` From the moment I watched a documentary of Chris Bonington & Tom Patey climb the perpendicular flanks of the Old Man of Hoy I knew that my life would not be complete until I had followed in their footholds. That was in 1983 when I was thirteen. Within months I was tackling my first crags & dreaming of standing atop Europe`s tallest sea stack with the Atlantic pounding 450 feet below. Those dreams went dark at nineteen when I learned I was going blind. I hung up my harness for twenty years & tried to ignore the twinge of desire I felt every time The Old Man appeared on TV.` Middle aged, by now a family man, crime novelist & occasional radio personality, Red Szell`s life nonetheless felt incomplete. He was still climbing, but only indoors until he shared his old, unforgotten, dream with his buddies, Matthew & Andres, & it became obvious that an attempt had to be made. With the help of mountain guides Martin Moran & Nick Carter, & adventure cameraman Keith Partridge, supported by family & an ever growing following, Red set out to confront the Orcadian giant. ...

The first in Robert Wilson`s Seville series, featuring the tortured detective Javier Falcon. The man is bound, gagged & dead in front of his television. The terrible self-inflicted wounds tell of his violent struggle to avoid some unseen horror. On the screen? In his head? What could make a man do that to himself? It`s Easter week in Seville, a time of passion & processions. But detective Javier Falcon is not celebrating. Appalled by the victim`s staring eyes he is inexorably drawn into this disturbing, mystifying case. & when the investigation into the dead man`s life sends Javier trawling though his own past & into the shocking journals of his late father, a famous artist, his unreliable memory begins to churn. Then there are more killings & Falcon finds himself pushed to the edge of a terrifying truth... ...

Originally written in Persian, The Blind Owl is predominantly a love story, an unconventional love story that elicits visions & nightmare reveries from the depths of the reader`s subconscious. A young man, an old man & a beautiful young girl perform, as if framed within a Persian miniature, a ritual of destruction as gradually the narrator, & the reader, discover the meaning hidden within the dreams. This unforgettable story contains a unique blend of the mystery of the Arabian Nights & an acutely contemporary sense of panic & hallucination. ...

From the author of ” The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins` ” The Blind Watchmaker” has been acclaimed as the most influential work on evolution in the last hundred years. In 1802 the Rev. William Paleys argued in ” Natural Theology” that just as finding a watch would lead you to conclude that a watchmaker must exist, the complexity of living organisms proves that a Creator exists. Not so, says Richard Dawkins, & in this brilliant & controversial book, the acclaimed evolutionary biologist sets out to demonstrate that the theory of evolution by natural selection
- the unconscious, automatic, blind yet essentially non-random process discovered by Charles Darwin
- is the only answer to the biggest question of all: why do we exist? `I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence`. To Dawkins, ” The Blind Watchmaker” is nature itself, gradually forming order from the very building-blocks of life: DNA. ” This might just be the most important evolution book since Darwin”. (John Gribbin). ” Richard Dawkins has updated evolution.. .his subject is nothing less than the meaning of life”. (” The Times”). ” Enchantingly witty & persusive.. .pleasurably intelligible to the scientifically illiterate”. (” Observer”). Richard Dawkins is a Fellow of both the Royal Society & the Royal Society of Literature, & Vice President of the British Humanist Association. He was first catapulted to fame with The Selfish Gene, which he followed with a string of bestselling books: ” The Extended Phenotype”, ” The Blind Watchmaker”, ” River Out of Eden”, ” Unweaving the Rainbow”, & an impassioned defence of atheism, ” The God Delusion”.

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Long before the momentous Iranian Revolution of 1979, which placed the country under strict religious rule, Shusha Guppy grew up in a Persia delicately balanced between traditional Islamic society & the transforming forces of westernisation. In this eloquent memoir, she recreates the lost world of her childhood before the oil boom & the eventual overthrow of the Shah. Her magical tales about relatives & friends, music & drama, religious holidays & celebrations are interwoven with myth & legend, poetry & anecdote & provide a rare & optimistic portrayal of Iran. This is an enlightening & moving testimony of a vanished world: a story as vibrant as Iran itself. ...

Though the Greek & Roman crew members of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen
- all of them
- & they`re stronger than ever. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea`s army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. & if Gaea wakes, it is game over...

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Having left the Faroes as a child, Jan Reyna is now a British police detective, & the islands are foreign to him. But he is drawn back when his estranged father is found unconscious with a shotgun by his side & someone else`s blood at the scene. Then a man`s body is washed up on an isolated beach. Is Reyna`s father responsible? Looking for answers, Reyna falls in with local detective Hjalti Hentze. But as the stakes get higher & Reyna learns more about his family & the truth behind his mother`s flight from the Faroes, he must decide whether to stay, or to forsake the strange, windswept islands for good. ...

