Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Colin Fry

Twins Ron and Reg Kray were without doubt the most powerful, violent and deadly gangsters that London has ever known. They ran protection rackets, clubs and casinos, as well as fraudulent 'long firms'. They blackmailed, intimidated and killed - for many years with impunity thanks to their powerful cronies in the Establishment. Working with all five main Mafia families in New York, they were expanding their business worldwide when they were imprisoned for murder in 1968. 
 
 Featuring revealing new material, The Krays: A Violent Business is the story of their lives - and of the secrets and scandals the British government still doesn't want you to know about.

The Krays: A Violent Business

The Definitive Inside Story of Britain's Most Notorious Brothers in Crime

Martin Knight

A couple of years ago, Martin Knight began a quest to delve into his family history. He had a head start on many amateur genealogists, as 30 years earlier he had produced a school project on the very subject. The project was based on the papers and oral history of his then elderly grandmother, Ellen Tregent. Martin dusted this off and began to assemble the chain of events that shaped his grandmother's life. He even made contact with several living relatives who had known Ellen or some of the people and events she described. 
 
Ellen Tregent was born in 1888 and died in 1988 - her lifetime encompassing an unprecedented century of social change and world upheaval. She was born into a poor working-class family in Battersea, London. Her grandfather had arrived from Ireland 40 years earlier to escape almost certain death as potato famine ravaged his country. 
 
In Battersea Girl, Martin Knight charts Ellen's long and eventful life and the lives of her siblings. They encounter abject poverty, disease, suicide, murder, war and inevitably death, but, equally, the spirit of stoical people who were determined to make the most of their lives shines through in this enchanting book.

Battersea Girl

Tracing a London Life

James Webb

More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England's Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. 
 
 When hundreds of thousands of Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, they brought with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters. Their cultural identity reflected acute individualism, dislike of aristocracy and a military tradition; and, over time, the Scots-Irish defined the attitudes and values of the military, of working-class America and even of the peculiarly populist form of American democracy itself. 
 
 Born Fighting is the first book to chronicle the epic journey of this remarkable ethnic group and the profound but unrecognised role it has played in shaping the social, political and cultural landscape of America from its beginnings through to the present day.

Born Fighting

How the Scots-Irish Shaped America

Martha Long

On hearing that Jackser, her childhood abuser, is seriously ill, Martha is elated, thinking that finally she will be able to watch him suffer. But in the hospital she sees a frightened, lonely old man and realises with a shock that he seems to regret his earlier actions. 
 
During her vigil, she is joined by Charlie, her beloved little brother, then the ma and some of her other siblings. All of them have suffered greatly and it is clear that no one connected to Jackser has escaped unscathed. 
 
But as she sits with him during his dying days, other memories of Jackser come back to Martha – fleeting moments of concern and kindness, and a sense of closeness as he recalled his own tormented past in one of Ireland’s industrial schools. It is a vicious cycle of cruelty and loss that has played out, from which only her own tenacity and wit has provided an escape. 
 
Poignant, ribald, poetic and defiant, with its resolution of many unanswered questions about her life this is Martha at her best.

Ma, Jackser's Dyin Alone

Jim Craig

Pat Woods

Celtic Football Club’s story is laced with drama and excitement, featuring a host of colourful individuals and a social history matched by few, if any, football clubs. 
 
In Celtic: Pride and Passion, Lisbon Lion Jim Craig and Pat Woods, a historian of the club, take a fresh look at several lesser-known episodes in Celtic’s history, including: the fascinating link between Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and a dramatic Ne’erday match at Celtic Park; the unforgettable night the ‘playboy of the Eastern world’ lit up Parkhead with a performance that helped to sow the seeds for a revolution at the club; the remarkable story of a trophy that was such a source of friction that the club kept it locked in a safe; and the pivotal year in which the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers took on a darker hue. They also recount the revealing story, told through the eyes of the European press, of how Celtic captivated a continent in the annus mirabilis of 1967. 
 
Celtic: Pride and Passion is a book that no discerning fan of Celtic Football Club will want to be without.

Celtic: Pride and Passion

Josephine Duthie

Say Nothing is the moving true story of four neglected siblings who were taken into care following the breakdown of their parents' marriage. Sent to a small croft in the north-east of Scotland, they endured an onslaught of physical and mental abuse at the hands of an elderly, inexperienced foster mother. 
 
