The award-winning debut thriller from the bestselling author of Kolymsky Heights 'Quite simply the best thriller writer around.' Spectator Nicolas Whistler is young, bored and in debt. When an opportunity to make some money arises, he can't turn it down. He is sent to Prague to carry out a simple assignment, but he soon finds himself trapped between the secret police and the clutches of the mysterious Vlasta. Whether he likes it or not, Nicolas is now a spy. 'Fast-moving, exciting, often extraordinarily funny.' Sunday Times 'Brilliant. Don't miss it.' Observer
Casper Laing, the young, fiery and brilliant Professor of Semitic Languages, is asked to decipher an ancient parchment found in Israel. Piecing together its mysterious fragments, his translation soon reveals directions to a shrouded location. Believed to be the secret hiding place of the True Menorah, an ancient and priceless Jewish candelabrum, the Jordanians and Israelis begin a frantic race to claim the prize. Surrounded by violent and treacherous rivals, Casper is enjoined on a deadly adventure deep into the burning Negev desert. A Long Way to Shiloh (1966), Lionel Davidson's third novel, was a Book Society Choice and won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award as well as the Crime Critics' Award for Best Thriller of the Year. Published in the USA as The Menorah Men, it was a no. 1 bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. It further cemented his reputation as one of the pre-eminent genre writers of his generation, and was described by the Guardian as 'first-rate' and by the New York Times as 'a supple delight in which learning, wit and style are beautifully integrated.'
Taking the literary world by storm, Eimear McBride’s internationally praised debut is one of the most acclaimed novels in recent years; it is “subversive, passionate, and darkly alchemical. Read it and be changed” (Eleanor Catton). Eimear McBride’s debut tells, with astonishing insight and in riveting detail, the story of a young woman’s relationship with her brother, the long shadow cast by his childhood brain tumour, and her harrowing sexual awakening. Not so much a stream-of-consciousness, as an unconscious railing against a life that makes little sense, and a shocking and intimate insight into the thoughts, feelings and chaotic sexuality of a vulnerable and isolated protagonist, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing plunges inside its narrator’s head, exposing her world firsthand. This isn’t always comfortable—but it is always a revelation. Touching on everything from family violence to religion to addiction, and the personal struggle to remain intact in times of intense trauma, McBride writes with singular intensity, acute sensitivity, and mordant wit. A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is moving, funny, and alarming. It is a book you will never forget.
Don't miss the latest book in the Arkady Renko series, THE SIBERIAN DILEMMA by Martin Cruz Smith, ‘the master of the international thriller’ (New York Times) – available to order now! AN ARKADY RENKO NOVEL: #2 'One of those writers that anyone who is serious about their craft views with respect bordering on awe' Val McDermid 'Makes tension rise through the page like a shark's fin’ Independent *** Arkady Renko, former Chief Investigator of the Moscow Town Prosecutor's Office, made too many enemies and lost the favour of his party. After a self-imposed exile in Siberia, Renko toils on the 'slime line' of a factory ship in the Bering Sea. But when an adventurous Georgian woman comes up with the day's catch, the signs of murder are undeniable. Up against the Soviet bureaucracy in a complex international web, Renko must again become the obsessed, dedicated cop he once was. And in doing so, he discovers much more than he bargained for . . . Praise for Martin Cruz Smith 'The story drips with atmosphere and authenticity – a literary triumph' David Young, bestselling author of Stasi Child 'One of those writers that anyone who is serious about their craft views with respect bordering on awe' Val McDermid ‘Cleverly and intelligently told, The Girl from Venice is a truly riveting tale of love, mystery and rampant danger. I loved it’ Kate Furnivall, author of The Liberation ‘Smith not only constructs grittily realistic plots, he also has a gift for characterisation of which most thriller writers can only dream' Mail on Sunday 'Smith was among the first of a new generation of writers who made thrillers literary' Guardian 'Brilliantly worked, marvellously written . . . an imaginative triumph' Sunday Times ‘Martin Cruz Smith’s Renko novels are superb’ William Ryan, author of The Constant Soldier
'Beautiful, lyrical, sensitive and meaningful . . . It deserves to be read and re-read.' "Los Angeles Times" Two deadly enemies - a young Arab rebel and a Jewish runaway - meet in a remote valley to begin a quest. Both have been taught since infancy to hate; to attack for self-defence. But something incredible is happening to them, something that not even the fierce shelling of the Six-Day War can intrude upon. For they are on a fantastic mission, a mission both believe has been set for them by God . . . Gripping, exciting and incredibly poignant, Smith's Gazelle is an intriguing thriller from a master of the genre.
One of a series of top-quality fiction for schools, this is a story in which two boys overhear a plot for murder and try to stop it, but nobody will believe them. The result is a chase on a train from Liverpool Street and across the Fens.
Under Plum Lake is a kid's book that also wowed the adults that read it. Right from the opening lines the reader is pulled into a world suffused with a sense of loss and then dazzled by a pyrotechnic display of storytelling. 'I went down again last night. I go every night now. It's August again, the same time of year, and I know it can still all happen again.' Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) was much admired by his his fellow writers - Graham Greene, Rebecca West, Frederick Forsyth and Philip Pullman among them. Davidson won the Golden Dagger award for crime thrillers an unprecedented three times, as well as scripting several films. Yet the eerily evocative Under Plum Lake remains an enigma, the only childrens book he wrote under his own name. It's a genuine one-off.
A new collection of short stories from the woman Rick Moody has called "the best prose stylist in America" Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of "Bloomington" reads, "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before." Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates," a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert's correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author's own dreams, or the dreams of friends. What does not vary throughout Can't and Won't, Lydia Davis's fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.
The Chelsea Murders (1978) was Lionel Davidson's seventh novel, earning him the Crime Writer's Association Gold Dagger Award and prompting the Daily Telegraph to declare, 'Lionel Davidson is one of the best and most versatile thriller writers we have.' A terrifying, grotesque figure bursts into a young art student's room. Head covered with a clown's wig, face concealed by a smiling mask, it wears the rubber gloves of a surgeon. The girl is seized, chloroformed, suffocated and - horrifyingly - beheaded. This is only the beginning of a series of murders terrorising London's fashionable bohemia. The police target three avant-garde filmmakers. One of them is mocking the other two, and openly taunting the police as well. But which of them is behind these appalling crimes? Fast paced, terrifying and gripping, this is a page-turning thriller from a master.
