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

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Hugh G. Allison

Roots of Stone is a passionate tapestry, weaving the story of Scotland with the lives of ordinary and extraordinary people. This fascinating sweep over two thousand years of Scotland's past blends with a true family story stretching back over these same two millennia in a spellbinding fusion of history and memoir. This is an exploration of the Scottish identity through actual tales of the author's forebears - tales drawn from royal bloodline and from crofting hearth, tales of high drama and of quiet everyday satisfactions. Mackays and MacDonalds tread most heavily across these pages, but they are far from alone. Munros, MacDougalls, Murrays and dozens of other clans and families also feature. 
 
Kenneth MacAlpin, Macbeth, Robert the Bruce and Alexander 'Wolf of Badenoch' all have a place in the tapestry. The dreadful deeds of the Wicked Earls of Orkney are laid bare, but counterbalanced by the work of those famous healers, the Beatons. Stepping closer to the present day, the human tragedy of the Clearances becomes all-consuming. 
 
Poets, pipers and poachers play their part, as do dukes and drovers, their tales unfolding within evocatively described landscapes and ancient places of power. The castles and mountains are hauntingly illustrated and the tale is enhanced by the inclusion of two rare piping compositions and some words by the great Gaelic bard Rob Donn. 
 
More than anything else, Roots of Stone is the story of all the ones who came before, those who can still be felt in the blood at times when deep emotion is stirred.

Roots of Stone

The Story of those who Came Before

Jack Alexander

McCrae's Own was the 'Heart of Midlothian Battalion' mentioned all too briefly in Martin Middlebrook's classic book The First Day on the Somme. Raised in Edinburgh shortly after the start of the Great War, it was perhaps the finest unit in Lord Kitchener's volunteer army - a brotherhood of sportsmen, bound together by their extraordinary colonel and their loyalty to a quaintly named Association Football club, the famous Gorgie 'Hearts'. McCrae's were blooded in the Battle of the Somme, losing three-quarters of their strength on the first day alone. The Colonel himself was invalided home. In time the battalion recovered. It came of age at Arras, endured the muddy horror of Passchendaele, and held the line unbroken in the face of furious German attacks on the Lys in 1918. For almost a century their story remained untold. It was all but lost forever. Now, after 12 years of exacting historical detective work, Jack Alexander has reclaimed the 16th Royal Scots for posterity. In this stirring book he draws upon interviews with veterans and a unique archive of letters, diaries and photographs, assembled from the families of more than 1,000 of Sir George McCrae's men.

McCrae's Battalion

The Story of the 16th Royal Scots

Tommy Cairns Livingstone

Thomas Cairns Livingstone began to note his day-to-day experiences in 1913 and continued faithfully for the next 20 years. With each witty and well-observed entry, he recorded events at home and abroad through times of war and peace, joy and sadness. 
 
In this follow-up to the acclaimed Tommy's War, the focus is on the post-war years. Alongside engaging, warm-hearted recollections of everyday life with his wide circle of family, neighbours and friends, Thomas documents everything from the lingering effects of the war and post-war politics to cultural and social aspects of the era, including the rise of cinema and radio, the standard of dentists and opticians before the NHS, the partition of Ireland, the General Strike, the division of domestic labour, Clyde coastal holidays and the expansion of Glasgow. Yet, above all, Thomas affectionately chronicles family life with his hard-working wife, Agnes, and writes with pride of his clever young son, Tommy. 
 
Illustrated throughout with black-and-white sketches from Thomas' original diaries and various other artefacts from the period, Tommy's Peace is a tremendous document of a bygone era that vividly evokes family life in Glasgow between the wars.

Tommy's Peace

A Family Diary 1919-33

Alan Barker

In the early hours of 30 April 2003, twelve armed and uniformed officers accompanied by four plain-clothes detectives burst into Alan Barker's house. They stayed for hours, turning over rooms, seizing documents, impounding computers, files and anything else that interested them. The family were treated as terrorist suspects, the operation resembling so many others in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. But Alan Barker was and is no terrorist. In fact, he has spent his adult life fighting terrorism on the streets of his native province. 
 
 Barker belonged to the Special Branch, the RUC's elite unit dedicated to fighting the IRA, the INLA and loyalist terrorists. He gives a gripping insider's account of life on the frontline and demonstrates how the RUC used sophisticated listening devices and informants, including the notorious supergrass Raymond Gilmour, in their fight to gain the upper hand. 
 