 For ten years the children's cries for help were ignored and misunderstood in the naive social-work climate of the late 1950s, and this heartbreaking personal account of cruelty and neglect reveals the effect this maltreatment had on their ability to adjust to a normal adult life. 
 
 Say Nothing was written as a voice of support for all abused children who are afraid or were never given the chance to tell their story.

Say Nothing

The Harrowing Truth About Auntie's Children

Joe Jackson

Glasgow is known as the murder capital of Britain and no one understands why better than Joe Jackson. For over 30 years, Jackson worked the crime beat, first as a uniformed cop then as a seasoned murder squad detective. In this hard-hitting memoir of his most memorable cases, he reveals the reality behind chasing killers and other crooks in 'No Mean City'. 
 
 As a young cop, Jackson was threatened by Glasgow's most ruthless gangster, Arthur Thomson, and, as a fresh detective, he took part in the hunt for Bible John, Glasgow's most shadowy serial killer. He locked up more than his fair share of paedophiles and sex beasts along the way and, as a veteran Senior Investigating Officer, he cracked the hardest homicide nut there is: a murder without a body. Jackson's investigations have grabbed headlines, while his 'collars' have filled jails. 
 
 Chasing Killers will shock readers with its behind-the-scenes look at how murder probes are run. Every case is related with candour and humour, and is laced with the kind of detail that only an expert can provide. 
 
Joe Jackson has been called the real-life Taggart, but this is no TV fantasy - this is real city police work: concrete hard, soot black and blood red.

Chasing Killers

Three Decades of Cracking Crime in the UK's Murder Capital

Paul Mason

Paul Mason’s father was a policeman. He was also a member of a sadistic paedophile ring. He would keep Paul locked up and naked in a tiny cupboard under the stairs of their home before sexually abusing him. This cycle of abuse continued for several years and also affected his brother. The cupboard became a horrific prison where fear and terror filled his every moment. 
 
The Cupboard Under the Stairs is a story of abuse at the mercy of adults whom Paul should have been able to trust. There followed a life almost destroyed by their actions. It is the harrowing story of one man’s fight for justice and an end to the horrific memories that still haunt him daily.

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

A Boy Trapped in Hell...

John Burrowes

Irish is the story of the mass migration from Ireland to Glasgow that took place in the wake of the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. It is an epic account of the coming together of a nation and a city. This is the tale of those who escaped a nightmare existence in the poorest and most deprived country in Europe and changed the city of Glasgow forever. Irish brings to life the horrot of those grim days and reveals the unimaginable suffering endured as a result of the Potatoe Blight. It describes in vivid detail the hazards and hardships faced by those fleeing Ireland in search of a better life overseas, including a startling account of one of the most deplorable maritime crimes ever committed, the voyage of the SS Londonderry. The coming of the Irish to Glasgow had a bigger impact on the city than other event. Now, for the first time, the truth about this most significant and stirring episode is vividly unfolded. It tells of the contribution made by Irish labourers in Glasgow to the Industrial Revolution; reveals that the legendary football clubs of Celtic and Rangers may never have existed were it not for the migrant's arrival; and describes the "Partick War", and the occasion of the first-ever Orange Walk.

Irish

The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City

Maggie Craig

'Deftly told' The Herald 
 
They were modern men, the soldiers of the '45: doctors and lawyers, students and teachers, gardeners and weavers. These are the men often written out of history, or else depicted as gallant but misguided fools. 
 
 But in reality they were children of the Age of Reason, they wrote poetry, discussed the latest ideas in philosophy and science - and rose in armed rebellion against the might of the British crown and government. 
 
 Many faced agonising personal dilemmas before committing themselves to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Cause. Few had any illusions about the consequences of failure. Many met their date with destiny on Culloden Moor, players in a global conflict that shaped the world we live in today. 
 
 Combining meticulous research with entertaining and stylish delivery, Maggie Craig tells the dramatic and moving stories of the men who were willing to risk everything for their vision of a better future for themselves, their families and Scotland. 
 
 'A superbly structured work, written with passion and conviction' Scots Magazine

Bare-Arsed Banditti

The Men of the '45

Eugenie Fraser

The House by the Dvina is the riveting story of two families separated in culture and geography but bound together by a Russian-Scottish marriage. It includes episodes as romantic and dramatic as any in fiction: the purchase by the author's great-grandfather of a peasant girl with whom he had fallen in love; the desperate sledge journey in the depths of winter made by her grandmother to intercede with Tsar Aleksandr II for her husband; the extraordinary courtship of her parents; and her Scottish granny being caught up in the abortive revolution of 1905. 
 
