The genius of this book is that for all its historical accuracy & sophistication it still tells a story as stirring as any western." The Sunday Times "A book I've been reading with enormous pleasure." Simon Hoggart The Guardian On the afternoon of 26 October 1881 in a vacant lot in Tombstone Arizona a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral shaped how future generations came to view the old West. Wyatt Earp Doc Holliday & the Clantons became the stuff of legends but the truth is even better. As The Last Gunfight makes clear the real story of the O.K. Corral & the West is far different from what we've been led to believe by countless Westerns. Drawing on new material from private collections including diaries letters & Wyatt Earp's own h&-drawn sketch of the shootout's conclusion as well as documentary research in Tombstone & Arizona archives & dozens of interviews Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different & far more fascinating picture of what the West was like." ...

A short but perfectly formed complete Discworld novel fully illustrated in lavish colour throughout THE LAST HERO is an essential part of any Discworld collection. It stars the legendary Cohen the Barbarian a legend in his own lifetime. Cohen can remember when a hero didn't have to worry about fences & lawyers & civilisation & when people didn't tell you off for killing dragons. But he can't always remember these days where he put his teeth.. . So now with his ancient sword & his new walking stick & his old friends -- & they're very old friends -- Cohen the Barbarian is going on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain in the Discworld & meet his gods. The last hero in the world is going to return what the first hero stole. With a vengeance. That'll mean the end of the world if no one stops him in time. ...

A Discworld novel fully illustrated in lavish colour throughout its 160 pages this is an essential part of any Discworld collection. It stars the legendary Cohen. Hes been a legend in his own lifetime. He can remember when a hero didnt have to worry about fences & lawyers & civilisation & when people didnt tell you off for killing dragons. But he cant always remember these days where he put his teeth.. . So now with his ancient sword & his new walking stick & his old friends -- & theyre very old friends -- Cohen the Barbarian is going on one final quest. Hes going to climb the highest mountain in the Discworld & meet his gods. The last hero in the world is going to return what the first hero stole. With a vengeance. Thatll mean the end of the world if no one stops him in time. ...

Simon Fraser Lord Lovat was one of Scotlands most notorious & romantic figures. A double-agent & spy he became the most famous supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie & the last nobleman to be executed for treason. For all fans of Ben Mac Intyre & C.J. Sansom a great non-fiction historical adventure. Lord Simon Lovat was the last of the great Scottish chiefs
- & the last nobleman to be executed for treason. He is one of Scotlands most notorious & romantic figures a shrewd & calculating soldier of unlimited ambition wit & double-dealing who died a martyr for his country & for an independent Scotl&. Born into the unpredictable world of the late seventeenth-century as a younger son of a junior branch of the Frasers Simon determined to enforce his claim to be chief of the Fraser clan & enjoy the income from its lands. In a life packed with plotting & incident spells as a wanted outlaw a prisoner in the Bastille as loyal British soldier & aspirant Duke Simon became the greatest double-agent of the age. Determined in 1701 to seek his fortune with exiled Jacobite king in France Fraser acted as a spy for both the Stuarts & the Hanoverian Georges; claimed to be both Protestant & Roman Catholic. He was feudal a Highland warrior chief & benevolent despot. He disputed theological niceties with the Papal Nuncio in France while courting Louis XIV for money to fund an invasion of Engl&. He was fluent in five languages. In July 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie landed on Eriskay
- a tiny Hebridean island & launched his last & greatest attempt to seize back his throne joined after victory at Preston Pans by Simon Fraser & his clans. They reached Derby before retreating ignominiously & facing final defeat at the hands of the British at Culloden. Fraser
- one of Scoltands most colourful characters
- was found hiding in a tree. This gripping adventure & swash-buckling spy story uses the events of Lovats life to recreate this extraordinary period of history. As Sarah Fraser argues the defeat at Culloden led directly to the end of traditional Gaelic civilization; to the brutal clearances & pacification of the Highlands which followed & the lost civilisations of Scotland that were destroyed after 1745 by English repression.



