The Grinning Man

The Grinning Man
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Samuel French Limited
Total Pages: 116
Release: 2021-05-05
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780573132209

A strange new act has arrived at Trafalgar Fair's freakshow. Who is Grinpayne and how did he get his hideous smile? With the help of an old puppeteer, his pet wolf and a blind girl, Grinpayne's tale is told. When word spreads across the capital, everything changes. Desperate to know the terrible secrets of his mysterious past, Grinpayne leaves his true love behind and embarks on a journey into an even crueller world - the aristocracy. The Grinning Man is a fairy tale love story streaked with pitch-black humour, lashings of Gothic horror and swashbuckling adventure. It opened at Bristol Old Vic in 2016 to great acclaim and transferred to the West End's Trafalgar Studios in 2017 where it achieved cult status and rave reviews. "Defies theatrical convention by keeping its hand on its heart and its tongue in its cheek." - The Guardian "Blackly comic brilliance." - The Telegraph "The best British score in years" - WhatsOnStage

The Grinning Man

The Grinning Man
Author: A. J. Dichiara
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2009-02
Genre:
ISBN: 1440127085

Aside from her nightmares, Felice DePalma enjoys living on Long Island. But when her conniving boyfriend steals all of her money and leaves her in debt, she knows there is only one solution: sell her house and start a new life. So she lines up a new job in Buffalo and decides to make the road trip to her new home a mini-vacation. She'll visit all the interesting sites along the way, making the best out of a bad situation. But she quickly finds out that she hasn't left everything behind. Her nightmares continue even when she's awake. In them, a man with a perverse grin terrorizes her. She doesn't know what he wants, but she knows very well that he's evil. Meanwhile, FBI agent Frank Welker is investigating a string of deaths. He's finding bodies along the same route that Felice is traveling to Buffalo, and he's beginning to think that she might be a serial killer. If Felice can't convince authorities to take her nightmares seriously, she just might be the next victim of The Grinning Man.

Grinning Man

Grinning Man
Author: Scott Ciencin
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2005-06
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 9781932382662

For ten years, State Trooper Robert Tower has patrolled mist-enshrouded Silent Hill and never seen its nightmarish demonic creatures. But now the gun-slinging, double-barreled terror known as the Grinning Man has arrived. Horror is unbound and innocents caught in its explosive crossfire. For Tower, it's going to be a hell of a last day.

The Man Who Laughs

The Man Who Laughs
Author: Victor Hugo
Publisher: The Floating Press
Total Pages: 821
Release: 2011-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1775452786

Moving away from the explicitly political content of his previous novels, Victor Hugo turns to social commentary in The Man Who Laughs, an 1869 work that was made into a popular film in the 1920s. The plot deals with a band of miscreants who deliberately deform children to make them more effective beggars, as well as the long-lasting emotional and social damage that this abhorrent practice inflicts upon its victims.

Straight Man

Straight Man
Author: Richard Russo
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2011-11-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307809943

Hilarious and true-to-life, witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down, Straight Man follows Hank Devereaux through one very bad week in this novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls. • Now the AMC Original Series Lucky Hank. William Henry Devereaux, Jr., is the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Devereaux's reluctance is partly rooted in his character—he is a born anarchist—and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans. In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television. All this while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise, and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions. In short, Straight Man is classic Russo—side-splitting, poignant, compassionate, and unforgettable. Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.

Lord of the Nutcracker Men

Lord of the Nutcracker Men
Author: Iain Lawrence
Publisher: Laurel Leaf
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2009-01-16
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0307537897

Ten-year-old Johnny eagerly plays at war with the army of nutcracker soldiers his toymaker father whittles for him. He demolishes imaginary foes. But in 1914 Germany looms as the real enemy of Europe, and all too soon Johnny’s father is swept up in the war to end all wars. He proudly enlists with his British countrymen to fight at the front in France. The war, though, is nothing like what any soldier or person at home expected. The letters that arrive from Johnny’s dad reveal the ugly realities of combat — and the soldiers he carves and encloses begin to bear its scars. Still, Johnny adds these soldiers to his armies of Huns, Tommies, and Frenchmen, engaging them in furious fights. But when these games seem to foretell his dad’s real battles, Johnny thinks he possesses godlike powers over his wooden men. He fears he controls his father’s fate, the lives of all the soldiers in no-man’s land, and the outcome of the war itself.