New York Times Book of the Year The Blood Telegram is an unprecedented chronicle of a pivotal but little-known chapter of the Cold War. Gary J. Bass shows how Nixon & Kissinger supported Pakistan`s military dictatorship as it brutally quashed the results of a historic free election. The Pakistani army launched a crackdown on what was then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing hundreds of thousands of people & sending ten million refugees fleeing to India
- one of the worst humanitarian crises of the twentieth century. Driven not just by Cold War realpolitik but by a bitter personal dislike of India & its leader Indira Gandhi, they silenced American officials who dared to speak up, secretly encouraged China to mass troops on the Indian border, & illegally supplied weapons to the Pakistani military
- an overlooked scandal that presages Watergate. Drawing on previously unheard White House tapes, recently declassified documents, & extensive interviews with White House staffers & Indian military leaders, The Blood Telegram tells this thrilling story for the first time. Bass makes clear how the United States` embrace of the military dictatorship in Islamabad would mould Asia`s destiny for decades, & confronts for the first time Nixon & Kissinger`s hidden role in a tragedy that was far bloodier than Bosnia. This is a revelatory, compulsively readable work of politics, personalities, military confrontation, & Cold War brinksmanship.

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` Love evocative descriptions of Victorian London & brilliant plotting? Then grab a copy of this!` Rebecca Griffiths, author of The Primrose Path A world of secrets, murder & betrayal lie behind the London waterfront... Summoned to the riverside by the desperate, scribbled note of an old friend, Jem Flockhart & Will Quartermain find themselves on board the seamen`s floating hospital, an old hulk known only as The Blood, where prejudice, ambition & murder seethe beneath a veneer of medical respectability. On shore, a young woman, a known prostitute, is found drowned in a derelict boatyard. A man leaps to his death into the Thames, driven mad by poison & fear. The events are linked
- but how? Courting danger in the opium dens & brothels of the waterfront, certain that the Blood lies at the heart of the puzzle, Jem & Will embark on a quest to uncover the truth. In a hunt that takes them from the dissecting tables of a private anatomy school to the squalor of the dock-side mortuary, they find themselves involved in a dark & terrible mystery. x x x Praise for E.S. Thomson` Meticulously researched & masterfully plotted, E.S. Thomson has written a complex, harrowing & highly enjoyable tale` Daily Express` Here`s a tale of Victorian London to freeze your blood on a cold winter`s night` Evening Telegraph` Jem Flockhart`s London is vivid, pungent & perilous. The Blood takes you to places you will love to picture but be grateful you can`t smell` Chris Brookmyre`E. S. Thompson`s Jem Flockhart books are the best I`ve read in years. Jem is just my kind of heroine: scarred, smart, complex, & unapologetically queer` Kirsty Logan, author of The Gracekeepers` It`s rare that a book is Gothic enough for me, but Beloved Poison is killing it. The blood, the bones, the crumbling hospital... ` Laura Purcell, author of The Silent Companions` Jem Flockhart is a marvel... This vivid journey into the dark side of the human soul is a thoroughly engrossing tale` Mary Paulson Ellis, author of The Other Mrs Walker` Deliciously dark & vividly atmospheric, menace oozes from every page. Terrific for lovers of historical noir` Saga`A first class piece of historical crime writing` Big Issue A marvellous, vivid book.. . immaculately researched & breathtakingly dark` Janet Ellis, author of The Butcher`s Hook
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Korolev nodded, thinking of the dead girl, & wondering whether, these days, it was such a good thing to be Commissar Ezhov's friend.. . Russia, 1937. In Moscow, Stalin's purges are reaching their darkest hour. Meanwhile Korolev, a police investigator, must travel to the bleak, battle-scarred Ukraine -- scene of some of Stalin's bloodiest crimes -- to look into the mysterious death of a young woman. The victim, a beautiful film production assistant, had made both powerful friends & terrible enemies.. .' The Holy Thief, set in Stalin's Russia, was one of last year's most impressive crime fiction debuts. The Bloody Meadow, William Ryan's follow-up, does not disappoint.. . Ryan has obviously done much research into that sinister period of Russian history & manages to convey its claustrophobic atmosphere brilliantly' Marcel Berlins, The Times ' Every bit as darkly compelling as its predecessor' Daily Express ' An outstanding thriller' Independent Ireland ...