Alexandra McCollum grew up in rural northeast Ohio and now lives in Nevada with their husband and dog. Among other jobs, they’ve worked in a bakery in Austria, managed a coffee shop in Ohio, and taught high school in Las Vegas. When not writing, they can be found studying languages and exploring local coffeehouses in search of the perfect americano.

Alexandra McCollum

A graduate of Yale University, Alexandra Oliva grew up in a small town deep in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School University and undertook intensive wilderness survival training while researching The Last One. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their brindled mutt, Codex. The Last One is her first novel.

Alexandra Oliva

John Peel was born the day before the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. His 38-year career as a radio DJ is the stuff of legend and the bands he went on to discover too numerous to mention, though David Bowie, Roxy Music, T Rex, Genesis, Joy Division, New Order, The Smiths, Radiohead and the White Stripes would do as a start. He lived in Suffolk with his wife Sheila and their children William, Thomas, Alexandra and Florence, plus various dogs and cats, until his death in October 2004.

Alexandra Ravenscroft

Alexandra Shulman

ALEXANDRA SOVERAL founded her award-winning eponymous skin care line in 2005, where she still hand-blends every product. Originally from Portugal, Alexandra moved to London 1987 to study Philosophy of Science, before dedicating her research to Anatomy, Physiology and Chemistry, becoming a respected skin specialist and product formulator for high quality brands.

Alexandra Soveral

Alexandra Wood

Born in 1986, Alexandra Zelman-Doring is a graduate of Brown, Columbia, and Oxford Universities. She is a poet, playwright, and actor, and recent co-founder of Throes Theater (www.throestheater.com). Based in New York City, she lives with her husband, clarinet player Naum Goldenstein.

Alexandra Zelman-Doring

Alexandre Antonelli is Director of Science of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where he leads the work of over 350 scientists. A botanist by training, he was made Full Professor of Biodiversity at University of Gothenburg in Sweden aged 36, and founded the Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre and served as Cisneros Visiting Scholar at Harvard University before joining Kew. He remains an active researcher at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Oxford in the UK. This is his first book.

Alexandre Antonelli

Alexander Dumas was born in 1802 at Villes-Cotterets. He received very little education but when he entered the household of the future king, Louis-Philippe, he began to read veraciously and then to write. In 1839 he began writing novels dealing with the wars of religion and the Revolution, but he is most remembered for his historical novels, The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers.

Alexandre Dumas

Alexandria Bellefleur is a bestselling and award-winning author of swoony contemporary romance often featuring loveable grumps and the sunshine characters who bring them to their knees. Her debut novel, Written in the Stars, was a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner and a 2020 winner of The Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romantic Fiction.

Alexandria Bellefleur

ALEXEI NAVALNY was a Russian opposition leader, an anti-corruption campaigner, and political prisoner who won international recognition and respect. His many international honours included the Sakharov Prize, the European Parliament’s annual human rights prize. He died in 2024.

Alexei Navalny

Alexei Sayle

Alexi Zentner

Alexia Casale is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, as well as a script consultant and specialist human rights editor. Her young adult novel, The Bone Dragon, was shortlisted for the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize and her first adult novel, The Best Way to Bury Your Husband, set the darkly comic stage for her adult fiction. This is her second adult novel.

Alexia Casale

Alexina Anatole is a chef, presenter, and writer based in London. After reaching the final of MasterChef in 2021, she made a brave career change from the trading floor to the food world. Her debut cookbook – Bitter – was published by Square Peg, Vintage in September 2023 to critical acclaim from the likes of Nigella Lawson, Rukmini Iyer, and Waterstones. Anatole also writes Small Wins, a Substack newsletter that enhances your cooking and your life in small, manageable ways. She has been featured on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch, and BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme as well as social media platforms including MOB and TopJaw. She also runs sell-out events, including Sel, London’s most intimate supper club, and Cocoa POP, a chocolate-themed pop-up with chocolatier Octavia Lamb. Alexina is of mixed heritage: the granddaughter of chicken farmers from Cambridgeshire and Saint Lucian grandparents who arrived in London during the Windrush.

Alexina Anatole

Alexis Calder writes sassy heroines and sexy heroes with a sprinkle of sarcasm. She lives in the Rockies and drinks far too much coffee and just the right amount of wine.

