Castagnetti, a bee-keeping private detective, is hired by a businessman to find out who set fire to his car & why. It seems like a dead-end case, nothing more than an instance of mindless vandalism. But before long the businessman is receiving threatening phonecalls, his factory is burnt to the ground & an employee loses his life. Castagnetti traces similar cases of arson across the city & realises that this sort of systematic intimidation happens when the owner`s land is about to be redesignated as residential. That`s the time when developers can double their money...just as long as they`ve got someone on the inside of city hall to tip them off about the redesignation; & just as long as they can persuade someone to sell. The last person to stand in the developers` way was whacked in Milan a year ago. Castagnetti needs to solve the case before his client, & his city, are both buried in cement. ...

Incredibly moving & beautifully drawn, White Dog Fell From the Sky by Eleanor Morse is an intimate portrait of Africa. Botswana, 1976. Isaac Muthethe thinks that he is dead. Forced to flee his country after witnessing a friend murdered by white members of the South African Defense Force, he finds himself, for the first time, in a country without apartheid. Smuggled across the border from South Africa in a hearse, buried in a coffin, he awakens covered in dust, staring at blue sky & the face of White Dog. Walking along the road into Gaborone, Botswana's capital, White Dog following close behind, a chance encounter with an old school acquaintance changes the course of Isaac's life
- as does the job he finds as gardener for a young American woman, Alice Mendelssohn, who has abandoned her Ph.D. studies in order to follow her husband to Africa. But when Isaac goes missing & Alice goes searching for him, what she finds out will change her life & inextricably bind her to this sunburned, beautiful l&. Eleanor Morse captures the magic of the African landscape & the terror & degradation of life under apartheid in White Dog Fell from the Sky.. .tense & heartfelt. (O, The Oprah Magazine). Magic, friendship, the tragedy of apartheid & the triumph of loyalty are recounted in poetic, powerful prose by this unconventional & intelligent writer. Shattering & uplifting. (Kuki Gallmann, author of I Dreamed of Africa). Morse's writing is lyrical & quite beautiful, with searing descriptions of the dusty earth, unforgiving sun, & stark skies. (Entertainment Weekly). Eleanor Morse has taught in adult education programs, in prisons, & in university systems, both in Maine & in southern Africa. She currently works as an adjunct faculty member with Spalding University's MFA Writing program in Louisville, Kentucky. She lives on Peaks Isl&, Maine.
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Among the explorers made famous for revealing hitherto impenetrable cultures--T. E. Lawrence & Wilfred Thesiger in the Middle East, Richard Burton in Africa--Knud Rasmussen stands out not only for his physical bravery but also for the beauty of his writing. Part Danish, part Inuit, Rasmussen made a courageous three-year journey by dog sled from Greenland to Alaska to reveal the common origins of all circumpolar peoples. Lovers of Arctic adventure, exotic cultures, & timeless legend will relish this gripping tale by Stephen R. Bown, known as ” Canada`s Simon Winchester.” ...

This is the story of a journey like no other, as Jacek Hugo-Bader makes his way across Siberia, from Moscow to Vladivostok, in the middle of winter. Travelling alone in a modified Russian jeep, he traverses a continent that is two-&-a-half times bigger than America, awash with bandits & not always fully equipped with roads. Along the way, Hugo-Bader discovers a great deal of tragedy, but also plenty of dark humour among the reindeer shepherds, nomadic tribes, the former hippies, the shamans, & the followers of some of the many arcane religions that flourish in this isolated, impossible region. ...

The White Funnel Fleet of P&A Campbell had a long & successful association with England`s south coast, with the company`s Bristol Channel steamer excursions perhaps being their best-known operation. Covering the period from the 1880s to the 1950s, from the tentative beginnings when brothers Alexander & Peter Campbell took up the challenge of the busy & tempestuous Bristol Channel, this beautifully illustrated history
- using many rare & previously unpublished images from the archives of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society
- takes the reader through the golden years of the Victorian & Edwardian eras, the difficult years of the 1920s & 1930s, & the resurgence of the late 1940s before the harsh economic pressures of the 1950s led to the company`s decline. Including heart-warming stories from the two world wars, when the ships donned warship grey & swept the sea lanes for mines, as well as fascinating ` White Funnel Trivia`, this book evokes the hey-day of the White Funnel Steamers & their enduring appeal.

