The cathedral town of Litchester is more used to carols by candlelight during the festive period than flames & intrigue, but the proposed sale of its 1225 copy of the Magna Carta in order to raise funds turns out to have far-reaching consequences. Merchant banker Mark Treasure has been invited down to arbitrate the vicious disagreement between members of the cathedral chapter regarding the sale & finds himself dealing with more than he bargained for when the Dean`s verger is discovered murdered, his body left to burn, along with the ecclesiastical library. As his investigation progresses & the evidence points to mayhem & skulduggery, he discovers that Litchester is a town full of sins & secrets rather than peace on earth. ...

An archaeologist`s wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq... It was clear to Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig in Iraq; something associated with the presence of ` Lovely Louise`, wife of celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner. In a few days` time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. But with Louise suffering from terrifying hallucinations, & tension within the group becoming almost unbearable, Poirot might just be too late... ...

An archaeologist`s wife is murdered on the shores of the River Tigris in Iraq... It was clear to Amy Leatheran that something sinister was going on at the Hassanieh dig in Iraq; something associated with the presence of ` Lovely Louise`, wife of celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner. In a few days` time Hercule Poirot was due to drop in at the excavation site. But with Louise suffering from terrifying hallucinations, & tension within the group becoming almost unbearable, Poirot might just be too late... ...

Sat on the top of a bus days before Christmas, Maya sees a couple arguing violently in the middle of a crowded Regent Street. They see her watching, she looks away, & the woman disappears. Maya goes to the police, who shrug & send her away. Then a body turns up... Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. She resolves to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then the snow comes & no one can get out. But what if someone can still get in? From the author of Dear Scarlet & Saving Sophia. ...

In Montego Bay, Jamaica, privileged Chinese-Jamaican brothers Lester & Carter Chin Ellis have enjoyed a sheltered life as the heirs to the iced desserts empire Chinchillerz. One fateful night, following a fiery encounter with local law enforcement the brothers are taken to Pelican Walk Police Station, where Lester is detained for drunk driving, while Carter is released without charge. Within minutes of leaving the station Carter is shot dead in a drive-by, while his brother Lester is brutally assaulted in his cell. Discredited Detective Raythan Preddy is put in charge of the case & is forced to accept the assistance of Detective Sean Harris, a Scottish lawman seconded to Jamaica. With his superiors watching his every move & the Chin Ellis family interfering with the investigation, Preddy is determined to catch the killer & save his career. ...

When Craig Murray arrived in Uzbekistan to take up his post in 2002, he was a young ambassador with a brilliant career & a taste for whisky & women. But after hearing accounts of dissident prisoners being boiled to death & innocent people being raped & murdered by agents of the state, he started to question both his role & that of his country in so-called `democratising` states. Following his discovery that the British government was accepting information obtained under torture, Murray could no longer maintain a diplomatic silence. When he voiced his outrage, Washington & 10 Downing Street decided he had to go. But Uzbekistan had changed the high-living diplomat & there was no way he was going to go quietly. In this candid & at times shocking memoir, Murray lays bare the dark & dirty underside of the War on Terror. ...

Book 50 in the Detective Club Crime Classics series is Carolyn Wells` Murder in the Bookshop, a classic locked room murder mystery which will have a special resonance for lovers & collectors of Golden Age detective fiction.

Includes:: a bonus murder story: ` The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery`. When Philip Balfour is found murdered in a New York bookstore, the number one suspect is his librarian, a man who has coveted Balfour`s widow. But when the police discover that a book worth $100, 000 is missing, detective Fleming Stone realises that some people covet rare volumes even more highly than other men`s wives, & embarks on one of his most dangerous investigations. A successful poet & children`s author, Carolyn Wells discovered mystery fiction in her forties & went on to become one of America`s most popular Golden Age writers. Penning 82 detective novels between 1909 & her death in 1942, she was mourned in 1968 by the great John Dickson Carr as one of mystery fiction`s `lost ladies now well lost`, & remains undeservedly neglected 50 years later. Murder in the Bookshop is a story laced with criminality, locked rooms & bookish intricacies that any bibliophile will find irresistible. This Detective Club hardback is introduced by award-winning writer & authority on Golden Age detective fiction, Curtis Evans, &

Includes:: ` The Shakespeare Title-Page Mystery`, a murderous tale of literary shenanigans that was one of the last pieces of detective fiction which Carolyn Wells ever published.



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The murder of a young Tibetan nun by the hands of Chinese border guards at the rooftop of the world offers a unique parable for the tale of modern Tibet. In August 2006, two young Tibetan women left their hillside village in Biru county to make their way to Dharamsala India. Frustrated by their inability to practice the tenets of Buddhism or Tibetan culture under oppressive Chinese rule, best friends Dolma & Kelsang were determined to secure their right to freedom-and sought comfort in the fact that they might seek counsel with their exiled spiritual leader, his Holiness the Dalai Lhama. Through a secretive underground network of Tibetan guides, the two friends, along with four dozen other refugees, embarked on a perilous journey that would lead them to Nepal along a dangerous former trade route: the Nangpa La Path, through Cho Oyu Mountain. On September 30, 2006, after weeks of harrowing travel, as they were nearing the border of Nepal, the band of refugees was fired at by the Chinese Army Guards. Kelsang, sick, frost-bitten, & delirious in the high altitude was struck by a bullet from behind. Her death was not unusual in its circumstance: Chinese police are instructed to take any measures necessary to protect the border of Tibet. What was unusual on this freezing September morning was that a gaggle of Western climbers, stationed on Cho Oyu's advance base camp, had silently witnessed the event. One of them was Louis Benitez-a fearless Colorado mountain guide who led Himalayan trips for wealthy western thrill seekers. Another was Sergui Matei, a Romanian hiker, who captured Kelsang's murder on video. Both men had a choice-to preserve their climbing careers & turn a blind eye-or to alert the world to the grand scale of human injustice played out daily in Tibet. In Murder in the High Himalayas, intrepid journalist Jonathan Green investigates the clash of cultures at the rooftop of the world. As he gains entrance to a fascinating network of Tibetan guides & safe-houses operating in the name of freedom, investigates the tradition of extreme mountaineering in Chinese-occupied Tibet, & establishes contact with surviving refugees (including Dolma), he affects a rare, & lasting parable for the plight of modern Tibet. ...

On a bright July morning in 1870 the British explorer George Hayward was brutally murdered high in the Hindu Kush. Who was he, what had brought him to this wild spot, & why was he killed? Told in full for the first time, this is the gripping tale of Hayward`s journey from a Yorkshire childhood to a place at the forefront of the ` Great Game` between the British Raj & the Russian Empire, & of how, driven by `an insane desire, ` he crossed the Western Himalayas, tangled with despotic chieftains & ended up on the wrong side of both the Raj & the mighty Maharaja of Kashmir. It is also the tale of the conspiracies & controversies that surrounded his death, while the author`s own travels in Hayward`s footsteps bring the story up to date, & reveal how the echoes of the Great Game still reverberate across Central Asia in the twenty-first century. ...

In this memoir-turned-cookbook, Alice B. Toklas describes her life with partner Gertrude Stein & their famed Paris salon, which entertained the great avant-garde & literary figures of their day. With dry wit & characteristic understatement Toklas ponders the ethics of killing a carp in her kitchen before stuffing it with chestnuts; decorating a fish to amuse Picasso at lunch; &, travelling across France during the First World War in an old delivery truck, gathering local recipes along the way. She

Includes:: a friend's playful recipe for ' Haschiche Fudge', which promises 'brilliant storms of laughter & ecstatic reveries', much like her book.

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