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Orion Books
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Alex Taylor is a lucky man. He has a large house in the London suburbs, a well-paid job and a beautiful wife. On the surface everything is rosy. Or is it? He is bored by his job, has a love/hate marriage, and drinks more than he should. But then his world changes when he's told he's been left something in an ex-girlfriend's will — a daughter, Caitlin. A daughter he never knew he had and who has no other relatives...Taking on the responsibility of a daughter is not easy. How will Alex dodge social services, form a relationship with Caitlin — a thirteen-year-old stranger — and somehow find it within himself to put down new roots and rebuild his life from scratch? |
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Sookie's beginning to get used to being surrounded by all varieties of undead, changeling, shapeshifting and other supernatural beings — but even she has her limits. She'd really like to take a while to get over being betrayed by Bill, her long-time vampire lover, and get used to her new relationship with the sexy shapeshifter Quinn — but instead, she finds herself attending the long-planned vampire summit, the destination of choice for every undead power player around, as a sort-of human 'Geiger counter' for Sophie-Anne Leclerq, vampire queen of Louisiana. But the job is fraught with difficulties. Sophie-Anne's power base has been severely weakened by Hurricane Katrina, and she's about to be put on trial during the event for murdering her king. Sookie knows the queen is innocent, but she's hardly prepared for other shocking murders: it looks like there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. With secret alliances and backroom deals the order of the day — and night — Sookie must decide which side she'll stand with — and quickly, for her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe. |
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While on the trail of Al Qaeda lieutenant Abu Qasim, ex-burglar turned CIA operative Tommy Carmellini photographs an American mobster boarding a yacht in the harbour of the island of Capri. Tommy's boss, Jake Grafton, sends him to find the link, if there is one, between the mobster, Fioratti, and Al Qaeda. Meanwhile Fioratti is busy planning a terror-for-hire strike that will make him rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Soon Tommy and Jake are embroiled in a stew of American mobsters, killers and thieves, and the clock is ticking... |
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Jason Bourne's nemesis Arkadin is still hot on his trail and the two continue their struggle, reversing roles of hunter and hunted. When Bourne is ambushed and badly wounded, he fakes his death and goes into hiding. In safety, he takes on a new identity, and begins a mission to find out who tried to assassinate him. Meanwhile, an American passenger airliner is shot down. Bourne's search for the man who shot him intersects with the search for the people that brought down the airliner, leading him into one of the most deadly and challenging situations he has ever encountered. With the threat of a new world war brewing, Bourne finds himself in a race against time to uncover the truth and find the person behind his assault, all the while being stalked by his unknown nemesis... |
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Charlotte Lawrence, widowed at thirty-four, decides to return to all things pre-Peter, and that means moving back to the Cheshire village of her childhood. It also means exchanging a clinical company flat for the pretty but overgrown garden of Ivy Cottage and the constant attentions of her interfering sister Hilary. Most of all it means Alex, Ivy Cottage's drop-dead gorgeous-tenant, with whom Hilary is determined Charlotte should find love anew, and whose charming exterior hides his own secret tragedy ... |
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Robert Rankin's THE BRENTFORD TRILOGY — seven books and counting — catapulted him into the dizzy heights of cult success, but over the years that cult following has grown and Robert Rankin is now the second best-selling writer of comic fantasy in Britain, after Terry He Always Makes Me Laugh Pratchett. Were you aware that there are, hidden in the streets of Brighton, twelve ancient constellations, like the Hangleton Hound and the Bevendean Bat... well, there are: and on each one hangs a tale, a tale so strange that only The Lad Himself, that inveterate spinner of tales and talker of the toot, Hugo Rune, can get to the bottom of them. And he'd better do it quickly, because if he doesn't solve the dozen mysteries before the year is out, that'll be the end of the world as we know it. And everything. |
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The history of democratic politics in Britain since the coming of universal male suffrage in 1918 is a dramatic one, crowded with events and colourful figures. As well as the great events of war and economic crises, and the quieter drama of constitutional change, this era has been studded with democratic protests of every sort. The story opens more than 350 years ago. The Levellers of the 17th century, 18th-century radicals, the Chartists and the Reform Acts are all part of the unsteady and fiercely contested progress towards a democratic constitution. Dreams, visions and ideals are important too — of George Orwell, and Enoch Powell, Milton, Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, Churchill and Lord Salisbury, Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn — for they have also shaped our outlook. |
