Three Act Tragedy

Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead—choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…

A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic -- devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats." A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers -- resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.

Guru Dutt is now named along with the masters of world cinema—like Orson Welles, Mizoguchi, Hitchcock, Jancso, Ophüls—for his innovative cinematic form and his deep humanism and compassion. In Guru Dutt: A Tragedy in Three Acts, renowned film-maker and scholar Arun Khopkar sheds new light on Dutt’s genius through a close examination of Dutt’s three best-known films—Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool and Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam. With a nuanced eye, Khopkar explores the historical context which influenced Dutt’s deeply melancholic style while also analysing the intricacies of the medium—acting, lighting, music, editing, rhythm—that Dutt carefully deployed to create his masterpieces. Originally written in Marathi, this exquisite English translation paints a layered portrait of a troubled genius for whom art was not merely a thing of beauty but a vital part of living itself.

In Agatha Christie’s classic, Three Act Tragedy, the normally unflappable Hercule Poirot faces his most baffling investigation: the seemingly motiveless murder of the thirteenth guest at dinner party, who choked to death on a cocktail containing not a trace of poison. Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead—choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…

As a favour to an old friend, Hercule Poirot finds himself at a summer fete in Devon, taking part not in a Treasure Hunt, but a Murder Hunt, in this never-before-published novella version of Dead Man’s Folly. Now released for the first time as an eBook exclusive publication.

Experience Agatha Christie’s puzzling masterpiece as you've never seen it before with this official graphic novel adaptations!

In Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery Sad Cypress, a woman damned by overwhelming evidence stands accused of murdering her romantic rival, and only Hercule Poirot stands between her and the gallows. Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison. Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty. Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.…

The first fully-fledged example of a revenge tragedy, the genre that became so influential in later Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, The Spanish Tragedy (1589) occupies a very special place in the history of English Renaissance drama. Hieronimo, Knight-Marshal of Spain during its war with Portugal, fails to obtain justice when his son is murdered for courting Bel-Imperia, the Duke of Castile's daughter, and decides to take justice into his own hands... This new student edition has been freshly revised by Professor Andrew Gurr to incorporate the latest stage history and critical interpretations of the play. It also appends the scenes that were added in 1602, discusses Elizabethan attitudes to revenge, the Senecan features of the play and the significance of the Anglo-Spanish conflict in the 1580s.

On October 16, 1955, Robert Peterson and Anton and John Schuessler left home to see a Disney movie. Two days later their bodies were found in a forest preserve. This true crime story, written by one of the original detectives on the case, details the police investigation of this triple child murder that spanned 40 years. Never presented before, this firsthand account honestly discusses the successes and failures of the various law enforcement agencies involved with the investigation; describes the intense media attention and public reaction to the crime; and openly addresses the pain and loss experienced by the parents of all three boys. Though heartbreaking, the knowledge the story imparts is important as a historical reference as well as a statement about our shortcomings as a society.