Books by Adrienne Mayor

 

The following books by Adrienne Mayor were published by Princeton University Press. Of these five, the two fossil ones are my favorites.  

1) Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws: And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities. 2022. Paperback: 420 pages. Price: $19.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights―glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth―embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from ancient, medieval, and modern times. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries.

     The book explores such subjects as how mirages inspired legends of cities in the sky; the true identity of winged serpents in ancient Egypt; how ghost ships led to the discovery of the Gulf Stream; and the beauty secrets of ancient Amazons. Other pieces examine Arthur Conan Doyle’s sea serpent and Geronimo’s dragon; Flaubert’s obsession with ancient Carthage; ancient tattooing practices; and the strange relationship between wine goblets and women’s breasts since the times of Helen of Troy and Marie Antoinette. And there’s much, much more.

     Showcasing Mayor’s trademark passion not to demythologize myths, but to uncover the fascinating truths buried beneath them, Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a wonder cabinet of delightful curiosities.

 

2) Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World. 2022. Paperback: 384 pages. Price: $19.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Flamethrowers, poison gases, incendiary bombs, the large-scale spreading of disease: are these terrifying agents of warfare modern inventions? Not by a long shot. In this riveting history of the origins of unconventional war, Adrienne Mayor shows that cultures around the world have used biological and chemical weapons for thousands of years―and debated the morality of doing so. Drawing extraordinary connections between the mythical worlds of Hercules and the Trojan War, the accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and modern methods of war and terrorism, this richly illustrated history catapults readers into the dark and fascinating realm of ancient war and mythic treachery. Updated, revised, lavishly illustrated new edition.

 

3) The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. 2014 (2016). Paperback: 519 pages. Price: $17.95 U.S. 

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Amazons―fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world―were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons.

     But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China.

     Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons―Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China.

     Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

 

4) Fossil Legends of the First Americans. 2005 (2023). Paperback: 446 pages. Price: $19.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The burnt-red badlands of Montana's Hell Creek are a vast graveyard of the Cretaceous dinosaurs that lived 68 million years ago. Those hills were, much later, also home to the Sioux, the Crows, and the Blackfeet, the first people to encounter the dinosaur fossils exposed by the elements. What did Native Americans make of these stone skeletons, and how did they explain the teeth and claws of gargantuan animals no one had seen alive? Did they speculate about their deaths? Did they collect fossils?

     Beginning in the East, with its Ice Age monsters, and ending in the West, where dinosaurs lived and died, this richly illustrated and elegantly written book examines the discoveries of enormous bones and uses of fossils for medicine, hunting magic, and spells. Well before Columbus, Native Americans observed the mysterious petrified remains of extinct creatures and sought to understand their transformation to stone. In perceptive creation stories, they visualized the remains of extinct mammoths, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and marine creatures as Monster Bears, Giant Lizards, Thunder Birds, and Water Monsters. Their insights, some so sophisticated that they anticipate modern scientific theories, were passed down in oral histories over many centuries.

     Drawing on historical sources, archaeology, traditional accounts, and extensive personal interviews, Adrienne Mayor takes us from Aztec and Inca fossil tales to the traditions of the Iroquois, Navajos, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Pawnees. Fossil Legends of the First Americans represents a major step forward in our understanding of how humans made sense of fossils before evolutionary theory developed.

 

5) The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. 2000 (2023). Paperback: 361 pages. Price: $21.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The fascinating story of how the fossils of dinosaurs, mammoths, and other extinct animals influenced some of the most spectacular creatures of classical mythology

     Griffins, Centaurs, Cyclopes, and Giants―these fabulous creatures of classical mythology continue to live in the modern imagination through the vivid accounts that have come down to us from the ancient Greeks and Romans. But what if these beings were more than merely fictions? What if monstrous creatures once roamed the earth in the very places where their legends first arose? This is the arresting and original thesis that Adrienne Mayor explores in The First Fossil Hunters. Through careful research and meticulous documentation, she convincingly shows that many of the giants and monsters of myth did have a basis in fact―in the enormous bones of long-extinct species that were once abundant in the lands of the Greeks and Romans.

