When Louis gets eaten up by a Gulper his big sister Sarah knows she has to act fast & sets off in hot pursuit. But rescuing a boy from a Gulper's tummy isn't so simple
- especially when other strange & scary creatures are looking for their dinner too...
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The incomparable Jack Higgins returns to the bestseller lists launching undercover enforcer Sean Dillon into his most spectacular adventure yet
- a no-holds-barred battle with a Mafia don. It's all action & suspense as Sean Dillon & his secret intelligence colleagues seek to help American White House security insider Blake Johnson avenge the death of his ex-wife a reporter murdered for getting too close to a Mafia story. In London Beirut & Ireland the daredevil friends are prepared to risk everything as they combine to thwart the ever more desperate ambition of Mafia frontman Jack Fox. Here in his eighth adventure former IRA terrorist turned British Government enforcer Sean Dillon is established as one of the most popular characters in modern fiction while Jack Higgins has an unrivalled position as the biggest name in thriller writing around the world. Widely hailed as an outstanding return to form Day of Reckoning raced straight into the top ten of the Sunday Times bestseller list in hardback
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One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written The Day of the Jackal" is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before it's too late. It is 1963 & an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General de Galle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent. Known only as The Jackal this remorseless & deadly killer must be stopped but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?" ...

They came for me in November nineteen fifty-one & took me to Mokotow prison. Cambridge the present day. & out of the past a cry for help: Father Anselm the brilliant Benedictine receives a visit from an old friend with a dangerous story to tell
- the story of a woman betrayed by time fate & someone close to her.. .someone still unknown. As a young woman Roza Mojeska was part of an underground resistance group in Communist Pol&. But after her arrest an agent of the secret police makes her a devils bargain
- & in the dark of a government prison a terrible choice is made. Now fifty years later Anselm is called upon to investigate both Rozas story & a mystery dating back to the early 1980s in the icy grip of the Cold War. & as he peels back years of history decades of secrets a half-century of lies he exposes a truth that victim & torturer would keep hidden...

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In the 1960s mens fashion witnessed an extraordinary rebirth that led to lasting social cultural & commercial change
- what media
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At her dying mothers bedside Rebecca Bayliss is shattered to learn of a family she never knew existed. Determined to find them Rebecca journeys to Boscarva a beautiful mansion in Cornwall to meet a family torn by passion & greed. From her grandfather Grenville Bayliss who is hiding an explosive secret to a handsome cousin whose kisses are dangerously seductive...to sensual craftsman Joss Gardner whose past hints of intrigue Rebecca becomes entangled in a family mystery...and unravelling it holds the key to her future & her heart. ...

When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else doctors & patients alike have been blinded by a meteor shower. Now with civilization in chaos the triffids
- huge venomous large-rooted plants able to 'walk' feeding on human flesh
- can have their day. The Day of the Triffids" published in 1951 expresses many of the political concerns of its time: the Cold War the fear of biological experimentation & the man-made apocalypse. However with its terrifyingly believable insights into the genetic modification of plants the book is more relevant today than ever before. John Wyndham was born in 1903. After a wide experience of the English preparatory school he was at Bedales from 1918 to 1921. Careers which he tried included farming law commercial art & advertising & he first started writing short stories intended for sale in 1925. During the war he was in the Civil Service & afterwards in the Army. In 1946 he began writing his major science fiction novels including " The Kraken Wakes" " The Chrysalids" & " The Midwich Cuckoos"."

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In 1993 -- a decade ahead of its time -- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine began with an eerily prophetic & untold back story: the controversial military occupation of an alien world & the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now that full shattering saga of warring ideologies national security terrorism greed secret intelligence moral compromise & embattled faith is given its due in the epic Terok Nor trilogy. In Day of the Vipers what starts as a benign visitation to the bountiful planet Bajor from the resource-poor Cardassian Union soon becomes a conflict of competing national interests. Seen though the eyes of participants on both sides -- among them an ambitious young Cardassian officer named Skrain Dukat -- the personal political & religious struggles between the two peoples quickly spiral out of control shaping the futures of both heroes & villains in an unforgettable emotionally wrought & action-packed tale of tragedy & hope. ...

Schoolboy time-traveller Jack Christie is thrown back to 1940s Nazi-occupied France. With the Battle of Britain & the German Vengeance programme underway the Second World War is at a crucial point. Jack & his best friend Angus take a more senior role in VIGILs attempts to prevent intervention in history attempting to stop the Revisionists from their highly volatile nuclear plan to stop the war. With spitfire dogfights jeep races & thrilling chases the boys have their most hair-raising adventure yet including involvement in an assassination attempt on Hitler himself. Just as all seems lost Jacks father returns & a nuclear disaster is averted in the nick of time. ...

In the early evening of 16 October 1834 to the horror of bystanders a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King & Queen at Windsor & from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses the great conflagration destroyed Parliaments glorious old buildings & their contents. No one who witnessed the disaster would ever forget it. The events of that October day in 1834 were as shocking & significant to contemporaries as the death of Princess Diana was to us at the end of the 20th century
- yet today this national catastrophe is a forgotten disaster not least because Barry & Pugins monumental new Palace of Westminster has obliterated all memory of its 800 year-old predecessor. Rumours as to the fires cause were rife. Was it arson terrorism the work of foreign operatives a kitchen accident careless builders or even divine judgement on politicians? In this the first full-length book on the subject head Parliamentary Archivist Caroline Shenton unfolds the gripping story of the fire over the course of that fateful day & night. In the process she paints a skilful portrait of the political & social context of the time including details of the slums of Westminster & the frenzied expansion of the West End; the plight of the London Irish; child labour sinecures & corruption in high places; fire-fighting techniques & floating engines; the Great Reform Act & the new Poor Law; Captain Swing & arson at York Minster; the parlous state of public buildings & records in the Georgian period; & above all the symbolism which many contemporaries saw in the spectacular fall of a national icon.
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