Its clear to most members of Midsomer Worthys Writers Circle that asking bestselling author Max Jennings to talk to them is a little ambitious. Less clear are the reasons for secretary Gerald Hadleighs fierce objections to seeing the man -- a face from his past -- again. Astonishingly Jennings accepts the invitation but before the night is out Gerald is dead. Summoned to investigate Chief Inspector Barnaby finds that Geralds life is as much of a mystery to his neighbours as his violent death. The key is surely their illustrious guest speaker -- but where is he now? ...

I took the skull from its evidence bag & gently set it on the stainless steel table. ' Tell me who you are...' As a favour to a colleague Dr David Hunter is on the remote Hebridean island of Runa to inspect a grisly discovery. He's familiar with death in all its guises but is shocked by what he finds: a body incinerated but for the feet & a single h&. It appears to be a textbook case of spontaneous human combustion. The local police are certain it's an accidental death but Hunter is not convinced. Examining the scorched remains he finds evidence that this was no accident; this was murder. & as the isolated community considers the enormity of Hunter's findings a catastrophic storm hits the isl&. The power goes down communication with the outside world ceases...and the killing begins in earnest. ...

Written on the Body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille. I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes never unfold too much tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book. ...

Written on the Wind (1956) is one of classical Hollywood's most striking films & ranks among Douglas Sirk's finest achievements. An intense melodrama about an alcoholic playboy who marries the woman his best friend secretly loves the film is highly stylised psychologically complex & marked by Sirk's characteristic charting of the social realities of 1950s America. This first single study of Written on the Wind reassesses the film's artistic heritage & place within the wider framework of contemporary American culture. Incorporating original archival research Peter William Evans examines the production promotion & reception of Written on the Wind exploring its themes
- of time memory space family class & sex
- as well as its brilliance of form. Its vivid aesthetics powerful performances & profound treatment of human emotions make Written on the Wind a masterpiece of Hollywood melodrama.

...

The Dewsbury Desperadoes are on their way to Pontefract for a gig at the Allied Butchers' & Architects' Club. The Girl with the Chestnut Eyes is on her way to somewhere. & Raymond is heading for Gulag Grimshy. Raymond Marks is a normal boy from a normal family in a normal northern town. His dad left home after falling in love with a five-string banjo; his fun-hating grandma believes she should have married Jean-Paul Sartre: '1 could never read his books but y' could tell from his picture there was nothing frivolous about John-Paul Sartre.' Felonious Uncle Jason & Appalling Aunty Paula are lusting after the satellite dish; frogs are flattened on Failsworth Boulevard; & Sickening Sonia's being sick in the majestic cathedral of words. Raymond Marks is a normal boy from a normal family in a normal northern town. Until on the banks of the Rochdale Canal the Flytrapping craze begins & for Raymond & his mam nothing is ever quite so normal again. In Raymond prize-winning & internationally acclaimed playwright Willy Russell has created an unforgettable character to rival his Shirley Valentine & educated Rita. The Wrong Boy is his extraordinary first novel. ...

A gripping Quick Read from the master of the race against time thriller. Have you ever been in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are hiking in the Scottish highlands with three friends when you come across a girl. She is half-naked has been badly beaten & she can't speak English. She is clearly running away from someone. Do you stop to help her? Even if it means putting your friends' lives
- & your own
- in terrible danger?

...

Wrought iron has been used as a decorative element in architecture from the eleventh century to the twentieth. At first a device to strengthen & embellish doors wrought iron was soon adopted for free-standing screens & railings examples of which can still be seen in churches & cathedrals. At the end of the seventeenth century iron screens gates & railings became a fashionable element of country & town houses resulting in the most creative period of decorative ironwork. The cheaper technique of cast iron led to a subsequent decline in wrought iron although the latter underwent a revival at the end of the nineteenth century led by influential architects such as William Burges & Charles Rennie Mackintosh. ...

Village rectories the traditional family homes of church ministers have had a long association with writers in Britain. For many the Georgian rectory nestling against an historic church immediately evokes a scene from a Jane Austen novel for others it conjures up something much darker the parsonage at Haworth where the Bronte sisters were confined. In this engaging book Deborah Alun-Jones selects a range of authors from the seventeenth century to the twenty-first for whom the rectory was either the childhood home that nurtured their creative talent or the place they chose to live as an adult & from which they drew inspiration. Each chapter explores the life of a writer during the time they lived at a particular rectory/ parsonage or vicarage & the effect it had on them. The story is often heartwarming with amateur theatricals & games of tennis but in several cases it is a tale where the serene exterior belies the tensions within but it was those very tensions that yielded some of our greatest poetry & literature. ...

Emily Bronte's only novel a work of tremendous & far-reaching influence the Penguin Classics" edition of " Wuthering Heights" is the definitive edition of the text edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff & Catherine Earnshaw; & how Catherine forced to choose between passionate tortured Heathcliff & gentle well-bred Edgar Linton surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness & vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past. In this edition a new preface by Lucasta Miller author of " The Bronte Myth" looks at the ways in which the novel has been interpreted from Charlotte Bronte onwards. This complements Pauline Nestor's introduction which discusses changing critical receptions of the novel as well as Emily Bronte's influences & background. Emily Bronte (1818-48) along with her sisters Charlotte & Anne was one of the most significant literary figures of the 19th century. She wrote just one strikingly innovative novel " Wuthering Heights" but was also a gifted & intense poet. If you enjoyed " Wuthering Heights" you may like Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre also available in " Penguin Classics". "' Wuthering Heights" is commonly thought of as "romantic" but try rereading it without being astonished by the comfortableness with which Bronte's characters subject one another to extremes of physical & psychological violence." (Jeanette Winterson). " As a first novel there is very little that can compare to it. Even Shakespeare took over a decade to reach the clifftop extremities of King Lear" (Sarah Waters)." ...

Wuthering Heights is a wild passionate story of the intense & almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw & Heathcliff a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death Heathcliff is bullied & humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley & wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated leaves Wuthering Heights only to return years later as a wealthy & polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic & unremittingly violent but the accomplished handling of a complex structure the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting & the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature. ...