"The surprises keep coming in La Salle's twisting debut thriller, in which good and evil aren't always black and white."—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review From actor, director, producer, and author Eriq La Salle, comes the first in a heart-pounding crime thriller series. Every ten years, for the past 30 years, a dozen clergymen are killed, brutally murdered in twisted scenes emulating the deaths of Jesus and his disciples. Now, "The Martyr Maker" has set his mark on New York City. 30 years. 36 priests butchered. His bloodiest masterpiece is yet to come. The Laws of Depravity follows two NYPD detectives and an FBI agent as they race to catch a serial killer before he completes his last cycle of kills and disappears forever. Clerical transgressions at the heart of Spotlight meets the visceral horror of Thomas Harris's Red Dragon, for a gritty, dark story about of how some of the most trusted members of society fail. The Laws of Depravity raises eye-opening questions about faith when the lines between good and evil have blurred beyond recognition. Praise for Laws of Depravity: "Laws of Depravity may be the most engrossing book you read this year, bar none."—Lee Ashford, Reader's Favorites "...an utterly compelling and riveting thriller with echoes of the dark master, Thomas Harris. Here, La Salle also adds a surprising twist by weaving in a spiritual component that raises the narrative to lofty and thought-provoking levels. It's a wonderful accomplishment."—Leonard Chang, author of Over the Shoulder and Crossings "Actor and director Eriq La Salle's intense debut is a modern day parable cleverly masquerading as a crime novel. A muscular, gritty and spiritual thriller."—John Shors, bestselling author of Beneath a Marble Sky, Beside a Burning Sea, Dragon House, The Wishing Trees, and Cross Currents "Laws of Depravity will take you on a heart-pounding ride of vengeance, murder and atonement, never letting you rest until you've reached the final page."—Neal Baer, co-author of Kill Switch and former Executive Producer of "Law and Order S.V.U." "A gritty crime thriller, spiritual quest, and love story all woven into one compelling tale."—Publishers Weekly

The follow-up to the award-winning novel Laws of Depravity.

A vampire goes out for revenge against the three women who tried to kill him.

A dark cultivation fantasy epic.

From the New York Times bestselling author or Less Than Zero and American Psycho—a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England with no plans for the future—or even the present—who become entangled in a romantic triangle. • “An extraordinary writer.” —LA Weekly Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives. Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance. The basis for the major motion picture starring James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Jessica Biel, and Kate Bosworth. Look for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards!

Winner of the 2009 Gulf South Historical Association Book Award When a priest suggested to one of the first governors of Louisiana that he banish all disreputable women to raise the colony's moral tone, the governor responded, "If I send away all the loose females, there will be no women left here at all." Primitive, mosquito infested, and disease ridden, early French colonial New Orleans offered few attractions to entice respectable women as residents. King Louis XIV of France solved the population problem in 1721 by emptying Paris's La Salpêtrière prison of many of its most notorious prostitutes and convicts and sending them to Louisiana. Many of these women continued to ply their trade in New Orleans. In Brothels, Depravity, and Abandoned Women, Judith Kelleher Schafer examines case histories from the First District Court of New Orleans and tells the engrossing story of prostitution in the city prior to the Civil War. Louisiana law did not criminalize the selling of sex until the Progressive Era, although the law forbade keeping a brothel. Police arrested individual public women on vague charges, for being "lewd and abandoned" or vagrants. The city's wealthy and influential landlords, some of whom made huge profits by renting their property as brothels, wanted their tenants back on the streets as soon as possible, and they often hired the best criminal attorneys to help release the women from jail. The courts, in turn, often treated these "public women" leniently, exacting small fines or sending them to the city's workhouse for a few months. As a result, prosecutors dropped almost all prostitution cases before trial. Relying on previously unexamined court records and newly available newspaper articles, Schafer ably details the brutal and often harrowing lives of the women and young girls who engaged in prostitution. Some watched as gangs of rowdy men smashed their furniture; some endured beatings by their customers or other public women enraged by fits of jealousy; others were murdered. Schafer discusses the sexual exploitation of children, sex across the color line, violence among and against public women, and the city's feeble attempts to suppress the trade. She also profiles several infamous New Orleans sex workers, including Delia Swift, alias Bridget Fury, a flaming redhead with a fondness for stabbing men, and Emily Eubanks and her daughter Elisabeth, free women of color known for assaulting white women. Although scholars have written much about prostitution in New Orleans' Storyville era, few historical studies on prostitution in antebellum New Orleans exist. Schafer's rich analysis fills this gap and offers insight into an intriguing period in the history of the "oldest profession" in the Crescent City.