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This is the forgotten story of the million white Europeans, snatched from their homes & taken in chains to the great slave markets of North Africa to be sold to the highest bidder. Ignored by their own governments, & forced to endure the harshest of conditions, very few lived to tell the tale. Using the firsthand testimony of a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellow, Giles Milton vividly reconstructs a disturbing, little known chapter of history. Pellow was bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco who was constructing an imperial pleasure palace of enormous scale & grandeur, built entirely by Christian slave labour. As his personal slave, he would witness first-hand the barbaric splendour of he imperial court, as well as experience the daily terror of a cruel regime. Gripping, immaculately researched, & brilliantly realised, WHITE GOLD reveals an explosive chapter of popular history, told with all the pace & verve of one of our finest historians. ...

Nothing on the tundra rotted.. . The whole history of human settlement lay exposed there, under that big northern sky. There was nowhere here for bones to hide. On Craig Isl&, a vast landscape of ice north of the Arctic Circle, three travellers are hunting duck. Among them is expert Inuit hunter & guide, Edie Kiglatuk; a woman born of this harsh, beautiful terrain. The two men are tourists, experiencing Arctic life in the raw, but when one of the men is shot dead in mysterious circumstances, the local Council of Elders in the tiny settlement of Autisaq is keen to dismiss it as an accident. Then two adventurers arrive in Autisaq hoping to search for the remains of the legendary Victorian explorer Sir James Fairfax. The men hire Edie -- whose ancestor Welatok guided Fairfax -- along with Edie's stepson Joe, & two parties set off in different directions. Four days later, Joe returns to Autisaq frostbitten, hypothermic & disoriented, to report his man missing. & when things take an even darker turn, Edie finds herself heartbroken, & facing the greatest challenge of her life.. .'A blazing star of a thriller: vivid, tightly-sprung, & satisfying on all levels. Encountering Edie Kiglatuk, the toughest, smartest Arctic heroine since Miss Smilla, left me with that rare feeling of privilege you get on meeting extraordinary people in real life. A huge achievement' Liz Jensen, author of The Rapture ' Edie is an ingenious & original creation but the most addictive character is the Arctic itself' Sunday Telegraph ...

Harold Wilson`s famous reference to `white heat` captured the optimistic spirit of a society in the midst of breathtaking change. From the gaudy pleasures of Swinging London to the tragic bloodshed in Northern Irel&, from the intrigues of Westminster to the drama of the World Cup, British life seemed to have taken on a dramatic new momentum. The memories, images & colourful personalities of those heady times still resonate today: mop-tops & mini-skirts, strikes & demonstrations, Carnaby Street & Kings Road, Harold Wilson & Edward Heath, Mary Quant & Jean Shrimpton, Enoch Powell & Mary Whitehouse, Marianne Faithfull & Mick Jagger. In this wonderfully rich & readable historical narrative, Dominic Sandbrook looks behind the myths of the Swinging Sixties to unearth the contradictions of a society caught between optimism & decline. ...

1867: a year of devastating famine in Finl&. Marja, a farmer`s wife from the north, sets off on foot through the snow with her two young children. Their goal: St Petersburg, where people say there is bread. Others are also heading south, just as desperate to survive. Ruuni, a boy she meets, seems trustworthy. But can anyone really help? ------ Why Peirene chose to publish this book: ` Like Cormac Mc Carthy`s The Road, this apocalyptic tale deals with the human will to survive. & let me be honest: There will come a point in this book where you can take no more of the snow-covered desolation. But then the first rays of spring sun appear & our belief in the human spirit revives. A stunning tale.` Meike Ziervogel, Publisher ...

Los Angeles, 1958: a city on the make. A boom town at the edge of a new era ripe for plunder. Lieutenant Dave Klein is in turn a lawyer, bagman, slum landlord & mob killer. Klein stands at the centre of a complex web of plots where violence & death will intersect. Told with his trademark blistering & relentless prose-poetry, White Jazz is a bleak & powerful nightmare of a crime thriller, & a fitting conclusion to the LA Quartet. It is one of the greatest crime writers of all time, writing at his best. ...