Peter Davidson

Peter Davidson, the author of "Homicide Miami," the true crime story that inspired the film "Pain and Gain," compiles the true stories of some of America's most notorious cannibal murderers. THEY VIOLATED ONE OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY'S MOST SACRED TABOOS. They're an anathema even in the twisted world of serial murder. More frightening still, the cannibal killer has hidden behind a mask of normalcy, as witnessed in these shocking profiles of five American men who ate their victims . . . Gary Heidnik, the financial wizard whose Philadelphia home was a dungeon of sexual slavery, torture, and diabolical feasts. Albert Fentress, a mild-mannered schoolteacher who lured a teenage boy into the inescapable darkness of his secret obsessions. John Weber, a country boy who found an outlet for his sick fantasies when he ate his teenage sister-in-law for dinner. Nathaniel Bar-Jonah, a portly gourmand and aspiring chef who allegedly shared the remains of his prey with unsuspecting friends. Marc Sappington, a high school dropout who aspired to outdo his idol, Jeffrey Dahmer, by embarking on a three-day feeding frenzy. Drawn from revealing interviews with family members, authorities, and the killers themselves, "Death by Cannibal" exposes the secrets behind the most fiendish compulsion of them all. Also--where does desire end and true crime begin? New details on the unprecedented case of Gilberto Valle, the New York City cop sentenced to life in prison for harboring only fantasies--of kidnapping up to a hundred women and of eating "girl meat."INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

This is a book about remoteness: a memoir of places observed in solitude, of the texture of life through the quiet course of the seasons in the far north of Scotland. It is a book grounded in the singularity of one place - a house in northern Aberdeenshire - and threaded through with an unshowy commitment to the lost and the forgotten. In these painterly essays Davidson reflects on art, place, history and landscape. Distance and Memory is his testament to the cold, clear beauty of the north.

This collection of original articles provides language teachers with a theoretical background of key issues associated with language testing as well as practical advice on how to improve the effectiveness of the tests they develop and implement. Written by internationally prominent researchers and educators, the chapters are organized into five sections: key issues in the field, assessment purposes and approaches, assessment of second language skills, technology in assessment, and administrative issues. Chapters assume no particular background knowledge and are written in an accessible style.

IT BEGAN WITH A DISAPPEARANCE On a balmy May night in Miami, Frank Griga and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton, vanished from the face of the earth. Frank had made a fortune in the adult hotline business and had met Krisztina, an exotic dancer, while searching for models for his advertisements. Three weeks later, their torsos were found inside metal drums sunk in a murky canal. IT ENDED IN MURDER So began the unraveling of the most diabolical death-for-dollars plot in history. All evidence led investigators to Miami's Sun Gym--a Mecca for serious bodybuilders. The gym's owner, two muscle-bound managers, and a steroid-crazed personal trainer were the ringleaders of a gang that targeted wealthy Floridians for kidnapping, extortion, and death. This is the story of how a band of brutal thugs planned to make a fortune from fear and blood--and how the quick actions of the authorities stopped the gang before any more innocents were killed.

Baroque in its extravagance of language, in its delight in the bizarre and the prodigious, Peter Davidson's collection is a cabinet of curiosities, a world of ruined palaces, ghostly gardens and the fragile marvels of a secret past. It moves between languages and continents, English and Latin, the Spanish Netherlands and Spanish America, the Mediterranean and the north. The title sequence evokes a half-known, half-fantastic, seventeenth century; a shorter sequence transforms contemporary England through the eyes of a spy. The collection ends with a group of elegies and epistles concerned with place and history in northern Scotland. Erudite and witty, "The Palace of Oblivion" is about remembering and inventing out of memory, and provides haunting visions of decay and splendor.