The Broken Vase is a roman à clef ("novel with a key," or novel based on real life) written by Phillip H. McMath based upon research done by his co-author, Emily Matson Lewis, and in close collaboration with Holocaust survivor Penina Krupitsky, who appears in the novel as the fictional Miriam Kellerman. With the help of the World Jewish Organization, Mrs. Krupitsky emigrated from the Soviet Union with her family to the United States and now lives in Arkansas. Born to middle-class parents in July 1924 in North Bukovina, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine), Miriam Kellerman grows up in an atmosphere of culture and privilege that is interrupted when her country is invaded—first by Stalin in July 1940, then by Hitler in June 1941. Fearing for their lives, Jews like Miriam begin to flee into the Soviet Union to escape the German advance. Separated from her parents, Deborah and Max, and later from her fiancé, Isaac, Miriam finds herself alone and on foot, trudging ever eastward. This novel's compelling narrative chronicles her incredible struggle to stay alive as World War II rages. Mrs. Krupitsky lives in Little Rock with her husband, children, and grandchildren. She remains active in Holocaust remembrance organizations around the world and says that she wants The Broken Vase "to help young people and become an inspiration to them. It will teach them how to build a world of love and not of hatred."

When death stages a performance at Carnegie Hall, Tecumseh Fox goes backstage to catch the killer who pulled the strings. Who stole the dead man's Stradivarius—only to send it back? And what about the deadly duet featuring a stolen Ming vase and an afternoon cocktail laced with cyanide? Throw in an accompanist who plays all the wrong notes, a jealous sister straight out of Italian opera, and a chorus of suspects with a cacophony of lies and alibis. Suddenly Fox has to step up the temp before the killer makes an encore—a sinister sonata composed in the key of murder. Introduction by Sister Carol Anne O'Marie “A top-flight detective story.”—The New York Times Book Review

Who murdered the man found roped to the gibbet on Gallows Tree Point? Who stole Miss Ellingham’s famous Kang-He Vase? What was Uncle Joseph doing at Middlebourne? From the date that old scoundrel turned up, trouble began—murder, robbery, and abduction; trouble in which Ben Heckitt and Pepita played prominent and perilous parts.

A five-volume translation of the classic sixteenth-century Chinese novel on the domestic life of a corrupt merchant.