After a brief & undignified stint as a war correspondent, Chris Ayres is exiled by his newspaper to Hollywood, where he lives in a building called The Leisureplex & sends celebrity tittle-tattle back home. Seduced by the apparently infinite wealth of LA, Ayres embarks on an ill-advised odyssey of self-gratification (in the name of research) & breaks first rule of foreign reporting: he goes native. Before long, he is an SUV-driving narcissist with a flat-screen TV in every room, eight pairs of designer flip-flops, a seven-digit overdraft, & a wife he met on the internet. As always, however, disaster looms. After a fire the size of Luxembourg, a Biblical flood, & the apocalypse of Katrina, Ayres realises he is living on a precipice. Like a gonzo Great Gatsby, Death by Leisure is a savage & hilarious takedown of our times, & a wake-up call to aspiring Leisuretocrats everywhere. ...

For the first time in his long life, Nobel-laureate Kogito Choko is suffering from writer`s block. The book that he wishes to write would examine the turbulent relationship he had with his father, & the guilt he feels about being absent the night his father drowned in a storm-swollen river; but how to write about a man he never really knew? When his estranged sister unexpectedly calls, she offers Choko a remedy
- she has in her possession an old & mysterious red trunk, the contents of which promise to unlock the many secrets of the man who disappeared from their lives decades before.
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For the first time in his long life, Nobel-laureate Kogito Choko is suffering from writer`s block. The book that he wishes to write would examine the turbulent relationship he had with his father, & the guilt he feels about being absent the night his father drowned in a storm-swollen river; but how to write about a man he never really knew? When his estranged sister unexpectedly calls, she offers Choko a remedy
- she has in her possession an old & mysterious red trunk, the contents of which promise to unlock the many secrets of the man who disappeared from their lives decades before.
...

A novel of anger, jealousy, betrayal & murder in 2000 BC It is Egypt, 2000 BC, where death gives meaning to life. At the foot of a cliff lies the broken, twisted body of Nofret, concubine to a Ka-priest. Young, beautiful & venomous, most agree that she deserved to die like a snake. Yet Renisenb, the priest`s daughter, believes that the woman`s death was not fate, but murder. Increasingly, she becomes convinced that the source of evil lurks within her own father`s household. As the wife of an eminent archaeologist, Agatha Christie took part in several expeditions to the Middle East. Drawing upon this experience & exhaustive research, she wrote this serial killer mystery laid in Egypt 4000 years ago. ...

` Quite simply a masterpiece.. . I am completely bowled over by it; by the power of its writing, by the vividness of its scene painting & by the stories it tells` A. N. Wilson` Where there is great love there are always miracles` Two French priests have been sent to New Mexico to reawaken the faith. There, they must contend with unforgiving landscapes, danger, rebellion & loneliness. But through their many years together they are sustained by faith, friendship & the awe-inspiring majesty that surrounds them. A work of great simplicity & sublime beauty, Willa Cather`s acclaimed novel asks, what is a life well lived? Death Comes for the Archbishop is a masterpiece by the author of O Pioneers! & the great novelist of American frontier life.` Its whole effect works slowly & mysteriously.. . a major, & rare, artistic achievement` A. S. Byatt ...

London: 1883. Sidney Grice is London`s foremost personal detective. Called away to Yorkshire, he leaves his ward, March Middleton, to run his house. But hearth & home hold little charm for March, who harbours dreams of becoming London`s foremost, & first, lady detective. So, when a mysterious letter arrives from her long-lost uncle, she accepts his invitation to stay at the palatial Saturn Villa. Her new Uncle Tolly is sweet, eccentric &
- come the morning
- very, very dead. But March is not called upon to solve the case, instead she`s in the frame for murder. THE GOWER STREET DETECTIVE SERIES: The Mangle Street Murders. The Curse of the House of Foskett. Death Descends on Saturn Villa.

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Chris Pascoe is fascinated by the English Civil War. He also likes beer. So when the thought came to him to set out on a pub crawl around the sites of the English Civil War, it was an idea too good to ignore. Helped (or should that be hindered) by his best mate Pete, Chris sets out to see for himself the sites of five years of English carnage, & their nearest watering holes. Their trek might not be as bloody as the war they are following, but with ghosts, skinheads & drunken friends to deal with, Chris has still got a battle on his hands to reach the journey`s end. ...

Set in 1933, with Germany sliding under Gestapo’s control, Marek Krajewski’s Death in Breslau is a powerful thriller bringing to life this interesting city which 12 years later would pass to Poland & become Wroclaw. Mutilated bodies of a young woman & her ladies’ maid are found dead on a train. Scorpions writhe in their slashed stomach
- a horrifying image that becomes crucial to the investigation. Inspector Eberhard Mock is called in to deal with the case, & is assigned an assistant, Herbert Anwaldt, an orphan. The investigation leads them deep into the city’s dirty underbelly, where perverted aristocrats cavort with prostitutes, corrupt ministers torture confessions from lowly Jews & Freemasons guard their secrets with blackmail & daggers. As Mock & Anwaldt unravel a mystery of ritual killing that dates back to the time of the Crusades, the elderly Mock & the young, fatherless Anwaldt become close. But the dark, occult aspect of this most macabre of cases might prove too much for Anwaldt’s sanity before a solution is secured. Krajewski`s evocative tale is uncommonly powerful, particularly in the stifling atmosphere he conjures of a city in the grip of the Gestapo. His depiction of the sinister, beautiful, corrupt city of Breslau is not only the vehicle for his dark & gripping stories but a notable literary achievement in itself. The book is part of Marek Krajewski’s series of thrillers featuring Inspector Mock (the remaining titles are yet to be translated into English). The end of the Communist rule in Poland ushered in a wave of interest in the history of regions which before World War II belonged to Germany, particularly of Wroclaw & Gransk, & produced several outstanding novels describing both the pre-war days & the painful change of identity under the new regime.
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CREAM TEAS! SCHOOL DINNERS! SATANIC SURFERS! Join our heroes as they follow up a Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of.. .DEATH IN DEVON. Swanton Morley, the People`s Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of Engl&, The County Guides. Morley`s daughter Miriam & his assistant Stephen Sefton pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. Morley has been invited to give the Founder`s Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon. But when the trio arrive they discover that a boy has died in mysterious circumstances. Was it an accident or was it
- murder? Join Morley, Sefton & Miram on another adventure into the dark heart of 1930s Engl&.
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Lorenzo de` Medici: The embodiment of Florence`s most powerful family, a brutal man who ruled the city with an iron fist, whilst protecting it from the shifting mire of Italian politics. Fra Girolamo Savonarola: An unprepossessing provincial monk whose sermons, filled with Old Testament fury, resonated with the disenfranchised population of the city. The battle between these two men would be a fight to the death, a series of sensational events
- including a mighty foreign invasion, trial by fire, the ` Bonfire of the Vanities`, terrible executions & mysterious deaths
- featuring a cast of the most important & charismatic Renaissance figures.

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