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The Serpentine Cave
by Jill Paton WalshWhen Marion's mother is silenced, first by a stroke, and then by death, she is left confronting the chaotic detritus of a life obsessively devoted to art. she has left it too late to ask the crucial questions about scenes confusedly remembered from her childhood, and above all about the identity of her own father, 'lost in the war'. Out of the hundreds of paintings in her mother's studio, one, a portrait of a young man, is inscribed 'For Marion'. Is this her father? And who was he?Marion's search takes her to the Cornish town of St Ives. In the remote and closeknit town where communities of fisherfolk and artists have coexisted for many years, she learns of a tragedy which is intrinsically tied up with her father's life. Over fifty years before, the St Ives lifeboat went down with all hands bar one. Marion must delve deep into the past to discover the identity of a man she never knew,a nd in so doing confront the demons which have tortured her own adult life.The Serpentine Cave is an imagined story containing a true one - a powerful novel about memory and loss, birth and rebirth, and past regrets which still have the power to plague the present.
The Master Of Rain
by Tom BradbyShanghai, 1926. A city of British Imperial civil servants, American gun-runners, Russian princesses and Chinese gangsters, where heroin is available on room service and everything is for sale. Exotic, sexually liberated and pulsing with life, it is a place and time where anything seems possible.For Richard Field, it represents a brave new world away from the past he is trying to escape. Seconded to the police force, his first moment of active duty is a brutal crime scene. A young White Russian woman, Lena Orlov, lies spreadeagled on her bed, sadistically murdered. As he begins to peer through the glittering surface to the murky depths beneath, Field sees a world beyond the glamour of the city's expatriate life - a world where everything has its price, and where human life is merely another asset to barter. The key to the investigation seems to be Lena's neighbour, Natasha Medvedev. But can Field trust someone for whom self-preservation is the only goal? And is it wise to fall in love when there is every sign that Natasha herself may be the next victim?In a city where reality is a dangerous luxury, Field is driven into the darkness beyond the dazzle of society to a world where the basest of human needs are met and where the truth seems certain to be a fatal commodity . . .
Shadow Dancer
by Tom BradbyColette McVeigh: Mother. Widow. Terrorist. For all of her twenty-nine years she has lived the Republican cause. Her husband was killed by the Brits. Her brothers have dedicated their lives to fighting them. Until she is arrested in an aborted bombing raid in London when she has to make a choice: inform and see your children again; or stay silent and watch them grow up from the inside of a prison cell.Her MI5 handler, David Ryan, has never questioned where his loyalties lie. But as he watches Colette put herself in increasing danger to fulfil her side of the bargain, he realises that his certainty and integrity have been fatally and irrevocably compromised...
The White Russian: A Novel (Charnwood Large Print Ser.)
by Tom BradbySt Petersburg 1917. The capital of the glittering Empire of the Tsars and a city on the brink of revolution where the jackals of the Secret Police intrigue for their own survival as their aristocratic masters indulge in one last, desperate round of hedonism.For Sandro Ruzsky, Chief Investigator of the city police, even this decaying world provides the opportunity for a new beginning. Banished to Siberia for four years for pursuing a case his superiors would rather he'd quietly buried, Ruzsky finds himself investigating the murders of a young couple out on the ice of the frozen river Neva.The dead girl was a nanny at the Imperial Palace, the man an American from Chicago and, if the brutality of their deaths seems an allegory for the times, Ruzsky finds that, at every turn, the investigation leads dangerously close to home. At the heart of the case, lies Maria, the beautiful ballerina Ruzsky once loved and lost. But is she a willing participant in what appears to be a dangerous conspiracy or likely to be it's next, perhaps last, victim?In a city at war with itself, and pitted against a ruthless murderer who relishes taunting him, Ruzsky finds himself at last face to face with his own past as he fights to save everything he cares for, before the world into which he was born goes up in flames.
Blood Money
by Tom BradbyNew York, 1929, a city of speakeasies, swells and hoodlums at the fag end of the roaring twenties. It's a hell of a time and place for a young cop to be trying to make his way in the world.Joe Quinn's first case is one that could put his name up in lights; a banker takes a dive from a tall building onto Wall Street. All the signs point to murder. Pretty soon, the dead man has company; a group of old buddies is being eliminated, in a particularly gruesome manner. For the young detective a case that starts as an opportunity swiftly becomes a nightmare from which he cannot escape. Joe Quinn is about to discover just how tough being an honest cop in a dishonest world can be...
