Contemporary Fiction Books

Book SynopsisDinaw Mengestu was born in Ethiopia in 1978 and is a graduate of Georgetown and Columbia universities. His 2007 debut novel, Children of the Revolution, won the Guardian First Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2010, he was included in the New Yorker's '20 Under 40' list of writers to watch. He is also the author of How To Read The Air.Trade ReviewA quietly accomplished debut novel... Despite, or perhaps because of, the attritions of his years in exile, Sepha has remained astonishingly tender. In the end, it is this human warmth that triumphs * Guardian *Brilliant... a courageous and engaging novel * Daily Telegraph *With faultless pitch and tone, this elegiac first novel packs great matters into its modest span * Independent *A quietly brilliant portrait of immigrant life... Children of the Revolution reads like an Ethopian variation on The Great Gatsby. Remarkably it's not diminished by this comparison * Financial Times *A rich and lyrical story of displacement and loneliness. I was profoundly moved by this tale of an Ethiopian immigrant's search for acceptance, peace, and identity... Mengestu makes us feel this tortured soul's longings, regrets, and in the end, his dreams of meaningful human connection -- Khaled Hosseini * The Kite Runner *

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Book SynopsisThe perfect gift for Valentine's DayPossession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story. It is the tale of a pair of young scholars investigating the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time.Trade ReviewA triumphant success on every level * Cosmopolitan *Teeming with more ideas than a year's worth of ordinary novels * Spectator *This is a novel for every taste: a heartbreaking Victorian love story, a take-no-prisoners comedy of contemporary academic life, and an unputdownable supernatural mystery. You turn the last page feeling stunned and elated, happy to have had the chance to read it * Washington Post *Possession is eloquent about the intense pleasures of reading. And, with sumptuous artistry, it provides a feast of them * Sunday Times *Our best novelist * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisI Wish Someone Were Waiting For Me Somewhere explores how a life can be changed irrevocably in just one fateful moment. A pregnant mother''s plans for the future unravel at the hospital; a travelling salesman learns the consequences of an almost-missed exit on the motorway in the newspaper the next morning; while a perfect date is spoilt by a single act of thoughtlessness. In those crucial moments Gavalda demonstrates her almost magical skill in conveying love, lust, longing, and loneliness.Someone I Loved is a hauntingly intimate look at the intolerably painful, yet sometimes valuable consequences that adultery can have on a marriage and the individuals involved. A simple tale, yet long in substance, Someone I Loved ends like most great love affairs, forever leaving you wanting just one more moment.Trade ReviewHer books have both wit and a whimsical charm * Sunday Telegraph *Gavalda sees through ordinary appearances to people's hidden longings... A gifted literary stylist * Vogue *A distant descendant of Dorothy Parker * Voici *A collection as tender as it is scathing * Le Monde *

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Book SynopsisMargery Allingham was born in London in 1904. She sold her first story at age 8 and published her first novel before turning 20. She married the artist, journalist and editor Philip Youngman Carter in 1927. In 1928 Allingham published her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, and the following year, in The Crime at Black Dudley, she introduced the detective who was to become the hallmark of her sophisticated crime novels and murder mysteries - Albert Campion. Famous for her London thrillers, such as Hide My Eyes and The Tiger in the Smoke, Margery Allingham has been compared to Dickens in her evocation of the city's shady underworld. Acclaimed by crime novelists such as P.D. James, Allingham is counted alongside Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Gladys Mitchell as a pre-eminent Golden Age crime writer. Margery Allingham died in 1966.Trade ReviewDon't start reading these books unless you are confident that you can handle addiction * Independent *The real queen of crime * Guardian *Margery Allingham has worked her way up to a worthy place among the tiny hierarchy of front-rankers in the detective world * Tatler *Spending an evening with Campion is one of life's pure pleasures * Saturday Review *Miss Allingham's strength lies in the power of her characterization * New York Times *

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Book SynopsisIn addition, his own illustrious adopted family has a sinister secret of its own - involving a murderous nineteenth-century governess - that must also be brought to light by Campion's investigations.As urbane as Lord Wimsey…as ingenious as Poirot… Meet one of crime fiction’s Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.Trade ReviewMargery Allingham has worked her way up to a worthy place among the tiny hierarchy of front-rankers in the detective world * Tatler *One of the finest 'golden age' crime novelists * Sunday Telegraph *Faultless * The Times *Allingham captures her quintessential quiet detective Albert Campion to perfection... For those who relish classic crime fiction * Daily Express *

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Book SynopsisDiscover a moving tale of isolation and the painful loss of innocence.**NOW AN INTERNATIONAL AWARD-WINNING FILM**In 1948, when he is fifteen, Trond spends a summer in the country with his father. The events - the accidental death of a child, his best friend''s feelings of guilt and eventual disappearance, his father''s decision to leave the family for another woman - will change his life forever.As a 67-year-old man, and following the death of his wife, Trond has moved to an isolated part of Norway to live in solitude. But a chance encounter with a character from the fateful summer of 1948 brings the painful memories of that year flooding back and will leave Trond even more convinced of his decision to end his days alone.''One of Norway''s finest living writers'' Independent''Deeply atmospheric...a stunning novel'' Daily TelegraphTrade ReviewLyrical, deceptively clever...the way the story folds together like the petals of a rose is one of the novel's pleasurable surprises...an intelligent journey from boyhood into manhood... * Daily Telegraph *Deeply atmospheric...concise beauty of his prose movingly captures the Norwegian landscape and rural way of life...This stunning novel will tell you more about the Norwegian countryside and psyche than the most enthusiastically well-informed guide book' * Daily Telegraph *Petterson catches so effectively the thing that haunts all of us, the knowledge of how fragile life is...He captures the essence of a man's existence with a clean-lined freshness that hits you like a burst of winter air - surprising and breathtaking...touching humour...the narrative is beautifully balanced...Petterson writes with robust unpretentiousness. His story gathers pace like growing up, and stimulates heart and mind like a brisk country walk. * Daily Express *Limpid prose...an impressive novel of rare and exemplary moral courage. * Independent on Sunday *A novel of considerable quality. * Scotsman *

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Book SynopsisMari sips her coffee and reads a book, but soon her solitude is disturbed: a girl has been beaten up at the Alphaville hotel, and needs Mari's help. Meanwhile Mari's beautiful sister Eri lies in a deep, heavy sleep that is 'too perfect, too pure' to be normal;Trade ReviewStylish and enigmatic * Economist *The novel could be an allegory of sleep, a phenomenology of time, or a cinematic metafiction. Whatever it is, its memory lingers * Guardian *The narrative carries considerable literary weight with a rare grace * Spectator *A captivating mood piece, delicate and wistful * Evening Standard *