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Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s. |
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A new Sookie Stackhouse book is always a treat! Sookie is a sexy, sassy cocktail waitress who works at Merlotte's Bar in Bon Temps, Louisiana. She's just a regular gal, with all the normal hopes and fears, about dating, boys and life in general — oh, and she's telepathic. And her boyfriends have included Vampire Bill, her first love and the were-tiger Quinn. And Bon Temps is a pretty normal rural town, where murders are mercifully rare. Well, maybe not that rare, as Sookie keeps finding out in this award-winning, New York Times bestselling series! And this autumn Sookie comes to the small screen in True Blood, created by Alan Ball (Six feet Under) and starring Anna Paquin as the irrepressible heroine. |
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Being a blood spatter analyst who hates the sight of blood has always made Dexter's work for the Miami PD tough. But it means he's very neat when it comes to his out-of-hours hobby: murder. Of course, the fact Dexter only kills bad people helps too. Now Dex is facing a disturbing situation. He's used to blood at work, and blood when he's out with the dark passenger (the voice that guides him on his deadly outings). But he's not sure what to make of the man who says blood is art. Using bodies as his canvas, someone is out there expressing themselves in the most lethal and painful of ways. If Dexter's to escape the scalpel and avoid becoming the latest exhibit, he needs somewhere to run... and he might just have found the perfect place. With his wedding looming, completing his nice-guy disguise, Dexter's honeymoon might just save his skin. From the most original voice in crime fiction, DEXTER BY DESIGN is an enthralling, macabre and gruesomely entertaining thriller. |
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World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, in search of the renegade replicants who were his prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser weapon, he dreamed of owning a live animal — the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of animal life. Then Rick got his chance: the assignment to kill six Nexus-6 targets, for a huge reward. But in Deckard's world things were never that simple, and his assignment quickly turned into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge and deceit — and the threat of death for the hunter rather than the hunted... |
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In a world at war, the Dream Archipelago is a neutral zone, and therefore an alluring prospect to the young men on both sides of the conflict. In this interlinked collection of short stories and novellas, Christopher Priest explores war, relationships and forms of reality. Each tale is a truimph of quiet, steady craftsmanship, a model of ingenious design and subtle implication, and as a group they further enrich each other by interlocking cleverly, symmetrically and sometimes sinisterly. |
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In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future — between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death? |
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«My name is unimportant, but you can call me Jack. I'm a musician by choice, a magician by profession, and a bastard by disposition. I'd been doing the magic thing for about five years when they found me. They said I had a talent, that I was smart enough and fit enough and enough of a shit that I could serve my country in a way most people never even get to hear about. And I did want to serve my country, didn't I? I didn't really want to contemplate what might happen if I said no.» And so Jack found himself on the front line of a secret war that most people simply wouldn't believe was possible. Working for a secret organisation tasked with defending our country from whatever supernatural threat faces it. MI5 know nothing about and would laugh if they found out. Well at first they would... Whether wiping out a group of demon summoners, infiltrating a coven determined to assassinate the PM or rooting out a neo-nazi sect who are trying to bring back Hitler from the dead Jack is a very modern sort of magician — trained in a variety of the dark arts but also a dab hand with a Heckler and Koch, skilled in unarmed combat and electronic surveillance. David Devereux has combined the action writing of McNab and Ryan with dark supernatural thrills and produced a blistering new breed of supernatural thriller. This is Dennis Wheatley for the 21st century.» |
