Robert Barrat

Ace reporter Steve Grey digs up the dirt, pieces together jigsaws of crime, outs killers, and writes the stories that scoop rival newshounds and sell newspapers. His newest investigation helps land a shady financier on Death Row. But is there something about this story that Grey isn't revealing?

America's Revolutionary War is more than a decade away, but storm clouds of rebellion are gathering in Pennsylvania. There, colonial man of action James Smith does what England's provincial command won't: stop the trading of weapons to Indian tribes. Joined by like-minded frontiersmen, Smith intercepts trade shipments, besieges forts and risks the certain-death charge of treason against the king.

He was a riverboat pilot, reporter, penniless prospector, Civil War dropout, would-be entrepreneur, loving family man, and world traveler. It turns out the man who created adventures for Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and a Connecticut Yankee led a mighty adventurous life himself. Traced here is Twain's remarkable life.

In 1862 Paris, Emile Zola is barely scratching out a living writing muckraking articles about the poverty of the French people and the corruption of their leaders. Until "Nana," about the life of a prostitute, becomes a smash hit and turns Zola into a celebrity, champion of the people. As he churns out a string of similar books that make him quite rich, his old friend Paul Cezanne tells him "An artist should remain poor." His determined intervention...

The Texans: In the wake of the Civil War, the defeated South was overrun by carpetbaggers, con-men eager and corrupt politicos, all scheming to grab every possible dollar. Tells the story of a family of ranchers who decide to herd their cattle north in order to escape the heavy taxes imposed by these greedy money-grubbers. But the trip proves more difficult than they expected, as they battle fires, blizzards and -- worst of all -- other human beings...