Before Stieg Larsson, there was Asa Larsson...” The Savage Altar” is a truly absorbing, atmospheric & fast-paced thriller featuring lawyer Rebecka Martinsson, a fantastic character in the mould of ” The Silence of the Lambs”` Clarice Starling. A church in the glittering frozen wastes of northern Sweden. Inside, a sacrifice: the body of a man
- slashed to pieces, hands severed, eyes gouged out. The victim`s sister, Sanna, is first to discover the body & immediately finds herself the police`s only suspect. Terrified & confused, she calls on a friend: got-shot city lawyer Rebecka Martinsson. Rebecka hardly wants to return to Kiruna
- the small town she fled in disgrace years ago. But Sanna is frightened & she needs a loyal friend to clear her name. Someone not scared to dig deep & find the true killer. Yet Rebecka is not especially welcomed into the closed-lipped community. She might know the town, the people & how suspicious they can be of strangers but she has still to find out how dark the town`s secrets have become in her absence. ”A chilling plot knee-deep in blood-spattered snow”. (Jim Kelly). ”A labyrinthine conspiracy, superlative storytelling”. (” Independent”).”A nail biting, suspense-filled mystery”. (” Sunday Telegraph”). Asa Larsson was born in 1966 & lives in Sweden. Her second novel, ” The Blood Spilt”, is available from Penguin now & she is the winner of Sweden`s best first crime novel award.

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New Year`s Eve, 1975: Arturo Belano & Ulises Lima, poets & leaders of a movement they call visceral realism, leave Mexico City in a borrowed white Impala. Their mission: to track down the poet Cesarea Tinajero, who disappeared into the Sonora desert
- & obscurity
- decades before. But the detectives are themselves hunted men, & their search for the past will end in violence, flight, & permanent exile. In this dazzling novel, Roberto Bolano tells the story of two modern-day Quixotes on a twenty-year, multi-continent, tragicomic quest through a darkening universe.

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For centuries before the arrival in Australia of Captain Cook & the so-called First Fleet in 1788, intrepid seafaring explorers had been searching, with varied results, for the fabled ” Great Southl&.” In this enthralling history of early discovery, Graham Seal offers breathtaking tales of shipwrecks, perilous landings, & Aboriginal encounters with the more than three hundred Europeans who washed up on these distant shores long before the land was claimed by Cook for Engl&. The author relates dramatic, previously untold legends of survival gleaned from the centuries of Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, French, & Indonesian voyages to Australia, & debunks commonly held misconceptions about the earliest European settlements: ships of the Dutch East Indies Company were already active in the region by the early seventeenth century, & the Dutch, rather than the English, were probably the first European settlers on the continent. ...

Travel is one of our favourite activities. From the hustle of bustle of the mega-cities to sleepy mountain towns to the tranquillity & isolation of tropical islands, we love to get out there & explore the world. But globe-trotting also comes with its pitfalls. Wherever there are travellers, there are swindlers looking to relieve individuals of their money, possessions & sometimes even more. To avoid such troubles, & to get on with enjoyable & fulfilling trips, people need to get smart. This book shows you how. The Savvy Traveller Survival Guide offers practical advice on avoiding the scams & hoaxes that can ruin any trip. From no-menu, rigged betting, & scenic taxi tour scams to rental damage, baksheesh, & credit card deceits
- this book details scam hotspots, how the scams play out & what you can do to prevent them. The Savvy Traveller Survival Guide will help you develop an awareness & vigilance for high-risk people, activities, & environments. Forewarned is forearmed!
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The Sèvre Niortaise: La Rochelle to Niort in a series of guides from Editions Grafocarte/ Editions de l` Ecluse to France’s canals & navigable waterways with mapping showing facilities & navigational hazards along each route, general information on signals & regulations, & descriptions of places of interest. The guide covers the river itself as far as Niort, plus provides a maritime chart for the coastal waters between its mouth & La Rochelle. Also included is a street plan of central La Rochelle. Each guide provides mapping of the route showing locks, stop gates, mooring quays, tunnels, weirs, dangerous shoals, sand or mud banks, etc., as well as a wide range of facilities from drinking water & rubbish disposal to various types of shops, restaurants, pharmacies, shipyards & engine repair workshops, etc. The mapping is usually presented as vertical 28 x 8.5cm panels which, together with the annotations, occupy one whole page of the guide & so each cover 14km or more of the route. Also included as necessary are more detailed enlargements of main basins or photographs of bridges, shown usually as viewed from both directions. The text providing navigational information & tips as well as descriptions of places of interest & a general background are kept separate from the maps but, where possible, placed on the adjoining page to the relevant section of the route. The guides also provide general information on rules & regulations, plus illustrations of navigational signals. Each guide also has an index of locations along the route annotated with symbols indicating various facilities, accompanied where possible with contact details.* All of the text, explanations & the map legend are in French, English & German.** Please note:** The publishers’ name has changed from Editions Grafocarte to Editions de l’ Ecluse & the series name shown on each title is Fluviacarte of Navicarte depending on whether mapping of coastal waters is included. Various combinations of these names can be found"ed in other publications on French waterways. ...