 Eugenie Fraser herself was brought up in Russia but was taken on visits to Scotland. She marvellously evokes a child's reactions to two totally different environments, sets of customs and family backgrounds, while the characters are beautifully drawn and splendidly memorable. 
 
 With the events of 1914 to 1920 - the war with Germany, the Revolution, the murder of the Tsar and the withdrawal of the Allied Intervention in the north - came the disintegration of Russia and of family life. The stark realities of hunger, deprivation and fear are sharply contrasted with the adventures of childhood. The reader shares the family's suspense and concern about the fates of its members and relives with Eugenie her final escape to Scotland. 
 
 In The House by the Dvina, Eugenie Fraser has vividly and poignantly portrayed a way of life that finally disappeared in violence and tragedy.

The House by the Dvina

A Russian Childhood

Colin MacFarlane

Enid Blyton wrote about the Famous Five - wholesome kids who were always up to some adventure or other - but during the 1960s Glasgow boy Colin MacFarlane had his own gang: the Incredible Gorbals Diehards. These were young boys trying to survive in one of the world's toughest areas, the infamous slums of Glasgow. 
 
 During the gang's daily adventures, they came across a plethora of undesirable characters, including foul-mouthed drunks, thieves, razor-flicking gang members, con men, fly men and street brawlers. Through it all, MacFarlane and his band of brothers retained their sense of humour while roaming the filthy, stench-ridden Gorbals backstreets. 
 
 In the third volume of his acclaimed memoirs, bestselling author Colin MacFarlane reveals what it was like to grow up on the streets of the Gorbals during this period. Be prepared to be shocked and entertained at the adventures of the gang that called themselves the Incredible Gorbals Diehards.

Gorbals Diehards

A Wild Sixties Childhood

In this latest instalment of Martha Long's real-life account of abuse, deprivation and cruelty at the hands of her mother's partner and the establishment, Martha is now 16 and her time at the convent school is up. In Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed, she leads us through her first months of freedom. 
 
 With no home to go to, Martha leaves the convent carrying her suitcase and a burning ambition to shake off her impoverished past. Hungry to become a person who will blend in with the middle classes, Martha yearns to be accepted as someone who can be loved, respected, and one day have a home of her own where she will be safe. But this is 1960s Dublin, where poverty is rife and the Church works together with the Irish government to keep the poor and the ignorant in their place. 
 
 Martha first finds work as a home help with a loving, lively family, which leads her to a job in a shop, an Italian fish and chip café, then as a skivvy in a miserable household where she is reminded of the terror Jackser brought into her life. Chance meetings with brothers and old friends from the convent lift Martha's spirits, but soon she is back on the streets searching for work and a warm bed to call her own. 
 
 Martha is not often deterred when fate deals her a blow. 'Life is a bowl of cherries!' she reasons. But heartache awaits as people turn her away and predators lurk in the shadows.

Ma, It's a Cold Aul Night an I'm Lookin for a Bed

Louise Monaghan

In the middle of one of the worst civil wars in Syria's history, Louise Monaghan crossed a heavily guarded border to save her six-year-old daughter from the father who had callously snatched her from her home in Cyprus. Not knowing what lay ahead, the Irish mother tricked her ex-husband into believing she still loved him and wanted them to live together as a family, purely so that she could see her kidnapped child again. 
 
Once in his homeland, Louise too was held captive, locked inside a run-down house day and night with little food and no hope of being released. Sick from polluted water, severely beaten by her ex-husband and abandoned by the Turkish men paid to rescue her, she took her little girl and made a daring escape. 
 
The journey they made through bomb attacks and sniper fire, and across a heavily patrolled mountain range in the dead of night, was a harrowing ordeal. Yet miraculously they both survived, and Stolen is Louise's breathtaking account of events.

Stolen

Escape from Syria

Michael O'Rourke

Norman Johnson

The names of infamous crooks such as the Richardsons, Frankie Fraser and the Krays are all indelibly linked with the London gangland scene of the 1950s and '60s. One man who stayed under the radar, however, was 'Scouse' Norman Johnson, whose fearless approach to any problem that came his way quickly earned him the respect of his criminal contemporaries. 
 