     As Mayor shows, the Greeks and Romans were well aware that a different breed of creatures once inhabited their lands. They frequently encountered the fossilized bones of these primeval beings, and they developed sophisticated concepts to explain the fossil evidence, concepts that were expressed in mythological stories. The legend of the gold-guarding griffin, for example, sprang from tales first told by Scythian gold-miners, who, passing through the Gobi Desert at the foot of the Altai Mountains, encountered the skeletons of Protoceratops and other dinosaurs that littered the ground.

     Like their modern counterparts, the ancient fossil hunters collected and measured impressive petrified remains and displayed them in temples and museums; they attempted to reconstruct the appearance of these prehistoric creatures and to explain their extinction. Long thought to be fantasy, the remarkably detailed and perceptive Greek and Roman accounts of giant bone finds were actually based on solid paleontological facts. By reading these neglected narratives for the first time in the light of modern scientific discoveries, Adrienne Mayor illuminates a lost world of ancient paleontology.

 

 

 

New Titles

 

1) Garbutt, Nick. Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar. 2023. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 448 pages. Price: $49.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Madagascar’s mammals are some of the most remarkable on earth, having evolved in isolation over millions of years. All of the country’s approximately 175 native non-flying species are endemic, with an extraordinary diversity of body forms and lifestyles, some utterly unique. No other place boasts such a combination of species richness and endemism. In Handbook of Mammals of Madagascar, Nick Garbutt, an award-winning photographer and leading authority on the island’s wildlife, provides an authoritative and beautifully illustrated guide to all of its mammal fauna.

     Illustrated throughout with more than 370 exceptional photographs, including of species rarely photographed before, the book covers all 217 native species, including tenrecs, bats, lemurs, carnivores, and rodents, plus a small number of introduced species. The species accounts are up to date and include description, identification, habitat, distribution, behavior, and where to see the species. The book also includes chapters on Madagascar’s regions and habitats, threats to the mammals, conservation and protected areas, and important mammal-watching sites, as well as a section on extinct mammals. 

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in the mammals of Madagascar!

 

 

2) Heisman, Rebecca. Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration. 2023. Harper. Hardbound: 267 pages. Price: $30.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: For the past century, scientists and naturalists have been steadily unraveling the secrets of bird migration. How and why birds navigate the skies, traveling from continent to continent—flying thousands of miles across the earth each fall and spring—has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys. Although we know much more than ever before, even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher may not know how we got here, the ways that the full breadth of scientific disciplines have come together to reveal these annual avian travels.

     Flight Paths is the never-before-told story of how a group of migration-obsessed scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries engaged nearly every branch of science to understand bird migration—from where and when they take off to their flight paths and behaviors, their destinations and the challenges they encounter getting there. Uniting curious minds from across generations, continents, and disciplines, bird enthusiast and science writer Rebecca Heisman traces the development of each technique used for tracking migratory birds, from the first attempts to mark individual birds to the cutting-edge technology that lets ornithologists trace where a bird has been, based on unique DNA markers. Along the way, she touches on the biggest technological breakthroughs of modern science and reveals the almost-forgotten stories of the scientists who harnessed these inventions in service of furthering our understanding of nature (and their personal obsession with birds).

      The compelling and fascinating story of how scientists solved the great mystery of bird migration, Flight Paths is an unprecedented look into exciting, behind-the-scenes moments of groundbreaking discovery. Heisman demonstrates that the real power of science happens when people work together, focusing their minds and knowledge on a common goal. While the world looks to tackle massive challenges involving conservation and climate, the story of migration research offers a beacon of hope that we can find solutions to difficult and complex problems.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in bird migration.

