Edith Piaf liked to sing about la vie en rose, "life in pink," in other words, life seen through rose-tinted glasses. This volume of Tales of the Shadowmen is another kind of song altogether, one dedicated to la vie en noir, the darker side of life. And what could be darker than the Black Coats, that sinister brotherhood of criminals and their legendary treasure, a malignant self-aware entity that is the embodiment of greed and avarice? But the Treasure of the Black Coats is not the only dark facet of life covered in this volume. You will also find twenty stories about the evil Fantomas and the mysterious Yellow Shadow, the crafty Doctor Cornelius and the megalomania-cal Sun Koh, the ruthless Irma Vep and the frightful Bride of Frankenstein; in these pages, you will read tales of vampires, creatures and zombies, and things from otherworldly realms, and likely gasp at the most monstrous couple of parents ever imagined-how is that for the dark side of Life?