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Book SynopsisSome things are easier to forget than others...Detective Inspector Ray Lennox has fled to Miami to escape the aftermath of a mental breakdown induced by occupational stress and cocaine abuse, and a harrowing child-sex murder case back in Edinburgh. But his fiancée Trudi is only interested in planning their wedding, leaving Lennox cast adrift, alone in Florida.A coke-fuelled binge brings him into contact with another victim of sexual predation, ten-year-old Tianna, and Lennox flees across the state with his terrified charge, determined to protect her at any cost.Can Lennox trust his own instincts? And can he handle Tianna, while still trying to get to grips with the Edinburgh murder?''A triumph'' Observer''Welsh is one of our most interesting writers'' Sunday Telegraph''A disturbing but vital read'' Harper''s Bazaar*DISCOVER THE SECOND NOVEL IN IRVINE WELSH''S CRIME STrade ReviewA triumph... A great, redemptive book... It leaves you wanting more, much more * Observer *Powerful, passionate writing... Welsh gets it just right * Literary Review *Powerful... A bracing and engaging read * Daily Telegraph *Crime is by some distance Welsh's most restrained and thoughtful work * The Times *You never know what you're going to get with Irvine Welsh, other than guaranteed intelligence. But what you get here is a triumph. A brave take on paedophile rings and the minds, fast and slow, behind them... There are echoes of rebus, of Christopher Brookmyre, even of Carl Hiaasen... There's only one Welsh and you should be reading him again * Observer *

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Book SynopsisFrom the bestselling author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel1916. Pretty Eithne Clay runs a ramshackle South London boarding house with the help of her teenage son, Ralph, and their maid, Winnie. Struggling to keep herself, her lodgers, and her son going as every day life vanishes in the face of war, Eithne's world is transformed by the arrival of Mr Turk, the virile, carnal, carnivorous local butcher who falls passionately in love with her. As the house bursts to life with the electricity metaphorical and real he brings, dark secrets come to lightTrade ReviewFrom the first perfect sentence this novel is a gem. Its pared sentences and vocabulary really capture the time * Evening Standard *The Moggacch miracle continues- here's another vivid, gripping yarn from the author of Tulip Fever... with a plot as twisty as a mountain road * The Times *This wartime novel of ordinary Londoners is atmospheric and buzzing with electricity... a spirited portrait of lives thrown into turmoil by the Great War * Daily Express *Like the recent novels by Ian McEwan and Sarah Waters, In the Dark successfully modernises the past. By focusing on life's murkier undercurrents... the characters come to seem appealingly familiar -- Sophia Harrison * Sunday Times *A thoughtful diligent writer * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisCharting loss, love, and the difficult art of growing up, these stories unfurl with wicked humour and insight. a boy whose dreams foretell implacable tragedies is sent to 'Sleepaway Camp for Disordered Dreamers' (Cabin 1, Narcoleptics;Trade ReviewHer debut collection paints a refreshingly surreal vision of small-town life... Selected by Granta as one of America's best young novelists, Russell is an intuitive writer with a gift for arresting prose * Independent *An exuberant collection; each story bursts forth from the pages with a cacophony of imagery that sweeps up the reader * The Times *Outrageously imaginative and profoundly funny... surreal... impressive in many ways... Her imagination is agile, like the body of a champion gymnast, and she lets it dance... Does anyone over here write like this, with such freedom, such vivacity? A wild and brilliant first book * Irish Times *Arcane, magical tales of adolescent transformation... reminiscent of Angela Carter but wonderfully confident and refreshing in its own right * Guardian *Delights in the quirky...truly magical and creepy settings * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisSet in Denmark in the here and now, The Quiet Girl centres around Kaspar Krone, a world-renowned circus clown with a deep love for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and an even deeper gambling debt. Wanted for tax evasion and on the verge of extradition, Krone is drafted into the service of a mysterious order of nuns who promise him reprieve from the international authorities in return for his help safeguarding a group of children with mystical abilities.When one of the children goes missing a year later, Krone sets off to find the young girl and bring her back, making a shocking series of discoveries along the way about her identity and the true intentions of his young wards.Trade ReviewSuperb new novel...At once intricate and explosive, The Quiet Girl is elegantly written and furiously plotted, resonant (though not acoustically) of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy and also David Mamet's elaborately staged deceptions * Independent on Sunday *In Høeg's hallucinatory prose, Copenhagen has a sinister near-future feel... there are also passages of lyrical beauty * Financial Times *Striking and deeply felt... confirms that Høeg is a writer determined to make new footprints in the snow -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *He writes entertainingly, at times lyrically, at times scathingly * Scotland on Sunday *The Quiet Girl has Hoeg's best-selling hallmarks - including an off-kilter hero in the shape of Kasper Krone, a world-famous clown with a penchant for poker and mysticism * Daily Mail *

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Book SynopsisIt is 1995 and Noa and Amir have decided to move in together. Noa is studying photography in Jerusalem and Amir is a psychology student in Tel Aviv, so they choose a tiny flat in a village in the hills, between the two cities.Trade ReviewA compelling novel which I never wanted to end * Independent *A moving, memorably human tale of love, history and belonging * Daily Mail *The novel's heartfelt bass note is the beauty and difficulty of human relationships, evoked with sympathy and an ear for the nuances of different voices which is as playful as it is precise * Times Literary Supplement *A warm, wise and sophisticated novel -- Amos OzA brave and and moving novel... prepare to be engrossed * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisJohn Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry.Trade ReviewA novel that pierces the heart of evil... Consume it at night. Turn out the lights and watch the walls glow * Scotsman *Baffling, haunting, terrifying, moving, and compulsively readable * Daily Telegraph *In the end we are left with the resonance of a book whose centre is nowhere but whose circumference is extraordinarily large * Financial Times *Nobody does eerie quite like John Burnside... exquisite and haunting..... the violence in Glister is shot through with an awful grace...As with all of Burnside's work - poetry, novels and memoir - there is a vision of something inexplicable at the heart of things. I doubt I will read a more unsettling and memorable book this year * Scotland on Sunday *Darkly compelling murder mystery., the novel is also a densely layered engagement with questions of politics, spirituality, environmentalism and meta fiction. It is an incredible book; its echoes sound long after the end has been reached * Big Issue *

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Book SynopsisSend Me No Flowers is the story of a young woman''s fight for survival.Donna Stewart''s family is poor but respectable and hard working. Donna is beautiful and clever - about to go up to university. Celebrating her exam results with her friends at a club, she meets Danny Lester, ten years older, much richer, a businessman - he sweeps her off her feet. Despite warnings from friends and family, Donna enjoys Danny''s wild streak. She believes this is the man she will marry and live with happy ever after. But it gradually emerges that ''Danny the knife'' is a dangerous criminal - and a sadist. She is introduced to a world of drugs and prostitutes, where Danny gets his kicks by terrifying her. The longer she leaves it, the harder it will be to escape. But eventually, helped by a loyal circle of female friends, she works out a plan.Trade ReviewA brutally disturbing story. Truely shocking. * Daily Mirror *Her story is horrifying and terrifyingly explicit in parts, but Tomlin's words are always believable. Donna's spiral downwards is the stuff of nightmares and a warning to anyone who thinks they can handle a cocktail of drugs and love. In parts I was almost too sickened to carry on - but I could not put it down. (5 stars) * News of the World *

