When Barrington High School teacher William J. Palmer tells his at-risk students he can relate to their problems, he's speaking literally. As a teenager, Palmer couldn't balance academics with the pressures of his dysfunctional family and the temptations of the streets. Once a student at Barrington High School, he dropped out before earning a diploma.

Palmer's path from dropout to beloved teacher was a long and winding one. He earned a GED, an Associate's degree, bachelor's degree, and a master's degree. He also built a successful career in commercial real estate. Palmer knew, however,...

One dank November night, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins are called to a part of London notorious for its opium dens--where an Oxford History Don has been found murdered. Eager to escape the drudgery of a London winter, the two amateur detectives willingly accept Inspector Field's orders to travel on the new railway line to Oxford, where Collins...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of crimes in this delightful Dickensian romp, with the canonical author teaming up with a famous upstart to solve a devilish murder.

In Victorian London, Charles Dickens and his protege, the renowned author Wilkie Collins, make the acquaintance of the shrewdest mind either would ever encounter: Inspector William Field of the newly formed Metropolitan Protectives. A gentleman's brutal murder brings the three men together in an extraordinary investigation that leads Dickens to the...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of crimes in this dizzying Dickensian romp, as the canonical author risks ruining his reputation--and losing his life--all for love and justice.

Someone is threatening Angela Burdett-Coutts, the banker, feminist, and philanthropist, one of the richest, most powerful women in England. Soon after she alerts her friend Charles Dickens to the threats, the Coutts Bank is robbed, and a member of the Women's Emancipation Society is found strangled inside. The murder brings the burgeoning feminist...

The ghastly double murder of a society doctor's beautiful wife and her maid reunites celebrated novelist Charles Dickens, his protege Wilkie Collins, and formidable Inspector Field of the Metropolitan Protectives in another brilliant quest for justice. They manage to defend old friend and ex-burglar Tally Ho Thompson, who's arrested at the scene, but then the case...