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美国某市的大选期间，参议员之子惨遭杀害，箭头指向挟怨仇杀及选举阴谋，各方人马皆欲借机谋利。警方及嫌犯的亲友分别收到奇怪的匿名信，里面的内容都是对嫌犯不利的影射。眼看着嫌犯已经众叛亲离，甚至自己承认了犯罪，但对他始终有信心的的好友兼手下仍然以身试险，企图力挽狂澜。

该书是美国硬汉派侦探小说家钱德勒的短篇小说集。书中所收录的八个短篇作品曾发表于美国通俗小说杂志Pulps上，充分展示了作者丰富的想象力和在小说形式、结构方面非凡的驾驭能力。另外，书中另有一篇作者的论述文章，对侦探小说和文学作品的联系和区别、侦探小说的特征、侦探小说史上知名作者作品均有精妙见解。

<i>I lay there alone in bed, feeling the black shadow creeping up the underside of the world like a flood tide. Nothing held, nothing was left. The silver airplanes and the silver capes all dissolved and vanished, wiped away like the crude drawings of a child in coloured chalk from the colossal blackboard of the dark.</i><br /><br />The writings in this collection outline Plath's early preoccupation with issues of mental illness, creativity and femininity, all of which would become recurrent themes in her later work. They offer special insight into her development as a writer, and arguably paved the way for her only full-length piece of prose writing, the loosely veiled fictional autobiography, <i>The Bell Jar</i>.<br /><br />This second edition contains the thirteen stories included in the first edition together with five pieces of her journalism, as well as a few fragments from her journal; and a further nine stories selected from the Indiana archive.

纳博科夫移居美国后第一部长篇小说，中文版首发。
一场文字的瘟疫，幻想和怪念的产物。
一颗充满爱意的心的跳动，情感被挟持之后饱受折磨。
一个荒诞的警察国家，浑噩无知又胡作非为的国民通性。
小说的背景置于一个荒诞不经的警察国家，人们信奉埃克利斯主义，追求整齐划一的埃特盟（普通人）式生活，浑噩无知又胡作非为是国民的通性。主人公克鲁格是该国的精英知识分子，享誉海外，为了让他为新政权背书，独裁领导人巴图克百般尝试却不得法，最后挟持了克鲁格幼小的儿子，通过这一小小的“爱的杠杆”，撬动了固执的哲学家。小说的主题是克鲁格那颗充满爱意的心的跳动，在妻子病逝、儿子被挟持后，他强烈、温柔的情感饱受折磨。
《庶出的标志》是一部越读越有味的作品。正如纳博科夫所言，“一旦我真的再次浏览我的作品，带给我最大愉悦的是那些隐藏着的主题在路边发出的细声细语。” 因此，一千个读者可以从这部小说中发现一千个亮点。
纳博科夫本人在前言中说明：“庶出的标志”（bend sinister）一词指的是从盾徽右上方到左下方的对角斜纹（通常，但是不很准确，有表示私生子的含义）。选择这个标题是想暗示一种被折射破坏的线型轮廓，一幅镜中的扭曲图像，一次生活的错误转向，一个怪诞邪恶的世界。……就像我的另一部小说《斩首之邀》——与现在这部小说倒是有着明显的关联——一样，把《庶出的标志》和卡夫卡的作品或者是奥威尔的陈词滥调不加分析、不动脑子地比较只会证明，做这种比较的人既没有读过那位伟大的德语作家，也不可能读过那位二流的英国作家。

Can you trust yourself when you don't know who you are? Syme uses his new acquaintance to go undercover in Europe's Central Anarchist Council and infiltrate their deadly mission, even managing to have himself voted to the position of 'Thursday'. In a park in London, secret policeman Gabriel Syme strikes up a conversation with an anarchist. Sworn to do his duty, When Syme discovers another undercover policeman on the Council, however, he starts to question his role in their operations. And as a desperate chase across Europe begins, his confusion grows, as well as his confidence in his ability to outwit his enemies. But he has still to face the greatest terror that the Council has - its leader: a man named Sunday, whose true nature is worse than Syme could ever have imagined...

《雅各布·德佐特的千秋》2010年一经出版即问鼎英联邦作家奖，是大卫·米切尔极其重要的一部作品，该书的故事背景是1799年长崎湾的出岛，这是日本当时唯一的一座贸易港埠，也是日本通向世界的唯一窗口，日本设置这座岛的用意，正是为了不让西方人踏足本土。狡猾的商人、奸诈的翻译、收费高昂的高级妓女混迹于斯。虔诚的年轻办事员雅各布·德佐特来到此地，准备用滞留东方的五年时间，赚取充裕的财富，与荷兰的富家千金共结连理。与蓝场川织斗偶然邂逅，让雅各布的初衷变得黯然失色，她是曾遭毁容、为位高权重的长崎奉行之子接生的助产士。礼法、利益与欢愉的界线模糊难辨，雅各布发现自己的美梦蒙上了阴影，他仓促地许下誓言，却横遭命运的阻挠——后续事态发展之严酷，远远超过雅各布最糟的设想······