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.

...

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

...

Its the kind of f***-up that would normally have Malcolm Tucker Number 10s Communications Director the master of spin & the Matrix spitting blood.. . No the guilty party in this instance is none other than Tucker himself. The man who likes to keep an iron grip on every news item in the media & every policy announcement that comes out of the government has only gone & Left a confidential file on a train
- The Do SAC Files". Based around the idea that King of Spin Malcolm Tucker has lost a confidential & highly-damaging file on a train this book is a collection of highly sensitive documents: personnel files policy drafts letters & emails transcripts of phone calls election campaign documents & top secret papers on the governments media strategy for wars & recessions. There are also more personal documents such as the early drafts of Tuckers diary in no legal condition for publication. Its explosive stuff which could end careers on both sides including Tuckers own... From the team behind the award-winning & phenomenally successful " The Thick Of It" & the Oscar-nominated " In The Loop" comes the official tie-in book " The Do SAC Files". Written by the shows creator Armando Iannucci along with his co-writers Jesse Armstrong Tony Roche Simon Blackwell & swearing consultant Ian Martin " The Do SAC Files" looks set to be the political satire event of the year."
...

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.. . ...

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"."




...

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

...

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."


...

Winter has come early to Venice. Two orphaned children are on the run hiding among the crumbling canals & misty alleyways of the city. Befriended by a gang of street children & their mysterious leader the Thief Lord they shelter in an old disused cinema. On their trail is a bungling detective obsessed with disguises & the health of his pet tortoises. But a greater threat to the boys new-found freedom is something from a forgotten past
- a beautiful magical treasure with the power to spin time itself.
...

When society widow Lady Isabel Beckinhall becomes involved with the Home for Unfortunate Infants & Foundling Children she soon clashes with its manager Winter Makepeace whom she finds severely monastic terribly solemn.. .and quite distractingly intriguing. & Winter does have a secret: at night he transforms into the masked avenger the Ghost of St Giles. After the infamous Ghost of St Giles is wounded while rescuing a notorious pirate from the gallows Isabel has no choice but to hide him from a ravenous mob though doesn't discover his identity. Winter is haunted by this glimpse of the tender
- & sensuous
- side of Lady Beckinhall though he knows that they are too far apart socially to ever be together. But when a relentless dragoon captain begins hunting the Ghost of St Giles Winter must decide if he can trust his secret his life
- & his heart
- to Isabel's hands.



...