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. ...

The classic bestseller by the acclaimed author of The Shell Seekers & Winter Solstice now available in a new edition. No two women could have been more different. No two women could have been closer... Flora & Rose are identical twins who do not know of each others existence. Rose has been raised by her frivolous mother with the glossy international jet set. Flora has spend her childhoold in the beauty & quiet of her fathers Cornish cottage. & then by chance they meet. The encounter seems heaven-sent to Rose who longs to escape from a man she no longer desires. Flora can free her & in taking her sisters place her uneventful life is changed forever. She finds drama & danger
- & glimpses a happiness beyond her wildest dreams.
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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. ...

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. ...

In Under Pressure" Thomas Keller shows us how sous vide which involves packing food in airtight plastic bags & cooking at low heat achieves results that other cooking methods simply cannot
- in flavour & precision. For example steak that is a perfect medium rare from top to bottom; & meltingly tender yet medium rare short ribs that havent lost their flavour to the sauce. Fish which has a small window of doneness is easier to finesse & salmon develops a voluptuous texture when cooked at a low temperature. Fruit & vegetables benefit too retaining their bright colour while achieving remarkable textures. There is wonderment in cooking sous vide
- in the ease & precision (salmon cooked at 123 degrees versus 120 degrees!) & the capacity to cook a piece of meat (or glaze carrots or poach lobster) uniformly."

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There's a reason why Stephen King is one of the best selling writers in the world ever. He knows how to write stories that suck you in & are impossible to put down. The New York Times describes it as a 'relentless tidal pull' & Stephen King has done it time & time again with stories like The Shawshank Redemption Misery The Green Mile & The St&. In Under the Dome he has produced another riveting masterpiece. The end of every chapter hooks you into the next drawing you inside a psychological drama that is so rich you don't read it you live it. It is the story of the small town of Chester's Mill Maine which is inexplicably & suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. No one can get in & no one can get out. The normal rules of society are suddenly changed & when food electricity & water run short the community begins to crumble. As a new & more sinister social order develops Dale Barbara Iraq veteran teams up with a handful of intrepid citizens to fight against the corruption that is sweeping through the town & to try to discover the source of the Dome before it is too late.. . ...

Celebrated storyteller Stephen King returns to his roots in this tour de force featuring more than 100 characters
- some heroic
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