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Book SynopsisDon Winslow has worked as a movie theatre manager, a production assistant, and as a private investigator. In addition to being a novelist he now works as an independent consultant in issues involving litigation arising from criminal behaviour. His novels include The Kings of Cool, Savages, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, California Fire and Life, The Power of the Dog, The Winter of Frankie Machine and The Dawn Patrol. In 2012 Savages was released as a blockbuster film.Trade ReviewIt's no mean achievement to make the world of surfing fascinating to confirmed landlubbers . . . Slowly builds to a moving, lethal climax that will take your breath away * Evening Standard *Winslow creates ripping plots . . . Convincing characters, an exotic setting . . . Winslow knows exactly when to pile on the pressure -- Henry Sutton * The Mirror *Witty and enjoyable crime thriller * Independent on Sunday *Might be the best summertime crime novel ever * San Francisco Chronicle *Heartbreaking . . . Could be a breakthrough for Winslow * Los Angeles Times *

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Book SynopsisPassions run high and play out at court in this glorious depiction of Edward II''s reign from multi-million copy and international bestselling author Jean Plaidy. Perfect for readers of Philippa Gregory. ''Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity'' -- Guardian''Jean Plaidy''s books are a celebration of women''s spirit throughout history'' --Daily Express''Outstanding'' -- Vanity Fair''I am thoroughly enjoying this Plantagenet series and am making my way through them all savouring each page'' -- ***** Reader review''An excellent read - hard to put down'' -- ***** Reader review''Brilliant as always'' -- ***** Reader review''A book you cannot put down'' -- ***** Reader review******************************************************************Trade ReviewOne of the country's most widely read novelists * Sunday Times *Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity * Guardian *Jean Plaidy's books are a celebration of women's spirit throughout history * Daily Express *Outstanding * Vanity Fair *Full-blooded, dramatic, exciting * Observer *

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Book Synopsis''A writer of real gravitas and potency.'' Ali Smith''An extraordinary journey ... Engrossing, original and eloquent.'' Helen Dunmore''Elegiac and beautifully observed.'' Observer''Vivid and captivating.'' StylistI didn't realise my mother was a person until I was thirteen years old and she pulled me out of bed, put me in the back of her car, and we left home and my dad with no explanations. I thought that Ma was all that she was and all that she had ever wanted to be. I was wrong...As Ma and Alex make their way from Virginia to California, each new state prompts stories and secrets of a life before Alex. Together they put to rest unsettled scores, heal old wounds, and search out lost friends. But Alex can''t forget the life they''ve left behind.Trade ReviewSara Taylor’s The Lauras just persuaded me even more that Taylor is a writer of real gravitas and potency. It feels, to read her, uncanny – a bit reminiscent of reading early Atwood three decades ago. She’s a writer whose talent, a fusion of sure-footed, calm and uncompromising, is both quiet and prodigious. -- Ali Smith * Guardian, 'Best Books of 2016' *Elegiac and beautifully observed… Our sympathies remain with the narrator throughout. Scenes of violence, abuse and ritual humiliation are described in such visceral detail that the injustice of Alex’s experience burns on to the page … Taylor has a great ear for language, with the kind of sentences that make you pause and read a second time … It is such acute observations of her imaginary world that saw Taylor’s debut novel, The Shore longlisted for the Bailey’s prize, and it should be no great surprise to find her second novel following in its footsteps … At the heart of the novel’s themes of family, love, loss, and identity – not to mention the power, destruction and redemption within the parent-child relationship – is a meditation on gender: on our determination to define and categorise, and on the need by some to belittle or abuse based on that distinction. * Observer *A strong voice ... both lyrical and down-to-earth ...Taylor’s sense of place is one of her greatest strengths. She writes about versions of America that few outsiders ever see ... There is nothing gratuitous about her writing. All of these places are there because they matter and because being in them changes the characters or reveals their histories ... An extraordinary journey ... There’s violence and pain in The Lauras ... The Lauras is a fine achievement, engrossing, original and eloquent, and Taylor has more than fulfilled the promise of The Shore. -- Helen Dunmore * Guardian *Sara Taylor’s tour-de-force debut, The Shore, was an intriguing set of interlocked short stories, spanning generations and crossing genres … She more than keeps the promise of The Shore in The Lauras. If there is one significant difference it is that The Shore was fiercely bound to a place, whereas The Lauras is a road trip ricocheting around North America. It is a road trip of both inner space and outer vistas … Alex does not identify as either sex, nor gender. If you re-read this review at this point you will see how I avoided using a pronoun that might indicate a specificity that Alex renounces. The book does this brilliantly … It is exceptionally moving, and the novel it reminded me of most is James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, not in terms of structure or intent or sentences, but in beguiling the reader into identifying with someone they thought they couldn’t … On the way, Alex will be tormented, abused, adored and ignored. Some of these scenes are gut-wrenching; some of them are quietly beautiful. Taylor’s prose is remarkable; both intense and expansive, both precise and wonderfully sfumato … The writing about Alex exploring different wildernesses is astonishing; the pages about Alex masturbating – and let’s remember we do not and cannot know what is actually going on – are in a strange way sublime … A joy. -- Stuart Kelly * The Scotsman *A beautiful, irreverent meditation of self, sexuality and growing up. On each stop of the trip is a woman named Laura. Each has played a part in Alex’s mother’s fractured past, and together they reveal how many people we sometimes need to make a love story. -- Heather O'Neill, author of 'Lullabies for Little Criminals'