Alexis Calder

Alexis Deacon graduated from the University of Brighton, where he studied Illustration, gaining a first class honours degree. Alexis Deacon was one of Booktrust's ten Best New Illustrators in 2008, and Beegu was a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal. Alexis lives in London.

Alexis Deacon

Alexis G Aïnouz

Alexis Henderson is a speculative fiction writer with a penchant for dark fantasy, witchcraft and cosmic horror. Growing up in one of America’s most haunted cities, Savannah, Georgia, instilled in her a life-long love of ghost stories. When she doesn’t have her nose buried in a book, you can find her painting or watching horror movies with her feline familiar. Her acclaimed adult books include The Year of the Witching, House of Hunger and An Academy for Liars. Her debut YA novel, When I Was Death, publishes in March 2026.

Alexis Henderson

Alexis Pauline Gumbs

Born and raised in Yorkshire, Alexis moved to Cardiff where she completed a degree in print-making. She went on to exhibit in and around Wales and Leeds and has had two art residencies. After a stint working as a cook, Alexis moved to London with her small, second-hand printing press and began print-making again. Alexis works in lino which she cuts by hand. For inspiration, she looks to old matchbox covers, record sleeves, tea boxes, postcards, explorers, the circus and films. She has since moved back to Yorkshire, where she works from her studio. Alexis has designed many book covers and illustrated Dr Who: Twelve Angels Weeping but The Bear in the Stars is her first book as an author-illustrator.

Alexis Snell

Alexis Soyer

Alexis Stickland is a midwife, antenatal teacher and mother of three children who has been supporting new mums and their families for over 12 years. She was motivated by her own personal experience to team up with her friend and colleague Beccy Hands to launch The Motherbox – a company that delivers beautiful boxes of nourishing treats and self-care advice to new mums.

Alexis Stickland

Alexis Tocqueville

Alexis Zegerman

Alexis de Tocqueville

Alf Proysen

Alfie Boe

Alfie Moore

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Tom Harper

Perfect for fans of Conn Iggulden, Lindsey Davis, Steven Pressfield, this breathtaking and captivating novel brings the Crusades to life in all their triumphant and tragic glory. 
 
'Gripping from the first page, the reader is swept up in this colourful and convincing portrayal of an Emperor and his realm under siege.' - Ink 
'Superb read. Thoroughly enjoyed it' -- ***** Reader review 
'Highly enjoyable read' -- ***** Reader review 
'Brilliant.' -- ***** Reader review 
'Holds your interest from [the first] to the last page' -- ***** Reader review 
 
******************************************************************** 
AN ASSASSIN IS ON THE LOOSE...AND AN EMPIRE STANDS IN PERIL 
 
Byzantium, 1096: When a mysterious assassin fires his arrow at the Emperor, he has more than a man in his sights; as the keystone of a crumbling empire, if he falls, then the mightiest power in Christendom will be torn apart. Aware of the stakes, the Emperor hires Demetrios Askiates, the unveiler of mysteries, to catch the would-be-killer. 
 
 But Demetrios is entering an unknown and mysterious world and must edge his way through a glittering maze of treachery and deceit before time runs out. Nor are all enemies within the city walls. With the Turks rampant across Asia, the Emperor has sent to the west for mercenaries to reinforce his position. 
 
 When a great army, tens of thousands strong, appears before the gates, he gets more than he bargained for. The first crusaders have arrived, intent on making their fortunes in war, and they have no allegiance to an empire they eye with jealousy and suspicion. 
 
As the armies of east and west confront each other, and the assassin creeps ever closer to his prey, Demetrios must untangle the golden web of intrigue which surrounds the Emperor before the city - and the empire - are drowned in blood.

The Mosaic Of Shadows

(The Crusade Trilogy: I): a thrilling epic of murder, betrayal, bloodshed and intrigue in the age of the Crusades

Tom Sharpe

Outrageous, darkly comic, and packed with calamity on top of calamity, Henry Wilt's misadventures will take you to places you never realised you wanted to visit.

When his endlessly capricious wife Eva receives plane tickets for the family to visit Auntie Joan and Uncle Wally in Atlanta, Wilt knows only one thing - that nothing could entice him to fly three thousand miles over the water, and especially not two rotund Americans with more money than sense. What better way to escape and find equilibrium then to embark on a walking tour? Just Wilt, the countryside, and an ill-judged bottle of whiskey... 
 