The Wish
by Sasha BlakeWe all have our dreams. But how far would we go to protect them?Lulu longs for a loving man and father figure for her young son. In a perfect world, this would be her gorgeous boss, Ben Arlington. He is her dream man, and likely to remain so - as he's also a highly sought after gaming industry millionaire, and engaged to another woman.But not for much longer if Ben's cold-hearted mother has anything to do with it. Sofia Arlington has a secret to protect, a secret so potentially damaging she'll do anything to keep it hidden. And now a figure from Sofia's dark past has been silent for too long. Bessie Edwards is determined to get back what's rightfully hers. What she's about to reveal will turn all their glittering lives upside down...
Betrayal
by Sasha BlakeMONEYEmily Kent is the daughter of one of the most powerful women on the planet. Her mother and billionaire father have laid the world at her feet - it's not enough. Emily is determined to make her own luck.LUSTClaudia Kent is Emily's step-sister - all she craves is love. Desperate to escape the misery of her past, she meets the man of her dreams. Or so she imagines...VENGEANCENathan Kent is the son of no one. Adopted, and then discarded by the one family who could have loved him, he has only one goal in life - to get his revenge.GREEDAs disgraced tycoon Jack Kent and his wife Innocence fight for supremacy over their vast empire, family ties are flung aside - no one will stand the way of their obsession with money, sex and power.
The Optimist's/Pessimist's Handbook: A companion to hope and despair
by Niall Edworthy Petra CramsieAre optimists just reckless dreamers? Are pessimists miserable doom-mongers or just erring on the side of caution? Is the glass half empty or half full?Brilliantly compiled and beautifully written, this is a rich anthology of evidence from both sides of any argument. Covering everything from Beauty to Happiness, Patriotism to Walking, it is the perfect tool for squabbling families, a counterbalance for arguing couples and a mine of detail for the quarrelsome. The Optimist on the Afterlife: My heaven will be filled with wonderful young men and dukes. (Dame Barbara Cartland)And the Pessimist: 'That's what Hell will be like, small chat to the babbling of Lethe about the good old days when we wished we were dead. (Samuel Beckett)
The Sleep Of The Dead (Paragon Softcover Large Print Bks.)
by Tom BradbyThe brutal murder of Sarah Ford and the disappearance of her six-year-old daughter, Alice, shattered the rural serenity of Julia Havilland's childhood. But these are not the only scars that have resolutely refused to heal. Shortly afterwards, Colonel Mitchell Havilland sacrificed himself on a Falklands hillside in an act of characteristic - but baffling - heroism. When Julia comes home from China fifteen years later, it is to a place of ghosts.Whilst she awaits the outcome of the enquiry that seems destined to end her short but spectacular career in military intelligence, Julia is drawn back across the landscape of the past, to find that it is not just the tortured image of her much-loved father that returns to haunt her. Everything she has ever believed in and lived for has suddenly been called into question, and unless she confronts her demons, she will not survive. For there have been other deaths, and the dead will not sleep...At once a race-against-the-clock thriller and a complex psychological drama where the memories of the past conflict with knowledge of the present, The Sleep of the Dead is a stunning read on any level and more than confirms Tom Bradby as one of this country's foremost thriller writers.Praise for Shadow Dancer:'Quite exceptional...Tom Bradby succeeds in creating real characters. Far too many novels take refuge in cliché and caricature - Bradby refuses to. The language, the tension, the fear - all are portrayed vividly and correctly...A taut, compelling story of love and torn loyalties'Daily Telegraph'A remarkable first novel...Bradby handles the tension with skill to produce a gripping tale'The Times'The best book on the northern conflict since Harry's Game...An excellent read on any level. It scores heavily as a thriller and as an accurate unblinking look at what is happening right now'Irish Independent
The God Of Chaos
by Tom BradbyCairo, June 1942. A city blistering under the lash of a relentless summer and panicked by the implacable advance of Hitler's most talented general, Erwin Rommel. It is the worst possible time and place for the body of a senior British officer to be found in a rubbish bin, bathed in blood.His murder has been made to look like a political assassination by local extremists opposed to British rule, but former New York cop Joe Quinn isn't buying that. He senses more fundamental human emotions at play. For Quinn, it's like old times, a reminder of his past. One he doesn't want to revisit. Thrown out of the New York Police Department as a liability after the tragic death of his son, he probably shouldn't be a cop any longer, but maybe he's just what this case needs. The investigation leads him through the underbelly of an exotic, violent and seedy city to the heart of the Cairo's high command and the possibility that a highly placed spy is feeding the allies' most sensitive secrets to Rommel, waiting out in the desert.Only one woman has seen the killer - an American named Amy White. The trouble is Joe Quinn's already falling for her and if he doesn't stop the spy soon, then not just Amy, but everything else he holds dear is certain to be brutally eliminated ...