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2018''In evocative and elegant prose Cocozza delves deep into the psyche of a strange and troubled woman. The reader is invited to share in her intense connection to a fox and will admire the author's mordantly witty dissection of contemporary manners.'' -Sarah Perry, chair of Judges for Desmond Elliott PrizeYou've seen a fox. Come face to face in an unexpected place, or at an unexpected moment.And he has looked at you, as you have looked at him. As if he has something to tell you, or you have something to tell him.But what if it didn't stop there? When Mary arrives home from work one day to find a magnificent fox on her lawn - his ears spiked in attention and every hair bristling with his power to surprise - it is only the beginning. He brings gifts (at least, Mary imagines they are gifts), and gradually makes himself at home. And as he listens to Mary, Mary listenTrade Review[A] poignant and playful meditation on loss, love and loneliness. How To Be Human vibrates with originality, poetry and guts and I loved every strange, yet beautiful, page -- Ali Land, author of Good Me Bad MeHow to Be Human is an intriguing and subversive debut, an eerie tale that acts on the reader like a ghost story, charged with the power of the ignored and the suppressed. If we disdain our animal selves, they trail us, shadowing us at dawn and dusk. Paula Cocozza shows us that the line between the wilderness and the city is thin, easily transgressed; the ghost breathing in the thicket is our own wild nature. -- Hilary MantelThere is much of [Ali] Smith’s playfulness in Paula Cocozza's enchanting debut . . . For all its suggestiveness and sensuality, [her] narrative is artfully restrained . . . In this startling debut, [she] seems to be saying that, no matter how lonely the city becomes, through an open window a mass of life is listening back. * Times Literary Supplement *[An] impressive debut * Irish Times, International Fiction Book of the Year *Cocozza has a wonderful eye for detail, and her descriptions of the natural world are uncanny . . . She takes a big risk in narrating some sections from the point of view of the fox, and pulls it off with aplomb. * Guardian *Unsettling, the writing often vivid and rich. * Observer *Hypnotic . . . suspenseful . . . wonderfully sly and assured . . . Readers may come to realize they are on thrillingly unstable ground. * New York Times Book Review *Intriguing and unsettling . . . the tricky, shifting substance of relationships is so insightfully drawn and constantly surprises. -- Laura Barnett, author of THE VERSIONS OF USA thrilling psychodrama . . . She brilliantly captures a sense of Hitchcockian, curtain-twitching intensity . . . Like the scent of a fox, truth and fact in How to Be Human start to evaporate. What is left behind is a pervasive sense that beneath the veneer of civility, something wilder is always lurking. * Economist *Sharp, thoughtful . . . exhilarating . . . the plot slips from urban pastoral to tense thriller. * Newsweek *Cocozza’s brilliant debut novel [is] a beguiling, highly inventive story about loneliness and finding a place in the world . . . A disturbing humour underpins Mary’s voice, a mesmerising mix of delusion and discernment . . . The momentum is achieved through Cocozza’s edgy, atmospheric writing. * Irish Times *Paula Cocozza's intense, fox-like powers of observation allow her to stalk the claims of territory and hidden wildness that energise this taut, shimmering novel. -- Richard Beard, author of THE ACTS OF THE ASSASSINSEerie, original and subversive, How to be Human is a fascinating yet disturbing look at obsession, delusion and loneliness . . A thrilling exploration of what makes us human. * i *A writer who is clearly unafraid of launching herself with a bang . . . Compelling . . . We are reminded of how close to the surface primal instincts can prowl. * Telegraph *Nicely balanced between the serious and the lighter-hearted, Cocozza’s novel is an engaging read. * Sunday Times *In turn devastating, heart-warming and absurd, How to Be Human is an astonishing debut . . . At its core, it is a powerful and tender portrait of madness, loss and love. * i *Cocozza builds up equal measures of dread, danger and derangement as Mary brilliantly but bizarrely redefines what her future might look like. -- Eithne Farry * Sunday Express *A singular love story of dominance and betrayal, this novel sets the tone for what will hopefully be a long and strange literary career. * Kirkus Reviews *This brilliantly eerie novel is a powerful meditation on the blurred lines between sanity and delusion, the wild and so-called civilisation. * The Lady *An atmospheric tale about safety, sanity and the complexity of relationships. * Big Issue in the North *This dream-like debut from Cocozza paints a cleverly observed picture of wildness and loneliness, blurring the lines between human nature, normality and delusion. * Journey Magazine *

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Book SynopsisSpookily topical' Guardian Read the world's first political thriller.London is under threat. It has become a haven for political exiles and anarchists. Frequent bomb threats and disturbances interrupt the lives of the city''s inhabitants, who live in fear of the terrorists in their midst. One such terrorist is Verloc. He is the secret agent who is given the mission to strike right at the heart of London''s pride by blowing up Greenwich Observatory. But his decision to drag his innocent family into the plot leads to tragic consequences on a more personal than political level. Trade ReviewPerenially fascinating... When Joseph Conrad wrote The Secret Agent he was responding imaginatively to a real botched bomb attack on Greenwich, at a time when there was real panic about anarchist extremism throughout Europe * Guardian *An astonishing book -- Ford Madox FordThis damp, dark thriller dances about on satirical feet, from its opening paragraph to the very last, where it suddenly plunges like Chernobyl's core to our own apocalyptic times, seamed with petit-bourgeois envy and crazed fundamentalist dreams. Whether attacking the former or the latter, Conrad never lets go of his grim, twitchy smile. -- Adam Thorpe * Guardian *One of the two unquestionable classics of the first order that [Conrad] added to the English novel -- F.R. Leavis

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Book SynopsisIn the course of his famous travels, Gulliver is captured by miniature people who wage war on each other because of religious disagreement over how to crack eggs, is sexually assaulted by giants, visits a floating island, and decides that the society of horses is better than that of his fellow man.Trade ReviewSwift's world-famous satire was an instant bestseller...his vision is dark, often verging on the obscene -- Robert McCrum * Guardian *It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery -- John Gay (author of The Beggar's Opera)It has entered the iconography of western culture as perhaps no other single novel, giving words to the English language and inspiring remarkably diverse acts of homage... A political comedy, an existentialist meditation, a bleak thriller about an outsider caught between worlds...at the heart of Swift's masterwork is an ennobling sadness, a lament for a world gone mad -- Joseph O'Connor * Guardian *Among the six indispensable books in world literature -- George OrwellEveryone standing for political office . . . should have a compulsory examination in Gulliver's Travels -- Michael Foot