 

3) McLean Greeley, Will. A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: Senator George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate. 2023. RIT Press. Paperback: 316 pages. Price: $34.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Senator George P. McLean’s crowning achievement was overseeing passage of one of the country’s first and most important wildlife conservation laws, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The MBTA, which is still in effect today, has saved billions of birds from senseless killing and likely prevented the extinction of entire bird species. A Connecticut Yankee Goes to Washington: George P. McLean, Birdman of the Senate puts McLean’s victory for birds in the context of his distinguished forty-five-year career marked by many acts of reform during a time of widespread corruption and political instability. Author Will McLean Greeley traces McLean’s rise from obscurity as a Connecticut farm boy to national prominence when he advised five US presidents and helped lead change and shape events as a US senator from 1911 to 1929. One reviewer writes: “And there’s a bonus: This book is also a love song to a distant relative. We need more historians who truly care about the people they’re writing about, and Greeley does just that.” 

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in the history of bird conservation.

 

4) Costa, James. Radical by Nature: The Revolutionary Life of Alfred Russel Wallace. 2023. Princeton University Press. Hardbound: 515 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: A major new biography of the brilliant naturalist, traveler, humanitarian, and codiscoverer of natural selection.

     Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913) was perhaps the most famed naturalist of the Victorian age. His expeditions to remote Amazonia and southeast Asia were the stuff of legend. A collector of thousands of species new to science, he shared in the discovery of natural selection and founded the discipline of evolutionary biogeography.

     Radical by Nature tells the story of Wallace’s epic life and achievements, from his stellar rise from humble origins to his complicated friendship with Charles Darwin and other leading scientific lights of Britain to his devotion to social causes and movements that threatened to alienate him from scientific society.

     James Costa draws on letters, notebooks, and journals to provide a multifaceted account of a revolutionary life in science as well as Wallace’s family life. He shows how the self-taught Wallace doggedly pursued bold, even radical ideas that caused a seismic shift in the natural sciences, and how he also courted controversy with nonscientific pursuits such as spiritualism and socialism. Costa describes Wallace’s courageous social advocacy of women’s rights, labor reform, and other important issues. He also sheds light on Wallace’s complex relationship with Darwin, describing how Wallace graciously applauded his friend and rival, becoming one of his most ardent defenders.

     Weaving a revelatory narrative with the latest scholarship, Radical by Nature paints a mesmerizing portrait of a multifaceted thinker driven by a singular passion for science, a commitment to social justice, and a lifelong sense of wonder.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in Alfred Russell Wallace.

 

5) Carrick Dalton, Julie. The Last Beekeeper. 2023. Forge. Hardbound: 384 pages. Price: $27.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: It’s been more than a decade since the world has come undone, and Sasha Severn has returned to her childhood home with one goal in mind―find the mythic research her father, the infamous Last Beekeeper, hid before he was incarcerated. There, Sasha is confronted with a group of squatters who have claimed the quiet, idyllic farm as their own. While she initially feels threatened, the group soon becomes her newfound family, offering what she hasn't felt since her father was imprisoned: security and hope. Maybe it's time to forget the family secrets buried on the farm and focus on her future.

      But just as she settles into her new life, Sasha witnesses the impossible. She sees a honey bee, presumed extinct. People who claim to see bees are ridiculed and silenced for reasons Sasha doesn't understand, but she can't shake the feeling that this impossible bee is connected to her father's missing research. Fighting to uncover the truth could shatter Sasha's fragile security and threaten the lives of her newfound family―or it could save them all.

      Julie Carrick Dalton's The Last Beekeeper is a celebration of found family, an exploration of truth versus power, and the triumph of hope in the face of despair. It is a meditation on forgiveness and redemption and a reminder to cherish the beauty that still exists in this fragile world.

RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed the author's Waiting for the Night Song, you should enjoy this book.

 

                                                                                                                                               

New Titles

 

1) Sinclair, Ian, Phil Hockey et al.. Birds of Southern Africa: Fifth Revised Edition. 2023. Princeton University Press. Paperback: 488 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: Now in its fifth edition, Birds of Southern Africa has been brought fully up to date by its expert authors and greatly enhanced with a wide range of new information and features. Providing comprehensive coverage of the bird life of South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and southern Mozambique, this comprehensive book is sure to maintain its place as one of Africa’s most trusted field guides.

