Historical Humor

He’s trying to forget all about crime. But now targeted as a suspect, can he keep from going down for murder? England, 1964. Retired inspector Tom Ramsay wants to leave the past behind. Hoping to get on with his plans to hike the beauty spots of his homeland, a vacation to North Yorkshire strikes him as just the ticket. Yet while exploring the beach with his young border collie, he’s shocked to discover a decomposing body hidden in a cave. Happy to put the case in the hands of local police, he’s relieved not to be involved in the ugly matter. But as the small-town rumor mill churns ...

Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive comedy of blending, identity, and politics.

Twelve-year-old Addison Cooke just wishes something exciting would happen to him. His aunt and uncle, both world-famous researchers, travel to the ends of the earth searching for hidden treasure, dodging dangerous robbers along the way, while Addison is stuck in school all day. Luckily for Addison, adventure has a way of finding the Cookes.

When an engagement of convenience becomes anything but convenient . . . Forced into a betrothal with a widower twice her age, Charleston socialite, Sophia Fairfield is desperate for an escape. But, while her fiancé is away on business, he assigns his handsome stepson, Carver, the task of looking after his bride-to-be. Much to her dismay, Sophia finds herself falling in love with the wrong gentleman—a man society would never allow her to marry, given Sophia was supposed to be his new stepmother. The only way to save Carver from scandal and financial ruin is to run away, leaving him and ...

In An Irish Country Christmas, the third book in Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books, Barry Laverty, M.B., is looking forward to his first Christmas in the cozy village of Ballybucklebo, at least until he learns that his sweetheart, Patricia, might not be coming home for the holidays. That unhappy prospect dampens his spirits somewhat, but Barry has little time to dwell on his romantic disappointments. Christmas may be drawing nigh, but there is little peace to be found on earth, especially for a young doctor plying his trade in the emerald hills and glens of rural Ireland.

Love is just a stone’s throw away There is nothing more important to a young lady than her introduction to Society. Ladies such as these are as plentiful as blackberries. And then … there is Julia. A second Season holds no appeal for Lady Julia Hunter. Barely surviving her first Season, she is once more being coerced into returning to London. Due to an unfortunate turn of events, Julia finds herself being indebted to someone whom she would much rather avoid as well as being almost glad to be leaving home. Jason Fortescue, Earl of Linfield, returns to Ashcroft Court after many years, ...

There’s something nasty at the Institute… When Constance Wright took a job as secretary, she expected typing and filing. But with unconventional researchers working on everything from photographing ghosts to building the Giant Walking War Machine, the Institute isn't your usual workplace. Then she discovers a trail of clues – clues that may lead her to a fortune, if she can find it. And a killer is already on the hunt...

In July 1890, Vincent van Gogh went into a cornfield and shot himself. Or did he? Why would an artist at the height of his creative powers attempt to take his life... and then walk a mile to a doctor's house for help? Who was the crooked little "color man" Vincent had claimed was stalking him across France? And why had the painter recently become deathly afraid of a certain shade of blue? These are just a few of the questions confronting Vincent's friends who vow to discover the truth of van Gogh's untimely death.

Luke McCabe, Pinkerton Detective, goes undercover to investigate a matter of national security. Pretending to be married, he and Charisse Jones, a woman escaping the stigma of divorce, embark on a 2000-mile trek across the wilderness in a wagon train full of cutthroats and misfits. But traveling the Oregon Trail is never easy, especially when you throw in a Corgi, a canary, four mischievous children and a barrel full of secrets.

Bundle of Erotic Stories for Adults! Includes 12 stories: 'Look Inside' the book to see a sample! A Dirty Dozen: Erotic Stories For Adults: Bundle 1 (From A Brat's First Time to Group to Hot Wives & More!) Over 95,000 words of exactly what you think... Includes: Lots of Variety - A Brat's First Time, Deep Penetration, Bi-curious Females, Groups, Backdoor, Threesomes, & More! Adults Only.

Lady Dwyn Innes feels utterly out of place among the eligible women who’ve descended on Buchanan Keep, vying for the attention of the last unmarried brothers. She isn’t long-legged and slender like her sisters, or flirtatious and wily like other lasses. Since her betrothed died, Dwyn has resigned herself to becoming an old maid. Yet a chance encounter with a stranger in the orchard awakens her to a new world of sensation and possibility....

Never Expected He Would Be the One... but I Had Fantasized. Guess that's the same as wishing! My first time! It’s really going to happen. I want this so bad, but I know it’s too BIG. “It’ll be tight, sweetheart. But we’ll make it fit!” A hot erotic short read. Older Man, Young Woman, Taboo situation, M/F intimacy.

Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul.... He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade 100 people to sign over their souls, or he will be damned forever.

Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.

This is the third book in the Old Filth trilogy ( Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat, Last Friends). Last Friends depicts the marriage of Edward Feathers and Betty as seen through the eyes of Edward’s friend and Betty's lover Terry Veneering.

A collection of humorous boyhood stories from the 1950s and 1960s in pre-independent Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Because of the era about which the book has been written, the author has stayed with the historical names of the towns in the country's eastern border region, where he grew up. Growing up in a farming community afforded ample opportunity for mischief and naughtiness, and it is served up on the pages of this hysterically funny book in large amounts. The book starts off with a story about how at age seven, the author and his indomitable friend 'Carshy' stalked the farm's stud dairy ...

Venice, a really long time ago: Three prominent Venetians await their most loathsome and foul dinner guest, the erstwhile envoy from Britain who also happens to be a favorite of the Doge: The rascal-Fool Pocket. This trio of cunning plotters have lured Pocket to a dark dungeon, promising a spirited evening. Their invitation is, of course, bogus. These scoundrels have something far less amusing planned for the man who has consistently foiled their quest for power and wealth. But this Fool is no fool.…

Meet the Devohrs: Zee, a Marxist literary scholar who detests her parents' wealth but nevertheless finds herself living in their carriage house; Gracie, her mother, who claims she can tell your lot in life by looking at your teeth; and Bruce, her step-father, stockpiling supplies for the Y2K apocalypse and perpetually late for his tee time. Then there's Violet Devohr, Zee's great-grandmother, who they say took her own life somewhere in the vast house, and whose massive oil portrait still hangs in the dining room.

In the fifth adventure in the How to Train Your Dragon series, someone has stolen the Fire-Stone. Now the volcano on Volcano Island has become active and the tremors are hatching the eggs of the Exterminator dragons! Can Hiccup return the Fire-Stone to the Volcano, stop the Volcano from erupting, and save the Tribes from being wiped out by the terrible sword-claws of the Exterminators?

Zigzag Men captures the dark humor of an unruly cadre of loosely led, overworked helicopter pilots, reluctant warriors who commute into combat from a remote airfield in Vietnam, zigzagging over the jungle, around one another, and through the indelible intensity of war. Quan Loi is their staging-point for flight operations during the day and a disreputable haven for hardcore, drug-altered malcontents during the long hours of darkness. When Newbies arrive at Quan Loi, the inevitable friendships and animosities become amplified by exhausting hours of combat flying, followed by immoderate ...