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Book SynopsisIan McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; and Nutshell, which was a Number One bestseller. Atonement and Enduring Love have both been turned into award-winning films, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach are in production and set for release this year, and filming is currently underway for a BBC TV adaptation of The Child in Time.Trade ReviewWonderful...exquisite...devastating * Independent on Sunday *Exquisitely crafted * Evening Standard *Superb... The protagonists have everything to lose, and their faltering journey towards a point of no return is conjured into life my McEwan with irresistible subtlety, tact and force * Financial Times *On Chesil Beach is more than an event. It is a masterpiece * Times Literary Supplement *This is McEwan's mature style, one we have come to recognise from Atonement and Saturday. It is a polished, civilised style, and very distant from the shock tactics of his early work... McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us; and their seriousness, their idealism, and their desire for love draw us towards them * Guardian *To commend an author for being reminiscent of Edith Wharton is a compliment that this reviewer reserves for a select few. Yet with On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan has earnt it * Telegraph *A master feat of concentration in both senses of the word * Sunday Times *Written with a fierce pursuit of the truth and an utterly modern self-awareness, what a confidant tour de force this turns out to be * Sunday Express *One of our greatest living writers. Many Easter weekends and train journeys will be enlivened by a compelling novella * Herald *It is a masterpiece. The very idea that informs it, fascinating and unfamiliar, is masterly * TLS *A didactic, ironic novella of great accomplishment and calculated ambition. Structurally and linguistically, it is a triumph...intriguingly compassionate * Prospect *It is a measure of McEwan's artistry that he is able here both to linger in the recording of sensuous particularities and at the same time to deliver the satisfactions of plot we are accustomed to deriving from his fiction * Time Out, Book of the Week *McEwan shares with his fellow English novelist Jim Crace not only an interest in history but in finding a style in prose that is slow-moving, yet compelling, at times stilted and dry, and then suddenly sharp and precise * London Review of Books *The protagonists of On Chesil Beach have everything to lose, and their faltering journey towards a point of no return is conjured into life by McEwan with irresistible subtlety, tact and force * Scotsman *The book is steeped in lost hopes and disappointments, with each sentence as powerful as a Larkin poem. I didn't know a British novelist could still be this good * Express *McEwan is word-perfect at handling the awkward comedy of this relationship and, as ever, turning it into something far more disturbing * Observer *Two characters so vibrant they step straight off the page * The Tablet *McEwan's brilliance as a novelist lies in his ability to isolate discrete moments in life and invest them with incredible significance * Observer *McEwan's style is lean and clear...every sentence feels carefully crafted, the words all perfectly in place * Daily Mail *A tightly focused human drama... McEwan gives the reader access to both characters' thoughts with his usual skill, and the comedy of embarrassment, or of the kind of erotic misunderstanding that Milan Kundera used to specialise in, quickly disappears as the marital bed begins to seem more and more ominous... The bedroom scene itself is carried off brilliantly * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisLife as a film extra in Beijing might seem hard, but Fenfang won't be defeated. Determined to live a modern life, Fenfang works as a cleaner in the Young Pioneer's movie theatre, falls in love with unsuitable men and keeps her kitchen cupboard stocked with UFO instant noodles.Trade ReviewA nihilistic, Generation X-style manifesto... Its impudent, hand-on-hip attitude cannot fail to charm * New Statesman *Funny and melancholy, scintillatingly observed, and has a very big heart * The Times *Both a personal odyssey and an insightful commentary about modern Chinese society and life itself... Xiaolu Guo is an instinctive, humane witness, her atmospheric, unusually physical narratives are alive and attractively insistent, inspired variations on the theme of quest * Irish Times *A pure and bracing blast of universal youth... I loved it. It shines with the utterly blameless, scarily fragile arrogance of youth itself, the absolute certainty that death is better than middle age * Daily Telegraph *A breath of the freshest air imaginable. She cuts through the smog of hype and platitude -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent *

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Book SynopsisOnce a successful surgeon, Frederick Welin now lives in self-imposed exile on an island in the Swedish archipelago. Nearly twelve years have passed since he was disgraced for attempting to cover up a tragic mishap on the operating table. One morning in the depths of winter, he sees a hunched figure struggling towards him across the ice. His past is about to catch up with him.The figure approaching in the freezing cold is Harriet, the only woman he has ever loved, the woman he abandoned in order to go and study in America forty years earlier. She has sought him out in the hope that he will honour a promise made many years ago. Now in the late stages of a terminal illness, she wants to visit a small lake in northern Sweden, a place Welin''s father took him once as a boy. He upholds his pledge and drives her to this beautiful pool hidden deep in the forest. On the journey through the desolate snow-covered landscape, Welin reflects on his impoverished childhood and the woman he Trade ReviewMankell is a vivid and compelling storyteller * Independent *As with the the best of crime fiction, Mankell deals not only in character, plot and action, mystery and revelation, concealment and discovery, but also creates a world with its own mental and emotional atmosphere * Irish Times *Mankell has always been an ambitious writer... This novel transcends the limits of his earlier work * Sunday Times *Authoritative plotting and well-defined characterisation... An examination of the boundless human capacity for making the wrong decisions and a recognition of the challenges posed by ageing -- Barry Forshaw * Daily Express *Mankell's words fall like snowflakes, building up to make even the most ugly thing something of beauty... The strength of women, the bestiality some men are capable men, and the impermanence of life are some of the themes that Mankell once again spins into a quiet masterpiece -- Kieran Meeke * Metro *

