Lyrics Alley is the evocative story of an affluent Sudanese family shaken by the shifting powers in their country and the near-tragedy that threatens the legacy they've built for decades.

Their fortune threatened by shifting powers in Sudan and their heir's debilitating accident, a powerful family under the leadership of Mahmoud Bey is torn between the traditional and modern values of Mahmoud's two wives and his son's efforts to break with cultural limits.

Considered by many to be Mahfouz's best novel,  Midaq Alley centers around the  residents of one of the hustling, teeming back alleys of Cairo. No other novel so vividly evokes the  sights and sounds of the city. The universality and  timelessness of this book cannot be denied.

Claire Danvers's college town may be run by vampires but a truce between the living and the dead made things relatively safe. For a while. Now people are turning up dead, a psycho is stalking her, and an ancient bloodsucker has proposed private mentoring. To what end, Claire will find out. And it's giving night school a whole new meaning.

Stan Carlisle could read people, standing along the sidelines of the main carny attractions where he worked, watching the washed up geek eaten by alcoholism. The clairvoyant with her frightening pack of cards, the strong man with the muscles of a Greek god, the twisted leg acrobat who walked on his arms, and the charming ‘lectric bulb girl whose blazing body defied lightning: they all performed beneath the gaze of the crowd at the Ten-in-One show. The audience oooohed in awe and astonishment, averted their eyes in horrified embarrassment, forever applauding the appalling, falling for the oldest gag in the book, yet always coming back, like ghosts called up from the past, wondering what the future would hold. Stan understood them, saw through them, and knew he could go further. He was a convincer, not a pretender. He was a master with words and could pawn off more than palmistry. He would prophesize, proselytize, see his profits rise. The Great Stanton. If he played his cards right he could leave for much bigger and better things. All he needed was a jumping off point, and from there, a chance to climb.

With a little magic-or was it murder?-a mentalist was born and transformed into a full-blown Spiritualist, greedy for glamour and a wallet full of rich and gullible worshippers. Soon, with hefty donations piling in from a growing congregation-all inspired by fraudulent transmogrifications-the ordained Reverend Stanton Carlisle was at the top of his game. But remember the tarot card of the hanged man, whose downward headed fate is strung up for all to see: fame is known to falter, and a low life is never far from reach.

“Mr. Gresham yanked the reviewer into the midst of his macabre and compelling novel, and kept him a breathless captive until the tour was over. It’s a truly rewarding whirl through his nightmare alley…All of it adds up to Grade-A guignol with a touch of black magic about it…If you enjoy hundred-proof evil-and a cogent analysis of same with your nightcap-then, in the words of the Ten-in-One barker, hurry, hurry, hurry!” -The New York Times

Nightmare Alley inspired a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, a graphic novel by the legendary underground cartoonist Spain Rodriguez, and a new musical adaptation now playing at the Geffen Theater in Los Angeles.

Some cases are unusual — even for Jill Kismet.

When her police contact asks her to look into a "suicide", she suddenly finds herself in a labyrinth of deception, drugs, murder — and all-too-human corruption. The cops are her allies, except for the ones who want her dead. The hellbreed are her targets, except for the ones who might know what's going on. Her city is in danger, time is running out, and each lead only draws her deeper.

How far will a hunter go when her city — and her friends — are on the line?

Just far enough.