     This fifth edition offers:

• New “bird-call” feature―access calls by scanning QR codes in the guide with a free downloadable app
• More than 800 new illustrations, including all-new plates for raptors and seabirds
• Comprehensive coverage of southern Africa’s birds, including the latest species records
• Redesigned plates noting identification features
• Calendar bars depicting species’ occurrence and breeding periods
• Fully updated species accounts and distribution maps
• Fresh contributions from new authors and illustrators
• Alphabetical and illustrated quick references to bird groups                                                                                                             

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in birding Southern Africa!

 

2) Davies, Jeff et al.. Pocket Guide to Birds of Australia. 2023. Princeton University Press. Flexibound: 252 pages. Price: $27.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: This book is an easy-to-use and beautifully illustrated quick identification guide to all regularly occurring bird species in Australia. Carefully designed to provide key information at your fingertips to enable rapid identification, it covers more than 700 bird species that are resident or regular visitors to the Australian mainland, Tasmania, and surrounding waters accessible in a day trip by boat. Based on the award-winning Australian Bird Guide, this convenient pocket guide features stunning images, up-to-date species descriptions, distribution maps, and quick guide comparison pages for all major groups.

• Covers more than 700 species, including regular visitors
• Features a wealth of breathtaking color images by leading Australian artists
• Provides incisive species descriptions that make identification easy
• Includes quick guide comparison pages and the most up-to-date distribution maps
• Its compact size makes it the perfect travel companion

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in birding Australia!

 

 

 

3) Hong Kong Birdwatching Society (HKBWS). HKBWS Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China (Ninth Edition). 2022. Hong Kong Birdwatching Society. Paperback: 372 pages. Price: about $43.00 U.S. (plus postage).

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: The HKBWS Field Guide to the Birds of Hong Kong and South China, previously published in eight editions simply as The Birds of Hong Kong and South China, is a birding guidebook which records the bird species in Hong Kong and the South China region and describes in great detail their appearance, behaviours, distributions and migratory patterns. The book contains careful bird drawings which are instrumental for birders to identify birds in the field.

     This field guide was first published in 1977 and ever since then, it has become one of the most important guidebooks for birders regionally. In the early years, the book was available in English only. In 1994, the first Chinese version of the book was translated and edited by Mr Chiu-ying Lam, Honorary President of The Hong Kong Bird Watching Society. The year 2022 does not only celebrate the 65th anniversary of The Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, but it also marks the 45th year since the first edition of The Birds of Hong Kong and South China was published. After almost a half century, the book remains to be one of the most comprehensive reference book of birding.

      Highlights of the 9th edition:

- The most comprehensive guidebook of birds in Hong Kong and South China
- A complete update since the last edition 16 years ago
- Covers 784 bird species and 78 newly added escaped and introduced species
- Include drawings of newly added birds
- Bilingual content in English and Chinese

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in birding this region of China! You can order the book here.

 

4) Lausen, Cori et al.. Bats of British Columbia (Second Edition). 2022. The Royal British Columbia Museum. Paperback: 375 pages. Price: $29.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: With more than 1,400 species worldwide, bats live on every continent except Antarctica and in virtually every type of habitat, from desert to forest. Around the globe, bats fill important ecological roles by controlling insect populations, pollinating plants, dispersing seeds, and even providing humans with medicines—the saliva of the famous vampire bat can be used to treat strokes! Yet despite their importance to the planet’s ecosystems, there remains more misinformation than fact and more fear than respect for these diminutive guardians of the night.

      Since the first edition of Bats of British Columbia was published in 1993, an explosion in field studies of the province’s bat fauna, applying new tools such as genetic techniques and acoustic bat detectors, has added a wealth of new knowledge. This fully updated second edition includes new colour photographs throughout, with new material on acoustic identification. With in-depth information on biology, conservation, ecology, and identification of the 18 species found in the province, the new Bats of British Columbia will help create an appreciation of this fascinating group of mammals.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in the bats of British Columbia!