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Book SynopsisMarie Phillips was born in London in 1976. She studied anthropology and documentary making, and worked as a TV researcher for several years. More recently she has worked as an independent bookseller whilst writing Gods Behaving Badly.Trade ReviewVery, very funny and delightfully original as well as acutely clever in a makes-you-think-about-contemporary-morality-without-realising-it kind of way... this novel will not only make you laugh and give you a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling, it will also provide a good basic grounding in Greek mythology * Independent *What makes the novel stand out - and it really does stand out - is its originality and lightness of touch * Daily Telegraph *The Olympians are immortal - this we all know. But it has taken Marie Phillips' wit to put them back where they belong - into a decrepit 21st-century London bedsit. It is all very, very funny...this book charms and provokes in a paragraph. I am writing this in Delphi, dangling my feet in Apollo's sacred spring - the water is said to bring the muse. Phillips clearly has a bottle of it on her desk -- Bettany Hughes * The Times *An absolutely delightful novel * Scotland on Sunday *Ingeniously imagined and satisfyingly lusty * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisA VINTAGE MURDER MYSTERYAgatha Christie called her a shining light'. Have you discovered Margery Allingham, the ''true queen'' of the classic murder mystery?Fact catches up with fiction when the secret of telepathic communication is discovered. But the device at the centre of the mystery is in the possession of two schoolboys and whether they stole it or invented it, there are powerful interests who will kill to get hold of it. Private detective Albert Campion faces as deadly a challenge as any in his career.As urbane as Lord Wimseyas ingenious as Poirot Meet one of crime fiction's Great Detectives, Mr Albert Campion.Trade ReviewMargery Allingham stands out like a shining light. Everything she writes has a definite shape...each book has its own separate and distinctive backgroundMiss Allingham has a strong, well controlled sense of humour, a power of suggesting character with a few touches and an excellent English style. She has a sense of the fantastic, and is never dull * Times Literary Supplement *The real queen of crime * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisMargery Allingham was born in London in 1904. She sold her first story at age 8 and published her first novel before turning 20. She married the artist, journalist and editor Philip Youngman Carter in 1927. In 1928 Allingham published her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, and the following year, in The Crime at Black Dudley, she introduced the detective who was to become the hallmark of her sophisticated crime novels and murder mysteries - Albert Campion. Famous for her London thrillers, such as Hide My Eyes and The Tiger in the Smoke, Margery Allingham has been compared to Dickens in her evocation of the city's shady underworld. Acclaimed by crime novelists such as P.D. James, Allingham is counted alongside Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Gladys Mitchell as a pre-eminent Golden Age crime writer. Margery Allingham died in 1966.Trade ReviewA perfectly wonderful writer * Scotsman *Margery Allingham has precious few peers and no superiors * Sunday Times *One of the finest “golden age” crime novelists * Sunday Telegraph *Miss Allingham has a strong, well controlled sense of humour, a power of suggesting character with a few touches and an excellent English style. She has a sense of the fantastic, and is never dull * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book Synopsis ‘If you liked Atonement by Ian McEwan, you'll love this’ Harper's BazaarThe bestselling novel from the author of The Snakes, The Outcast is a powerful portrait of unexpected love and treacherous charades against the backdrop of a sleepy post-war English village August 1957.Trade ReviewAn elegant, subtle, haunting novel that stayed with me long after I finished it. Sadie Jones has a long literary future ahead of her -- Tracy ChevalierThe prose is elegant and spare, but the story it reveals is raw and explosive... Devastatingly good' -- Eithne Farry * Daily Mail *Jones's story is imbued with brooding atmosphere and drama. Understated and elegantly narrated with attention to period detail, this is a gripping love story with a twist. If you liked Atonement by Ian McEwan, you'll love this * Harper's Bazaar *Eminently readable first novel....reads like a thriller, the tension and menace build expertly...a powerful, promising first novel * Financial Times *She writes with simmering intensity... particularly strong on atmosphere... Jones uses small, startling phrases to convey depths of passion and information and she can make seemingly innocuous passages radiate beauty * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisThe young Princess Victoria, strictly confined within the boundaries of Kensington Palace, is being moulded for her awesome future as Queen of England. Surrounded by her dolls and closely guarded by her domineering mother and faithful governess, she slowly becomes aware of the bitter conflicts that surround her. The jealous and scheming Duke of Cumberland is a constant threat to her rightful accession . . . her mother''s sinister friend, Sir John Conroy, makes her uneasy . . . and the bickering between her mother and the king seems neverending. Growing up is proving difficult for the princess. She longs for her eighteenth birthday when at last she will be free to rule the nation as she pleases and to re-acquaint herself with the gallant Prince Albert.Trade ReviewJean Plaidy doesn't just write the history, she makes it come alive. -- Julia Moffat, RNAThese books are page-turners; they offer a wonderful way to learn about history, their heroines are smart, strong and in control of their destinies and their stories will remain with you for ever...They are a celebration of women's spirit throughout history. * Daily Express *Full-blooded, dramatic, exciting * Observer *Outstanding * Vanity Fair *Jean Plaidy conveys the texture of various patches of the past with such rich complexity * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis''Sublime comic genius... light as a feather... fabulous'' Ben Elton''Ever since I picked up my dad''s copy of Very Good, Jeeves aged eleven, I''ve adored P. G. Wodehouse'' Anna CareJoin Bertie Wooster and his gentleman''s gentleman, Jeeves, in their adventures with eleven laugh-out-loud funny short stories from the perennial comic, P. G. Wodehouse.Fun-loving Bertie and his friends are always getting themselves into scrapes, and it''s up to Jeeves to fix the mess they leave behind. Whether it''s helping Bertie recover his Aunt Agatha''s lost dog, plot revenge against his old pal Tuppy Glossop, or navigate numerous love interests - Jeeves has always got an answer. After all, all''s well that ends well - even if it''s rarely as Bertie plans.Trade ReviewIt's dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I'll risk it with him -- John HumphrysFor as long as I'm immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it's possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day -- Marian KeyesWodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already -- Lynne TrussThe incomparable and timeless genius - perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes! -- Kate MosseNot only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists -- Susan Hill

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Book SynopsisFans of S. J. Parris, Donna Leon, Steven Saylor, C. J. Sansom will love this exciting and enthralling historical mystery from multi-million copy bestselling author Lindsey Davis. Expertly weaving an authentic depiction of Ancient Rome with exceptional characterisation and a tightly woven plot, this will have you hooked. ''Another redolent dip into corruption in Vespasian''s Rome ... original and delightful'' -- Sunday Times''A tumultuous Ancient Rome with a delightful modern eye'' -- Sunday Times''Fast-moving, funny and full of atmosphere'' -- Mail on Sunday''A thrilling murder mystery'' -- ***** Reader review''Such fun!'' -- ***** Reader review''Another corking Falco'' -- ***** Reader review''My advice is BUY IT and READ IT as you will not regret it'' -- ***** Reader review**************************************Trade Review • "As always, Davis wears her research lightly, bringing Ancient Rome to vivid life in a series of delicious vignettes." --Manchester Evening News

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Book SynopsisEasier said than done, thinks Falco, as he makes his uneasy way down the Rhenus, trying to forget that back in sunny Rome his girlfriend Helena Justina is being hotly pursued by Titus Caesar.Trade ReviewHer most ambitious to date... Davis has found a winning formula. The tempo is presto, the language pert * Daily Telegraph *Lindsey Davis doesn't merely make history come alive - she turns it into spanking entertainment, and wraps it around an intriguing mystery. She is incapable of writing a dull sentence * Peter Lovesey *Surely the best historical detective in the business * Daily Telegraph *

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Book Synopsis‘All the problems I know about are family ones.’A frightened child approaches Roman informer Falco pleading for help. Beset by his own family troubles, by his new responsibilities as Procurator of the Sacred Poultry, and by the continuing search for a new partner, Falco turns her away.Immediately he regrets it.Trade ReviewOne of the most entertaining books of the year * Sunday Telegraph *One of the best of the current writers in this field * Sunday Times *Wonderful, great fun all round * Daily Telegraph *Surely the best historical detective in the business * Daily Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisAnother engrossing historical mystery bringing Ancient Rome to life in all its gruesome glory from the pen of multimillion-copy bestselling author Lindsey Davis. Fans of S. J. Parris, Donna Leon, Steven Saylor and C. J. Sansom will not be disappointed...''Davis''s writing zings with fun'' -- Daily Mail''One of the best of the current writers in this field'' -- Donna Leon, The Times''My advice is BUY IT and READ IT as you will not regret it'' -- ***** Reader review''A cracking good read'' -- ***** Reader review''A real page-turner'' -- ***** Reader review''Absolutely brilliant!'' -- ***** Reader review**********************************************************************************THE ANCIENT SPORTS OF MURDER AND MYTHStunned by a dramatic appeal from his otherwise cool mother-in-law, Falco cannot resist. His brother-in-law has been diverted from his route to Athens University by a man whose newly married daughter disappeared, with her husband, while visiting the Olympic Games as part of an extended wedding trip. Suspecting a classic cover-up, Aulus enrols Falco''s help in solving the case. And of course his mother-in-law hopes to hurry her son along to university by passing the case over to Falco.Joining the rest of the married couple''s tour group on the remains of their Grand Tour, Falco and Helena seize the opportunity to interview the owner/manager of ''Seven Sights Travel'', as well as the other guests.Seemingly not getting very far, they can at least make the most of the splendid sights; but finally, on reaching Delphi, Falco and Helena unravel the mystery of the bride and groom...Trade Review • "Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skulduggery crowd the pages." --Guardian

