Painter, fisherman, pseudo-hermaphrodite—Forrest Bess lived his life in obscurity at an isolated bait camp off the east coast of Texas. From 1949 through 1967, Bess showed at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York City, alongside superstar artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Rediscovered after his death in 1977, Bess's small visionary paintings are now prized by museums and collectors for their primal beauty, and can fetch over $200,000 apiece. Bess's treasured canvases were only part of a grander theory—based on alchemy, Jungian philosophy, and aboriginal rituals—that proposed that hermaphrodism was the key to immortality. As an artist, Bess could never equivocate, and in 1960 he underwent an operation to become a pseudo-hermaphrodite. For the first time ever in print, Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle combines the beauty of Bess's art with the drama and tragedy of his personal life. Using Bess's own hauntingly sincere words (in letters to Betty Parsons, Meyer Schapiro, and others) the book traces the life and logic of this forgotten artist and explains how a love of beauty and a desire for wholeness lead Bess to self-surgery and, ultimately, a mental hospital. Forrest Bess: Key to the Riddle is a fascinating look at one of America's most notorious cult visionaries—a man who truly believed that art could save his life.

Three lonersÉThree keysÉA wizardÉA demonÉ And a riddle: Three parts of a single key, brought together by destiny; Three challenges are your test, strength will come from needed rest; One last place four doors await, where good and evil decide fate; Only then can thy lights shine, Trigon completed-all in TIME. Can three fourteen-year-old loners overcome their fears and come together to solve the riddle of the Trigon? Or will a hungry, magical, and mysterious shadow demon swallow them, sending them to oblivion? The fate of the universe may depend on these three unlikely heroes. Only if they work together will they succeed; but the demon knows their deepest fears and desires, which he will not hesitate to use against them. Their fear, anger, uncertainty, and even their ignorance are only an appetizer for his eternal hunger. He will not deny his ravenous appetite. If the magic of the Trigon fails, the demonÕs appetite will eventually devour everything-even Time.

Antiques expert Marina Cavanaugh is offered an exorbitant salary to appraise a dead man's estate. For a chance at easy money, she accepts the job but soon discovers hidden cameras in the darkest, gloomiest house she's ever seen. Jonathan Blandish, who hired her, wants to know why his murdered brother left a series of cryptic messages implicating Marina. Even a layman can see the house contains only rummage-sale junk. But his brother's forty-million-dollar fortune is missing, and Marina is the key. From the second they meet, Marina and Jonathan are at odds. He's too bossy and reminds her of her abusive father. She's too independent…and too beautiful for him to ignore. A second murder and Marina’s disappearance raises the danger level. Convinced she was captured for the clues in the riddles, Jonathan races against time to find her before the killer realizes she knows nothing at all.

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The Riddle in Ruby trilogy takes readers on a rip-roaring adventure through an alternate version of colonial America, where magic and science meet, and where one young thief carries a secret everyone wants. In this second volume, Ruby Teach has become the enemy’s prisoner. She bargained with her freedom to protect her friends—but her friends aren’t about to abandon her, either. That’s not what friends do. Ruby’s blood holds a secret, one that could turn the tides of the looming war for whomever unlocks it first. Ruby’s father, former pirate Captain Teach, and her friends—a motley crew made up of a young aristocrat, a servant, and an apprentice alchemist—must race against time to locate the hidden fortress where she’s being held. But the one person who could help them is Ruby’s mysterious and powerful mother, and no one has seen her since Ruby’s birth. Kent Davis sweeps our heroes through cities and the deepest wilderness with imagination, humor, and magic that fans of Jonathan Stroud and Terry Pratchett will devour.