The tale of an archaeological dig gone terribly wrong from “Great Britain’s leading adventure novelist” (Financial Times). When his parents died, Paul was sent to Amsterdam to live with his mother’s old lover, the eccentric archaeologist Pieter Van der Voort. Paul became a man in that cramped, strange house, cooped up with skeletons, fossils, and his increasingly mad guardian, who was obsessed with the search for the origins of man. Finally, Paul can take no more. He hops a freighter and spends eight years at sea before returning home to find Van der Voort gone—and a mystery waiting in his place. Van der Voort is in Greece on an archaeological expedition that’s spiraling out of control. The last place Paul wants to be is at the old man’s side, but he feels something drawing him toward the dig site. To reach Greece, he takes a job working for a smuggler, embarking on a journey that will carry him across the globe—and into the blackest depths of history. A rip-roaring archaeological adventure in the spirit of Indiana Jones, Levkas Man is a story about the fundamental desire that has defined all human history: the irresistible urge to kill.
Four action-packed thrillers from the author of The Wreck of the Mary Deareand “Great Britain’s leading adventure novelist” (Financial Times). British novelist Hammond Innes was perhaps best known for his nautical mystery, The Wreck of the Mary Deare, which was made into a film starring Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. But the prolific writer, World War II veteran, and dedicated yachtsman wrote over thirty novels of adventure and suspense during his long career. The collected fiction here spans the globe—from Antarctica to the Hebrides, Cold War Germany to sun-soaked Greece. As always, “for sheer excitement Hammond Innes will be hard to beat” (Daphne du Maurier). Isvik: Isvik is a legend—a ghost ship that sits on the lip of Antarctica, two hundred years old at least, swallowed by the ice with severed masts and helmsman frozen to the wheel. Or so a glaciologist reported before his plane crashed on the ice shelf. Now, wealthy Scotsman Iain Ward is determined to find the frozen frigate—and he’s bringing along Peter Kettil, a wood preservation specialist and seasoned sailor himself. But Ward and Kettil are not the only ones willing to go to any lengths to discover the ship’s secrets . . . “[A] dramatic adventure that will keep readers guessing until its startling climax.” —Publishers Weekly Air Bridge: After his heroic service in World War II, pilot and aircraft engineer Neil Fraser must steal planes in order to make a living, flying them from England to the land that will soon become Israel. But when he’s caught by a ruthless tycoon, he’s forced to build the wealthy man a new aircraft engine. With dreams of conquering the sky, Bill Saeton wants Fraser to fly the plane over a divided Germany as part of the Berlin Airlift. But as Saeton’s ambition becomes a dangerous obsession, Fraser begins to look for a way to bail out. “Authentic and excellent . . . His plot, characters and suspense live up to the setting.” —San Francisco Chronicle Atlantic Fury: When a British army unit is ordered to evacuate from the remote, rocky island of Laerg in the Hebrides during a violent storm, it’s up to a pair of reunited brothers to save the group of soldiers—and each other. “Nothing short of superb.” —The New York Times Levkas Man: When his parents died, Paul was sent to Amsterdam to live with his mother’s old lover, the eccentric archaeologist Pieter Van der Voort, who was obsessed with the origins of man. After eight years at sea, Paul discovers Van der Voort is in Greece on an archaeological expedition that’s spiraling out of control. To reach Greece, Paul takes a job working for a smuggler, embarking on a journey that will carry him across the globe—and into the blackest depths of man’s most primal instinct. “Quick-action adventure—a particularly interesting background.” —The Daily Telegraph
"In the first complete chronological narrative of the species from emergence to extinction...archaeologist Dimitra Papagianni and science historian Michael Morse have shaped a gem." —Nature In recent years, the common perception of the Neanderthals has been transformed, thanks to new discoveries and paradigm-shattering scientific innovations. It turns out that the Neanderthals’ behavior was surprisingly modern: they buried the dead, cared for the sick, hunted large animals in their prime, harvested seafood, and communicated with spoken language. Meanwhile, advances in DNA technologies are compelling us to reassess the Neanderthals’ place in our own past. For hundreds of thousands of years, Neanderthals evolved in Europe parallel to Homo sapiens evolving in Africa, and, when both species made their first forays into Asia, the Neanderthals may even have had the upper hand. In this important volume, Dimitra Papagianni and Michael A. Morse compile the first full chronological narrative of the Neanderthals’ dramatic existence—from their evolution in Europe to their expansion to Siberia, their subsequent extinction, and ultimately their revival in popular novels, cartoons, cult movies, and television commercials.
Do you only have a week to spare? For those of us who are time poor but who want to seize the moment, either on our own boat or on a charter, it's reassuring to know that there are plenty of cruising hubs from where we can enjoy some of the best of the region in only a few days. Imray Pocket Pilots are a new series of affordable PDF books, companions to the Yachting Monthly series A Week Afloat. They visit some ideal destinations and suggest a one week itinerary, and include expanded sailing directions for cruising each area based on printed Imray pilot books. Familiar Imray chartlets cover marina detail and approaches, and photos add both information and colour to the downloads. This Imray Pocket Pilot covers The Ionian, Greece.
First published in 1990, Language in Popular Fiction was written to provide a comprehensive and illuminating look at the way language is used in thrillers and romantic fiction. The book examines the use of language across three interrelated levels: a level of verbal organisation, a level of narrative structure, and a level at which stylistic options and devices are related to notions of gender. It introduces ‘the protocol of pulchritude’ and makes use of detailed stylistic and linguistic analysis to investigate a wide range of ‘popfiction’ and ‘magfiction’. In doing so, it provokes serious reflection on popular fiction and its claims on the reader.
Possessors of a widely recognized, positively valued and well-underpinned brand, archaeologists need to take more seriously the appeal of their work and its relationship to society and popular culture.
A sweeping adventure set in the Arabian Desert, where the shadow of British colonialism threatens to destroy a father and son. Three years ago, nineteen-year-old David Thomas beat his father to death. Actually, David only punched the old man, but it was hard enough to cause him to have a fatal stroke. And the man wasn’t really David’s father at all: The fight started because David learned that his true father was Col. Charles Stanley Whitaker, a legendary figure who made his fortune in the oil fields of the Arabian Desert. With the help of George Grant, a lawyer he’d just met, David escaped the police and set out to find his real father. But like so many travelers before him, he was swallowed by the desert and never seen again . . . Now, Grant is working for Colonel Whitaker, helping him negotiate the tangled politics of the turbulent Middle East. When he begins asking questions about the circumstances of David’s disappearance, he will be forced to confront the nightmare at the heart of the British Empire. A globe-trotting adventure with the sweep of Lawrence of Arabia, The Doomed Oasis is a thrilling political novel, one of the finest ever written by the legendary Hammond Innes.
