Ray has given up school. He sees no point in education & despises authority. & then he has no choice about school as he is excluded. But Ray also has troubles at home which means he has nowhere to stay & ends up sleeping in the local record shop owned by his friend Marga Man. Ray & his friends attend a Social Exclusion Project which means they can develop their music skills. Marga Man gets a record deal for them & they become local heroes. But another rap band takes a dislike to Ray's music & gang warfare is the result... Based on Benjamin's own troubled experience of school & the music business his passionate immediate voice will appeal to all his fans. ...

Ever since his best-selling SLEEPERS Lorenzo Carcaterra has told tales of Italian-Americans. Now in this huge story he travels from the days of godfathers & goodfellas to our own world of suburban Sopranos. GANGSTER is an epic compassionate portrait of one mans fight against his fate
- & the narrative of a family a city & a century. Born in violence & raised in the shadow of a shocking secret young Angelo Vestieri chose to flee both his Italian past & his father & build a new life in early 20th century New York. Through his bloody rise from soldier to mob boss he deals in further betrayals
- in his brutal business in friendship & in love
- while coming to understand loyalty & the virtues of relationships. As he grows older Angelo takes Gabe an abandoned boy under his wing & teaches him everything he knows. Finally he will learn which is stronger
- the love he has for the boy he cherishes or the need to be a gangster & live by the savage rules he helped to create.



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Daisy Sullivans father was one of Londons most infamous gangsters. Haunted by his violent death she vows to live a respectable life. That is until the day her mum who abandoned her when she was young & who she barely remembers barges back into her life. Daisy discovers her mum is the queenpin of a prostitution ring & the head of one of Londons most feared underworld families
- the Kings. She is drawn into their next criminal act
- a bank job that turns out to be no ordinary robbery. Soon she is running for her life & the only person she can trust is up-&-coming gangland bad boy Ricky Smart. Shell have to use every dirty trick her dad ever taught her to stay alive.. .

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The shadowy Gangster Squad was formed in 1946 with eight men operating out of two rusted old Fords. They had no office & made no arrests -- the idea was to remain invisible. By the time I met Sgt. Jack OMara most of the early members were dead so I set out to find the survivors. Based on the hugely popular Los Angeles Times column LA Noir: Tales from the Gangster Squad this is the dark-hearted true story of a group of men cleaning up the mean streets of post-War America. From hundreds of interviews with the original members of the team Paul Lieberman stitches together the story of Jack OMara his dangerous colleague Jerry Wooters (the killer cop thats what they called me) & their anything-goes war with arch-criminal Mickey Cohen & his budding rival Jack The Enforcer Whalen. A tale of stake-outs shoot-outs & even the famous Black Dahlia murder case this is ice-cool narrative non-fiction at its best -- & the basis for a huge Warner Brothers film of the same name starring Ryan Gosling Sean Penn Josh Brolin & Emma Stone. ...

Gerard Gallacher served as a police officer in Glasgow from the 1980s & three decades onwards. It was the time when drugs seized hold of the city & a new set of ruthless criminals were threatening to take control. There was still the usual violence of the city to deal with including domestic violence gang warfare & robbery but it was the huge increase in drug use that defined the times & led to many of the most notorious incidents in the citys criminal past. & Gerard Gallacher was in the thick of the action. As a detective Gallacher knew & dealt with all the major criminals of the times; including Arthur Thompson & his son Arthur Jnr Tam Mc Graw Paul Ferris Joe Hanlon & Bobby Glover. He gave evidence at Ferris murder trial he discovered that Arthur Thomson was a Security Services asset & was the first detective on the scene when Hanlon & Glover were murdered. He delivered the police warning to infamous criminal Frank Mc Phie to tell him that his life was in danger a warning that went unheeded. Gallacher was also involved in countless other high profile investigations including the notorious drugs feud between former friends Tony Mc Govern & James Stevenson which ended in assassination. This is a compelling account of a police career at the sharp end of the action by a detective who wouldnt toe the line. & as well as giving his forthright views on the less than exemplary conduct of some senior officers Gallacher now reveals what really happened behind the scenes in some of the countrys most high profile cases. ...

This humour-tinged romantic adventure follows the experiences of a young Scottish veterinary student called Doogie OMara who takes a year off his studies to get his head together following the death of his parents but also to escape the claustrophobic influence of the daughter of his elderly home-town vet who assumes that Doogie will not only become his partner but his daughters as well! Doogie sets out to start a job as a tour rep in Africa with hopes of finding time to study the wildlife too. Instead he finds himself on the Spanish island of Mallorca thust in at the deep end of the madcap package tour business
- a hapless fish out of water for whom the nearest thing to wildlife appears to be the hordes of rowdy holidaymakers pouring off the gannets (charter planes) from the UK. He is taken under the wing of Angie a world-weary rep whos taken all the knocks & has a fatherless toddler to prove it & is befriended by Catalina a pretty young Mallorcan girl working for the same tour company but from a country background similar to Doogies own. The outlook gets better still when Angie is posted to Ibiza & leaves Doogie her flat & her little car. Unfortunately she also leaves her toddler in the care of her dotty old neighbour to whom Doogie is now living next door. Problems are bound to arise & they do with Doogie right in the middle of them! Despite everything however his relationship with Catalina develops & when the time finally comes for him to leave the island Doogie must decide if there may be more to life than a secure though potentially claustrophobic career as a vet back in Scotl&.
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The quiet of Danis hiding place in the dark graveyard was disturbed by the sound of someone panting close by. Instantly awake he saw a wild looking figure: a tall thin creature who stood starting at him poised for flight. Mamo is sold into slavery after his mothers death & escapes. Dani is on the run from his rich but controlling father. The two boys come from very different worlds but are drawn together as they learn to survive on the city streets." ...

Inspired by the true story of an African childhood lived on the edge of destitution award-winning Elizabeth Laird's new novel takes readers on an unforgettable emotional journey. When Mamo's mother dies he is abandoned in the shanties of Addis Ababa. Stolen by a child-trafficker & sold to a farmer he is cruelly treated. Escaping back to the city he meets another very different runaway. Dani is rich educated -- & fleeing his tyrannical father. Together they join a gang of homeless street boys who survive only by mutual bonds of trust & total dependence on each other. ...

Garbage Pail kids a series of stickers produced by Topps in 1985 were designed to parody overly saccharine Cabbage Patch Kids. Each sticker card features a Garbage Pail Kid character depicted in a grotesque & biting image christened with a humourous character name involving wordplay. The series was the creation of Pulizer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman who in collaboration with other successful artists turned the cads into a pop-culture phenomenon. Garbage Pail Kids will feature all 206 rare & hard-to-find stickers from Series 1 through 5 originally release in 1985 & 1 986 & contains an introduction by Spiegelman. Garbage Pail Kids

Includes:: a limited edition set of four rare & unreleased stickers is packaged in a wax-coated jacket & is guaranteed to appeal to die-hard collectors as well as a new generation of fans.

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A personal & horticultural tour of the 400-year-old gardens at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. The Duchess of Devonshires anecdotal text takes the reader on a stroll through a garden that

Includes:: parterres & vistas water in all its forms rockeries & trees a working kitchen garden & statuary as well as planted borders. The history of the garden is described incorporating the creation the changes & the restorations both the Duke & Duchess have made in the spirit of the place". The Duchess of Devonshire has lived at Chatsworth since 1950."

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