Meanwhile, Eva finds her plans to inherit Joan and Wally's fortune slipping away faster than her sanity, thanks to a combination of sinister teenage quadruplets with foul mouths, and her unexpected role as lead suspect in a drug-trafficking plot. 
 
Outrageous, darkly comic, and packed with calamity on top of calamity, Tom Sharpe's latest episode of Wilt's misadventures is a razor-sharp farce that will delight fans both old and new.

Wilt in Nowhere

(Wilt Series 4)

Hilary Bonner

John Kelly, once a reporter, always a maverick, has become embroiled in the mystery surrounding a series of disturbing deaths at a tough army training base in the heart of Dartmoor. Several young men and women have died suddenly and tragically, mostly from gunshot wounds that the army claims to have been self-inflicted. There is a plausible explanation for each death individually, but when put together these explanations look very suspicious indeed. 
 
Kelly takes his concerns to his old friend Detective Superintendent Karen Meadows and together they attempt to break through the wall of secrecy the army has erected. Their involvement in what they come to believe is a major conspiracy, coupled with upheaval and tragedy in their own personal lives, brings them closer than ever before. But when powerful men in high places try to silence the ex-journalist in a shocking and unexpected manner, this threatens to be the investigation which could finally finish John Kelly for good...

No Reason To Die

Paul Southern

C was for cars which he'd nicked and crashed, R was for robbery, armed and fast, A was for arson, fire and theft, Z was for the cuts his switchblade left, E was for drugs, the Whizz and Horse, which just left murder, the hardest, of course. She was found on the tracks: burned up, tongue cut out, a finger removed. Who was she? 24 hours earlier Shazia Ahmed was leaving Manchester, but a chance meeting and a phone call and she finds herself in the underworld where life is cheap and usually very short. Jamie Farrell already knows this truth: that the drugs and crime will tip over into murder. His father's in Strangeways and he'll be joining him. But he can't give up the deadly game that is The Craze. Dru Round thought his big day had come: no more cheap drag acts and furtive sex in the backs of cars. A new dawn of TV fame beckoned. But he just needed that extra score to make things work for him-Three lives - one crime - the Craze.

The Craze

Carol Goodman

August Penrose created the stained glass 'Lady Window' to adorn the chapel of the university he founded for the daughters of the women who worked in his factory, the Rose Glass Works. Depicting his wife, Eugenie, as the Lady of Shallot, it's a mesmerising portrait that has come to embody the spirit of the school itself. But now, eighty years after it was created, the Lady Window is due for restoration. The task falls to former alumna Juno McKay. She's restoring it with the help of her friend, Christine Webb, an art historian who is researching the window for her thesis. Christine seems to have discovered some new evidence that suggests that Clare, not her sister Eugenie, was the subject for the Lady Window. But before Christine can discuss her findings with Juno, she's found dead in a boating accident that eerily echoes that fate of the Lady of Shallot. But did she drown or was it something more sinister? As Juno starts to make her own investigations into just how Christine died, she learns more about Augustus Penrose and his family. The Lady Window was not the only thing the Penroses' bequeathed to the world. Madness and deception also form part of their legacy-

The Drowning Tree

Chris Simms

Rubble lives in a caravan and works on a battery farm. Totally oblivious to the outside world, he spends his days disposing of the sick and injured chickens. But all the while he dreams of a life in the army - despite the fact his numerous applications have been rejected. Then one day a mysterious visitor arrives and sees Rubble's child-like naivety combined with an ability to kill without compunction. Soon Rubble finds himself involved in a murderous secret project, his only chance of escape is the help of the girl he has to kill.

Pecking Order

Margaret Doody

It is the autumn of 330 BC, and three law cases are exciting Athens. Ergokles' case against the wealthy Orthoboulos for malicious wounding seems to come out well for the dignified man, but shortly afterwards he is found dead of poison, evidently hemlock. His second wife is accused of the crime, and her trial for poisoning sets Athens at odds, as sympathies divide. Her stepson is her greatest enemy, and seems sure that she has done the deed, but there are other candidates. Meanwhile, the most beautiful woman in Athens, Phryne, is accused of impiety, a charge that can carry the death penalty. Stephanos, in treating himself to brother visits as she tries to recover not only from his wound but from having killed a man, gets close to danger, and his position as a witness could damage his prospects of marriage. Misogyny, political wrath, and lack of judgment bring affairs to a boiling point, stimulating Aristotle to intervene lest the trial of the stepmother break Athens into fragments. He endeavours to solve the mystery with the help of Stephanos, and also with his assistant Theophrastos, who has made a special study of plant and thus of poisons-

Poison In Athens

Sheila Quigley

1985: a man runs for his life - exhausted, wounded, hunted remorselessly by a female assassin known only as The Head Hunter. At the end, he has just enough energy to spit in her face. 
 
