When Olivia Berrington gets the call to tell her that her best friend from university has been killed in a car crash in New York her life is turned upside down. Her relationship with Sally was an exhilarating roller coaster until a shocking betrayal drove them apart. But if Sally really had turned her back why is her little girl named after Olivia? As questions mount about the fatal accident Olivia is forced to go back & unravel their tangled history. But as Sally's secrets start to spill out Olivia's left asking herself if the past is best kept buried. ...

Three children strangers to each other are brought together by seemingly motiveless & extreme acts of violence. Orphaned & alone they are taken in as students at Evensong a boarding school for emotionally traumatized children in the remote Maine wilderness. A PLACE OF SAFETY? Forensic pathologist Maura Isles already has a connection with the school
- Julian ' Rat' Perkins the 16-year-old boy she met during a previous case is now living there. But she suspects that the Evensong founders may be using the school for their own agenda. & her concerns grow when Detective Jane Rizzoli is asked to investigate yet another attempt on the life of one of the orphans at the school.. .OR A PLACE OF DANGER? What both Jane & Maura soon discover is that even a school protected by locked gates & acres of forest cannot shut out a gathering threat. When three blood-spattered twig dolls are found hanging from a tree they wonder if the threat comes from outside the school.. .or from within.
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Imagine you are an RAF torpedo pilot in World War Two sent on missions so dangerous that you're later likened to the Kamikaze. Suicide wasn't a recognised part of the objective for British airmen yet some pilots felt they had accepted certain death just by climbing into their cockpits. There were times in 1942 when Arthur Aldridge felt like this. At the age of 19 this courageous young man had quit his studies at Oxford to volunteer for the RAF. He flew his Bristol Beaufort like there was no tomorrow
- a realistic assumption after seeing his best friend die in flames at the end of 1941. Aldridge was awarded a DFC (Distinguished Flying Cross) for his bravery on the same strike on a German cargo ship during which he lost a wing tip by flying too close to the deck. He was equally lucky to survive his squadron's chaotic torpedo attack on the giants of Hitler's maritime fleet during the notorious Channel Dash. As 1942 wore on & the stress became intolerable Aldridge & his Cockney gunner Bill Carroll held their nerve & ' Arty' was awarded a Bar to his DFC for sinking two enemy ships off Malta & rescuing a fellow pilot while wounded. Malta was saved by the skin of its teeth Rommel denied vital supplies in North Africa & the course of the war was turned. Aldridge was still only 21 years old. Now both 91 but firm friends as ever Aldridge & Carroll are two of the last torpedo airmen who deserve their place in history alongside our heroic Spitfire pilots. Their story vividly captures the comradeship that existed between men pushed by war to their very limit.
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From the bestselling Irish novelist here comes a sweeping tale of consequences that spans from the 1930s to the 1990s. Last Train from Liguria" takes us on a journey from claustrophobic Dublin & the tense formality of London to the heat & bustle of the pre-war Italian Riviera. This is a must-read for fans of books by Rose Tremain & Helen Dunmore. In 1933 Bella Stuart leaves her quiet London life to move to Italy to tutor the child of a beautiful Jewish heiress & an elderly Italian aristocrat. Living at the familys summer home Bellas reserve softens as she comes to love her young charge & find friendship with Maestro Edward his enigmatic music teacher. But as the decade draws to an end & fascism tightens its grip on Europe the fact that Alec is Jewish places his life in grave danger. Bella & Edward take the boy on a terrifying train journey out of Italy
- one they have no reason to believe any of them will survive..."
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With a glorious colour picture on each page Last Train to Haulage Heaven illustrates the changes & inevitable decline of diesel locomotive-worked passenger trains on Britains rail network from the start of the 1970s when they were at their peak to the present day when they operate on just seven routes. ...

