She looked up at the terraced house with the closed shutters & the big room at the end of the long unlit corridor where the man who smiled too much did his work. She climbed the steps & knocked on the door... Dublin 1934: Detective Stefan Gillespie arrests a German doctor & encounters Hannah Rosen desperate to find her friend Susan a Jewish woman who had become involved with a priest & has now disappeared. When the bodies of a man & woman are found buried in the Dublin mountains it becomes clear that this case is about more than a missing person. Stefan & Hannah trace the evidence all the way across Europe to Danzig. In a strange city where the Nazi Party are gaining power Stefan & Hannah are inching closer to the truth & soon find themselves in grave danger... ...

Once in a city known as Bessa there was a sultan named Bokhari Al-Bokhari who was thrown down by the zealots of the ascetic Hakkim Mehdad. The sultan his wives & children were put to the sword while his 365 concubines were sent to a neighbouring caliph as tribute Hakkim having no use for the pleasures of the flesh. But a day after the caravan had departed from Bessa Hakkim discovered the terrible secret that the concubines had hidden from him. His reaction was swift & cruel. Kill the women of the harem forthwith along with their children & maidservants. Let not one survive. Their bodies let the desert claim & their names be fed to silence. This then is the tale
- or tales
- of how a remarkable group of women fight together to survive both the fury of Hakkim & the rigours of the desert. It is the tale of Zuleika whose hidden past holds the key to their future & of Rem the librarian whose tears are ink. Of the wise Gursoon who defines the groups conscience & of the silver-tongued thief Anwar Das who knows when to ignore that conscience. This is the tale of the forging of a rabble of concubines children camel-herds & thieves into an army of silk & steel. It is the tale of the redemption & rise of Bessa fabled City of Women. & it is the tale of an act of kindness that carries the seed of death & will return to bring darkness & the end of a dream...

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If Paris is the city of love then London is the city of lust. For over a thousand years Englands capital has been associated with desire avarice & the sins of the flesh. Richard of Devises a monk writing in 1180 warned that every quarter [of the city] abounds in great obscenities. As early as the second century AD London was notorious for its raucous festivities & disorderly houses & throughout the centuries the bawdy side of life has taken easy root & flourished. In the third book of her fascinating London trilogy award-winning popular historian Catharine Arnold turns her gaze to the citys relationship with vice through the ages. From the bath houses & brothels of Roman Londinium to the stews & Molly houses of the 17th & 18th centuries London has always traded in the currency of sex. Whether pornographic publishers on Fleet Street or fancy courtesans parading in Haymarket its streets have long been witness to colourful sexual behaviour. In her usual accessible & entertaining style Arnold takes us on a journey through the fleshpots of London from earliest times to present day. Here are buxom strumpets louche aristocrats popinjay politicians & Victorian flagellants -- all vying for their place in Londons league of licentiousness. From sexual exuberance to moral panic the city has seen the pendulum swing from Puritanism to hedonism & back again. With later chapters looking at Victorian London & the sexual underground of the 20th century & beyond this is a fascinating & vibrant chronicle of London at its most raw & ribald. ...

Desperately unhappy Laura has resorted to secretly self-harming. But Laura is a Stravagante somebody who can travel in time & space. When she finds her talisman a small silver dagger she stravagates with it to sixteenth-century Fortezza a town similar to Lucca in Italy where she meets her Stravagante who is a swordsmith. But Laura also meets the charming & attractive Ludo & falls for him. Their love for each other is tested when Ludo lays claim to the crown of Fortezza & Laura finds herself fighting on the side of the Stravaganti opposing him.. .A thrilling tale filled with battles on the field & battles of the heart. ...

An ecological romance with a pulsing heart equal parts Rider Haggard & Chico Buarque
- one of the worlds greatest & most beloved
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The final shock of it hit home. The Petches were thieves & they had stolen him." Tobias is on the run. From the father who betrayed him...from the mother who couldn't comfort him...from his own desperate fear. But when he falls into the clutches of his uncle's sinister gang of thieves his fear grows. & soon Toby realises his nightmare has only just begun..." Renner's story bristles with talent & brio craft & polish" THE TIMES on Castle of Shadows" ...

This is the latest title to join Fighting Fantasys" br&-new look! The multi-million selling gamebook series is back with a hugely popular revamped updated package a brilliant new interactive website & the monsters dungeons & peril to capture a whole new generation of imaginations. Zanbar Bone & his bloodthirsty Moon Dogs are holding the town of Silverton to ransom. Only with the help of the mysterious wizard Nicodemus do you have any hope of saving the townspeople..." ...

Four months into the siege of Leningrad the city is starving. Seventeen-year-old Lev fears for his life when he is arrested for looting the body of a dead German paratrooper while his charismatic cellmate Kolya a handsome young soldier arrested for desertion seems bizarrely unafraid. Dawn brings instead of an execution squad an impossible challenge. Lev & Kolya can find a dozen eggs for an NKVD colonel to use for his daughter's wedding cake & live. Or fail & die. In the depths of the coldest winter in history through a city cut off from all supplies & suffering appalling deprivation man & boy embark on an absurd hunt. Their search will take them through desolate lawless Leningrad & the devastated countryside surrounding it in the captivating journey of two men trying to survive against desperate odds. ...

The crime: one scalding afternoon the mutilated body of a young woman half naked beneath her burqa is discovered on a Saudi beach; soon afterwards a Western woman's husband vanishes without trace. The place: Jeddah Saudi Arabia the City of Veils. A city of narrow streets & closed shutters where nothing is what it seems;and the Empty Quarter
- one of the most beautiful yet unforgiving deserts on earth. The people: Miriam Walker alone in an alien culture desperate to find her missing husb&. Katya a forensic scientist battling the prejudices of a society full of sexual religious & moral contradictions; & Nayir devout Muslim desert guide amateur sleuth
- the man she loves.

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The fifth edition of the highly successful the City Reader juxtaposes the best classic & contemporary writings on the city. It contains fifty-seven selections including seventeen new selections by Elijah Anderson Robert Bruegmann Michael Dear Jan Gehl Harvey Molotch Clarence Perry Daphne Spain Nigel Taylor Samuel Bass Warner & others
- five of which have been newly written exclusively for the City Reader. Classic writings from Ebenezer Howard Ernest W. Burgess Le Corbusier Lewis Mumford Jane Jacobs & Louis Wirth meet the best contemporary writings of Sir Peter Hall Manuel Castells David Harvey Kenneth Jackson & others. This edition of the City Reader has been extensively updated & expanded to reflect the latest thinking in each of the disciplinary areas included & in topical areas such as sustainable urban development climate change globalization & the impact of technology on cities. The plate sections have been extensively revised & expanded & a new plate section on global cities has been added. The anthology features general & section introductions & introductions to the selected articles. New to the fifth edition is a bibliography of 100 top books about cities.
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