Buck Avery is about to embark on the biggest adventure of his strange and wonder-filled life. He has decided to move to the little ski town of Huntington to spend the season doing what he does best, since he is (in his own mind, at least) "maybe the best there ever was." Others might see him as an inveterate liar and alcoholic with no plans, no money, no car, and no prospects, but Buck just knows that everything in his priceless life will fall into place as soon as he arrives. He knows that change is coming, and lots of it! He has incredible stories to tell, and to Buck, reality is just...

Even death cannot stop two hearts that beat as one.

In May 1939, German newspapers announced the untimely death of 35-year-old author Otto Rahn, applauding him as "comrade, decent SS-man and creator of outstanding historical-scholarly works." But his Swiss lover Raymond knew that Otto had neither died accidentally nor as a member of the infamous SS.

Before the Nazis, Rahn had researched the medieval French Cathars, a heretical sect exterminated by war and the Inquisition, and he published his account of this tragedy as Crusade against the...