Following the success of the acclaimed Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" & " The Great Railway Bazaar" " The Last Train to Zona Verde" is an ode to the last African journey of the world's most celebrated travel writer Paul Theroux. ' Happy again back in the kingdom of light ' writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey though the continent he knows & loves best. Having travelled down the right-hand side of Africa in Dark Star Safari he sets out this time from Cape Town heading northwards in a new direction up the left-hand side through South Africa & Namibia to Botswana then on into Angola heading for the Congo in search of the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent in what he feels will be his last African journey Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from both the intineraries of tourists & the hopes of post-colonial independence movements. Leaving the Cape Town townships traversing the Namibian bush passing the browsing cattle of the great sunbaked heartland of the savannah Theroux crosses "the Red Line" into a different Africa: "the improvised slapped-together Africa of tumbled fences & cooking fires of mud & thatch" of heat & poverty & of roadblocks mobs & anarchy. A final African adventure from the writer whose gimlet eye & effortless prose have brought the world to generations of readers " The Last Train to Zona Verde" is Paul Theroux's ultimate safari. Praise for Paul Theroux: " Always a terrific teller of tales & conjurer of exotic locales he writes lean prose that lopes along at a compelling pace". (" Sunday Times"). " One needs energy to keep up with the extraordinary productive restlessness of Paul Theroux...[ He is] the most gifted most prodigal writer of his generation". (Jonathan Raban). " His ability to sum up a city or a people in a few lines is undiminished". (" Daily Telegraph"). Paul Theroux's books include " Dark Star Safari" " Ghost Train to the Eastern Star" " Riding the Iron Rooster" " The Great Railway Bazaar" " The Elephanta Suite" "A Dead Hand" " The Tao of Travel" & " The Lower River". " The Mosquito Coast" & " Dr Slaughter" have both been made into successful films. Paul Theroux divides his time between Cape Cod & the Hawaiian islands." ...

LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS & CARELESS LOVE represent two volumes of arguably the first serious biography that refuses to dwell on the myth of Elvis Presley. Aiming instead to portray in vivid dramatic terms the life & career of this outstanding artistic & cultural phenomenon they draw together a plethora of documentary & interview material to create a superbly coherent & plausible narrative. The first volume LAST TRAIN TO MEMPHIS covers Presleys stunning rise & ended with his departure for Germany & his mothers unexpected death in 1958 while CARELESS LOVE covers the great years of the 60s & the difficult decadent later part of Elviss life up to its untimely end in 1977. ...

During the course of the 1950s England lost confidence in its rulers & convinced itself to modernise. The bankrupt steam-powered railway run by a retired general symbolised everything that was wrong with the country; the future lay in motorways & high speed electric
- or even atomic
- express trains. But plans for a gleaming new railway system ended in failure & on the roads traffic ground to a halt. Along came Dr Beeching forensically analysing the railways' problems & expertly delivering an expert's diagnosis
- a third of the nation's railways must go. This was the point at which the reality of modernisation dawned & rural England fell victim to the road & car
- at least that is how Dr Beeching is remembered today. Last Trains examines why & how the railway system contracted exposing the political failures that bankrupted the railways & examining officials' attempts to understand a transport revolution beyond their control. It is a story of the increasing alienation of bureaucrats from the public they thought they were serving but also of a nation that thinks it lives in the countryside trying to come to terms with modernity.



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Molly Bennett & Nellie Mc Donough are as close as can be. They sort out all the neighbours' problems care for seven children between them & still have time for a giggle & a gossip. So imagine the excitement when Nellie's son Steve proposes to Molly's daughter Jill. But it's not long before unsettling events turn their attention again to friends in need. The Bradley family who have moved in up the street are a bad lot & Molly & Nellie find their hands full with sorting out the troubles that ensue. Meanwhile Molly's teenage daughter Doreen has fallen head over heels in love with a young lad named Philip. She hasn't been with anyone quite like him before & she's in for a terrible shock when she finds out whose family he comes from... ...

These sumptuous new hardback editions mark the 70th anniversary of Fitzgeralds death. Their eyes met & tangled. For an instant they made love as no one ever dares to do after. Their glance was slower than an embrace more urgent than a call. A novel of the glittering decadence of Hollywood in its heyday this was Fitzgeralds last work & he died without completing it. The novels tragic tycoon hero is Stahr. Caught in the crossfire of his own effortless cynicism & his silent secret vulnerability Stahr inhabits a world dominated by business alcohol & promiscuity. If there is a moral or social necessity to film-making in this West Coast never-never land Stahr does not always believe in it. If there is love he does not always see it. The sharpness of Fitzgeralds prose the steely simplicity of his style give a cutting edge to this study of Hollywood in the thirties from which Fitzgerald draws a painfully bitter-sweet love affair & bids his own poignant farewell to the Great American Dream. ...