 After nearly 30 years of loyal service, Barker retired angry and disillusioned about what he views as the government's capitulation to the terrorists. This is the book that Downing Street and the Northern Ireland Office don't want you to read. It is a story of courage under fire, guile, Le Carré-esque plots and treachery.

Shadows

Inside Northern Ireland's Special Branch

James Mackay

In My End Is My Beginning is the story of Mary Queen of Scots (1542–87), the tragic heroine par excellence. Queen of an unfamiliar and troubled nation when she was a week old, it was her misfortune to be a pawn in the game of international politics throughout her life. Even in the brief period from 1561 to 1567 when she was ruler of Scotland in fact as well as in name, she was beset with problems that would have defeated a much stronger, more experienced monarch. A talented poet and a charismatic leader, she contended with a treacherous, self-serving nobility, the religious ferment of the Reformation, and the political ambitions of larger and more powerful neighbours. 
 
With little real authority and few resources, Mary’s reign was successful, until her disastrous marriage to the dissolute Darnley set in motion the events that brought about her downfall. For the last 20 years of her life she was a prisoner in the hands of her cousin, Elizabeth I of England, and the subject of treacherous plots and conspiracies. A hostage to fortune, she represented a threat and a rallying-point for English Catholics. Her tragic end was inevitable. Yet her life, with all its adventurous, failures and disasters, produced the son – James – who ultimately brought about the union of Scotland and England. 
 
In the End Is My Beginning uncovers the true facts of Mary’s life in the context of Anglo-Scottish relations and shows why, after more than 400 years, she remains arguably the greatest character in popular Scottish history.

Mary Queen of Scots

In My End is My Beginning

Hugh Jordan

Beginning with the death of legendary IRA figure Sean South of Garryowen on New Year's Day 1957, the book describes the background to what we have now come to call 'the troubles' and paints vivid portraits of the major players whose actions sparked the violence that erupted on the streets of Belfast and Derry in the summer of 1969. Throughout the decades of bloodshed, paramilitary leaders on both sides of the political divide continued to search for more so-called legitimate targets. Milestones in Murder charts how more and more innocent people were unwittingly drawn into the conflict against their will. It examines the killings which marked new lows in the republican/loyalist terror war, from the bombing of pubs and clubs to the advent of 'human bomb' couriers. It revisits the horrific murders of the Shankhill Butchers, exclusively revealing exactly who leader Lennie Murphy's accomplices were. This, amongst other revelations, will piece together several parts of the Irish warfare jigsaw for the first time. The book also covers the more recent murder of the author's colleague Martin O'Hagan, an act which sent shock waves through a battle-hardened media in Northern Ireland. O'Hagan was the first journalist in Ireland to lose his life at the hands of the paramilitaries and his death pushed the parameters of slaughter to new limits.

Milestones in Murder

Defining Moments in Ulster's Terror War

Michael Balfour

Mysterious Scotland presents an extraordinary array of the weird and wonderful heritage of the country. Michael Balfour examines strange stories from the moors, forests, rivers, holy wells and lochs, where - as well as the old legends and dark secrets which he prises out of palaces, castles and cathedrals - he finds monsters, ghoulies, unsolved murders and ancient cures. 
 
Investigating a land where the past is reflected in the present, the author has roamed all around Scotland, exploring standing stones, mermaid beaches and magic springs. He seeks out new theories about the prehistoric, Celtic and Pictish stones, carvings, tombs and brochs which are scattered across the country. Among his many wonderful discoveries, he unearths long-forgotten prophecies, puzzling tales from the bothies, consuming traditions and distillers' tricks, and finds evidence of the legendary Highland second sight. Not forgotten are the great historical figures who throng the pages, each making a unique contribution to Mysterious Scotland. 
 
This book is the perfect introduction to the amazing hidden history which permeates Scottish lives and landscape.

