Just before 3am on January 24th 1941 when Britain was preoccupied with surviving the Blitz the body of Josslyn Hay Earl of Erroll was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi with a bullet in his head. A leading figure in Kenyas colonial community the Earl had recently been appointed Military Secretary but he was primarily a seducer of other mens wives. Sir Henry Delves Broughton whose wife was Errolls current conquest had an obvious motive for the murder but no one was ever convicted & the question of who killed him became a classic mystery a scandal & cause celebre. Among those who became fascinated with the Erroll case was Cyril Connolly who joined up with James Fox for a major investigation of the case in 1969 for the Sunday Times magazine. After his death James Fox inherited the obsession & a commitment to continue in pursuit of the story both in England & Kenya in the late 1970s. One day on a veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean Fox came across a piece of evidence that seemed to bring all the fragments & pieces together & convinced him that he saw a complete picture... ...

White Mughals is the romantic & ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that transcended all the cultural religious & political boundaries of its time. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa
- Most Excellent among Women
- the great-niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her & overcame many obstacles to marry her converting to Islam & according to Indian sources becoming a double-agent working against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story but such things were not unknown: from the early sixteenth century to the eve of the Indian Mutiny the white Mughals who wore local dress & adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassment to successive colonial administrations. Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as Hindoo Stuart who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols & Sir David Auchterlony who took all 13 of his Indian wives out for evening promenades each on the back of her own elephant. In White Mughals William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history & places at its centre a compelling tale of seduction & betrayal.

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When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognizes the victim -- a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death. Yet this is no desperate act of anguish but the work of a cold & calculating killer. As Perez investigates he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of the small Biddista community. Then another body is found. Perez knows he must break the cycle before another death occurs. But this is a crazy time of year when night blurs into day & nothing is quite as it seems.. . ...

First published in 1985 White Noise won the National Book Award. It is now regarded as a classic of postmodern literature. Jack Gladney is a pioneering professor in the field of Hitler Studies at the bucolic Midwestern College-on-the-Hill. Married five times he has a brood of children & stepchildren with his current wife Babette. Over the course of an absurd tragic year Jack & Babette will each be forced to confront the question that keeps them awake at night: who will die first? In 2012 Picador celebrates its 40th anniversary. During that time we have published many prize-winning & bestselling authors including Bret Easton Ellis & Cormac Mc Carthy Alice Sebold & Helen Fielding Graham Swift & Alan Hollinghurst. Years later Picador continue to bring readers the very best contemporary fiction non-fiction & poetry from across the globe. Discover more at http://www.picador.com/40 ...

White Oleander is a painfully beautiful first novel about a young girl growing up the hard way. It is a powerful story of mothers & daughters their ambiguous alliances their selfish love & cruel behaviour & the search for love & identity. Astrid has been raised by her mother a beautiful headstrong poet. Astrid forgives her everything as her world revolves around this beautiful creature until Ingrid murders a former lover & is imprisoned for life. Astrid's fierce determination to survive & be loved makes her an unforgettable figure. 'LIQUID POETRY'
- Oprah Winfrey ' Tangled Complex & extraordinarily moving'
- Observer

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Malaya 1941. As the glamorous wife of a plantation owner Connie Hadley appears to lead a pampered & comfortable life. But she is hiding devastating secrets that could destroy her marriage. Life is changed for ever on the day of the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor. As Japanese Zero aircraft attack the town of Palur Connie takes the decision to flee to Singapore on the familys boat The White Pearl. She sails with her husband & son three friends & the enigmatic boat dealer Fitzpayne who is the only one who can navigate the islands of the South China Sea. In desperation short of food & constantly in danger fear strips away good manners; tensions arise on the yacht & anger causes deadly divisions between friends.. . ...

When Tom Headley enlists underage in the Great War he & his childhood friends head straight to the front line as tunnellers. In tragic circumstances Tom is blamed for the deaths of his comrades. His family & sweetheart back home are shunned by the community. Eighty years later a young schoolgirl sets out to research her great grandparents as part of a Poppy Day project. She uncovers shocking truths & in doing so rights a wrong that has lasted for generations & rewrites history...* Engaging accessible dialogue * Many cross-curricular links * Perfect for exploring the relevance of history today. ...

Internationally bestselling author Philippa Gregory brings the tumult & intrigue of The Wars of the Roses to vivid life through the women of the House of Lancaster & the House of York beginning with the story of Elizabeth Woodville the White Queen. A woman who won the love of a king & ascended to royalty by virtue of her beauty Elizabeth fought tenaciously for the success of her family -- her daughter who would one day unite the warring dynasties & her two sons whose eventual fate has confounded historians for centuries: the Princes in the Tower. An active player in the power struggles that surrounded her she made hard & courageous choices always trying to protect those whom she loved. Informed by impeccable research & framed by her inimitable storytelling skills Philippa Gregory gives an unforgettable voice to an extraordinary woman at the heart of a devastating conflict. ...

The first in a stunning new series The Cousins War is set amid the tumult & intrigue of The War of the Roses. Internationally ...

In South Carolina a young black man faces the death penalty for the rape & murder of Marianne Larousse daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the state. It's a case that nobody wants to touch a case with its roots in old evil & old evil is private detective Charlie Parker's speciality. But Parker is about to make a descent into the abyss a confrontation with dark forces that threaten all that Parker holds dear: his lover his unborn child even his soul... For in a prison cell a fanatical preacher is about to take his revenge on Charlie Parker its instruments the very men that Parker is hunting & a strange hunched creature that keeps its own secrets buried by a riverbank: the undiscovered killer Cyrus Nairn. Soon all of these figures will face a final reckoning in southern swamps & northern forests in distant locations linked by a single thread a place where the paths of the living & the dead converge. A place known only as the White Road. ...