Part philosophical meditation, part cultural critique, this work explores the nature of physical suffering. Elaine Scarry bases her study on a wide range of sources: literature and art, medical case histories, documents on torture compiled by Amnesty International, legal transcripts of personal injury trials, and military and strategic writings by such figures as Clausewitz, Churchill, Liddell Hart, and Henry Kissinger. Scarry begins with the fact...

We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”—or torturer—s...

John Kramer is back. The most disturbing installment of the Saw franchise yet explores the untold chapter of Jigsaw's most personal game. Set between the events of Saw I and II, a sick and desperate John travels to Mexico for a risky and experimental medical procedure in hopes of a miracle cure for his cancer only to discover the entire operation is a scam to defraud the most vulnerable. Armed with a newfound purpose, the infamous serial killer returns...

"After weeks of torture at the hands of Syria's secret police, the bombing of his villa in the ancient city of Aleppo, and the murder of his daughter, trauma surgeon Dr. Hosam Khousa flees his fractured homeland with his wife and son. They make their way to Canada as refugees, where Hosam is forced to trade his prestigious scalpel for a barber's humble clippers. Though he aches to regain his once-prominent surgical career, cutting hair in Hamilton,...

Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is a novel made up of stories: Twenty-three of them, to be precise. Twenty-three of the most horrifying, hilarious, mind-blowing, stomach-churning tales you’ll ever encounter—sometimes all at once. They are told by people who have answered an ad headlined “Writers’ Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months,” and who are led to believe that here they will leave behind all the distractions...

The shocking revelations of the men and women who adopted and enforced Rumsfeld's 2002 memo that paved the way for the inhuman interrogation practices at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation--techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial...

"When Cora Lawson attends her sister's birthday party, she expects at most a hangover or a walk of shame by the end of it. She doesn't anticipate a stolen wallet, leaving her stranded and dependent on her sister's fiancé, Dean Asher--her archnemesis and perpetual thorn in her side. And she really doesn't anticipate getting knocked out and waking up chained in a madman's basement, Dean in his own shackles beside her. After fifteen years of teasing,...

When a young woman visits a remote cabin in the Chilean countryside with a friend, she discovers that the other people they are staying with are involved in psychological and physical torture.

Dahlia Barr does not suffer fools--or her own government, with which she is normally at odds. Shrewd, brash, and as tough as she is beautiful, the controversial Israeli attorney specializes in defending Palestinians accused of terrorism. She is also a devoted mother, a soon-to-be-divorced wife, and the lover of a handsome American television correspondent. To Dahlia's astonishment, the Israeli security establishment one day approaches her wit a tantalizing...

For the first time, Stephen Grey tells the inside story of international prisons sanctioned by the U.S. Government and used by the CIA to hold and torture people suspected of terrorism. Using contacts deep inside the U.S. Government, Grey reveals how deeply the Bush administration is involved in the program and questions the truth of statements made by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. He also shines a spotlight on the heads of European nations...