 In this amazing autobiography, Johnson documents the many twists and turns that his life has taken, including his foray into London's gangland in the early '50s, after spending his formative years in Liverpool; his acceptance into the fold of one of the top New York Mafia crime families upon relocating there in the 1980s; and his intense affair with an Omani princess, possibly the only time that the heavily protected sanctuary of a Middle Eastern royal has been infiltrated by a Westerner. 
 
 Black Eyes and Blue Blood offers a fascinating insight into the underworld on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond over the four decades that Johnson ducked and dived, mixing with some of the world's best-known gangsters, sportsmen and showbiz personalities, including Rocky Graziano, Jake LaMotta, Frank Sinatra and Tom Jones, along the way.

Black Eyes and Blue Blood

The Amazing Life and Times of Gangster 'Scouse' Norman Johnson

Hugh G. Allison

Culloden was the last battle on British soil. It marked the end of clan culture and was the harbinger of the Highland Clearances. It ensured the inevitability of the American Revolution and increased the outpouring of Scots across the globe. It is the only battle that British Army regiments are not permitted to include in their battle honours; the only battle that Bonnie Prince Charlie ever lost; and the only battle that the Duke of Cumberland ever won. 
 
Culloden is a battlefield, a graveyard and an iconic site that draws people from all parts of the world. And as they come, they bring with them their stories and their father's father's stories. 
 
These stories tell of civil war, of love, of the unexpected and even of the supernatural. They are peopled by the second-sighted, by clan chiefs and by others who have kept family secrets for centuries. 
 
The battlefield is a poignant location, resonant with past deeds and emotive memories. These Culloden tales are offered as a unique record to the power of the place.

Culloden Tales

Stories from Scotland's Most Famous Battlefield

Loung Ung

In 1980, at the age of ten, Loung Ung escaped a devastated Cambodia and flew to the US as a refugee. 
 
 She and her eldest brother, with whom she escaped, left behind their three surviving siblings, and her book is alternately heart-wrenching and heart-warming, as it follows the parallel lives of Loung and her closest sister, Chou, during the 15 years it took for them to be reunited. 
 
 Their two worlds were very different, and Loung's depiction of the contrast between her life in the affluent West and that of her sister, who navigated her way through landmine-strewn fields and survived raids by the Khmer Rouge, is laced with the guilt she feels about being the lucky one. 
 
 This powerful story helps us to understand what happens when a family is torn apart by politics, adversity and war. It is also the compelling and inspirational tale of a remarkable woman.

After They Killed Our Father

A Refugee from the Killing Fields Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind

Mary J. MacLeod

Life on the remote island of Papavray in the 1970s was a world away from Mary J. MacLeod’s urban existence in the south of England. And this peaceful environment was just what she was looking for. 
 
While indoor toilets were still something of a luxury, and ‘teleeffissions’ could produce terror in some of the older residents, the glory of the mountains and the sea combined with the warmth of the island people meant she had found a haven for her family. 
 
Mary’s post as district nurse gave her a unique insight into island life, and her stories of the troubles, joys, drama and comedies endured by her patients make this a charming and humorous account of community life on a small island in a bygone era.

The Island Nurse

John Scally

For 125 years, the GAA has been a fixed point in a fast-changing age, and this oral history marks the125th anniversary of the Association. It is the story of the GAA as seen through the eyes of those key personalities who shaped it. 
 
Author Jon Scally has carried out over a hundred revealing interviews with players and managers who are synonymous with the Games, including Babs Keating, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Ger Loughnane, D.J. Carey, Liam Griffin, Mick O'Dwyer, Colm O'Rourke, John O'Mahony, Joe Brolly and Matt Connor, and these contributions offer a unique eyewitness testimony to the dramas that captivated, enthralled and occasionally infuriated the nation both on and off the pitch. 
 
The book sheds new light on high-profile controversies, offers new insights into the players and personalities that linger long in the memory and presents a fresh look at the epic contests that turned Ireland's Games into a national soap opera. 
 
The GAA: An Oral History is a celebration of the good, the bad and the beautiful of Gaelic Games, and is a must for all sports fans.