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Book SynopsisA fiction-within-a-fiction, My Life as a Man centres on the fraught marriage of Peter, a gifted young writer and Maureen Tarnopol, the woman who wants to be his muse but who instead becomes his nemesis. Their union is based on fraud and powered by moral blackmail. And yet, the the couple''s relationship is so perversely durable that, long after Maureen''s death, Peter is still trying - and failing - to write his way free of it. Out of desperate inventions and scorching truths, acts of weakness and shocking cruelty, Philip Roth creates a fierce tragedy about a fatal impasse between a man and a woman.Trade ReviewBalefully powerful -- Martin Amis * New York Times *A very grand work...in invention, in perception...in coming to grips with the wild inconsistencies of life and art * New Yorker *Roth's best... No writer alive can sustain a full-length novel at as high a decibel level as Philip Roth' * Newsweek *A scalding, unique addition to the lasting literature about men and women * Newsday *

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Book Synopsis''I came fully equipped with the old prejudice that anything to do with Egypt involved corruption and deceit.''AD 77. Egypt was the destination of choice for Roman tourists, being home to not one but two Wonders of the Ancient World, a Centre of Culture, and people with exotic habits.Unfortunately, when Marcus Didius Falco pays a visit he discovers it''s also a hotbed of schemers and murderers. When the Head Librarian dies in suspicious circumstances, the Roman authorities are only too happy to dump the case on one of the Empire''s most celebrated investigators - all adding up to a typical Falco family vacation.Trade ReviewA fantastic historical whodunnit * Daily Express *Like visiting old friends in a familiar and endearing, if sometimes bizarre, environment. Jokes and skulduggery crowd the pages * The Guardian *The story gallops along at a tremendous pace with humour and suspense dispensed in equal measure * Daily Express *Another entertaining adventure * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisFROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF FATES AND FURIES AND MATRIX''Everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more'' Stephen King''Bold and beautiful'' Lorrie Moore''Pleasurably surreal'' Guardian''Will give you paper cuts from turning pages'' Marie ClaireWillie Upton returns to her ancestral home of Templeton, New York after a disastrous affair with her married archaeology professor.The same day, Willie discovers a hard truth about her long-lost father''s identity and a prehistoric monster is discovered in the nearby Lake Glimmerglass, bringing frenzy to the quiet town and her life.As Willie investigates her family tree, dark secrets come to light, past and present are blurred and old mysteries are finally put to rest. The Monsters of Templeton is an extraordinary novel by literary virtuoso Lauren Groff. ''A vivid tale of unearthing past truTrade ReviewLauren Groff's debut novel, The Monsters of Templeton, is everything a reader might have expected from this gifted writer, and more ... There are monsters, murders, bastards, and ne'er-do-wells almost without number. I was sorry to see this rich and wonderful novel come to an end, and there is no higher success than that. * Stephen King *THE MONSTERS OF TEMPLETON is a bold and beautiful hybrid of a book...Lauren Groff is an exciting young novelist, gifted with an elegant prose style and a narrative ambition as deep and as serious as the human mysteries she sets out to explore. * Lorrie Moore *Groff's delightful debut is a glorious hybrid of history and humour, with just a sprinkling of magic. * Easy Living *This cracking tale, admirer Stephen King gleefully says, is full of "monsters, murders, bastards and ne'er do-wells". Yet Lauren Groff's remarkable debut is not a horror at all...as Willie slays her demons by slowly but surely excavating her family tree, the novel blossoms into a crossbreed of intimate confession, eccentric social history, origin myth and literary biography... the true 'monsters' of Templeton are its secrets. * Metro *This has an opening to die for ... a riveting read * Scotland on Sunday *

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Book SynopsisDavid Szalay is the author of five previous works of fiction: Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, for which he was awarded the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes, All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Turbulence, which won the Edge Hill Prize. Born in Canada, he grew up in London, and now lives in Vienna. His work has been translated into over twenty languages.Trade ReviewOne of the great English novels of recent years, a work of sublime literary realism, and a blackly comic meditation on the sins and sorrows of modernity -- Rachel CuskWonderfully dark * The Times *A terrific debut, written in a present tense which flashes every so often into the past - a trick which Szalay pulls off with confidence... a tense and compelling read * Independent *A funny, painful, graphic demonstration that our job is a crucial part of our identity.... It's compulsively readable * Independent on Sunday *Szalay's satire is sharp, though his depictions of rush-hour raise the blood pressure to levels that are not advisable -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *

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Book SynopsisGita Mehta''s captivating and enchanting novel tells the story of a retired beurocrat who has escaped the world to spend his twilight years running a guest-house on the banks of the country''s holiest river, the Narmada. But he has chosen the wrong place for peace and quiet: too many lives converge here and he meets a series of unusual characters including a privileged young executive bewitched by a mysterious lover; a novice Jain monk moving from opulence to poverty; and a woman with a golden voice and a broken heart.As the beurocrat moves from story to story he ponders the meaning of each tale and the potent belief and the dark secrets which the river hides within her.Trade ReviewThis book is a delight * Time Out *I have a feeling, indeed a hope, that A River Sutra will become a classic, revered and enjoyed by young and old * Daily Telegraph *Superb, profound, apparently effortless storytelling * Independent on Sunday *A life enhancing gem of a book * Observer *Enchanting...sometimes comic, sometimes tragic and always filled with insights * New York Times Book Review *

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Book SynopsisJohn Stone, a man so wealthy that in the years before World War One he was able to manipulate markets, industries and indeed whole countries and continents, has been found dead in mysterious circumstances. His beautiful young widow commissions a journalist to carry out an unusual bequest in his will but as he begins his research he soon discovers a story far more complex than he could have ever imagined... As the story moves backwards through time, from London in 1909 to Paris in 1809, before concluding in Venice in 1867, the mystery of John Stone''s life and loves begins to unravel. The result is a spellbinding novel that is both a quest for the truth, a love story that spans decades and a compelling murder mystery.Trade ReviewI cannot remember enjoying a book as much as Stone's Fall -- Malcolm Gladwell * Observer *The assurance and invention with which the novel is written are alike remarkable. Utterly absorbing and a rare delight -- Alan Massie * Scotsman *Engrossing and intelligent, it's the best sort of page-turner -- Amber Pearson * Daily Mail *A juicy mystery with lashings of period detail * Daily Telegraph *The novel is above all a romp, albeit an exceptionally intelligent and entertaining one -- David Robson * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisAn eminent, ageing Australian writer is invited to contribute to a book entitled Strong Opinions. For him, troubled by Australia''s complicity in the wars in the Middle East,it is a chance to air some urgent concerns: how should a citizen of a modern democracy react to their state''s involvement in an immoral war on terror, a war that involves the use of torture?Then in the laundry room of his apartment block he encounters an alluring young woman. He offers her work typing up his manuscript. Anya is not interested in politics, but the job will be a welcome distraction, as will the writer''s evident attraction towards her. Her boyfriend, Alan, is an investment consultant who understands the world in harsh economic terms. Suspicious of his trophy girlfriend''s new pastime, Alan begins to formulate a plan...Trade ReviewThe work of a master * Daily Telegraph *You must read this book * Independent on Sunday *Coetzee is redrawing the contours of the novel and taking it places that it has rarely been before... Exhilarating * The Times *Complex and ultimately moving * Sunday Telegraph *Mesmerising * New Statesman *

