The Ghost

The narrator of Robert Harris's gripping novel is a professional ghostwriter. Accustomed to working with fading rock stars and minor celebrities, he jumps at the chance to ghost the memoirs of Britain's former prime minister, especially as it means flying to the American resort of Martha's Vineyard in the middle of winter and finishing the book in the seclusion of a luxurious house. But it doesn't take him long to realise he has made a terrible mistake. His predecessor on the project died in circumstances that were distinctly suspicious, and the ex-prime minister turns out to be a man with secrets in his past that are returning to haunt him.

In the Dark

Theo Shirley is ready to move up. Now that he's sold enough drugs to support a girlfriend and a baby son, his mate Easy Dennison offers him a boost up the next rung of the ladder. As part of his initiation, Theo's taken out one night in a car without headlights. When the driver of a BMW flashes her lights at his car, he's ordered to shoot into her back seat, and his target, Sarah Ruston, runs her BMW into a bus stop. In a city where violence can be random or meticulously planned, where teenage gangs clash with career criminals and where loyalty is paid for in blood, anything is possible. Secrets are uncovered as fast as bodies, and the story's final twist is as breathtakingly surprising as they come.

Ordinary Thunderstorms

Adam Kindred, visiting London for a job interview, comes across a little Italian bistro as he walks along the Embankment, admiring the views. During his meal he strikes up a conversation with a diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterwards.

With horrifying speed, Adam's encounter leads to a series of accidents through which he will lose everything.

The Lighthouse: Inspector Adam Dalgliesh Series, Book 13

Combe Island off the Cornish coast has a bloodstained history but now, privately owned, it offers respite to over-stressed men and women in positions of high authority who require privacy and security. However, the peace of Combe is violated when one of the distinguished visitors is bizarrely murdered. Adam Dalgliesh is called in to solve the mystery quickly and discreetly, but at a difficult time for him and his depleted team. Dalgliesh is uncertain about his future with Emma Lavenham, the woman he loves, Detective Inspector Kate Miskin has her own emotional problems, and Sergeant Francis Benson-Smith is worried about working under her. The team have hardly begun to unravel the motives of the suspects before there is a second brutal killing.

The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

Imagine you could travel back to the 14th century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? And what are you going to eat? Ian Mortimer shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. He sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you to the Middle Ages. The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: evolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance and fear.

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Not Dead Enough: DS Roy Grace Mystery, Book 3

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is investigating the bizarre slaying of Katie Bishop, a member of Brighton's social elite. Her husband Brian appears to be in the clear - he was in another town at the time, sound asleep. But Grace begins to suspect the presence of a doppelganger: is someone else - almost identical to Bishop - involved in the crime? Grace's diligent exhuming of murky secrets soon demonstrates that the Bishops' outwardly settled lives had darker corners. And as Grace gets close to the truth, he finds - paradoxically - that it's his own beleaguered private life which is on the line.

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Three Men in a Boat

Three Men in a Boat is one of the most amusing and durable books in the English language. Semi-autobiographical, it recounts the adventures and mishaps of George, Harris, J. (the author), and his remarkable dog Montmorency during a boat trip along the Thames from London to Oxford.

Jerome K. Jerome originally intended the book to be a guide to the Thames Valley, but his publisher thought it so entertaining it was published as a comic novel and has endured as a classic of the genre ever since.

Wonderfully light and surprisingly modern in tone, the sense of fun is irrepressible, the enjoyment unstoppable. Real laugh-out-loud stuff, masterfully narrated by Hugh Laurie.

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Devil May Care

"My novel is meant to stand in the line of Fleming's own books, where the story is everything." said Faulks, "In his house in Jamaica, Ian Fleming used to write a thousand words in the morning, then go snorkelling, have a cocktail, lunch on the terrace, more diving, another thousand words in late afternoon, then more Martinis and glamorous women. In my house in London, I followed this routine exactly, apart from the cocktails, the lunch and the snorkelling."Picking up from where Fleming left off in 1966 with The Living Daylights / Octopussy, Faulks has written the perfect continuation of the James Bond legacy. Devil May Care is set during the Cold War and features all the glamour, thrills and excitement that one would expect from any adventure involving Bond... James Bond.

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