A Saucerful of Secrets
by Jane YardleyIt is 1969. London swings, men land on the moon, and thirteen-year-old Kim Tanner appears on Imogen's doorstep to announce she is her long-lost daughter. Imogen wrote a bestseller about the baby she was forced to give away, so there have been many contenders, but Kim is special, and she is convinced. Kim and her dog Welly move in with the beautiful, bohemian Imogen and proceed to bring order to chaos. Then along comes pretty, appealing Sukie, also claiming to be Imogen's child. Kim is determined to prove she is Imogen's daughter but when the starts digging she unearths a very murky story...
Painting Ruby Tuesday
by Jane YardleyIt is the summer of 1965. Annie Cradock, the only child of exacting parents who run the village school, is an imaginative girl with a head full of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Annie whiles away the school holiday with her friends: Ollie the rag-and-bone man (and more importantly his dog); the beautiful piano-playing Mrs Clitheroe who turns Beethoven into boogie-woogie (and like Annie sees music in colour); and Annie's best friend Babette - streetwise, loyal, and Annie's one solid link with common sense. But everything changes when the village is rocked by a series of murders and the girls know something they've no intention of telling the police.In the present day, adult Annie is a successful singing coach in a stifling marriage. Her ambitious American husband, impatient with his quirky wife, is taking a job in New York - but is she staying with him? As Annie struggles with her future, she first has to come to terms with the bizarre events of 1965.
Rainy Day Women
by Jane YardleyIt is 1971 - hippies, hot pants and extraordinary footwear. Jo and her friend Frankie are fifteen, and they have a problem. Frankie's American mother, in England against her will, is determined to move out of the scruffy Essex village to civilized London. Jo's family would follow them if only they could sell their great rambling home, the Red House, but unfortunately, the house is putting up a fight. An architectural oddity built by an eighteenth-century madman to irritate his wife, it always did have a life of its own, but now its sinister goings-on are driving prospective buyers away. The capable Jo has always coped with her eccentric family but they're getting worse. Even more disturbing, Jo and Frankie are convinced that there's been a murder on the premises. As the Red House crumbles around them, the girls are determined to get to the bottom of the mystery so the Starkey family can sell up and start an ordinary life. But along comes the devastatingly attractive Florian, folk singer and opportunist, to cause a chaos all of his own...RAINY DAY WOMEN is a black comedy in which teenaged hopes, fears and egomaniacal tunnel vision are played out against the background of a seriously dysfunctional family, some of its members deeply loveable - and some of them not.
A Desert In Bohemia (G. K. Hall Core Ser.)
by Jill Paton WalshIt is 1945. Somewhere in Central Europe, in the aftermath of violence and confusion, a terrified and bloodstained young woman, Eliska, emerges from the forest to take refuge in an apparently abandoned castle. Soon she is joined by others - the idealistic Jiri, the sinister Slavomir and his partisans, and Count Michael Blansky, who is the castle's ancestral owner.But the war has changed things for ever. In a storm of ideological change, the existing order and the aristocratic heritage of ten generations are brushed aside by the arrival of Communism, and Count Michael must join the flood of refugees if he is to survive. He leaves behind a legacy which will entangle those involved for the next forty years in more ways than they can possibly imagine.As divided post-war Europe unravels around them, they must make what they can of lives buffeted by circumstance. For many, individual freedom is at best problematic. For better or worse, communities are destroyed, families uprooted, and the ties of trust, friendship and duty which bind them together are broken down by the implacably irresolvable forces at work. Told through the eyes of nine characters who live through the forty years between the end of the war and the fall of Communism, A Desert in Bohemia is a complex and enthralling testament to the power and powerlessness of the individual in challenging times.
The Lightning Keeper: A Novel
by Starling LawrenceThe Lightning Keeper is a sweeping epic novel of ambition, love and enterprise in America. It is the story of an unlikely Romeo and Juliet romance at the dawn of the electric age, with the nation balancing on the brink of world war and a scientific revolution. In 1914 Toma Pekocevic is a penniless immigrant in New York, recently escaped from the bloody politics of the Balkans that have claimed most of his family. Also a gifted inventor, he designs a revolutionary water turbine while working with Harriet Bigelow, scion of a proud Connecticut iron-making dynasty now fallen on hard times. Their attraction is immediate and overwhelming, but every circumstance is against them. Toma is eventually drawn inside the industrial empire of General Electric, his machine an essential cog in its grand scheme to provide electricity to the entire country. After he loses Harriet to a wealthy politician, his invention is all he has - but Toma is determined to win her back. The stage is set for a confrontation that could change not only his life but the course of scientific progress. Deeply evocative and utterly engrossing, The Lightning Keeper is a rich tapestry of technology, romance and war - an unforgettable and distinctly American saga that establishes Starling Lawrence as one of the most talented writers at work today.
