Six key Second World War conflicts where decisions of the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler contributed to his eventual downfall. Each theatre of operations written up by a German general who was on the spot & involved in carrying out the uncompromising orders of the Fuhrer. This is an 'other side of the hill' collection of accounts which gives valuable insight into the machinations of a sycophantic hierarchy immediately surrounding Hitler. Instead had the dictator paid heed to his highly competent commanders rather than his toadies the outcome would have been very different for every one of us. Happily for the world he thought he knew best selecting counsellors closest to his uncompromising heart.1. Battle of Britain is told by Werner Kreipe Chief Operations Officer Third Air Fleet December 1939
- June 1940.2. Battle for Moscow Gunther Blumentritt Chief of Staff in 1940. Later Chief of Staff of Army Group D. In 1944 he command of 12th SS Korps & in 1945 Commander of First Parachute Army.3. Battle of Alamein Fritz Bayerlein 1941 Chief of Staff Afrika Korps. Commander of 3rd Panzer Division & finally Panzer Lehr in 1944.4. Battle of Stalingrad Kurt Zeitzler Chief of Staff XXII Korps 1940 to 1941; Chief of Staff Army Group D April 1942; Chief of the Army General Staff 1942 to July 1944.5. Normandy Bodo Zimmerman General Staff in 1939 & Chief Operations Officer to Commander-in-Chief West from 1940 to 1942; also to Army Group D from 1942 to 1945.6. Battle of the Ardennes (Bulge) Hasso-Eccard von Manteuffel Commander of the Fifth Panzer Army. Siegfried Westphal with his narrative connects the six accounts. During the war Westphal served as Operations Officer under General Erwin Rommel in North Africa Chief of Staff under General Albrecht Kesselring in Italy & Chief of Staff to General Gerd von Rundstedt in 1944-45 therefore admirably qualified to draw the accounts of his once fellow serving officers together to give a vivid picture of military life under arguably the most vicious dictator the world has ever known.
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Christopher Wood a beautiful young Englishman decided to be the greatest painter the world had seen. He went to Paris in 1921. By day he studied by night he attended the parties of the beau monde. He knew Picasso worked for Diaghilev & was a friend of Cocteau. In the last months of his 29-year life he fought a ravening opium addiction to succeed in claiming a place in history of English painting. Richard Hilary confident handsome & unprincipled flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain before being shot down & horribly burned. He underwent several operations by the legendary plastic surgeon A H Mc Indoe. His account of his experiences The Last Enemy made him famous but not happy. He begged to be allowed to return to flying & died mysteriously in a night training operation aged 23. Jeremy Wolfenden was born in 1936 the son of Jack later Lord Wolfenden. Charming generous & witty he was the cleverest Englishman of his generation but left All Souls to become a hack reporter. At the height of the Cold War he was sent to Moscow where his louche private life made him the plaything of the intelligence services. A terrifying sequence of events ended in Washington where he died at the age of 31. ...

AD 64. Rome is a frightening place. But little does Christian slave girl Mary realise the dangers that await her when she accompanies her master to the city. It is the day of the chariot races & Mary finds herself the only witness to a terrible crime. Soon it is not just the thieves & drunks she has to worry about but someone far more cruel & powerful... ...

May 1982. Britain celebrates the sinking of the Belgrano Jimmy Savile has the run of the airwaves & Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman DS Waters
- recently relocated from East London. While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Ellis is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. Then a fifteen-year-old boy is found dead on Dentons golf course his organs removed. Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate
- a welcome distraction from troubles at home. & when the murdered boys sister goes missing Frost & Waters must work together to find her.. .before its too late.

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It's May 1982. Britain celebrates the sinking of the Belgrano Jimmy Savile has the run of the airwaves & Denton Police Division welcomes its first black policeman DS Waters
- recently relocated from East London. While the force is busy dealing with a spate of local burglaries the body of fifteen-year-old Samantha Ellis is discovered in woodland next to the nearby railway track. Then a fifteen-years-old boy is found dead on Denton's golf course his organs removed. Detective Sergeant Jack Frost is sent to investigate
- a welcome distraction from troubles at home. & when the murdered boy's sister goes missing Frost & Waters must work together to find her.. .before it's too late.

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A sudden act of vandalism had just been committed in the chill Venetian dawn. But Commissario Guido Brunetti soon finds out that the perpetrator is no petty criminal. For the culprit waiting to be apprehended at the scene of the crime is none other than Paola Brunetti his wife. As Paola's actions provoke a crisis in the Brunetti household Brunetti himself is under increasing pressure at work: a daring robbery with Mafia connections is linked to a suspicious death & his superiors need quick results. As his professional & personal lives clash Brunetti's own career is under threat
- & the conspiracy which Paola had risked everything to expose draws him inexorably to the brink.. .
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Fatal Revenant Book Two of The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant " begins where The Runes of the Earth ended: Linden Avery watches from a balcony while Thomas Covenant & her adopted son Jeremiah ride desperately toward Revelstone. But their reunion has vast consequences which she could not have foreseen. Soon she is betrayed by the people whom she most needs to trust. Transported deep into the Land's past she is forced to confront mysterious strangers legendary heroes & ancient evils & to stand alone against the malevolence of the Despiser's minions. Abandoned in Garroting Deep the most bloodthirsty of the Land's long-dead forests she reaches a fearsome decision: she determines to reshape reality in an attempt to end the Despiser's evil & her son's suffering. However her purpose requires her to find Loric's krill a weapon abandoned among the Hills of Andelain millennia ago. & she needs the aid of friends & allies who will turn against her if she reveals her intent. Attacked by enemies old & new & harried by strange beings with ambiguous agendas she strives toward Andelain. But the ravenous skurj are rising & all of her actions appear to serve her worst foes." ...

In 1787 the twenty-eighth year of the reign of King George III the British Government sent a fleet to colonize Australia-An epic description of the brutal transportation of men women & children out of Georgian Britain into a horrific penal system which was to be the precursor to the Gulag & was the origin of Australia. The Fatal Shore is the prize-winning scholarly brilliantly entertaining narrative that has given its true history to Australia. ...

A plane crashes high in the mountains of North Carolina. But a severed foot is discovered a good distance from the crash site... Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperence Brennan is first on the scene. The task that confronts her is a sad & sickening one & her investigation seems to be throwing up more questions than answers. But when Tempe makes a discovery that raises dangerous questions her professional standing is threatened. Convinced that another corpse lies in the woods Tempe pits herself against a conspiracy of silence & uncovers a shocking tale of deceit & depravity... ...

1581: young St Andrews academic Hew Cullan is unhappy with his life & disillusioned with the law. After his father's death he is invited by the advocate Richard Cunningham to complete his legal education in Edinburgh as Richard's pupil at the bar. Among his father's things Hew finds a manuscript entitled ' In Defence of the Law' directed to the Edinburgh printer Christian Hall. At first he resists its influence but when a young girl is found dead on the beach at St Andrews he is left unsettled & confused. He resolves to take the book to press & agrees to Richard's offer. Embarking on his new life in the capital he falls in love. His relationships are fraught with lies & secrets & lead to brutal murder on the borough muir. Hew suspects a link with the dead girl on the beach. As he begins his desperate search to find the killer he finds that the truth lies closer to home. ...