I've lost it.: ( The only thing in the world I wasn't supposed to lose. My engagement ring. It's been in Magnus' family for three generations. & now the very same day his parents are coming I've lost it. The very same day. Do not hyperventilate Poppy. Stay positive!! :) A couple of glasses of bubbly with the girls & Poppy's life has gone into meltdown. Not only has she lost her engagement ring but in the panic that followed she's lost her phone too. When she spots an abandoned phone in a bin it seems it was meant to be. Finders Keepers! Except the phone's owner elusive businessman Sam Roxton doesn't agree. He wants his phone back & doesn't appreciate Poppy reading all his messages & wading into his personal life. Can things get any more tangled? ...

i-ssassins is part of the HEROES series created with series editor Frank Cottrell Boyce. Luke Kitson is training with ELITE a crack team of young hackers used by MI5 & currently investigating Your Life a new social networking site with vast ambitions. But disappearances begin
- first members of the site next MI5 agents & finally one of the ELITE hackers. Luke must infiltrate Your Lifes skyscraper headquarters & find his friend. One hundred floors. One thousand people who will do anything to stop him. Can Luke prove that he belongs to the ELITE?
...

CONSIDER PHLEBAS The war raged across the galaxy. Billions had died billions more were doomed. Moons planets the very stars themselves faced destruction cold-blooded brutal & worse random. The Idirans fought for their Faith; the Culture for its moral right to exist. Principles were at stake. There could be no surrender. Within the cosmic conflict an individual crusade. Deep within a fabled labyrinth on a barren world a Planet of the Dead proscribed to mortals lay a fugitive Mind. Both the Culture & the Idirans sought it. It was the fate of Horza the Changer & his motley crew of unpredictable mercenaries human & machine actually to find it & with it their own destruction. USE OF WEAPONS The man known as Cheradenine Zakalwe was one of Special Circumstances' foremost agents changing the destiny of planets to suit the Culture through intrigue dirty tricks or military action. The woman known as Diziet Sma had plucked him from obscurity & pushed him towards his present eminence but despite all their dealings she did not know him as well as she thought. The drone known as Skaffen-Amtiskaw knew both of these people. It had once saved the woman's life by massacring her attackers in a particularly bloody manner. It believed the man to be a burnt-out case. But not even its machine intelligence could see the horrors in his past. THE PLAYER OF GAMES The Culture
- a human/machine symbiotic society
- has thrown up many great Game Players & one of the greatest is Gurgeh. Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board computer & strategy. Bored with success Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad cruel & incredibly wealthy to try their fabulous game.. .a game so complex so like life itself that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked blackmailed almost murdered Gurgeh accepts the game & with it the challenge of his life
- & very possibly his death.


...

Ian Botham arrived on the international scene just in time to ride sports first big financial wave & exploit the Thatcherite mantra of go-out-&-get-what-you-want. He certainly needed the cash having been regularly short since leaving state school in Yeovil at 15. In an era short on glamour & personalities Botham brought an irresistible cocktail of talent energy & swagger. With the stench of economic failure still in the air he made the country feel good about itself again. He showed that Britain could still produce champions & that the working class still deserved to be valued. For this he won himself a fund of public goodwill a fund he sometimes threatened to drain but uncannily managed to replenish. He had an insatiable appetite & an uncanny knack for creating tales of heroism but if he failed on that score there was always the chance of a scandal or two. He gave the media everything they needed for front pages & back & some newspapers discovered that it didnt necessarily matter if the story was true or not as long as he was in it. Ian Botham tells the story a great piece of British sporting history one of the greatest: of a man for whom the glamour & the grit came together. & it was the grit of the times in which Botham had grown up & where he had come from. ...

This is a true story of a force of licensed to kill secret agents commanded by a real war time secret service chief code names M with whom Ian Fleming worked & upon whom his James Bond stories were based. Brigadier Colin Gubbins was M the Special Operations Executive was his Secret Service Professor Dudley Newitt was Q & Captain Gus March-Phillips commanded Maid of Honor Force the team of James Bonds who in a daring operation sailed a Q ship to West Africa & stole three enemy ships from a neutral Spanish port on the volcanic island of Fernando Po. Ian Fleming worked closely with M to oil the wheels that made the operation possible & prepared the cover story in which the British Government lied in order to conceal British responsibility for the raid. Ms agents prepared the ground on Fernando Po even enmeshing the Governor in a honey trap. March-Phillips & his team carried out the raid successfully in January 1942 despite much opposition from the local regular Army & Navy commanders & in the face of overwhelming odds. Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told Flemings lies on the international stage denying any British complicity in the operation. As a result a secrecy embargo enveloped Operation POSTMASTER until recently. The author an experienced criminal QC proves beyond doubt that this thrilling operation & the men who carried it out were the inspiration for Flemings James Bond. ...

In 1942 Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence
- the dynamic figure behind
...

In 1942 Lieutenant-Commander Ian Fleming was personal assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence
- the dynamic figure behind
...

LET IT BLEED: Rebus finds himself sucked into an investigation that throws up more questions than answers. Was the Lord Provosts daughter kidnapped or just another runaway? & why on earth is Rebus invited to a clay pigeon shoot at the home of the Scottish Offices Permanent Secretary? Drawn into the machine that is modern Scotland Rebus confronts the fact that some of his enemies may be beyond justice. BLACK & BLUE: Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer
- & doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man hes just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgows Mr Big. Added to that there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of millions of viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean a slow & unpleasant death or worse still losing his job. THE HANGING GARDEN: DI John Rebus is on the trail of a WWII war criminal
- until the running battle between two rival gangs on the city streets arrives at his door. When his daughter is the victim of a hit-&-run Rebus is forced to acknowledge that there is nothing he wouldnt do to bring down the prime suspect
- even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.


...

Ian Rankin has amassed an incredible portfolio of short stories which all share the best qualities of his phenomenally popular novels. Now his two critically acclaimed short story collections
- A GOOD HANGING & BEGGARS BANQUET
- come together in one volume along with ATONEMENT
- a new Rebus story written especially for this collection. A GOOD HANGING
- Twelve Inspector Rebus mysteries including the hanging of a student during the Edinburgh Festival a gruesome arson attack & the apparent witnessing of a miracle. Step off the tourist trail & into the macabre heart of Rebuss Edinburgh. BEGGARS BANQUET
- Ranging from suburban murders to the sinister workings of a serial killers mind here are twenty-one tales all bearing the hallmark of great crime writing. Included are seven Inspector Rebus mysteries & the Dagger award-winning story Herbert in Motion. ATONEMENT
- When Rebus comes to the aid of an old friend he uncovers some hard-to-swallow truths about life & death at a local home for the elderly.





...

Strip Jack: MP Gregor Jack is caught in an Edinburgh brothel with a prostitute only too keen to show off her considerable assets. Then Jack's wife disappears. Someone wants to strip Jack naked & Rebus wants to know why. The Black Book: When a close colleague is brutally attacked Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire an unidentified body & a long-forgotten night of terror & murder. Rebus must piece together a jigsaw no one wants completed. Mortal Causes: It is August in Edinburgh & the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets & Rebus suspects the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of terrorism in a city heaving with tourists is unthinkable. ...