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In London of 1840, the economy is sliding into recession; gangs of unemployed workers roam the streets; and a murderer prowls the capital's poor neighborhoods. Pyke, still grieving over the death of his wife and struggling to shoulder his responsibilities as a father, is in debtors' prison, having lost his home and reached the edge of bankruptcy. Fitzroy Tilling, now head of the new Metropolitan Police Force gives Pyke his freedom, but in return he must agree to investigate the brutal death of a young biracial woman, who was apparently working as a prostitute. It is not long before another woman turns up dead, and Pyke begins to suspect that he has stumbled on something more sinister, and more far-reaching than the murder of a couple of prostitutes. Pyke's investigation takes him from the London docks to the sugar plantations of Jamaica, from a fading colonial mansion to the backstreets of the East End in a struggle against ambitious and ruthless enemies, as well as demons of his own. |
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Jason Steadman is a thirty-year-old sales executive living in Boston. He's a witty, charismatic guy who's well liked at the office, but he lacks the 'killer instinct' necessary to reach the top. To the chagrin of his ambitious wife, it looks as if his career has hit a ceiling: Jason's been sidelined. But all that changes one evening when Jason meets Kurt Semko, a former Special Forces officer just back from Iraq. Looking for a decent pitcher for the company softball team, Jason gets Kurt, who was once drafted by the majors, a job in security. Soon, good things start to happen for Jason — and bad things start to happen to Jason's rivals. His career suddenly takes off. He's an overnight success. Only too late does Jason discover that his friend Kurt has been secretly paving his path to the top by the most 'efficient' — and ruthless — means available. After all, Kurt says, 'Business is war, right?' But when Jason tries to put a stop to it, he finds that his new best friend has become the most dangerous enemy imaginable. And now it's far more than just his career that lies in the balance. |
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Elvis Cole has got a problem to solve — and this time it's personal.His girlfriend, Lucy, is out of town, and has left her young son, Ben, in Elvis's care. Elvis and Lucy have had a few problems lately — not least over his job as a private investigator. But at last things seem to be getting better. Until Ben disappears. One minute he's playing his computer game in Elvis's house; the next he has vanished. Elvis looks everywhere, but he just can't find Ben; and neither can Lucy, when she arrives. Then Elvis receives a phone call about Ben — and realises that something from his own past has come back to haunt him... |
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A short but perfectly formed complete Discworld novel, fully illustrated in lavish colour throughout, THE LAST HERO is an essential part of any Discworld collection. It stars the legendary Cohen the Barbarian, a legend in his own lifetime. Cohen can remember when a hero didn't have to worry about fences and lawyers and civilisation, and when people didn't tell you off for killing dragons. But he can't always remember, these days, where he put his teeth... So now, with his ancient sword and his new walking stick and his old friends — and they're very old friends — Cohen the Barbarian is going on one final quest. He's going to climb the highest mountain in the Discworld and meet his gods. The last hero in the world is going to return what the first hero stole. With a vengeance. That'll mean the end of the world, if no one stops him in time. |
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The structure of the book is chronological, with digressions. From Roman and then Norman London, we move on to Chaucer's London — the city of the Peasants Revolt, Dick Whittington and the great Livery Companies. In Tudor and Stuart London many believed the city was being wrecked by over-population, over-building and the greed of speculators. Eighteenth-century London witnessed the South Sea Bubble, gin, highwaymen and the Gordon riots; but also banking, hospitals, and the elegant design of everyday things. In the nineteenth century, expanding vigorously, the city resisted any overall make-over. With Queen Victoria came the Railway Age, which made and unmade the city. Chartism, anti-semitism, overcrowding and cholera. But engineering triumphs too. If the First World War was a nightmare happening elsewhere, the amazing six years of 1939-45 were the city's finest hour. Post-1945, property developers took over, with disastrous results. The author celebrates the cosmopolitan city that mobility and immigration have created, while deploring the moronization' of the city, exemplified by the Millennium. |
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For half a century, the case of Isaiah Oggins, a 1920s New York intellectual brutally murdered in 1947 on Stalin's orders, remained hidden in the secret files of the KGB and the FBI — a footnote buried in the rubble of the Cold War. Then, in 1992, it surfaced briefly, when Boris Yeltsin handed over a deeply censored dossier to the White House. THE LOST SPY at last reveals the truth: Oggins was one of the first Americans to spy for the Soviets. Based on six years of international sleuthing, THE LOST SPY traces Oggins's rise in beguiling detail — a brilliant Columbia University graduate sent to run a safe house in Berlin and spy on the Romanovs in Paris and the Japanese in Manchuria — and his fall: death by poisoning in a KGB laboratory. |
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