Fresh from his world record attempt at the legendary Brooklands motor racing circuit, in which the Toy Stories team built a 2.7-mile circuit entirely out of Scalextric track, James May re-enters the world of Scalextric, Britain`s leading slot-car racing br&. Remembering many childhood hours spent recreating the thrills & spills of Goodwood, Silverstone & Brands Hatch, James examines the development & expansion of Scalextric from its true British roots to its international appeal today. He investigates the history of the br&, documenting the greatest sets & cars ever produced
- including Formula 1, rally, touring cars & Le Mans. James also looks at what it takes to be a Scalextric champion, the essential elements of good track design, how to customise your racer & gets technical with the difficulties involved in scaling a full-size performance car down to an accurate, working slot-car.
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`I start asking questions. How do you do this? How do you get away with it? How much money do you make from it? Who supports you? Who resists you? & what happens to the people who resist you?` Scam City`s Conor Woodman goes undercover to meet the world`s dodgiest dealers. Creeping through the lawless backstreets where the black market thrives, he intentionally falls for scam after scam, from back-alley dice games to counterfeit cash. Woodman`s risky & occasionally reckless reporting exposes how crooks dupe their unsuspecting victims time & time again. A dark adventure through cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogota, New Orleans, Barcelona & London, The Scam Hunter is a shocking reminder of who really runs the world`s biggest metropolises. A truly electrifying read. Previously published as Sharks: Investigating the Criminal Heart of the Global City. ...

THE 7-MILLION COPY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR. AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. ` As popular Swedish exports go, Backman is up there with ABBA & Stieg Larsson.` The New York Times Book Review ` Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else`s forehead & pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there.` Beartown is a small town in a large Swedish forest. For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold & dark that brings people closer together
- or pulls them apart. Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. Everyone can feel the excitement. Change is in the air & a bright new future is just around the corner. Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up & forgotten, & those who`ll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear. With the town`s future at stake, no one can stand by or stay silent. Everyone is on one side or the other. Which side would you be on?
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` It would not be fair to record the adventures of Father Brown, without admitting that he was once involved in a grave scandal... It happened in a picturesque Mexican road-house of rather loose repute...` After many years in the priesthood, Father Brown knows human nature & is not afraid of its dark side. In this fifth & final series of mysteries, the clerical mastermind confronts slander, passion, radical politics, superstition, high crimes & misdemeanours, outwitting some quite extraordinary & villainous adversaries on the way. G. K. Chesterton was born in 1874. He attended the Slade School of Art, where he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown, before turning his hand to journalism. A prolific writer throughout his life, his best- known books include The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922), The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) & the Father Brown stories. Chesterton converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922 & died in 1938. ` Chesterton knew how to make the most of a detective story` Jorge Luis Borges ...

There`s so much more to Nordic food than pickled herring & meatballs. Stretching from the midnight sun of northern Norway to the flat, fertile fields of Denmark, Scandinavian food culture is a lot more varied than you might think. Dishes & ingredients link all the regions together, bringing a uniquely Nordic food experience to life that was created by thousands of years of heritage & shared culture. Scandinavian food is simple. Natives call it `husmanskost` (farmer`s fare). It`s natural & honest. When you work with the very best produce, there`s no need to overcomplicate it. Its appeal lies in the fact that it is healthy, wholesome, flavoursome, simple to make & beautiful to look at. This book features recipes for all occasions & times of the day, ranging from morning buns, lunchtime savouries, hearty dinners & indulgent desserts, to bakes & other foods for special celebrations. Enjoy fresh & simple open sandwiches, healthy Nordic salads, delicious traditional hot dishes, & indulgent cakes. Discover new flavours & textures from mustard pickled herring & gravlax to sticky Kladdkaka cake. Alongside the recipes, the book

Includes:: enlightening features on traditional events throughout the Nordic calendar: find out what happens at a crayfish party, why Swedes love a `fika` (literally translates as `to meet up, have a coffee & a chat`), be inspired by the joyful Midsummer day celebrations, host a traditional Christmas glogg party, & get an insight into the tradition of the Smorgasbord.

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