Clare Peake daughter of the celebrated writer & artist Mervyn Peake tells the story of her parents romance & her own happy & bohemian childhood. Mervyn Peake was born in China the son of medical missionaries & the juxtaposition of his exotic surroundings & the very English manners at home had a lasting effect on him. Reading Treasure Island until he could recite it by heart & waiting for comics to arrive from England had him living a childhood bursting with imagery. He returned to England to study at the Royal Academy School & was then offered a teaching post at Westminster School of Art. There his charismatic & un-worldly presence made a huge impact: none more so than on Maeve Gilmore a seventeen-year-old sculpture student. The couple fell passionately in love but Maeves parents were determined their daughter would not marry a penniless artist & sent her away to forget him. She didnt & refusing to be parted ever again they married when Maeve was nineteen & Mervyn twenty-six. Mervyn Peake developed Parkinsons disease aged forty-five. His decline was rapid & he spent time in & out of mental hospitals until his death at fifty-seven the diagnosis never fully understood. Clare Peake writes movingly of the impact on the family & her mothers determination to continue giving her children the happiness she felt all children deserved. ...

What had until recently been a police sergeant is now lying at Ghotes feet bleeding its last. An accident it may have been but Ghote saw exactly what happened & its his duty to arrest the killer. Isnt it? Or can the inspector better serve his beloved police force by disposing of the body by concealing a crime? & if he does will he manage to keep his terrible secret? As an Inquiry begins beneath the first torrents of monsoon rain
- will he even want to?
...

Escaping a horrible marriage Carolyn Connor has no desire to think about men
- a vow she's determined to keep while on vacation
...

When veteran law-enforcement officer & lifelong motorcycle lover William Queen penetrated the San Fernando chapter of the notorious Mongols he was at the mercy of psychopaths who sought to have him prove his fealty by any means necessary from selling & doing drugs to arms trafficking driving getaway cars & in one shocking instance stitching up the face of a Mongol ol lady after a brutal beating at the hands of her boyfriend. Yet despite the constant criminality of the gang Queen came to see the genuine camaraderie they shared. When his lengthy undercover work totally isolated Queen from his relatives & friends the Mongols felt like the only family he had left. Under & Alone is a breathless adrenalin-charged read that puts you on the street with some of the most dangerous men in America. ...

It is 1793. The thunder of cannon fire echoes across the English Channel chilling the stoutest hearts.. . The opening skirmishes of the French Revolutionary War send ageing frigate HMS Themis into waters swarming with enemy ships of the line. Instructed to survey the French coastline she's soon in the thick of the action: cutlasses slash & bayonets skewer cannons splinter decks & sever limbs. Onto the smoky deck strides young Lieutenant Charles Hayden. With an English father & a French mother the Admiralty are reluctant to give Hayden his first comm&. Instead he is to act as a bulwark between the Themis' tyrannical Captain Hart & a mutinous crew. Steering a course between the cowardly captain & the treacherous crew English common sense & French pride Hayden must first master his wits before challenging the might of the French naval war machine. ...

In 1951 two years before his death Dylan Thomas wrote of his plan to complete a radio play 'an impression for voices an entertainment out of the darkness of the town I live in & to write it simply & warmly & comically with lots of movement & varieties of moods so that at many levels...you come to know the town as an inhabitant of it'. The work was UNDER MILK WOOD
- an orchestration of voices sights & sounds that conjure up the dreams & waking hours of an imagined Welsh seaside village within the cycle of one day.

Includes:: an introduction notes selected criticism & chronology of Thomas's life & times.


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A stellar cast of acclaimed fantasy writers weave spellbinding tales that bring the world of witches to life. Boasting over 70 awards between them including a Newbery Medal five Hugo Awards & a Carnegie Medal the authors delve into the realms of magic to explore all things witchy... From familiars that talk to covens that offer dark secrets to explore these are tales to tickle the hair on the back of your neck & send shivers down your spine. Be truly spooked by these stunning stories by Diana Peterfreund Frances Hardinge Garth Nix Holly Black Charles de Lint Tanith Lee Neil Gaiman Ellen Klages Ellen Kushner Delia Sherman Patricia A. Mc Killip Tim Pratt M. Rickert Isobelle Carmody Jane Yolen Jim Butcher Peter S. Beagle & Margo Lanagan. ...

Sadly death at the races is not uncommon. However three in one afternoon was sufficiently unusual to raise more than an eyebrow." Its the third death that really troubles former champion jump-jockey Sid Halley. He knows the perils of racing all too well
- but in his day jockeys didnt usually reach the finishing line with three. 38 rounds in the chest. But this is precisely how he finds Huw Walker
- the new winner of the Triumph Hurdle & Halleys friend. Now former friend. Walker was riding one of Lord Enstones horses in the Hurdle & it was the inimitable owner who invited Halley in the first place. His brief: to make discrete enquiries into alleged race fixing. Are results being rigged? Are bookies taking a cut? & if so are trainers & jockeys playing a dangerous game with stakes far higher than they realise.. . Halleys quest for answers draws him ever deeper into the darker side of the race game in a life-or-death power-play that will push him to his very limits
- both professionally & personally."


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Its the third death on Cheltenham Gold Cup Day that really troubles super-sleuth Sid Halley. Former champion jockey Halley knows the perils of racing all too well -- but in his day jockeys didnt usually reach the finishing line with three. 38 rounds in the chest. But this is precisely how he finds jockey Huw Walker -- who only a few hours earlier had won the coveted Triumph Hurdle. Just moments before the gruesome discovery Halley had been called upon by Lord Enstone to make discreet enquiries into why his horses appeared to be on a permanent losing streak. Are races being fixed? Are bookies taking a cut? & if so are trainers & jockeys playing a dangerous game with stakes far higher than they realise? Halleys quest for answers draws him ever deeper into the darker side of the race game in a life-or-death power play that will push him to his very limits -- both professionally & personally. ...

Don Mc Rae grew up in a South Africa where his father would call the black men he met boy & where his mother insisted that their black servants used tin mugs plates & cutlery as they ate the familys left-over food in the backyard of their grand suburban property. The Mc Raes like so many white people seemed oblivious to the violent injustices of apartheid. As the author grew up the political differences between father & son widened & when Don refused to join up for National Service risking imprisonment or exile overseas the two were torn apart. It wasnt until years later that the author discovered that the father with whom he had fought so bitterly had later in his life transformed himself into a political hero. Risking everything one dark & rainy night Ian Mc Rae travelled secretly into the black township of Soweto to meet members of Nelson Mandelas then banned African National Congress to discuss ways to bring power to black South Africa. He had no political ambitions; he was just a man trying to replace the worst in himself with something better. Under Our Skin is a memoir of these tumultuous years in South Africas history as told through the authors family story. It offers an intimate & penetrating perspective on life under apartheid & tells a story of courage & fear hope & desolation & love & pain especially between a father & his son. ...