The Hottest Day Of The Year
by Brinda CharryIn a small town in South India, beneath the brutal summer sun, a young girl watches anxiously as tensions simmer, then boil over...Her parents away on business, eleven-year-old Nithya spends six sultry months in Tamil Nadu with her unmarried uncle and widowed aunt. Battling sheer boredom, stupefying heat and nosy neighbours, she befriends the family's pretty servant, Sudha. Tagging along to milk the buffalo and gather vegetables, Nithya learns the rhythm of the older girl's life - and the secret that threatens it. When Sudha hangs herself in her bedroom, the surrounding brahmin community seethes with fascination, and Nithya learns more about her uncle and her aunt that she wanted to know.As she tells Sudha's story in an exquisitely rendered voice, Nithya emerges as an extraordinary girl in her own right.
The Ice Child (Isis Cassettes)
by Elizabeth McGregorJo Harper, a successful young journalist, has only her adored two-year-old son, Sam, to remind her of her late partner. When Sam falls ill, there is only one slim hope - that his stepbrother John may hold the key to his survival. But John has disappeared. Seeking absolution for his part in the accidental death of his marine archeologist father and tortured by their failed relationship, John has set out alone against impossible odds to fulfil his father's dream - to uncover the last traces of the Franklin expedition, which vanished in the Arctic in 1847 while searching for the North West Passage.As uncanny parallels begin to unfold between the last days of the Franklin crew and the crisis facing Sam, Jo is plunged into a desparate race against time to save both the life of her son and the soul of her stepson.Beautifully written and deeply moving, THE ICE CHILD is storytelling at its very best.
The Dandelion Clock
by Guy BurtI used to think that perhaps everything that was happening to me - my whole life - was just a memory. As if one moment I could be eleven, and playing in the sun, and the next I might - wake up, somehow, and find I was old and dying, and the day when I was eleven was just a bright, clear memory...Alex is an artist, preparing for an exhibition to mark the peak of his career. His life seems ordered and complete, but an impulsive trip back to the Italy of his childhood forces him to explore the unresolved questions of his past. There, in those seemingly innocent days, as he swam and played and explored the wild countryside with Jamie and Anna, Alex must surely find the key to so much of his later life. He has to experience again his first friendship with Jamie, and his first love for Anna; and to put together the pieces of a story which brought the three of them together more closely than they could understand, with a bond which seemed innocent but which resulted in tragedy.In this disturbing new novel Guy Burt explores the darker side of childhood love and friendship, and the fear and pain of growing up.Of Guy Burt's first novel, After The Hole, the critics wrote:'A scintillating début...Burt's will be a name to watch' - Daily Mail'Compulsively sinister first novel ' - The Times'Insidiously brilliant' - The Independent
Dictator
by Tom CainAfrica has had more than its share of dictators, but Henderson Gushungo may be the worst. Millions starve and opponents are flung in jail, while Gushungo and his cronies get rich on the country's rich natural resources.A powerful consortium of political and business interests offer Samuel Carver the job of enforcing regime change. Can the taking of one life save millions of others? And can Carver trust the men who hired him?As the action hurtles from the plains of southern Africa to the teeming streets of Hong Kong, and an old enemy rises from the grave to haunt him once more, Carver becomes both the hunter and the hunted in a deadly game where the survival of a nation is at stake.
Assassin: Thriller
by Tom CainHe is the most popular President in decades - which is why they want him deadWhen a people-trafficker dies a violent death in Dubai, and a gangland money-launderer has a fatal car accident in San Francisco, both bear the hallmarks of a Sam Carver 'accident'.The only problem is Sam Carver no longer plays that game. He made a promise. But someone is setting Carver up, framing him for crimes he didn't commit. And now his old paymasters at MI6 want him stopped.A copycat killer wants to crush Carver, and then beat him at his own game by hitting the world's most prominent target, the new President of the United States.Carver will have to use all his cunning and tradecraft to stop this deadly opponent. Alone and on the run, he must fight to clear his name - but first he must stop a fatal shot that will be heard around the world.