 

5) Carrano, Matthew T. et al.. Visions of Lost Worlds: The Paleoart of Jay Matternes. 2019. Smithsonian Books. Hardbound: 230 pages. Price: $39.95 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: For half a century, the artwork of Jay Matternes adorned the fossil halls of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. These treasured Matternes murals documenting mammal evolution over the past 56 million years and dioramas showing dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era are significant works of one of the most influential paleoartists in history. Simultaneously epic in size and scope and minutely detailed, they also provide a window into the study and interpretation of vertebrate paleontology and paleoecology.

     Visions of Lost Worlds presents these unparalleled works of art, and also includes the sketches and drawings Matternes prepared as he planned the murals. Known for his technical genius and eye for detail, Matternes sketched from skeletons in museum collections and added muscle, skin, and fur to bring mammals and dinosaurs from prehistory to vivid life. This book offers a close look at these works of art, a peek inside the artist's process, and an examination of the works' impact and legacy.

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in paleoart!

 

6-7) Stinchcomb, Bruce L.. World's Oldest Fossils and Cenozoic Fossils 1: Paleogene. 2007 and 2010 respectively. Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. Paperbacks: 160 pages each. Prices: $29.95 and $29.99 U.S. respectively.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARIES: World's Oldest Fossils: This valuable book provides information on fossils, fossil collecting, and price ranges for most specimens illustrated. The comprehensive text begins with the earliest fossil record of life from strata representative of deep time, called the Precambrian by geologists. Foremost in this early record of life are stromatolites, structures formed by very primitive photosynthetic life forms. Attractive, color photographs illustrate this highly informative section of the book. Also discussed and illustrated are various problematic fossil-like objects found in very ancient rock strata and the different ways in which they have been interpreted. Paleontological puzzles, such as latest Precambrian vendozoans, are covered as well. Other chapters feature fossils of the Cambrian Period, when animal life became obvious. Fascinating color photographs show trilobites (prehistoric creatures second only to dinosaurs in popularity), plus other Cambrian fossils. Includes helpful glossary of terms.  

Cenozoic Fossils 1: Paleogene: Over 370 color photos detail the fossil record of the early Cenozoic Era--the Age of Mammals--from small sea creatures to the lumbering rhinoceros and rare fossilized bats. Included are fossils from famous sites including Florissant, Colorado; Grube Messel, Germany; the Green River Formation; and the Oligocene White River Group.

RECOMMENDATION: If you enjoyed the author's other books, you will enjoy these two books.

 

 

  

8) Raff, Jennifer. Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas. 2023. Twelve. Paperback: 328 pages. Price: $19.99 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.

     20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records—and scant archaeological evidence—exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed.
 
     A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a must read for anyone with an interest in the origins of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas!

 

9) Holmes, Rupert. Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide. 2023. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster. Hardbound: 388 pages. Price: $28.00 U.S.

PUBLISHER’S SUMMARY: From the diabolical imagination of Edgar Award–winning novelist, playwright, and story-songwriter Rupert Holmes comes a devilish thriller with a killer concept: The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts, a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to “delete” their most deserving victim.

     Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League” college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.

     Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A delightful mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.

     Rupert Holmes’s much celebrated career ranges from chart-topping story songs with surprising twists—“Escape (The Pina Colada Song)”—to Tony Award–winning whodunit musicals—The Mystery of Edwin Drood—Edgar Award–winning comedy-thrillers—Accomplice—and the Nero Wolfe Best American Mystery Novel nominated Where the Truth Lies, made into an Atom Egoyan motion picture starring Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon. Called “an American treasure” (Los Angeles Times), “a true Renaissance man” by Newsweek, “a comic genius” (Kirkus Reviews) and simply “a genius” (The Times, London), Rupert Holmes brings his wickedly clever storytelling talents to this outrageous and darkly comic mystery set in a secret, idyllic campus where students learn how to “do in others as you would have others do you in.”

RECOMMENDATION: This book is a hybrid between Harry Potter's Hogwarts and Discworld's Assassins' Guild. If you enjoy dark humored thrillers, you should enjoy this book!