2001: sixteen-year-old Kerry Lumsdon runs across the same terrain. She runs to win and she runs to forget. When a headless body is found in the wastelands of the Seahills Estate, Detective Inspector Lorraine Hunt is called in to investigate the violent murder case. Kerry and Lorraine, different ages and from different worlds, come together when Claire Lumsdon, Kerry's sister, is violently kidnapped - the fourth in a series of abductions of young girls. Headstrong, wilful and convinced the police can't help, Kerry sets out on a frantic search of her own. But her hunt takes her to a world she never knew existed: a violent underworld; a sixteen year old murder; and, finally, to secrets about her own past which her mother hoped she'd never have to face. And all the time, the clock is ticking for Claire... 
 
A gripping thriller from the bestselling author of some of Britain's best crime fiction.

Run For Home

Frank Lean

When student Meg Hands is found drowned in a Manchester canal, the authorities are only too anxious to classify her death as yet another sad result of alcoholic overindulgence. Her mother, Ruth, an internationally celebrated charity worker, is not so willing to accept this verdict. 
 
Frustrated in her attempts to interest the police, she turns to Dave Cunane, Manchester's last resort of the hopeless. Dave is unwilling to probe but tentative enquiries reveal a hidden world of vice behind the fashionable screen of Manchester's free and easy drinking scene.

Raised In Silence

Lee Jackson

The last train of the night pulls into the gas-lit platform of Baker Street underground station.  A young woman is found strangled, her body abandoned in a second-class carriage. The brutal 'Railway Murder' brings Inspector Decimus Webb to the newly-formed Metropolitan Line on a bleak winter's night.  His investigation leads him through the slums of Victorian London to the Holborn Refuge, a home for 'fallen women', and to Clara White, a respectable servant. But Clara has her own tragic and shameful history.  As her past is revealed, Inspector Webb must decide whether she is merely a victim of circumstance, or a prime suspect. Only then can he unearth a dark secret, hidden in the depths of underground London. Lee Jackson's second novel brilliantly recreates the sights, sounds and smells of Victorian London, taking readers on a suspense-filled journey through its criminal underworld.

A Metropolitan Murder

(Inspector Webb 1)

Diana Gabaldon

Set in the turbulent eighteenth century, Lord John is the lonely, tormented and courageous English officer first seen in the Outlander novels. He is a man who fights for the crown, his honour and his own secrets.

The year is 1757. On a bright June day, Lord John Grey emerges from his club, his mind in turmoil. A nobleman and a high-ranking officer in His Majesty's Army, Grey has just witnessed something shocking. But his efforts to avoid a scandal that might destroy his family are interrupted by something still more urgent: the Crown appoints him to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade-in-arms, who might well have been a traitor. 
 
Obliged to pursue two inquiries at once, Major Grey finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery and betrayal that touches every level of society - and threatens all he holds dear. From the bawdy-houses of London's night world to the drawing rooms of the nobility, from the blood of a murdered corpse to the thundering seas of the East India Company, Lord John follows the elusive trail of the woman in green who may hold the key to everything - or to nothing at all. 
 
The early days of the Seven Years War come brilliantly to life in this historical adventure mystery by the acclaimed author whose unique and compelling storytelling has engrossed millions of readers worldwide.

Lord John And The Private Matter

Thomas Gifford

For fans of The Da Vinci Code: A conspiracy thriller about an age-old brotherhood of killers. Once hired by princes of the Church to protect it in dangerous times, whose orders do they obey now? 
 
In the Vatican, the pope is dying as priestly vultures gather around, whispering the names of possible successors. In a forgotten monastery on Ireland's gale-swept coast, a dangerous document is hidden, waiting to be claimed. And in a family chapel in Princeton, New Jersey, a nun is murdered at her prayers. Sister Valentine was an outspoken activist, a thorn in the Church's side. When her brother, lawyer Ben Driskill, realizes that the Church will never investigate her death, he sets out to find the murderer himself -- and uncovers a dangerous, explosive secret.