The Survivor
by Tom CainSamuel Carver makes bad accidents happen to worse people. He's very good at his job. But nobody's perfect. And one of Carver's targets has got away.Now the world faces a new age of conflict driven by religious fanaticism. In Russia, the government have admitted they no longer know the whereabouts of one hundred small-scale 'suitcase nukes'. In Afghanistan and Kosovo, ruthless terrorists plot the downfall of their hated enemies. In Texas, a dying billionaire plots his own personal Armageddon.And Carver can do nothing to stop them. He was beaten and tortured and left to die, but Samuel Carver is a hard man to kill. When he awakes in a Swiss sanatorium from weeks of torment, he discovers that the woman he loves has vanished. Somehow he must find the strength to track her down.Carver's hunt will take him deep into the heart of a conspiracy in which the lives of millions are at stake. He must confront an agonizing choice between his duty and his heart, and face the ultimate sacrifice. As the clock ticks down to doomsday, who will survive the final, explosive conflagration?In The Survivor the worlds of fact and fiction collide in a thriller that grips from the first page to the last.
The Accident Man (A\samuel Carver Novel Ser.)
by Tom CainMeet the Accident Man, Samuel CarverCarver is a good guy who makes bad things happen to bad people. Drug-baron's helicopter develops mechanical failure mid-flight: Samuel Carver. Terrorist blown-up in his own bomb factory: Samuel Carver. Ex-SAS, now freelance mercenary he is the frontline weapon of the 'Consortium', a black-ops British government outfit, or is it?Carver is called to do a hit at very short notice. Do this job for us and be paid very well. Refuse and you better run and hide. He believes the target to be a high-ranking Pakistani terrorist. The job is to organise a car crash in a Paris underpass. But Carver is being set up. When he discovers the real identity of his target, and more importantly the identity of the target's female companion, he knows one thing - his life is over. This is a secret too big to let him live, unless he can track down the real villains before they get to him.Combining the plotting of Robert Ludlum, with the pace and tension of Frederick Forsyth, Tom Cain is a major new thriller writer and The Accident Man is a classic in the making and launches Samuel Carver straight into the top rank of action heroes.
Let There Be Lite
by Rupert MorganOn a planet remarkably similar to our own, in the voraciously capitalist United States of Atlantis, the most powerful (i.e. richest) man in the world is media and IT tycoon John Lockes who made his fortune by copyrighting the Return Key on computer keyboards. An elusive figure and man of many secrets, Lockes is also a philanthropist and has, through his company Infologix, invented a system that will effectively end all crime - a satellite trackeding device known as 'Rectag'. Lockes is the man of the moment, and the time is right for a wart 'n' all biography and the man to write it is Macauley Connor, an embittered investigative journalist-turned-tabloid hack who knows he's reached rock bottom when he's sent to investigate a farmer who claims his chickens have been abducted by aliens. Meanwhile, a beautiful astronaut and an Infologix employee fall in love in orbit, a presidential candidate discovers he will stop at nothing to get elected and a bank heist goes horribly wrong when two rival gangs hit the same place at the same time.Anarchic, outrageous and ebullient, Let There Be Lite takes some laceratingly funny swipes at American politics, presidential elections, spin doctors, tabloid journalism, software billionaires, the fashion industry, fast food and food fads, chat shows (here hosted by the asinine Lola Colaco) and the very nature of celebrity itself. 'Rupert Morgan's satire of modern life is brilliant. He is like Ben Elton at his wittiest...his writing is fast and his characterization superb...Definitely one to watch' Express'Takes you up to the edge of libellous - and gets away with it...As a story it rattles along with the pace of a thriller. As an inventive swipe at the Establishment, it will make you laugh while you wince' Daily Mail'The match of the madder moments of John Irving or Tom Sharpe...this is a promisingly entertaining "lite" read' The Times
The Rings Of Saturn: The Emigrants, The Rings Of Saturn, And Vertigo (Panther Ser.)
by Michael Hulse W G SebaldThe Rings of Saturn begins as the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia. From Lowestoft to Bungay, Sebald's own story becomes the conductor of evocations of people and cultures past and present: of Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, of fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms. The result is a rich meditation on the past via a melancholy trip along the Suffolk coast, and an intricately patterned and haunting book on the transience of all things human.‘Sebald is the Joyce of the 21st Century’ The Times
The Fortunes of Grace Hammer: A Tale of the Victorian Underworld
by Sara StockbridgeGrace Hammer lives a sweet enough life with her four children in London's dank and dirty East End, dipping into the pockets of wealthy strangers foolish enough to venture there. She keeps a clean house and a tight hold on her magpie nature, restricting her interests to wallets and pocket watches - at night she dreams of shiny things. Unbeknown to Grace, her most audacious crime will soon return to haunt her and old enemies come knocking.Out in the dark countryside Mr Blunt rocks in his chair, grinding his teeth, vowing furious retribution. He has never forgotten his scarlet treasure, or the harlot that stole it from him. At night he dreams of slitting her lily-white throat...