Grand Guignol

Grand Guignol
Author: Carl Grose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 110
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1849438234

1903. In the back streets of Montmartre, the Theatre du Grand Guignol opens its doors to an unsuspecting public. The plays performed, rife with madness and murder, are sold out every night. A psychiatrist obsessed with the playwright’s gruesome dramas ingratiates his way into the company. But when he starts to unpick the author’s mind, the boundaries between theatre and truth begin to blur... Delighting in this lost theatrical form, Carl Grose’s demented new play works fast and loose with convention. A black comedy, a psychological thriller and an unrepentant splatterfest, Grand Guignol is a head-spinning, genre-bending phantasmagoria guaranteed to keep you guessing (and wincing) to the very last horror show...

Heartfire

Heartfire
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2010-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429964650

The bestselling Orson Scott Card's The Tales of Alvin Maker series continues with Heartfire Peggy is a Torch, able to see the fire burning in each person's heart. She can follow the paths of each person's future, and know each person's most intimate secrets. From the moment of Alvin Maker's birth, when the Unmaker first strove to kill him, she has protected him. Now they are married, and Peggy is a part of Alvin's heart as well as his life. But Alvin's destiny has taken them on separate journeys. Alvin has gone north into New England, where knacks are considered witchcraft, and their use is punished with death. Peggy has been drawn south, to the British Crown Colonies and the court of King Arthur Stuart in exile. For she has seen a terrible future bloom in the heartfires of every person in America, a future of war and destruction. One slender path exists that leads through the bloodshed, and it is Peggy's quest to set the world on the path to peace. The Tales of Alvin Maker series Seventh Son Red Prophet Prentice Alvin Alvin Journeyman Heartfire The Crystal City At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Stan Lee

Stan Lee
Author: Bob Batchelor
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2017-09-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1442277823

The Amazing Spider-Man. The Incredible Hulk. The Invincible Iron Man. Black Panther. These are just a few of the iconic superheroes to emerge from the mind of Stan Lee. From the mean streets of Depression-era New York City to recipient of the National Medal of Arts, Lee’s life has been almost as remarkable as the thrilling adventures he spun for decades. From millions of comic books fans of the 1960s through billions of moviegoers around the globe, Stan Lee has touched more people than almost any person in the history of popular culture. In Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel, Bob Batchelor offers an eye-opening look at this iconic visionary, a man who created (with talented artists) many of history’s most legendary characters. In this energetic and entertaining biography, Batchelor explores how Lee capitalized on natural talent and hard work to become the editor of Marvel Comics as a teenager. After toiling in the industry for decades, Lee threw caution to the wind and went for broke, co-creating the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men, the Avengers, and others in a creative flurry that revolutionized comic books for generations of readers. Marvel superheroes became a central part of pop culture, from collecting comics to innovative merchandising, from superhero action figures to the ever-present Spider-Man lunchbox. Batchelor examines many of Lee’s most beloved works, including the 1960s comics that transformed Marvel from a second-rate company to a legendary publisher. This book reveals the risks Lee took to bring the characters to life and Lee’s tireless efforts to make comic books and superheroes part of mainstream culture for more than fifty years. Stan Lee: The Man behind Marvel not only reveals why Lee developed into such a central figure in American entertainment history, but brings to life the cultural significance of comic books and how the superhero genre reflects ideas central to the American experience. Candid, authoritative, and utterly absorbing, this is a biography of a man who dreamed of one day writing the Great American Novel, but ended up doing so much more—changing American culture by creating new worlds and heroes that have entertained generations of readers.

When a Man Loves a Weapon

When a Man Loves a Weapon
Author: Toni McGee Causey
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2009-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429933860

Living single in her trailer was great for a time. But now Bobbie Faye's officially engaged to, and has purchased a home with, the hottest FBI agent on the beat: Trevor Cormier. Even though she still has no idea what he really does on the job, Bobbie Faye has never been happier...until Trevor gets called away on an urgent assignment and leaves her in the care of body-guard slash babysitter Riley. As it turns out, Bobbie Faye could use a little extra security. The man she helped put in behind bars, the murderous Sean MacGreggor, has escaped from prison...and is dead-set on revenge. With still no word from Trevor—who was only supposed to be gone for three days—Bobbie Faye finds herself reluctantly turning to her detective ex-boyfriend Cam for help. He's willing to do whatever it takes to protect Bobbie Faye...so long as Trevor stays out of the picture. For good.