The Assassini

Candace Robb

Let much-loved author Candace Robb sweep you back in time to thirteenth-century Edinburgh in this captivating and compelling Medieval mystery. Perfect for fans of Ellis Peters, S J Parris, Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell. 
 
'Thirteenth-century Edinburgh comes off the page cold and convincing - most enjoyable' -- The List 
'Brilliant - Robb presents a feisty new heroine who proves to be no fool' -- Woman &amp; Home 
'A superb historical novel from a most interesting and unknown period' -- ***** Reader review 
 
******************************************************************************************* 
IN UNSETTLING AND TURBULENT TIMES, THE TRUTH IS HARD TO FIND... 
 
1297: Margaret Kerr, fiercely loyal to the deposed king John Balliol, has come to Edinburgh in search of her absent husband Roger - a man in the service of Balliol's enemy Robert the Bruce. But terrifying raids and a brutal murder bring the wrath of the English to Margaret's door. 
 
 Roger's sudden disappearance enables Margaret to escape from the city, but she soon suspects that his new-found concern is nothing more than a charade. And then her father returns from Bruges, bringing trouble and discord in his wake. 
 
 What was it the raiders sought from Margaret's property? And what of her mother's visions, which all sides are keen to interpret? 
 
Who can Margaret really trust in these troubled times...?

The Fire In The Flint

a gripping medieval Scottish mystery from much-loved author Candace Robb

Eliot Pattison

When disgraced former inspector, Shan Tao Yun joins a group of reverent Tibetans returning a sacred artefact to its home, it seems he has at last found the peace he has struggled for since leaving prison.  What starts as a spiritual pilgrimage, however, quickly turns into a desperate flight through the Tibetan wilderness as the outlawed monk who guides them is murdered and Sham discovers that the artefact has recently been stolen from the Chinese army.  But why is the army so desperate to find the artefact entrusted to Shan?  Why is an aged medicine lama being stalked by government agents?  Why has an American woman, a geologist for an oil company, abandoned the project and fled into the mountains?  Shan discovers not answers, but only new mysteries as he is drawn to such unexpected places as the raucous headquarters base of the Western oil venture and a monastery that seems more attuned to the teachings of the party than those of Buddha.  And the further he travels into the mountains, the more Shan realises that what is at stake is not only justice but the spiritual survival of those who have joined his strange quest. At the heart of Pattison's powerful tale is a story of a brave, oppressed people who have learned to endure by drawing strength from their land and their rich spiritual traditions.

Bone Mountain

Ruth Rendell

The Rottweiler is a chilling tale of a psychopath and the daily lives of those living in his murderous shadow. Expertly brought to life by multi-million copy and SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Ruth Rendell, this is perfect for fans of PD James, Ann Cleeves and Donna Leon. 
 
'Compelling and disturbing' -- The Times 
'In Rendell's expert hands, you'll want to keep reading until dawn - with the light on' -- Red 
'Wonderful at exploring the way private fantasies can clash and explode into terrifying violence' -- Daily Mail 
'Rendell at her best' -- ***** Reader review 
'Absolutely brilliant' -- ***** Reader review 
'I just couldn't put it down'-- ***** Reader review 
'I was totally enthralled by this from start to finish'-- ***** Reader review 
******************************************************************************************* 
The first murder victim had a bite mark on her neck. When the tabloids got hold of the story, they immediately called the deranged killer 'The Rottweiler', and the name stuck. 
 
The latest body was discovered very near Inez Ferry's antique shop in Marylebone. Someone spotted a shadowy figure running away past the station, but couldn't say for sure if it was a man or a woman. There were only two other clues. The murderer seemed to have a preference for strangling his victims and then removing something personal - like a cigarette lighter or a necklace. Trinkets very similar to those mysteriously appearing in Inez's shop. . . 
 
Since her actor husband died, too early into their marriage, Inez supplemented her modest income by taking in tenants above the shop. As her collection of antique trinkets grows, so does Inez's fear that she is harbouring a psychopathic murderer...

The Rottweiler

an intensely gripping and charged psychological exploration of the dark corners of the human mind from the award winning Queen of Crime, Ruth Rendell

Leslie Thomas

The war, they said, would be over by Christmas. That was in 1939, and it is now January 1944. An exhausted Britain faces another year of conflict. 
 
Meanwhile, small coastal villages in Devon are facing an invasion from an army just as foreign as that of the Germans. The Americans are smart, well-fed and well-equipped, and they have swept the bewildered citizens of South Devon from their homes in deadly earnest rehearsal for D-Day. 
 
