An Ozarks detective stars in “one of the most creepy, crawly and compelling psychological thrillers ever” from the author of Head to Head (Fresh Fiction). A Killer’s Tracks . . . Missouri detective Claire Morgan is eager to get back to work after recuperating from injuries sustained on her last job. But the missing persons case that welcomes her home in the dead of winter soon turns more twisted and treacherous than Lake of the Ozarks’ icy mountain roads . . . Can Only Lead . . . The man’s body is found suspended from a tree overlooking a local school. He is bleeding from the head, still alive—but not for long. Someone wanted Professor Simon Classon to suffer as much as possible before he died, making sure the victim had a perfect view of his colleagues and students on the campus below as he succumbed to the slow-working poison in his veins . . . To Dark Places . . . Frigid temperatures and punishing snows only make the investigation more difficult. And then the death threats begin—unnerving incidents orchestrated to send Claire a deadly message. Now, as she edges closer to the truth, Claire risks becoming entangled in a maniac’s web—and the stuff of her own worst nightmares . . . Praise for the Claire Morgan series “A tough, no-nonsense detective with a well-hidden vulnerable side . . . edgy, clever!” —Beverly Barton, New York Times bestselling author “Chilling, compelling suspense . . . be prepared to lose sleep!” —Eileen Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author “A feisty new heroine to root for!&rdquo

The world is full of dark places that present obstacles to our joy. While people may instinctually turn to films, games, or social connections to brighten their day, Christians know they have a greater source of comfort and joy. In Joy in Dark Places, Thomas Parr reminds us that the Bible speaks of glorious realities that the darkest days cannot destroy. Readers will see how moral evil, calamity, and even bad theology steal our happiness. More importantly, they will see how the light of the gospel dispels disquiet and brings profound joy instead. Table of Contents: Joy and Obstacles to It Joy despite God’s Judgments in the Earth Law and Conviction Necessary for Joy Joy despite Fears of Spiritual Deterioration Joy from Empowerment and Even Chastening Joy from the Bible’s “Works-Oriented” Statements Joy in Renouncing All Forms of Legalism Joy by Quieting Your Conscience in the Cross To Have Joy You Must Have Faith To Have Joy You Must Obey Joy in God Incomprehensible Joy and Problem People in the Church Joy in Old Testament Promises to Israel Joy at the Prospect of Growing Old and Dying Biblical Joy versus Cheap Joy Joy Even When Society Disintegrates Joy at the Last Judgment: Looking Forward to a Judgment of Our Works Conclusion: Our Joy and God’s Glory

The Dark Bible explores early modern England's interactions with difficult aspects of the Bible. For the early modern reader, although the Bible was understood to be perfect, sufficient, and transcendent (indeed, the Protestant Reformation required it), it was not always experienced as such. While traditional interpretive precepts, such as the claim that all dark passages could be read in the light of clear ones, were frequently recited by early modern commentators, their actual encounters with the darkness of the Bible suggest that writers, commentators, and translators were often deeply uncomfortable with the disjunction between what the Bible should be, and what it actually was. The Dark Bible investigates writers' and translators' attempts to explain, accommodate, circumvent, and repair problematic texts across a range of genres and contexts. It charts early modern English use of biblical scholarship in vernacular culture and investigates how vernacular writing in various genres could give voice to questioning and confused biblical interactions. The Dark Bible demonstrates that early modern writers and critics engaged extensively with the Bible's difficulties, attempting to circumvent and repair problematic texts, and otherwise reconcile the darkness of the Bible with theories of the Bible's perfection and clarity.

Set includes revised editions of some issues.

Twenty years ago, there was no lovelier piece of lowland scenery in South England, nor any more pathetic in the world, by its expression of sweet human character and life, than that immediately bordering on the sources of the Wandle, and including the lower moors of Addington, and the villages of Beddington and Carshalton, with all their pools and streams. No clearer or diviner waters ever sang with constant lips of the hand which 'giveth rain from heaven;' no pastures ever lightened in spring time with more passionate blossoming; no sweeter homes ever hallowed the heart of the passer-by with their pride of peaceful gladness—fain-hidden—yet full-confessed. The place remains, or, until a few months ago, remained, nearly unchanged in its larger features; but, with deliberate mind I say, that I have never seen anything so ghastly in its inner tragic meaning,—not in Pisan Maremma—not by Campagna tomb,—not by the sand-isles of the Torcellan shore,—as the slow stealing of aspects of reckless, indolent, animal neglect, over the delicate sweetness of that English scene: nor is any blasphemy or impiety—any frantic saying or godless thought—more appalling to me, using the best power of judgment I have to discern its sense and scope, than the insolent defilings of those springs by the human herds that drink of them. Just where the welling of stainless water, trembling and pure, like a body of light, enters the pool of Carshalton, cutting itself a radiant channel down to the gravel, through warp of feathery weeds, all waving, which it traverses with its deep threads of clearness, like the chalcedony in moss-agate, starred here and there with white grenouillette; just in the very rush and murmur of the first spreading currents, the human wretches of the place cast their street and house foulness; heaps of dust and slime, and broken shreds of old metal, and rags of putrid clothes; they having neither energy to cart it away, nor decency enough to dig it into the ground, thus shed into the stream, to diffuse what venom of it will float and melt, far away, in all places where God meant those waters to bring joy and health. And, in a little pool, behind some houses farther in the village, where another spring rises, the shattered stones of the well, and of the little fretted channel which was long ago built and traced for it by gentler hands, lie scattered, each from each, under a ragged bank of mortar, and scoria; and brick-layers' refuse, on one side, which the clean water nevertheless chastises to purity; but it cannot conquer the dead earth beyond; and there, circled and coiled under festering scum, the stagnant edge of the pool effaces itself into a slope of black slime, the accumulation of indolent years. Half-a-dozen men, with one day's work, could cleanse those pools, and trim the flowers about their banks, and make every breath of summer air above them rich with cool balm; and every glittering wave medicinal, as if it ran, troubled of angels, from the porch of Bethesda. But that day's work is never given, nor will be; nor will any joy be possible to heart of man, for evermore, about those wells of English waters.