Excavations at the Devil's Quoits, Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, 1972-3 and 1988

Excavations at the Devil's Quoits, Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, 1972-3 and 1988
Author: Alistair Barclay
Publisher: Oxford Archaeological Unit
Total Pages: 156
Release: 1995
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780947816841

Report on three seasons of excavation conducted in advance of gravel extraction in 1972, 1973 and 1988 at the Devil's Quoits circle-henge monument near Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire. While the stones have gone, evidence has been uncovered for the complete plan. The stratigraphy of the henge ditch (including analysis of sediments and soils) is described. Investigations in the interior uncovered very little pottery but struck flint and animal bone was found. The construction and significance of the monument is discussed. A gazetteer and review of local pre-Iron Age sites places it in its ancient context, while proposals for its preservation and partial reconstruction as a cultural amenity look to its future.

The Devil Aspect

The Devil Aspect
Author: Craig Russell
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2020-01-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0525564780

Steeped in the folklore of Eastern Europe, and set in the shadow of Nazi darkness erupting just beyond the Czech border, this bone-chilling, richly imagined novel is propulsively entertaining, and impossible to put down. "A wildly entertaining story...Russell has created a truly frightening story." —The New York Times Book Review Czechoslovakia, 1935: Viktor Kosárek, a newly trained psychiatrist who studied under Carl Jung, arrives at the infamous Hrad Orlu Asylum for the Criminally Insane. The facility is located in a medieval mountaintop castle surrounded by forests, on a site that is well known for concealing dark secrets going back many centuries. The asylum houses six inmates--the country's most treacherous killers--known to the terrified public as the Devil's Six. Viktor intends to use a new medical technique to prove that these patients share a common archetype of evil, a phenomenon he calls The Devil Aspect. Yet as he begins to learn the stunning secrets of these patients, he must face the unnerving possibility that these six may share a darker truth. Meanwhile, in Prague, fear grips the city as a phantom serial killer emerges in the dark alleys. Police investigator Lukas Smolak, desperate to locate the culprit (a copycat of Jack the Ripper), turns to Viktor and the doctors at Hrad Orlu for their expertise with the psychotic criminal mind. And Viktor finds himself wrapped up in a case more terrifying than he could have ever imagined.

Vesper Flights

Vesper Flights
Author: Helen Macdonald
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0802146694

The New York Times–bestselling author of H is for Hawk explores the human relationship to the natural world in this “dazzling” essay collection (Wall Street Journal). In Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep. Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.

The Devil's Right-Hand Man

The Devil's Right-Hand Man
Author: Stephen G. Michaud
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2007-10-02
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 144062058X

The case of Robert Charles Browne, who may be one of America’s most prolific serial killers, was supposed to be a cold one. But that was before three retired buddies took it on. “The score is you one, the other team 48,” wrote Robert Charles Browne in March 2000, from his prison cell in Colorado, where he was serving a life sentence for a girl’s murder. “Seven sacred virgins entombed side by side, those less worthy are scattered wide.” No one in local law enforcement knew what to make of this message. Then three friends, volunteer members of the El Paso Sheriff’s Department cold case squad, decided to write back to Browne. Browne boasted about having killed as many as forty-eight people in a cross-country murder spree spanning twenty-five years. As the old friends parsed the riddles, investigators followed clues leading to a confession and the closure of another heartbreaking case. This is their story. Includes photographs

The Devil’s Ferryman

The Devil’s Ferryman
Author: Michael Simpson
Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2022-10-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1398493902

Detective Inspector Jimmy Nicholls is an outstanding young police officer in the Met who is leading the investigation into the brutal murder of four drug-addicted lowlifes, killed on the doorstep of one of the most notorious crime bosses in London. As he begins his investigation, he finds himself being warned off investigating the crime boss by the Met Commissioner, who also happens to be the father of his girlfriend, and a man he has known most of his life. With no leads and little in the way of forensic evidence, the case doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. That is until the killer gets in touch with Nicholls in a completely unexpected way and warns him not to speak to anyone else, or his life will be in danger. Nicholls initially has no choice but to comply with the killer’s demands but as more details are revealed, Nicholls learns some grisly details about his own family’s past that leads him to question who the real criminals are. Nicholls and the killer begin to form an uneasy alliance as they work together to uncover some shocking truths about the relationship between organised crime and corruption in London. As the machinations of power are slowly revealed, Nicholls learns of a nefarious plot by the criminals to take control of the government. It is down to him and the killer to stop it.

The Devil's Race-track

The Devil's Race-track
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 406
Release: 1980-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780520037809

Mark Twain deals with the darker side of life and such themes as fate, death, bankruptcy, family misfortune, failure, and man's infinitesimal role in the cosmic order

The Devil In The White City

The Devil In The White City
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2010-09-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1409044602

'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 . . .

Ancient Encounters

Ancient Encounters
Author: James C. Chatters
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2002-08-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0684859378

Examines evidence about early visitors to North America predating the Native Americans, and describes the 1996 discovery of a skeleton near Kennewick, Washington, whose physical characteristics where unlike those of American Indians.

Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf

Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf
Author: Carlo Ginzburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2020-03-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 022667455X

In 1691, a Livonian peasant known as Old Thiess boldly announced before a district court that he was a werewolf. Yet far from being a diabolical monster, he insisted, he was one of the “hounds of God,” fierce guardians who battled sorcerers, witches, and even Satan to protect the fields, flocks, and humanity—a baffling claim that attracted the notice of the judges then and still commands attention from historians today. In this book, eminent scholars Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln offer a uniquely comparative look at the trial and startling testimony of Old Thiess. They present the first English translation of the trial transcript, in which the man’s own voice can be heard, before turning to subsequent analyses of the event, which range from efforts to connect Old Thiess to shamanistic practices to the argument that he was reacting against cruel stereotypes of the “Livonian werewolf” a Germanic elite used to justify their rule over the Baltic peasantry. As Ginzburg and Lincoln debate their own and others’ perspectives, they also reflect on broader issues of historical theory, method, and politics. Part source text of the trial, part discussion of historians’ thoughts on the case, and part dialogue over the merits and perils of their different methodological approaches, Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf opens up fresh insight into a remarkable historical occurrence and, through it, the very discipline of history itself.

Guilt

Guilt
Author: Jonathan Kellerman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345505735

When he is consulted on a cold case involving the discovery of infant remains at a neglected Tudor mansion, psychologist Alex Delaware, tracing the long history of past residents, is led down a bloody path littered with unspeakable cruelty.