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Book SynopsisWhy did a Hercules C130, the world's sturdiest plane, carrying Pakistan's military dictator General Zia ul Haq, go down on 17 August, 1988? Was it because of: mechanical failure, human error, the CIA's impatience, a blind woman's curse or Generals not happy with their pension plans. This novel takes one of the subcontinent's enduring mysteries.Trade ReviewZesty, highly inventive...Hanif is a gifted writer...His explosive finale is brilliantly constructed * Daily Mail *Exuberant and satirical: this is an angry comedy about Zia's brutal legacy to Pakistan * Observer *Witty, elegaic and deliciously anarchic -- John Le CarréA Pakistan not reducible to generals, jets and jihadisa...a debut novel shaped as much by the subcontinents fascination with history and historical figures as by political thrillers in the tradition of Forsyth and Le Carre.... Along the way there is plenty of humour and slapstick... Cadet life is entertainingly evoked, overflowing with japes, jerkoffs, hashish highs and liquored lows... The most unexpected aspect of Mangoes is also its most compelling - the wryly told story of a love affair between two cadets * Guardian *Entertaining.... darkly comic.... There are sharply observed sketches of toadying ministers, mindlessly efficient security chiefs, filthy prison cells, sex-mad Arab sheikhs and erudite communist prisoners...as a piece of political satire, A Case of Exploding Mangoes deserves a high mark * Independent *

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Book SynopsisTibor Fischer was born in Stockport in 1959 of Hungarian parents. Brought up in South London, where he now lives, he was educated at Cambridge and worked as a journalist. He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his first novel, Under the Frog, which also won the Betty Trask Award, and he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.Trade ReviewHilarious, fast-moving stuff * Independent *Not since Woody Allen has philosophy had such a hilarious application * Guardian *A fast-paced, off-beat thriller... It's a zany novel with depth and a fresh, almost controversial prose style that gives you the creeping impression that you have just hitched a lift with one hell of an imagination * List *Acerbic, dashingly inventive, very funny indeed -- Christopher Hitchens * Mail on Sunday *Fischer has a unique ability to hinge the most unlikely concepts together... charcoaling ideas to gem-hardened, irresistibly funny insights * Time Out *

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Book SynopsisIt all started with a silly prank, a play and a dance - a love so enduring, so indestructible that it would survive against all odds.Elizabeth Sorrill is the junior matron at Foxton''s élite School for Boys. Blessed with the kind of beauty others only dream about, her attractions prove irresistible to Alexander Belmayne, the seventeen-year-old son of the Lord Chief Justice. But their passionate affair is shortlived as bitter lies and scandal force them apart.Angry and frustrated at Oxford, Alexander thrives on his reputation as a heartbreaker, until Bohemian beauty Jessica Poynter draws him into a fast life of glittering excess and depravity in London''s high society. But when a chance meeting brings Alexander and Elizabeth together again, their passionate reunion leads to a breathtaking crime fired by an overwhelming obsession - a hatred so violent it knows no limits...

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Book SynopsisFrank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. In 1999 he received a Writers' Award from the Arts Council and in 2000 he won the New London Writers' Award. Mortal Mischief was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award in 2005 and for the prestigious Quais du Polar award in France, 2007. Vienna Blood was published in 2006, Fatal Lies in 2008 and Darkness Rising in 2009, all to great acclaim. Titles in the Liebermann series have been translated into fourteen languages.Trade ReviewIt's cleverly done and never dull, with science and folklore neatly woven into a fascinating plot. This, together with well researched and wonderfully imagined period detail, make Deadly Communion a rich and riveting read * Guardian *Brilliantly combines the popular with the serious in clever historical thrillers * Independent *Confirms his place in the front rank of British thriller writers * Daily Mail *Tallis's writing still has the richness of literary fiction ... the reader is taken into the terrifying psyche of a murderer ... Deadly Communion is the most psychologically cohesive of the Max Liebermann outings * Independent *An interesting, intelligent and enjoyable read * www.eurocrime.co.uk *

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Book SynopsisVienna, 1903. Outside one of the city''s most splendid baroque churches, the decapitated body of a monk is found. Then, the remains of a municipal councillor are discovered in the grounds of another church - his head also ripped from his body. Both men were rabid anti-Semites, and suspicions fall on Vienna''s close-knit community of Hasidic Jews. In a city riven by racial tensions and extremism, the situation is potentially explosive. Detective Inspector Rheinhardt turns to his trusted friend, the young psychoanalyst Doctor Max Liebermann, for assistance. As the investigation progresses, Liebermann is drawn into the world of Jewish mysticism. Amid the atmosphere of threat and fear, Liebermann''s life is in crisis. Political forces conspire against him, and the object of his romantic desires, the unreachable Miss Lydgate, is becoming an unhealthy obsession...Trade Reviewbeautifully written and extremely interesting * Literary Review *intelligent, intellectual, historical crime fiction at its very best * eurocrime.co.uk *... perhaps the most accomplished entry so far. * Independent *Scholarly and informative, cunningly put together - a real page-turner * Newbooks Magazine *Darkness Rising has a strong, intelligent plot and a terrific atmosphere of fin-de-siecle Vienna * The Times *

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Book SynopsisCambridge is a powerful and haunting novel set in that uneasy time between the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of the slaves. It is the story of Emily Cartwright, a young woman sent from England to visit her father''s West Indian plantation, and Cambridge, a plantation slave, educated and Christianised by his first master in England and now struggling to maintain his dignity.Trade ReviewA striking novel that pushes you dizzily into another time and place... Reading it is like being in the middle of a vibrant dream * Sunday Times *Phillips points up the hypocrisy and humiliation of a society at breaking point; revealing it with subtlety, humour and humanity * Sunday Telegraph *Caryl Phillips has proved himself to be among the best and most productive writers of his generation...with Cambridge he takes a firm step towards joining the company of the literary giants of our time * New York Times *This powerful, seductively readable book, set in a 19th century slave plantation, finally puts the sickening realities of the slave trade firmly on the map * Guardian *Phillips is a linguistic and cultural virtuoso * The Times *

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