inspiring place, but the dark and strange corners have been filled with blazing light. The most famous street character on Broadway, “the Naked Cowboy,” has his own website, and Toys “R” Us calls its flagship store in Times Square “the toy center of the universe.” For the giant entertainment corporations that have moved to this safe, clean, and self-consciously gaudy spot, Times Square is still very much the center of the world. But is it still the heart?

Book The Devil in the Wide City

    Book Details:
  • Author : Justi Alcala
  • Publisher :
  • Release : 2016-06-06
  • ISBN : 9781943549245
  • Pages : pages

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:

Book The Devil in Dover

    Book Details:
  • Author : Lauri Lebo
  • Publisher : The New Press
  • Release : 2016-04-12
  • ISBN : 159558658X
  • Pages : 229 pages

Download or read book The Devil in Dover written by Lauri Lebo and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2016-04-12 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brilliant account” of the controversial 2005 legal battle between evolution and creationism in public education “by a first-rate journalist” (Howard Zinn). In 2004, the School Board of Dover, Pennsylvania, decided to require its ninth-grade biology students to learn intelligent design—a pseudoscientific theory positing evidence of an intelligent creator. In a case that recalled the infamous 1925 Scopes “monkey” trial, eleven parents sued the school board. When the case wound up in federal court before a President George W. Bush–appointed judge, local journalist Lauri Lebo had a front-row seat. Destined to become required reading for a generation of journalists, scientists, and science teachers, as well as for anyone concerned about the separation of church and state, The Devil in Dover is Lebo’s acclaimed account of religious intolerance, First Amendment violations, and an assault on American science education. Lebo skillfully probes the background of the case, introducing the plaintiffs, the defendants, the lawyers, and a parade of witnesses, along with Judge John E. Jones III, who would eventually condemn the school board’s decision as one of “breathtaking inanity.” With the antievolution battle having moved to the state level—and the recent passage of state legislation that protects the right of schools to teach alternatives to evolution—Lebo’s work is more necessary than ever. “Lebo courageously exhibits the highest standards in intellectual honesty and journalistic ethos.” —Daily Kos “An unapologetic indictment of intelligent design, fundamentalist Christianity, and American journalism’s insistence on objectivity in the face of clear untruths.” —Columbia Journalism Review

Book H  H  Holmes

    Book Details:
  • Author : Adam Selzer
  • Publisher : Simon and Schuster
  • Release : 2019-04-02
  • ISBN : 1510740856
  • Pages : 212 pages

Download or read book H H Holmes written by Adam Selzer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's first and most notorious serial killer and his diabolical killing spree during the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, now updated with a new afterword discussing Holmes' exhumation on American Ripper. H. H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil is the first truly comprehensive book examining the life and career of a murderer who has become one of America’s great supervillains. It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century. Though Holmes has become just as famous now as he was in 1895, a deep analysis of contemporary materials makes very clear how much of the story as we know came from reporters who were nowhere near the action, a dangerously unqualified new police chief, and, not least, lies invented by Holmes himself. Selzer has unearthed tons of stunning new data about Holmes, weaving together turn-of-the-century America, the killer’s background, and the wild cast of characters who circulated in and about the famous “castle” building. This book will be the first truly accurate account of what really happened in Holmes’s castle of horror, and now includes an afterword detailing the author's participation in Holmes' exhumation on the TV series, American Ripper. Exhaustively researched and painstakingly brought to life, H. H. Holmes will be an invaluable companion to the upcoming Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio movie about Holmes’s murder spree based on Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.

Book The Devil s Tickets

    Book Details:
  • Author : Gary M. Pomerantz
  • Publisher : Crown
  • Release : 2011-07-12
  • ISBN : 1400051630
  • Pages : 330 pages

Download or read book The Devil s Tickets written by Gary M. Pomerantz and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 330 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.