As the beaches echo to the sound of bullets and the local church to the strains of Glenn Miller, Americans and English are thrown together with sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful and puzzling results.

The Magic Army

David Pirie

While a young medical student at Edinburgh, Arthur Conan Doyle famously studied under the remarkable Dr Joseph Bell. Taking this as a starting point, David Pirie has woven a compelling thriller, which partners Bell and Doyle as pioneers in criminal investigation, exploring the strange underworld of violence and sexual hypocrisy running below the surface of the Victorian era. The Patient's Eyes moves from Edinburgh and the strange circumstances surrounding Doyle's meeting with the remarkable Joseph Bell to Southsea where he begins his first medical practice. There he is puzzled by the symptoms presented by Heather Grace, a sweet young woman whose parents have died tragically several years before. Heather has a strange eye complaint, but is also upset by visions of a phantom cyclist who vanishes as soon as he is followed. This enigma, however, is soon forgotten as Doyle finds himself embroiled in more threatening events - including the murder of a rich Spanish businessman - events that call for the intervention of the eminent Dr Bell. But despite coming to Doyle's aid, perversely Dr Bell considers the murder of Senor Garcia a rather unimportant diversion from the far more sinister matter, which has brought him south: the matter of the patient's eyes and the solitary cyclist...

The Patient's Eyes

Gilda O'Neill

For thirty years, the O’Donnels have ruled the East End, but there’s a price to pay for this power, and it’s usually in blood.

THEIR FATHERS RULED THE EAST END IN THE SIXTIES. NOW THEY INHERIT THE LEGACY 
 
The O'Donnell family ran their manor in the East End with a fist of iron, keeping control of their gambling, prostitution and protection rackets. But gang warfare brought horror and sorrow with it, losing Catherine O'Donnell her life and finally bringing murder and violence into the heart of the family. 
 
Now Eileen O'Donnell is out of prison and her sons Luke and Brendan are running the show. It ought to be time for some peace and quiet. Instead, the trouble is only just beginning...

Make Us Traitors

Richard Asplin

Don Silver, the Vice President of Comedy at Mercury Studios, is in very deep trouble indeed. He's been behind so many disastrous pilots that he's earned the nickname 'Buddy Holly'. If he doesn't find a hit sitcom - and fast - it'll be goodbye to the bourbon, broads and BMWs of his Beverly Hills lifestyle and he'll be out on his (freshly irrigated) arse. 
 
Award-winning comedy writer, Melvin Medford, has a plan to help Don out. So he's nerdier than Bill Gates in a Red Dwarf T-shirt at a Terry Pratchett signing; so he hasn't pitched an idea in ages; so his plan borders on the psychotic, no matter, at least he has a plan... 
 
Which is where Ben Busby comes in. A young British comic, simply gagging to break into television, he's just met two Americans who seem very keen on hiring him. Ben's beside himself with excitement. 
 
However, Melvin's beside him with a gun... 
 
In the million-dollar world of the American sitcom, you could die laughing. No joke.

Gagged

(a thriller with jokes)

Porterhouse is a Cambridge college held fast by the steel cobwebs of tradition. Observe the Masters' attempts to curve these traditions with hilarious and catastropic consequences.

Though as cunning as ever, the formidable Skullion - previously head porter, now elevated to Master - is showing signs of physical frailty after his stroke. So the tricky business of appointing a new Master must start all over again. Meanwhile the College's monstrous debts refuse to go away, and a sinister American media mogul seems determined to make a television documentary on the premises, destroying part of the chapel in the process. Moreover, the widow of the previous Master is convinced that her husband was murdered, so she plants an agent in the Senior Common Room to dig up an unpleasant truth that everyone else would prefer kept under the carpet. 
 
Faced with such continuing crises, the instinct of the true Porterhouse man is to reach for the bottle - or to fall back on the subtle and traditional Cambridge skills of blackmail and kidnap. But will those be enough?

Grantchester Grind

(Porterhouse Blue Series 2)

In Piemburgem, the deceptively peaceful-looking capital of Zululand, Kommandant van Heerden, Konstabel Els and Luitenant Verkramp continue to terrorise true Englishman and even truer Zulus in their relentless search for a perfect South Africa. 
 
