'Easily the most original thing Frayn has done . . . written with elegant simplicity.' New Statesman Uncumber lives at a time in the distant future when all humanity is divided in two - the Insiders and the Outsiders. The Insiders are privileged, with their every need catered to by somatic drugs, three-dimensional holovision and a prolonged life. Uncumber lives in this luxurious world and is told that she must never go out into the dust and disease of the real world. Uncumber, however, is haunted by a restless and inquisitive spirit. When she falls in love with an Outsider, she decides to go exploring ... 'A fairy tale of the future.' Guardian
The locals in the southern Italian town where he lives call him Signor Farfalla--Mr. Butterfly: for he is a discreet gentleman who paints rare butterflies. His life is inconspicuous--mornings spent brushing at a canvas, afternoons idling in the cafes, and evening talks with his friend the town priest over a glass of brandy. Yet there are other sides to this gentleman's life: Clara: the young student who moonlights in the town bordello. And another woman who arrives with $100,000 and a commission, but not for a painting of butterflies. With this assignment returns the dark fear that has dogged Signor Farfalla's mysterious life. Almost instantly, he senses a deadly circle closing in on him, one which he may or may not elude. Part thriller, part character study, part drama of deceit and self-betrayal, A Very Private Gentleman shows Martin Booth at the very height of his powers
“Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil meets Camelot.”—Washington Post Book World In 1964, Mary Pinchot Meyer, the beautiful, rebellious, and intelligent ex-wife of a top CIA official, was killed on a quiet Georgetown towpath near her home. Mary Meyer was a secret mistress of President John F. Kennedy, whom she had known since private school days, and after her death, reports that she had kept a diary set off a tense search by her brother-in-law, newsman Ben Bradlee, and CIA spymaster James Jesus Angleton. But the only suspect in her murder was acquitted, and today her life and death are still a source of intense speculation, as Nina Burleigh reveals in her widely praised book, the first to examine this haunting story. Praise for A Very Private Woman “Power is so utterly fascinating. Sometimes it’s used for evil purposes, like the kind of power that has silenced the telling of Mary Pinchot Meyer’s mysterious murder for over three decades. In A Very Private Woman, Nina Burleigh has finally told this tragic tale of a privileged beauty with friends in high places.”—Dominick Dunne “A superbly crafted, evocative glimpse of an adventurous spirit whose grisly murder remains a mystery.”—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review “Proves that every Washington sex scandal is juicy in its own way.”—Glamour “Nina Burleigh has dissected Washington’s most intriguing murder mystery and produced a captivating biography, a thriller, and an insightful portrait of Georgetown in its golden presidential age.”—Christopher Ogden, bestselling author of Life of the Party: The Life of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman “Provocative, erudite . . . pure Georgetown noir.”—New York Observer “A rich array of real-life characters.”—New York Times Book Review
'Will surely rank as one of the foremost literary biographies of our time.' John Carey, Sunday Times In his lifetime Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) published just a single poem - only a few close friends were aware he wrote. Much of his work was burnt by fellow Jesuits on his death. And yet Hopkins is today a huge figure in English literature. Homosexual but terribly repressed, he channeled his emotions toward nature and God, with profound results. Princeton emeritus professor Martin, the only biographer to have unrestricted use of Hopkins' private papers, tells this extraordinary story from Hopkins' early life and studies at Oxford, through his tortuous conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism, to his struggle in later years to retain his very sanity. 'In Martin, the unhappy and tormented genius has found the most sympathetic and intelligent interpreter... [The book] goes to the heart of Hopkins, and plants him firmly before us as a Victorian, and a great one.' Allan Massie, Sunday Telegraph 'Martin follows Hopkins through his toils with sympathy and a great unshowy command of the facts. In this magnificently solicitous biography he has re-established the contours of the story definitively and made the homosexual drama integral to the better-known drama of conversion and poetics.' Seamus Heaney, Independent on Sunday 'The triumph of this learned, scrupulously detailed and persuasive biography is that it brings the reader as near as it is perhaps possible to come to living Hopkins' life, to sensing the mysterious crushing pressures that were for him intimately bound up with the richness and complexity of his writing.' Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph
Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association First Novel Award When security officer George Sinclair is sent to investigate a murder in Delhi, his orders are to get it cleaned up quickly. But he soon discovers things are complicated. Hugo Frencham, Britain's Head of Chancery at the High Commission, is found stabbed in his bungalow. Conflicting leads indicate it was either a sex game pushed too far or a botched robbery. At a loss, the theft of Tibetan artifacts from Frenchman’s extensive collection leads Sinclair to Janey Somers, an expert on Tibetan culture. Together they travel to Tibet, and discover the depths of Frenchman’s murky second life; involving currency dealing, artifact smuggling, and links to Soviet Russia. ‘A really fine first novel... a genuine surprise in the tail’ TLS Praise for Elizabeth Ironside ‘Excellent local colour and culture, good adventure and an admirable denouement’ Marcel Berlins ‘She joins those few mystery writers you unreservedly look forward to reading ... a thoroughly satisfying psychological thriller’ Harriet Waugh, Spectator ‘A fine, stylish book to be savoured’ James Melville ‘Superbly handled ... a masterly example of classic crime fiction’ Birmingham Post ‘A spell-binding story of love, murder and deception’ Coventry Evening Telegraph ‘Enticing murder mystery’ Manchester Evening News
February 21, 1848, the House of Representatives, Washington D.C.: Congressman John Quincy Adams, rising to speak, suddenly collapses at his desk; two days later, he dies in the Speaker’s chamber. The public mourning that followed, writes Paul C. Nagel, “exceeded anything previously seen in America. Forgotten was his failed presidency and his often cold demeanor. It was the memory of an extraordinary human being—one who in his last years had fought heroically for the right of petition and against a war to expand slavery—that drew a grateful people to salute his coffin in the Capitol and to stand by the railroad tracks as his bier was transported from Washington to Boston.” Nagel probes deeply into the psyche of this cantankerous, misanthropic, erudite, hardworking son of a former president whose remarkable career spanned many offices: minister to Holland, Russia, and England, U.S. senator, secretary of state, president of the United States (1825-1829), and, finally, U.S. representative (the only ex-president to serve in the House). On the basis of a thorough study of Adams’ seventy-year diary, among a host of other documents, the author gives us a richer account than we have yet had of JQA’s life—his passionate marriage to Louisa Johnson, his personal tragedies (two sons lost to alcoholism), his brilliant diplomacy, his recurring depression, his exasperating behavior—and shows us why, in the end, only Abraham Lincoln’s death evoked a great out-pouring of national sorrow in nineteenth-century America. We come to see how much Adams disliked politics and hoped for more from life than high office; how he sought distinction in literacy and scientific endeavors, and drew his greatest pleasure from being a poet, critic, translator, essayist, botanist, and professor of oratory at Harvard; how tension between the public and private Adams vexed his life; and how his frustration kept his masked and aloof (and unpopular). Nagel’s great achievement, in this first biography of America’s sixth president in a quarter century, is finally to portray Adams in all his talent and complexity.
Felicity Howard, a young American studying in a remote monastery in England is devastated when she finds her beloved Fr. Dominic bludgeoned to death and Fr. Antony, her church history lecturer, soaked in his blood.A Very Private Grave is a contemporary novel with a thoroughly modern heroine who must learn some age-old truths in order to solve the mystery and save her own life as she and Fr. Antony flee a murderer and follow clues across a sacred landscape. The narrative deftly mixes intellectual puzzles, spiritual aspiration, romance and the solving of riddles ancient and modern. Ancient buried treasure, a brutal murder and lurking danger-an itinerary of terror across a holy terrain