Mysterious Scotland

Enigmas, Secrets and Legends

Armin Lehmann

Tim Carroll

During the last months of Hitler's Berlin, an estimated 30,000 German teenagers perished defending their beloved Fhrer in the Russian onslaught. Armin Lehmann was one of the few boy soldiers who escaped the bloodbath. Like every other member of the Hitler Youth, Armin would have given his life gladly for his leader, but he was not to be sacrificed to the enemy at the gate. Instead, he was chosen to serve in the German High Command's bunker complex. It was a stroke of fate that brought him into the company of the most notorious Nazis of Hitler's hated Reich, including Martin Bormann, Goebbels and, of course, the Fhrer himself. When Hitler greeted Armin, the 16-year-old boy knew he had been granted a unique part in history.In Hitler's Bunker is Armin's eyewitness account of the Nazi apocalypse. It is also the story of how his unquestioning fanaticism won him that role in the final act of the Third Reich. It takes us back to his boyhood and the brutal SS father who instilled the Nazi's hateful creed in his son. It follows Armin's odyssey through the ranks of the Hitler Youth and shares his teenage anguish over his doomed love for a beautiful German nurse. It is the story of Armin's gradual realisation of the full horror of what he had been part of, and recounts his quest for the truth, which took him in the footsteps of Mahatma Ghandi and to a meeting with Albert Schweitzer, the missionary and theologian. Above all, In Hitler's Bunker is the story of how one man, instead of running away from his past, confronted it and found peace, at last.

In Hitler's Bunker

A Boy Soldier's Eyewitness Account of the Führer's Last Days

Eric Pleasants

Of all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of the Second World War and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the 'bastard' British wing of Hitler's SS - the British Free Corps. In this compelling autobiography, Pleasants writes of the bizarre and traumatic years he spent as a prisoner of the twentieth century's most notorious dictators. 
 
 A life-long pacifist, Pleasants spent the early years of the war on occupied Jersey. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for petty crimes and the years that followed held a whirlwind of unexpected turns. He lived life on the run in occupied Paris, was captured and recruited into the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS, found love with a young German woman, witnessed the bombing of Dresden and attempted to escape from Soviet troops along the sewers of Berlin. When the war ended, Pleasants found himself on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. By now a strong man in a travelling circus, he was arrested by the KGB on charges of espionage and sentenced to 25 years' slave labour in the notorious camps of Artic Russia. 
 
 Only with Stalin's death in 1953 was Pleasants finally released from his unique kind of purgatory, after nearly half a lifetime of peripatetic nightmare. He died in 1998 at the age of 87. Hitler's Bastard remains a remarkable testimony to his imperishable will to survive.

Hitler's Bastard

Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia

The Great Escape was one of the most remarkable episodes of the Second World War. After the attempt to break 200 men out of Hermann Gring's 'escape-proof' prisoner-of-war camp, 76 Allied officers managed to create havoc behind enemy lines before most were eventually recaptured. Now, over 60 years after the event, the ingenuity of the masterminds behind this audacious break-out is celebrated.The Great Escapers tells the story of these men who managed to break free from the supposedly impenetrable barbed wire and watchtowers of Stalag Luft III, Gring's showcase prison camp near Sagan. Some of them were also involved in other daring escape attempts, including the famous Wooden Horse episode, also turned into a classic film, and the little-known Sachsenhausen break-out, engineered by five Great Escape survivors sent to die in the notorious concentration camp on Hitler's personal orders. Also revealed is the important role Stalag Luft III played in Allied intelligence operations within occupied Europe: the prisoners developed an intricate espionage network, feeding details of military deployments and strength levels back home and relaying details about the accuracy of bombing raids. Tragically, 50 of those involved in the Great Escape were murdered by the Gestapo. The author examines their deaths and the post-war investigation to bring their killers to justice. The Great Escapers is an extraordinary story, charted through the experiences of those who lived under the sweeping searchlights of the ominous watchtowers and ending with accounts from the seven remaining men who broke out that March night over 60 years ago - the last of the Great Escapers.

The Great Escapers

The Full Story of the Second World War's Most Remarkable Mass Escape

biblio.categories.code

biblio.publicationStatus

biblio.brand

biblio.workEditions.format

biblio.ageRange

biblio.series.seriesName

biblio.imprint.description

biblio.type

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Best-Jane-Austen-quotes_Online-Desktop_Penguin

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Search Results

The Fall of the West

Hunt the Villain

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

The Mortons

Watch a trailer for The Spook's Blood

A photograph of Ben Barnes in character for Shadow and Bone Netflix series.

Interviews

Shadow and Bone’s Ben Barnes on tear-jerking books and what he’s reading

An image showing a selection of adventure stories for 9-12 year olds on a bright yellow background with orange doodles that include a hashtag, flag, danger sign and speech bubble

Children's reading lists

16 books for 9 to 12-year-olds that love adventures

An image of a selection of books for 9-12s on a blue background with a large splodge and striped print

24 must-read books for 9-12-year-olds

A picture of several different children's books on a pink to blue ombre background; each book has a bright yellow shadow

Reading lists

The 100 best children's books of all time, as chosen by our readers

stemming

Showing results for: ‘joseph delaney’

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter