The historic City of Durham is now over 1, 000 years old. With its magnificent Norman Cathedral & Castle it has become a world famous tourist attraction, the outstanding importance of which was recognised in 1987 when it was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site. Martin Dufferveil's book is a celebration of this unique City & of the Country that has grown up around it, from the day in AD 995 when a group of monks carrying the coffin of St Cuthbert settled on what was then known as the ' Dunholm' to the present time. From the original site on the high wooded rock, a settlement began to take shape. It was one which would be swelled by pilgrims & made wealthy by their offerings, & which would eventually become one of the most important sites of religious pilgrimage & military power in Engl&. Many events & people have, throughout the last millennium, lit up the long story of Durham, in both fact & fable. This book recalls some of them. Wars, saints, kings & mythical beasts are all included in this tale of over 1, 000 years as are surveyors, locomotive engineers & miners. It is all here from the long sagas of the Wars of the Roses & the English Civil War, to the legendary Lampton Worm; from Canute the Great, Viking Emperor, to murder most foul at Gutty Throat Farm; & from the ravages of William the Conqueror, to the bizarre plan to turn Durham City into a port. Steam locomotives for the Tsar of Russia & Dixieland in the USA both had their origins here in Durham, & both feature in this book. ...

A megalomaniac Boer frontiersman wreaks hideous vengeance on a Hottentot tribe for undermining the 'natural' order of his universe with their anarchic rival order, mocking him & subjecting him to the humiliations of his own all too palpable flesh. A specialist in psychological warfare is driven to breakdown & madness by the stresses of a project of macabre ingenuity to win the war in Vietnam. Both the 18th-century Jacobus Coetzee & the 20th-century Eugene Dawn are in the business of pushing back the frontiers of knowledge & are dealers in death who denounce their own humanity & spurn their feelings of guilt. In these two narratives, Coetzee has crystallized in their absurdity & horror the extremes of scientific evangelism & heroic exploration. ...

On the Letherii continent the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen.

The fate awaiting the Bonehunters is one no soldier can prepare for, & one no mortal soul can withstand

...

On the Letherii continent the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen.

The fate awaiting the Bonehunters is one no soldier can prepare for, & one no mortal soul can withstand

...

It is 1943, & Captain Mike Blackwood, Royal Marine Commando, is a survivor. Young, toughened & tried in the hellish crucible of Burma, he labours, sometimes faltering, beneath the weight of tradition, the glorious heritage of his family, & the burden of his own self-doubt.
For Blackwood, the horizon is not the lip of the trench seen by men of the Corps in the previous war, but the ramp of a landing craft smashing down into the sea, & the fire of the enemy on a Sicilian beach. Here, tradition is not enough, & Mike Blackwood must find within himself qualities of leadership which will inspire those Royal Marines who are once again the first to l&, & among the first to die.
This is the fourth novel in the Blackwood saga, spanning 150 years in the history of a great seafaring family & the tradition in which they served.

...

It is 1943, & Captain Mike Blackwood, Royal Marine Commando, is a survivor. Young, toughened & tried in the hellish crucible of Burma, he labours, sometimes faltering, beneath the weight of tradition, the glorious heritage of his family, & the burden of his own self-doubt.
For Blackwood, the horizon is not the lip of the trench seen by men of the Corps in the previous war, but the ramp of a landing craft smashing down into the sea, & the fire of the enemy on a Sicilian beach. Here, tradition is not enough, & Mike Blackwood must find within himself qualities of leadership which will inspire those Royal Marines who are once again the first to l&, & among the first to die.
This is the fourth novel in the Blackwood saga, spanning 150 years in the history of a great seafaring family & the tradition in which they served.

...

It is 1943, & Captain Mike Blackwood, Royal Marine Commando, is a survivor. Young, toughened, & tried in the hellish crucible of Burma, he labours, sometimes faltering, beneath the weight of tradition, the glorious heretage of his family, & the burden of his own self doubt. For him, the horizon is not the lip of the trench seen by men of the Corps in the previous war, but the ramp of a landing craft smashing down into the sea, & the fire of the enemy on a Sicilian beach. Here, tradition is not enough, & Mike Blackwood must find within himself qualities of leadership which will inspire those Royal Marines who are once again the first to l&, & among the first to die. ...

Discovered as a new-born baby in a dustbin, April's life has never been easy. Moved from place to place, she has little sense of who she really is. After a row at home on the morning of her 14th birthday, April storms out determined to look back at her past & find out where she really comes from. ...