The GAA

An Oral History

William Queen

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

Under and Alone

Infiltrating the World's Most Violent Motorcycle Gang

Neville Thompson

Every day the population of Ireland wakes up to reports of another horror case of crime. The streets have become unsafe to walk upon and yet nothing seems to be done about it. Politicians make noises voicing their disgust while the police make arrests only to have the perpetrators walk free. Despite all the media hype, no one seems to be any nearer to solving the problem.Streetwise reveals what is really happening on the streets. The stories contained here are told by prisoners: those who have been involved in crime and are now paying their debt to society, allowing the reader to enter the minds of criminals and begin to understand the circumstances behind their actions. Meet Chang, who started joyriding at eight years old and was infamous among police and legendary among fellow law-breakers by the age of 12; Mucka, a once saintly schoolboy who was abandoned by both his family and society so took to robbing as a form of revenge; PJ, man of the house and breadwinner at 11, alcoholic by 12; and Tommy, the divorc who was refused social welfare so robbed the Co-op of a million Euros and soon found the local wing of the IRA knocking at his door. An exhilarating, emotional roller coaster, Street Wise contains frank accounts from those who have succumbed to crime through boredom, poverty or desperation. It shows how men from different backgrounds have fallen into similar crime traps and what has finally placed them on the path to redemption.

Streetwise

Stories From An Irish Prison

Maureen Coppinger

The shocking but ultimately uplifting life story of an Irish woman who endured 13 years of cruelty and injustice in an orphanage 
 
Maureen Coppinger's earliest memory is of watching the woman she believed to be her mother walk away and abandon her to the care of the nuns at one of Ireland's notorious industrial schools. She was just three years old. 
 
She remained in the orphanage until the age of 16, subjected to cruelty and neglect, and starved of love and affection. It was an environment from which no one emerged unscathed. 
 
Throughout these tormented years, Maureen dreamed only of escape, and when she was contacted again by her mammy she believed all her dreams were about to come true. Life in the outside world brought its own challenges, however, and Maureen was thrown into turmoil when she discovered that the truth about her past was more murky than she had ever realised. 
 
Annie's Girl stands apart as a poignant testimony to the resilience of the human heart. This touching and evocative memoir is the incredible story of an illegitimate industrial-school survivor's profound struggle to overcome a shame-filled past and solve the mystery of her origins. 
 
Maureen Coppinger emigrated to Canada in 1955, where she married and raised three sons. She worked as a school secretary for 25 years before retiring in 1994 and now spends her leisure time as a volunteer for the Galway Association.

Annie's Girl

How an Abandoned Orphan Finally Discovered the Truth About Her Mother

Born a bastard to a teenage mother in the slums of 1950s Dublin, Martha has to be a fighter from the very start. 
 
As her mother moves from man to man, and more children follow, they live hand-to-mouth in squalid, freezing tenements, clothed in rags and forced to beg for food. But just when it seems things can't get any worse, her mother meets Jackser. 
 
Despite her trials, Martha is a child with an irrepressible spirit and a wit beyond her years. She tells the story of her early life without an ounce of self-pity and manages to recreate a lost era in which the shadow of the Catholic Church loomed large and if you didn't work, you didn't eat. 
 
Martha never stops believing she is worth more than the hand she has been dealt, and her remarkable voice will remain with you long after you've finished the last line.

Ma, He Sold Me for a Few Cigarettes

Martin Dillon

In The Trigger Men, bestselling author Martin Dillon delves into the dark and sinister world of Irish terrorism and counter-terrorism. Over three decades he has interviewed and investigated some of the most professional, dangerous and ruthless killers in Ireland. Now Dillon explores their personalities, motivations and bizarre crimes.Many of Ireland's assassins learned their trade in fields and on hillsides in remote parts of Ireland, while others were trained in the Middle East or with Basque separatist terrorists in Spain. Some were one-target-one-shot killers, like the sniper who terrorised the inhabitants of Washington State in the autumn of 2002, while others were bombers skilled in designing the most sophisticated explosive devices and booby traps. Another more powerful group of 'trigger men' were the influential figures in the shadows, who were experts in motivating the killers under their control. All of these men, whether they squeezed the trigger on a high-powered rifle, set the timer on a bomb or used their authority to send others out to commit horrific and unspeakable acts of cruelty, are featured in this book. The Trigger Men takes the reader inside the labyrinthine world of terrorist cells and highly classified counter-terrorism units of British Military Intelligence. The individual stories are described in gripping, unflinching detail and show how the terrorists carried out their ghastly work. Dillon also explores the ideology of the cult of the gunmen and the greed and hatred that motivated assassins in their killing sprees. There are penetrating insights into the mindset of the most infamous assassins: their social and historical conditioning, their callousness......

