I committed a crime, it is true, a mad crime, but are not insane jealousy, passionate love, betrayed and lost, and the terrible pain I endure, enough to make anyone commit a crime without actually being a criminal? Guy de Maupassant

A lover's most unlikely jealousy, a mother's patient wait for revenge, a young actress driven to destruction by a cruel husband, a story of jilted love and murder in a London lodging house, and a confrontation that brings a saga of mutual loathing to a terrible conclusion on the other side of the Atlantic....Here are stories by five master storytellers (Guy de Maupassant, Wilkie Collins, Louisa May Alcott, Algernon Blackwood, and the lesser known Stephen Phillips) that tell powerful tales of "crimes passionnels" driven by five very different motives: treachery, jealousy, hate, love, and revenge - all potent and sometimes ungovernable emotions.

Featuring:

Mad by Guy de Maupassant

First Hate by Algernon Blackwood

A Double Tragedy by Louisa May Alcott

Inside Information by Stephen Phillips

Who Killed Zebedee? by Wilkie Collins