What turns an ordinary man into an extraordinary one? The answer lies in the stories of six teenage volunteers for Second World War aircrew who exchanged school uniform for Air Force Blue & took a giant step into the unknown. Based on original research from flying log books diaries & family archives this collection of true tales describes the mens training for those coveted Wings; the nervous excitement of that first sortie over enemy territory; & flying into the hell of an enemy flak barrage & fighters. From the skies over Europe to jungles & deserts all endured hardship adventure & danger. They experienced action under enemy fire wounds burns & crash-landings escape & evasion in occupied territory & the privations of life as a POW. Seventy years on & these brushes with death are by any measure hair-raising encounters that turned adolescents into men
- some of whom survived the war while others paid the ultimate price.
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The sinister & fast moving events in Montenegro the Balkan wars the apparent encirclement of Germany & Austria-Hungary by Britain France & Russia & finally the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand all lead inexorably to the youth of Hungary marching gaily off not only to their death on the field of battle but to the dismemberment of their once great country. ...

Balint Abady is forced to part the beautiful & unhappily married Adrienne Uzdy. Laszlo Gyeroffy is rapidly heading for self-destruction through drink & his own feckleness. The politicians quarrelling among themselves & stubbornly ignoring their countrymens real needs are still pursuing their vendetta with Habsburg rule from Vienna. Meanwhile they fail to notice how the Great Powers
- through such events as Austrias annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908
- are moving ever closer to the conflagration of 1914-1918 that will destroy their world forever.

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While an undergraduate Carl Chinn recalls a lecturer postulating that working-class women were downtrodden & brow-beaten by their men: I remember thinking Theyre not in my family".. .I lacked the confidence to disagree & to tell him that I knew many working-class women who were at least the equals of their men & who could fight physically. Indeed the first fight I had seen was when I was ten. My Nan had taken me & my brother down the Villa. An away fan had pinched Our Kids scarf & Our Nan just four foot eleven tall turned round & laid the chap out with one punch. A tough woman whose fore-finger had been torn off by a machine at work Our Nan was the daughter mother & grandmother of strong working-class women. Often strong physically women of the urban poor worked from when they were toddlers until they died. They worked inside & outside the house cooking washing cleaning & planning how to get by; they worked as domestics in the houses of a middle class often arrogant & condescending in their attitudes towards them; they worked in factories shops mills & workshops; they worked in their neighbourhoods in providing vital services for their neighbours. Often earning her own income & receiving the earnings of her children it was the mother who was in charge of the daily battle against hunger & hardships. Such supreme dedication & true grit earned these women the central role in the family & fostered the devotion of their children who recognised a mothers command of the household finances her ability to maintain a familys self-sufficiency through careful housekeeping & creative cooking & her valiant efforts to stay clean & respectable. Married daughters chose to live close to their mothers forming extended families in settled neighbourhoods & furthering cementing strong kinship ties. Older married women who were grannies & aunts held sway over large familial networks & from this position of importance many of them achieved status in their neighbourhoods as layers-out unofficial midwives wise women custodians of the moral code & guardians of the group consciousness. The women of the urban poor worked all their lives for their families & neighbours: they deserve our respect & admiration." ...

Carr
- ex-CIA
- is the reluctant leader of an elite crew planning a robbery of such extraordinary proportions that it will leave

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Old ghosts of different kinds come back to haunt Fix in the fourth gripping Felix Castor novel. Names & faces he thought he'd left behind in Liverpool resurface in London bringing Castor far more trouble than he'd anticipated. Childhood memories family traumas sins old & new & a council estate that was meant to be a modern utopia until it turned into something like hell.. .these are just some of the sticks life uses to beat Felix Castor with as things go from bad to worse for London's favourite freelance exorcist. See Castor's stepped over the line this time & he knows he'll have to pay; the only question is: how much? Not the best of times then for an unwelcome confrontation with his holier-than-thou brother Matthew. & just when he thinks things can't possibly get any worse along comes Father Gwillam & the Anathemata. Oh joy.. . ...

Bestseller Clive Cussler
- author of the Dirk Pitt" novels " Crescent Dawn" & " Atlantis Found"
- &

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The Thief" is Clive Cusslers fifth historical thriller featuring detective Isaac Bell. A bold kidnapping aboard an ocean liner sends detective Isaac Bell across America in a deadly game of cat & mouse... Leaving England aboard the liner Mauretania Isaac Bell chief investigator at the legendary Van Dorn Detective Agency stumbles on & thwarts a kidnapping. The two victims who have fled Europe carrying a secret invention fear that a foreign power wishes to steal it before they can bring it to America. Bell & the Van Dorn Agency offer to protect them. & it isnt long before Bell is fighting skullduggery in the middle of the Atlantic. In New York City as well as across the country as he & the inventors head for California the deadly chase is on. On their trail is the murderous agent known only as the Acrobat instructed to steal this world-changing invention
- & kill anyone in his way... Bestseller Clive Cussler
- author of the " Dirk Pitt" novels " Crescent Dawn" & " Atlantis Found"
- has legendary super-sleuth Isaac Bell protect a top-secret invention with the power to shape the course of history. " The Thief" is the fifth novel in the " Isaac Bell" series following " The Race". Praise for Clive Cussler: " The Adventure King". (" Daily Express"). " The guy I read". (Tom Clancy). Bestselling author Clive Cussler has kept readers on the edges of their seats for four decades with his thrilling action novels. As well as " The Isaac Bell Adventures" there are also the "NUMA" & " Oregon Files" series the " Dirk Pitt" stories (which started it all) & the " Fargo" series. Other titles in Cusslers first historical series
- " The Isaac Bell Adventures"
- include " The Chase" " The Spy" " The Race" & " The Thief" which are all available from Penguin. Justin Scott is the author of twenty-seven novels including " The Shipkiller" & " Normandie Triangle"."




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Every day hapless hopefuls
- or coneys as the locals call them
- come to dirty & dangerous London town trying to seek their

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In 1876 a man named Henry Wickham smuggled seventy thousand rubber tree seeds out of the rain forests of Brazil & delivered them to Victorian Englands most prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. Those seeds planted around the world in Englands colonial outposts gave rise to the great rubber boom of the early twentieth century
- an explosion of entrepreneurial & scientific industry that would change the world. The story of how Wickham got his hands on those seeds
- a sought-after prize for many suffered & died
- is the stuff of legend. In this lively account of obsession greed bravery & betrayal author & journalist Joe Jackson brings to life a classic Victorian fortune-hunter & the empire that fueled then abandoned him. The Thief at the End of the World" is a thrilling true story of reckless courage & ambition."


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