The Trigger Men

Assassins and Terror Bosses in the Ireland Conflict

Reg McKay

Paul Ferris

On Glasgow's meanest streets life started well for the young Paul Ferris. How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security? 
 
Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. 
 
They gave him weeks to live. 
 
While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living. 
 
They would not let him. 
 
The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive. 
 
This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

The Ferris Conspiracy

James Mackay

Sir William Wallace of Ellerslie is one of history's greatest heroes, but also one of its greatest enigmas - a shadowy figure whose edges have been blurred by myth and legend. Even the date and place of his birth have been mis-stated - until now. James Mackay uses all his skills as a historical detective to produce this definitive biography, telling the incredible story of a man who, without wealth or noble birth, rose to become Guardian of Scotland. William Wallace, with superb generalship and tactical genius, led a country with no previous warlike tradition to triumph gloriously over the much larger, better-armed and better-trained English forces. Seven hundred years later, the heroism and betrayal, the valiant deeds and the dark atrocities, and the struggle of a small nation against a brutal and powerful empire, still create a compelling tale.

William Wallace

Brave Heart

Paul Chandler

Rachel Chandler

Sarah Edworthy

On 23 October 2009, British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler were kidnapped from their sailing boat in the archipelago of the Seychelles. 
 
Their yacht, Lynn Rival, was recovered six days later by naval forces, abandoned off the central Somali coast. 
 
After the attack, Paul and Rachel were taken first onto a previously hijacked merchant ship and then to Somalia, where they were held for over a year, enduring threats and intimidation while their captors tried to extort millions of dollars from their family. 
 
In this remarkable book, the Chandlers recount their terrifying ordeal, revealing the inspiring and poignant story behind the dramatic headlines. At the heart of their survival was their unshakeable belief in each other and their determination to survive, making Hostage an unlikely love story; for Paul and Rachel, death, at times, seemed preferable to being separated.

Hostage

A Year at Gunpoint with Somali Gangsters

Rosalinda V. Hutton

After an idyllic early childhood in Surrey, Linda's life descended into poverty and chaos when her parents' marriage crumbled and her unstable mother's sanity declined. 
 
She experienced a brief period of comfort in a caring foster home before being plunged into the dark, terrifying world of a 1960s institution. St Anne's Convent, Orpington, was a Catholic children's home run by the infamous Sisters of Mercy and a former monk who inflicted bizarre and barbaric beliefs and practices on the children in his care. 
 
Cry and You Cry Alone is the achingly honest story of a survivor of shocking child abuse that took place in the heart of an English suburb.

Cry and You Cry Alone

The Girl Who Vowed She'd Never Forget

A major film, co-written and directed by Angelina Jolie 
 
Until the age of five, Loung Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights and being cheeky to her parents. 
 
When Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Loung's family fled their home and were eventually forced to disperse to survive. Loung was trained as a child soldier while her brothers and sisters were sent to labour camps. The surviving siblings were only finally reunited after the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia and started to destroy the Khmer Rouge. 
 
Bolstered by the bravery of one brother, the vision of the others and the gentle kindness of her sister, Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life. 
 
First They Killed My Father is an unforgettable book told through the voice of the young and fearless Loung. It is a shocking and tragic tale of a girl who was determined to survive despite the odds.

First They Killed My Father

Film tie-in

A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers

Budd Schulberg

Ringside is a bountiful collection of the most memorable boxing stories by legendary fight-game writer Budd Schulberg. 
 
 Schulberg takes us all the way back to an epic bare-knuckle contest in England 200 years ago; draws a revealing portrait of 'Uncle' Mike Jacobs, the promotional impresario of boxing in its golden age; expertly places Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali in the social context of their times; brings followers up to date on the careers of the great names of recent decades - Tyson, Holyfield, de la Hoya, Hopkins, 'Chico' Corrales; and much more. 
 
 Throughout this book, Schulberg provides the perfect blend of great writing on great fighters, laced with a realistic sense of boxing's wrongs as well as its rights. With prose that sparkles with authority and insight, Ringside is a main event in the world of sports literature.

Ringside

A Treasury of Boxing Reportage

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