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Fans of C.J. Sansom must read this Saltire Society Literary Awards Scottish First Book of the Year
- a great non-fiction adventure
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Dawn broke fine on that fatal day. A couple of thousand feet above the tiny canvas tent the summit of the world's highest mountain stood impassively waiting for someone to have the courage to approach. Inside the ice-crusted shelter two forms lay still as death. Then there was a groan a stirring & eventually the slow scratch of match against sandpaper. Low voices shared the high-altitude agonies of waking the heating of water the struggle with frozen boots. As the sun rose through wisps of cloud beyond the Tibetan hills to the east one of the men emerged through the tent flaps. It was a fine morning for the attempt with only a few clouds in the sky. The two of them stood for a while shuffling their feet & blowing into their hands. Inside the tent lay a mess of sleeping bags & food. The men lifted oxygen sets onto their backs then they turned towards the mountain & stamped off into history. On the 6th June 1924 George Mallory & Sandy Irvine disappeared into the mists of history. George Mallory's body was discovered high on Everest in 1999. Sandy Irvine's body is still believed to be on the mountain having been rediscovered in 1975 by a Chinese climber who was killed the very next day. In 1993 Graham Hoyland became the 15th English man to climb Everest having become obsessed by the mountain & the myth of what happened to Mallory & Irvine. It was his evidence that led to the discovery of Mallory's body & it will be his evidence that will lead to the discovery of Sandy Irvine's. The Last Hours on Everest is the most detailed reconstruction of what happened after the two English climbing legends left the camp on that fateful day. Combining personal experience the physical evidence found on the mountain & an insight into the hearts & minds of the two climbers Graham Hoyland produces the most compelling description of what actually happened on that day & the answer to that most intriguing of questions
- did they actually climb Everest?
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Separated by a narrow stretch of swamp-like waters & distinguished by the color of their skin the Black Jews & the White Jews have been locked in a rancorous feud for centuries. Only now when their combined number has diminished to less than 50 & they are on the threshold of extinction have the two remaining Jewish communities in south India begun to realize that their destiny & their undoing is the same. Living in Cochin alongside this last generation Edna Fernandes tells their story from the illustrious arrival of their ancestors from the court of King Solomon through their long heyday of wealth tolerance & privilege to their present twilit existence as synagogues crumble into disuse & weddings disappear leaving only funerals. ...

It is India 1922 & the wives of officers in the Bengal Greys have been dying violently one each year & always in March. The only link between the bizarre but apparently accidental deaths is the bunches of small red roses that appear on the womens graves. When a fifth wife is found with her wrists cut in a bath of blood the Govenor rejects the verdict of suicide & calls in Joe Sandilands an ex-soldier & Scotland Yard Detective. It becomes clear to Joe that the deaths are indeed a series of murders & they are have not yet run their course. Who will be the recipient of the next
- & last
- Kashmiri Roses? As he discovers the shocking truth Joe must work fast to unmask a killer whose motives are rooted in the dark history of India itself.

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In an incredible twist of fate a Scottish doctor on a Ugandan medical mission becomes irreversibly entangled with one of the worlds most barbaric figures: Idi Amin. Impressed by Dr. Garrigans brazen attitude in a moment of crisis the newly self-appointed Ugandan President Amin hand picks him as his personal physician & closest confidante. Though Garrigan is at first flattered & fascinated by his new position he soon awakens to Amins savagery
- & his own complicity in it. Horror & betrayal ensue as Garrigan tries to right his wrongs & escape Uganda alive.
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The first book in a brand new series The Last Kingdom is set in England during the reign of King Alfred. Uhtred is an English boy born into the aristocracy of ninth-century Northumbria. Orphaned at ten he is captured & adopted by a Dane & taught the Viking ways. Yet Uhtreds fate is indissolubly bound up with Alfred King of Wessex who rules over the only English kingdom to survive the Danish assault. The struggle between the English & the Danes & the strife between christianity & paganism is the background to Uhtreds growing up. He is left uncertain of his loyalties but a slaughter in a winter dawn propels him to the English side & he will become a man just as the Danes launch their fiercest attack yet on Alfreds kingdom. Marriage ties him further still to the West Saxon cause but when his wife & child vanish in the chaos of the Danish invasion Uhtred is driven to face the greatest of the Viking chieftains in a battle beside the sea. There in the horror of the shield-wall he discovers his true allegiance. The Last Kingdom like most of Bernard Cornwells books is firmly based on true history. It is the first novel of a series that will tell the tale of Alfred the Great & his descendants & of the enemies they faced Viking warriors like Ivar the Boneless & his feared brother Ubba. Against their lives Bernard Cornwell has woven a story of divided loyalties reluctant love & desperate heroism. In Uhtred he has created one of his most interesting & heroic characters & in The Last Kingdom one of his most powerful & passionate novels. ...