Kommandant van Heerden, that great Anglophile, gropes his way towards attaining true 'Englishness' in the company of the eccentric Dornford Yates Club. But Luitenant Verkramp, whose hatred of all things English is surpassed only by his fear of sex, sets in motion an experiment in mass chastity (with the help of a lady psychiatrist), which has remarkable and quite unforeseen results.

Indecent Exposure

Timothy Brights doesn't exactly live up to his name. Brought up to regard copious flows of money as his birthright, he can't understand why the funds have been cut off, nor why friends he recruited as Lloyds' Names no longer want to talk to him. 
 
When gambling fails, Timothy turns to embezzlement, but it's the lesser offence of helping himself to some strangely aromatic tobacco that propels him up the motorway and into bed with the Chief Constable's wife. The Chief Constable has just survived charges of bribery and perjury and is not too concerned that his efforts to dispose of Timothy involve false imprisonment, breaking and entering, and a spot of GBH. It is only when the Chief tries to frame his old adversary, the upright Miss Midden, that things begin to go seriously wrong as his underhand ploy opens up the way to spectacular mayhem.

The Midden

Henry Wilt is no longer the victim of his own uncontrolled fantasies. As Head of a reconstituted Liberal Studies Department he has assumed power without authority at the Fenland College of Arts &amp; Technology and the fantasies he now confronts are those of political bigots and reactionary bureaucrats - in addition to his wife's enthusiasm for every Organic Alternative under the compost heap and the insistence of his quadruplets on looking at every problem with an unflinching lack of sentimentality. 
 
It is only when Wilt becomes the unintentional participant in a terrorist siege that he is forced to find an answer to the problems of power, which have corrupted greater men than he. With a mental ingenuity born of his innate cowardice, Wilt fights for those liberal values which are threatened both by international terrorism and by the sophisticated methods of police anti-terrorist agents. In the confusion that follows, Wilt resumes his dialogue with the unflagging Inspector Flint and is himself subjected to the indignity of a psycho-political profile. 
 
Bitingly funny and brilliantly written, The Wilt Alternative exposes the farcical anomalies, which have become the social norms of our time.

The Wilt Alternative

(Wilt Series 2)

Wilt is back - in form, and in a good deal of trouble. 
 
Henry Wilt is still teaching at the Fenland Tech, attempting to drill English into plasterers, dozing through tedious committee meetings and occasionally getting mildly plastered in 'The Pig in a Poke' with one of his few bearable colleagues. But the even tenor of his days is rudely interrupted when the shadow of drug dealing flickers across the Tech. Suddenly Wilt becomes the target of suspicion. His colleagues believe him to be responsible for triggering a departmental inquiry, and his old adversary Inspector Flint, knowing that he's guilty of something, sees a chance to settle a number of scores. 
 
What starts with an accusation of voyeurism in the staff lavatory (of the wrong gender to boot) leads, more or less directly, to a massive confrontation at a nearby US airbase with the forces of law and order on both sides and Wilt in his usual place - in the middle.

Wilt on High

(Wilt Series 3)

It is 330 B. C. The Macedonian Alexander the Great has conquered Asia Minor but now his armies are far from Athens, and those who support Athenian independence are beginning to chafe and plot against him. Foreigners, like Aristotle, and those suspected of befriending foreigners, such as Stephanos, are threatened. A series of threats persuade these two that they will be best served quitting the mainland for a while and so they both find suitable excuses: Aristotle has to transport a sick student home to Rhodos, while Stephanos must find a relative of his bride-to-be Philomela to clear up an inheritance dispute. With a varied cast of travellers they set sail across the Aegean to the sacred Isle of Delos, to Mykonos and beyond to the coast of Asia Minor. There they will soon be embroiled in investigating conspiracy and murder. But first they must survive life on the high seas where storms and piracy honour no man, least of all the greatest philosopher who has ever lived.

The Secrets Of Life

A walk through Kensal Green Cemetery, a meat pie in the greasy spoon, a weekend away complete with flannel pyjamas - Dangerous Davies knows how to treat the woman he loves. 
 
Detective Constable Davies has two things on his mind: Jemma Duval, the beautiful, black, hymn-singing social worker, and 'Lofty' Brock, the harmless old eccentric who drowned in the canal. To prove that Lofty's death was no accident, our hero sets out to do some undercover detective work. He soon discovers that something sinister is going on. Something that requires intuition, dedication, brilliant deduction - and a timely blow with a blunt instrument.

