New York Times Bestseller Focusing on the Cowardly Lion, the third in the Wicked Years series which started with Wicked , the multimillion-copy bestseller and basis for the Tony Award winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. In A Lion Among Men Gregory Maguire continues to flesh out the world of Oz, seen this time through the eyes of the Cowardly Lion remembered from Wicked as a tiny cub defended by Elphaba. While civil war looms in Oz, an ancient and tetchy oracle named Yackle prepares for death. Before she can return to dust, however, the Cowardly Lion an enigmatic figure named arrives in search of information about Elphaba Thropp, the Wicked Witch of the West. As payment, Yackle who hovered on the sidelines of Elphaba life, demands some answers of her own. Abandoned as a cub, earliest memories are only gluey hazes. But his path from infancy in the Great Gillikin Forest is no Yellow Brick Road. Seeking to redress an early mistake, he tumbles through a swamp of ghosts, becomes implicated in a massacre of trolls, and falls in love with a Cat princess. Sidestepping the laws that oppress talking Animals, cannily avoids a jail sentence by agreeing to serve as a lackey to the warmongering Emperor of Oz. A Lion Among Men traces a battle of wits between