A robbery of 10, 000 denarii from the Temple in Jerusalem has just shocked the whole city. One high ranking Pharisee has disappeared after being badly injured during the robbery. Now, an innocent man is being accused of murder. Detective Jake Jezreel desperately attempts to ferret out the truth and help clear the innocent man of the crime. Jake will do anything to help the innocent man, because they are the closest of friends, even to the point of hiding out his friend to protect him from the angry mob. There are twists and turns in this tale involving deception, an angry gang, and a frantic, climactic chase on top of the wall of Jerusalem. This story exemplifies the power of personal loyalty between friends, especially Christian friends.

It all began for detective Jake Jezreel with the discovery of an ancient letter. A lost, never-before-seen letter. The inscription was a message from Jake’s father from fifteen years before. Happiness and sorrow were intertwined in that note. But deep within the cipher rested a hidden menace from the dark past. The menace was a criminal only identified as Strawman. In fifteen years, where had Strawman hidden himself. Jake hadn’t a clue what had happened to Strawman. But in short order Jake Jezreel was about to find out. And he will also discover that Strawman has a much more grandiose crime in mind than all his previous penny-ante criminalities. Soon after this discovery, Jake is hired to deliver a pastoral letter for the Senior Pastor in the Jerusalem church, Pastor James. The letter would later become known as The Epistle of James. The first destination for the letter is the coastal city of Caesarea, the capital of Judea. Upon arrival, Jake encounters someone with a distant association to his past. And in the process, the detective uncovers a devious plot to assassinate one of the key personalities in the city during the Roman holiday celebration of Parilia. Time is running out. Jake is called in by the local authorities to discover and thwart the unseen, unknown perpetrators. But Jake has only a day and a half to ferret out the murderous gang before the Parilia celebration begins. There is only one mysterious note as a clue. It is signed – Strawman.

First century Private Detective, Jake Jezreel has been thrown into a confusing investigation. Wealthy and well-connected Pharisees have hired the detective to track down a mysterious character they claim is “dangerous”. Their accusation stems from their assessment that the mystery man is forming an army of ravenous followers. They believe that this rebel leader wants to overthrow the Jewish government. Then, in succession, he and his army would topple the Roman strangle hold on Israel. The Pharisees fear that such an insurrection would completely destabilize the country. The Romans would counter attack with devastating consequences. Jake must figure out a way to defuse this volatile situation before it blows up in his face. And the heat in the investigative cauldron, stoked by the religious leaders, is boiling hotter and fierier. Jake begins to realize that he has been swept up into the middle of a vicious blood-vengeance against the “rebel”. Jake is trapped in the middle. It is quite apparent that the religious leaders are demanding that he must do their bidding no matter what the cost. And Jake can feel their icy fingers clutching at him, forcing him. But Jake is shocked by another startling fact, jumping out at him in the midst of his initial investigation. Tangled up in all the twists and turns of his fact-finding probe, the detective uncovers a disturbing truth. Flying in the face of everything he had ever been taught, Jake unearths indisputable evidence that there was not just one Adam. There were two! There was a Second Adam! How can he explain that to the religious leaders? The religious leaders want results from their detective. They are squeezing him hard to deliver the incriminating facts they salivate for. How can Jake reveal all the disturbing facts he has uncovered to the vengeful religious leaders. He’s discovered only good and marvelous evidence about the ‘rebel’. And now the undeniable truth that there actually was a Second Adam! What dire consequences will come crashing down upon Jake when he unloads his final report upon the religious leaders? Only a shocking, unimaginable conclusion can answer that fearsome question.

A bitter squabble over a tradesman's inheritance. A frightened man, on the run, trying to evade unseen persons to keep them from stealing that same inheritance. First century privaate detective, Jake Jezreel, has been hired to step in between these two fighting factions. But when you're in the middle, Jake discovers there is no place to hide. In Jake Jezreel's latest adventure, "The Wreck of the Flagship Octavian", the detective is swept up into an investigation much greater than he ever could have imagined. The ensuing struggle over the inheritance explodes into a brawl with a violent gang, a precision Roman military raid, and a frantic, climactic chase through the windy streets of Jerusalem. Hannukah is the backdrop of this adventure, with the icy winds of December intruding into all the twists and turns of this intricate tale. In all of his tough choices along the way, Jake's faith is greatly tested. Living the Christian life in amongst the many evils of worldly society "ain't easy". Time and time again, during this investigation, Jake must depend, moment by moment, upon the powerful wisdom of God. Who will finally get the inheritance? What claim do the Romans have over the disputed inheritance? What is the trap that Jake finally springs to capture the evildoers? The tale of "The Wreck of the Flagship Octavian" will draw all these loose ends together in a final, dramatic conclusion.

When Marianne's parents died, leaving control of their fortune to her feared older brother, she struggled to make her way as a student in America - and her old home began to seem as unreal as a fairy tale, her childhood there as distant as a dream . . . Until the Magus came to claim her, and the Black Madame to destroy her, and the Manticore to hunt her down through the streets of another world - for there is magic in Marianne's blood, and magic in her soul. And in a battle fought in an everchanging world of warped time and wicked magic, it is the souls of Marianne and her family that are the ultimate prizes. Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods is the second volume of Sheri S. Tepper's acclaimed Marianne Trilogy.

"Poetry was declining/ Painting advancing/ we were complaining/ it was '50," recalled poet Frank O'Hara in 1957. Criminal Ingenuity traces a series of linked moments in the history of this transfer of cultural power from the sphere of the word to that of the image. Ellen Levy explores the New York literary and art worlds in the years that bracket O'Hara's lament through close readings of the works and careers of poets Marianne Moore and John Ashbery and assemblage artist Joseph Cornell. In the course of these readings, Levy discusses such topics as the American debates around surrealism, the function of the "token woman" in artistic canons, and the role of the New York City Ballet in the development of mid-century modernism, and situates her central figures in relation to such colleagues and contemporaries as O'Hara, T. S. Eliot, Clement Greenberg, Walter Benjamin, and Lincoln Kirstein. Moore, Cornell, and Ashbery are connected by acquaintance and affinity-and above all, by the possession of what Moore calls "criminal ingenuity," a talent for situating themselves on the fault lines that fissure the realms of art, sexuality, and politics. As we consider their lives and works, Levy shows, the seemingly specialized question of the source and meaning of the struggle for power between art forms inexorably opens out to broader questions about social and artistic institutions and forces: the academy and the museum, professionalism and the market, and that institution of institutions, marriage.

This first English language biography of Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) in two decades paints a strikingly new picture of one of the twentieth century's most controversial cultural icons. Drawing on letters, diaries and unpublished material, including Brecht's medical records, Parker offers a rich and enthralling account of Brecht's life and work, viewed through the prism of the artist. Tracing his extraordinary life, from his formative years in Augsburg, through the First World War, his politicisation during the Weimar Republic and his years of exile, up to the Berliner Ensemble's dazzling productions in Paris and London, Parker shows how Brecht achieved his transformative effect upon world theatre and poetry. Bertolt Brecht: A Literary Life is a powerful portrait of a great, compulsively contradictory personality, whose artistry left its lasting imprint on modern culture.