Dangerous In Love

Many years ago, Iris Greenfeder's mother disappeared. They were living at Hotel Equinox where Iris's father was the manager and where her mother wrote delicate, powerful fantasies. Then one day, she took a train and never returned. She was found dead in a hotel fire in Brooklyn, registered as another man's wife. 
 
Returning to Hotel Equinox, Iris needs to find the truth about her mother; there are some clues in her writing, and others in the memories of those who knew her. Kay Greenfeder, it seems, was a women without a past. But as Iris begins to untangle the secrets of years before, she realises that the past was very different to what she had believed, and much more dangerous...

Seduction Of Water

Michael Palmer

In Chicago, a pregnant cafeteria worker suffering nothing more malevolent than flu like symptoms begins haemorrhaging from every part of her body.  In Boston, a brilliant musician, her face disfigured by an unknown disease, rapidly descends into lethal paranoia.  In West Virginia, a miner suddenly goes berserk, causing a cave-in that kills two of his co-workers.  Finding the link between these events could prove Fatal-Five years ago, internist and emergency specialist Matt Rutledge returned to his West Virginia home to marry his high-school sweetheart and open a practice.  He also had a score to settle.  His father died whilst working for the local mining company, and Matt swore to expose their health and safety violations.  When his beloved wife succumbed to an unusual cancer, his campaign became even more bitterly personal.  Now he has identified bizarre new incidents of illness - caused, he is certain, by the mine's careless disposal of toxic chemicals.  All he needs is proof.

Fatal

William Diehl

Young Thomas Culhane grows up in the small Californian town of Eureka. But, although he is adopted by one of the town's wealthy families, he knows he must escape Eureka to make his own way in the world. Then World War I intervenes and Culhane ships to Europe to join the American forces in Europe, where he proves himself a hero. On his return to Eureka, he soon becomes deputy sheriff to the town's legendary lawman. In the early 1920s, he steps into his boss's shoes after the sheriff is killed in a shootout. Some twenty years later, Sheriff Culhane is a powerful man about to run as state governor. One hundred miles south of Eureka in Los Angeles, Verna Wilensky has been electrocuted in her bathtub. At first her death looks accidental. But as the police investigate further, and discover that she had almost $100,000 in her bank account, they begin to dig deeper. Who was this woman, where did she come from, how did she get all this money, and what was her connection to Eureka, to Thomas Culhane and to the bloody events of the 1920s that saw Culhane's political star begin to rise? Bestselling author William Diehl has written a compelling crime novel set in the golden state of California and revealing its seamy and corrupt underbelly.

Eureka

Follow formidable Chief of Police, Inspector Wexford, as he embarks on another psychologically thrilling case. This is crime at its absolute best, you'll struggle to put it down.

The nineteenth book to feature the classic crime-solving detective, Chief Inspector Wexford. 
 
'A woman phoned to say she and her husband went to Paris for the weekend, leaving their children with a - well, teen-sitter, I suppose, got back last night to find the lot gone and naturally she assumes they've all drowned.' 
 
There hadn't been anything like this kind of rain in living memory. The River Brede had burst its banks, and not a single house in the valley had escaped flooding. Even where Wexford lives, higher up in Kingsmarkham, the waters had nearly reached the mulberry tree in his once immaculate garden. The Subaqua Task Force could find no trace of Giles and Sophie Dade, let alone the woman who was keeping them company, Joanna Troy. But Mrs Dade is convinced her children are dead. 
 
As he embarks upon this mysterious investigation, Wexford is forced to question many of his core assumptions about society, even about his own family...

The Babes In The Wood

(A Wexford Case)

Ladybird Readers

Ladybird Sing-along Stories

Ladybird Tales

Ladybird Tales of... Treasuries

These delightful books are the latest in the series of Ladybird books which have been specially planned to help grown-ups with the world about them. 
 
The large clear script, the careful choice of words, the frequent repetition and the thoughtful matching of text with pictures all enable grown-ups to think they have taught themselves to cope. The subject of the books will greatly appeal to grown-ups. 
 
The eight books in the series feature original Ladybird artwork alongside brilliantly funny, brand new text. The other books in the series are: 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Sheds 
 
- The Ladybird Book of The Hipster 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Mid-Life Crisis 
 
- The Ladybird Book of the Hangover 
 
- The Ladybird Book of Dating 
 
- How it Works: The Husband 
 
- How it Works: The Wife

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