Libby Day was just seven years old when her older brother massacred her family while she hid in a cupboard. Her evidence helped put him away. Ever since then she has been drifting, surviving for over 20 years on the proceeds of the ` Libby Day fund`. But now the money is running out & Libby is desperate. When she is offered $500 to do a guest appearance, she feels she has to accept. But this is no ordinary gathering. The Kill Club is a group of true-crime obsessives who share information on notorious murders, & they think her brother Ben is innocent. Ben was a social misfit, ground down by the small-town farming community in which he lived. But he did have a girlfriend
- a brooding heavy metal fan called Diondra. Through her, Ben became involved with drugs & the dark arts. When the town suddenly turned against him, his thoughts turned black. But was he capable of murder? Libby must delve into her family`s past to uncover the truth
- no matter how painful...

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In 1992 an Indian climber was left to die on Mount Everest, despite being just 30 metres or so from another climbing team`s camp. The controversy sparked by this event & by the increasing abuse of Mount Everest for financial gain appalls Joe Simpson & is the basis for this gripping polemic.” His concern is that the strong ethics & selfless instincts that have characterised mountaineering in the past are being eroded by modern-day ambition, selfishness & greed.”
- Audrey Salkeld, Sunday Times.
...

Dark Shadows is a compelling portrait of Kazakhstan, a country that is little known in the West. Strategically located in the heart of Central Asia, sandwiched between Vladimir Putin`s Russia
- its former colonial ruler which sees Kazakhstan as its own backyard
- & Xi Jinping`s China
- the rising global superpower on its eastern borders
- this vast oil-rich state is carving out its place in the world as it contends with its own complex past & present. Journalist Joanna Lillis paints a vibrant picture of this emerging nation through vivid reportage based on 13 years of on-the-ground coverage, & travels across the length & breadth of this enigmatic country that lies along the ancient Silk Road & at the geopolitical & cultural crossroads where East meets West. Featuring tales of murder & abduction, intrigue & betrayal, extortion & corruption, this book explores how a vainglorious president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, transformed himself into a potentate & the economically struggling state he inherited at the fall of the USSR into a swaggering oil-rich twenty-first-century monocracy. A colourful cast of characters brings the politics to life: from strutting oligarch to psychotic presidential son-in-law, from principled politicians to striking oilmen, from crusading journalists to courageous campaigners. Dark Shadows explores how Kazakhstan grapples with its Russian imperial & Soviet past, with survivor testimony recounting a dramatic history of revolution & war, famine & flight, terror & trauma that left the Kazakhs battling for their very survival as a people. One elderly lady recounts her forced march to China to escape famine as a child; another tells of her deportation to Central Asia as a newborn; a third recalls how Stalin`s Terror despatched her grandfather to the firing squad & her grandmother to the Gulag. There are heartrending stories about life in post-Soviet environmental disaster zones: victims of nuclear testing around the site where the USSR exploded its first atomic bomb; fishermen left stranded in the desert as the Aral Sea shrinks; villagers in the snow-bound north afflicted by a mysterious sleeping sickness. There are quirky snapshots of life in far-flung corners of Kazakhstan, from the Russian Old Believers harbouring 500-year-old grievances to the maverick atheist who refuses to back down in a clash of principles with the state. There are inspirational tales of labours of love: from the nuclear-physicist-turned-ostrich-farmer tending his brood of gangling bipeds on the southern plains to the minister-turned-viticulturalist reinventing a dilapidated Soviet collective farm as a boutique winery. Traversing dust-blown deserts & majestic mountains, taking in glitzy cities & dystopian landscapes, Dark Shadows conjures up Kazakhstan as a living, breathing place, full of extraordinary people living extraordinary lives.



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Dark Side of the Spoon: The Rock Cookbook features thirty recipes inspired by some of the most renowned rock acts of today & yesteryear. The dishes are accompanied by exclusive artworks from thirty top illustrators. Catering for cooks of all abilities & tastes, this book will help you master a wide range of starters, mains & desserts
- including Smashing Pumpkin Pie, Fleetwood Mac & Cheese & Primal Bream. Dark Side of the Spoon celebrates the many humorous parallels between food & rock, & is a must-have for anyone with a love for cooking, music or illustration, or indeed all three.
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In em Dark Sparring/em, Selina Tusitala Marsh combats family loss with all the techniques of poetry, ritual & Thai kickboxing at her disposal. The book & accompanying CD brim with fluid, humming list poems, literary shoutouts & personal elegies, as Marsh takes us through her mother`s diagnosis with cancer & the long journey out the other side of her illness. Along the way, she shows us other parts of her world: scenes from Matiatia to ?rapiu to Apia; classroom politics; the importance of leadership; & the reasons New Zealand is a `lucky` country. Dark Sparring has an appealing voice, a strong right hook & an affecting, rhythmic heart. ...

Everest
- the highest mountain in the world & the ultimate climbing challenge. In 2006, 11 people died attempting to reach the
...

Wherein lies the beauty of the dark image? What is the attraction of the dark tourist attraction &, moreover, the disposition & practice of the dark tourist away from & upon return home? Dark Tourism: The Beauty in Death is a collection of photographs captured in places associated with death & tragedy around the world, where tourists visit with varying motivations from being reminded of how fragile life is, a prompt that life is precious & bad things happen so we need to make the most out of our lives. ...

Just before dawn one summer morning Bruno is summoned by the wail of the siren in the little town of St Denis in the Perigord. A fire is raging in a local barn & spreading to the surrounding fields. When Bruno arrives at the scene, the smell of petrol leaves no doubt
- it was arson. Meanwhile, a Californian producer wants to set up a wine-making business in the valley. Despite the money & jobs this would bring, many fear it would destroy their town. When a violent death follows the crop burning, it looks as though someone is prepared to do anything to stop the scheme. Bruno will have to draw on all his local knowledge to reach the truth.
...

From the master of the wartime espionage novel; a thrilling story of subterfuge at sea May 1941. At four in the morning, a rust-streaked tramp freighter steams up the Tagus river to dock at the port of Lisbon. She is the Santa Rosa, flies the flag of neutral Spain, & is in Lisbon to load cork oak, tinned sardines & drums of cooking oil bound for the Baltic port of Malmo. But she is not the Santa Rosa. She is the Noordendam, a Dutch freighter under the command of Captain Eric De Haan. She sails for the intelligence division of the British Royal Navy & is involved in a secret mission. On board are a Polish engineer & British spy, Spaniards who fought for Franco & Germans who fought against Hitler. For them, this is a last desperate flight to freedom. ...

Dark Wind is the true story of Gordon Chaplin & his partner Susan Aitkinson. Both coming from broken first marriages, they rediscover passion & share a desire for adventure. But what started as an idyllic escapade through the Marshall Islands ends in tragedy when their yacht gets trapped in the path of a furious tropical storm ...