Donald Serrell Thomas
Description
Donald Serrell Thomas (18 July 1934 – 20 January 2022) was a British academic and author. His work primarily included Victorian-era historical, crime and detective fiction, as well as books on factual crime and criminals, in particular several academic books on the history of crime in London. He wrote a number of biographies, two volumes of poetry, and also edited volumes of poetry by John Dryden and the Pre-Raphaelites.
Books
Dancing in the dark
Teenage girls are disappearing from this town where an idyllic beach community is terrorized, and where one reporter must get to the truth to protect her family. Trying to mix business with pleasure, KEY News correspondent Diane Mayfield has brought her children and her sister to the New Jersey shore town of Ocean Grove to investigate a story on "girls who cry wolf" for the season premiere of Hourglass, television's highly rated news magazine. Diane lands an exclusive interview with a troubled young woman whose tale of being abducted and held against her will for three terrifying days had been disbelieved by the authorities. No sooner does Diane finish taping the interview, though, than a second victim disappears. The small community, already in the grip of a record heat wave, is now wracked by fear and terror, no one knows who could be next. With only the first victim as eyewitness, Diane and the police turn to her for clues. But it may be too late to save Diane and her loved ones from the mortal danger that lurks in Ocean Grove.
The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Wedding fiction to history, this compelling collection of tales brings Baker Street's celebrated resident and his cohort Dr. Watson out of retirement to covertly investigate seven of the most notorious mysteries in the annals of true crime. The alleged bigamy of King George V... The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907... In Paris, Holmes and Watson become embroiled in the suspicious death of the French president Faure... In Yokohama, they solve a mystifying case of what appears to be arsenic poisoning... And on at least one occasion the formidable ratiocinative powers of the Great Detective save not only the day but the English monarchy, government, and nation as well.
Henry Fielding
The definitive biography of one of the fathers of the modern novel, and the most remarkable and representative Englishman of the seventeenth century. This book should be of interest to readers of literature, biography and history.
The Victorian underworld
Donald Thomas shows us, through the eyes of its inhabitants, the teeming underbelly of a world more often associated with gentility and high culture. Defined by night houses and cigar divans, populated by street people like the running-patterer with his news of murder, and entertainers like the Fire King, the underworld was an insular yet diffuse community, united by its deep hatred of the police. In its gin shops and taverns, hard by the fashionable West End, thrived thieves and beggars, cheats, forgers, and pickpockets, preying on rich and poor alike. Bringing to light the ugly realities of daily life in the underworld, Thomas also tours the convict hulks and Dickensian prisons of the day to paint a grim picture of the losers in the mounting war on crime.