Three seemingly independent events occur one morning in London: an MP wakes up after spending the night with a woman he picked up in a bar; a tycoon meets a Bank of England official for breakfast; and a criminal briefs his crew. A journalist struggles to unravel the truth behind the three events.
The eagerly anticipated new Shardlake novel from the number one bestselling author.Summer, 1546.King Henry VIII is slowly, painfully dying. His Protestant and Catholic councillors are engaged in a final and decisive power struggle; whoever wins will control the government of Henry's successor, eight-year-old Prince Edward. As heretics are hunted across London, and the radical Protestant Anne Askew is burned at the stake, the Catholic party focus their attack on Henry's sixth wife, Matthew Shardlake's old mentor, Queen Catherine Parr.Shardlake, still haunted by events aboard the warship Mary Rose the year before, is working on the Cotterstoke Will case, a savage dispute between rival siblings. Then, unexpectedly, he is summoned to Whitehall Palace and asked for help by his old patron, the now beleaguered and desperate Queen.For Catherine Parr has a secret. She has written a confessional book, Lamentation of a Sinner, so radically Protestant that if it came to the King's attention it could bring both her and her sympathizers crashing down. But, although the book was kept secret and hidden inside a locked chest in the Queen's private chamber, it has - inexplicably - vanished. Only one page has been found, clutched in the hand of a murdered London printer.Shardlake's investigations take him on a trail that begins among the backstreet printshops of London but leads him and Jack Barak into the dark and labyrinthine world of the politics of the royal court; a world he had sworn never to enter again. Loyalty to the Queen will drive him into a swirl of intrigue inside Whitehall Palace, where Catholic enemies and Protestant friends can be equally dangerous, and the political opportunists, who will follow the wind wherever it blows, more dangerous than either. The theft of Queen Catherine's book proves to be connected to the terrible death of Anne Askew, while his involvement with the Cotterstoke litigants threatens to bring Shardlake himself to the stake.
Le secteur des nanotechnologies est un enjeu colossal pour les grandes puissances. Mais à quel prix pour l'homme ?Au coeur des Rocheuses, Nano est un conglomérat à la pointe de l'innovation dans le domaine des microbivores : des robots de quelques atomes susceptibles de guérir des maladies très graves, comme l'Alzheimer. Il y règne une discipline quasi militaire : ordre de se cantonner à son propre laboratoire, interdiction de s'interroger sur la provenance des sommes astronomiques qui financent la recherche. Récemment embauchée par la firme, Pia Grazdani, la brillante étudiante en médecine d'Assurance Vie, devient un témoin gênant lorsqu'elle assiste à l'étrange malaise d'un chercheur chinois : mais de quoi son patron cherche-t-il à l'éloigner ? Le géant des nanotechnologies est-il à deux doigts de faire la découverte du XXIe siècle... ou s'est-il déjà vendu au plus offrant ?« Un des meilleurs Cook. » Associated Press
B>Tudor England is brought vividly to life in Tombland, the seventh novel in C. J. Sansom's number one bestselling Shardlake series, for fans of Hilary Mantel and Philippa Gregory./b>b>*The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller*/b>Summer, 1549.Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos . . .The nominal king, Edward VI, is eleven years old. His uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, rules as Protector. The extirpation of the old religion by radical Protestants is stirring discontent among the populace while the Protector's prolonged war with Scotland is proving a disastrous failure and threatens to involve France. Worst of all, the economy is in collapse, inflation rages and rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.Since the old King's death, Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry's younger daughter, the Lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of Edith Boleyn, the wife of John Boleyn - a distant Norfolk relation of Elizabeth's mother - which could have political implications for Elizabeth, brings Shardlake and his assistant Nicholas Overton to the summer assizes at Norwich. There they are reunited with Shardlake's former assistant Jack Barak. The three find layers of mystery and danger surrounding Edith's death, as a second murder is committed.And then East Anglia explodes, as peasant rebellion breaks out across the country. The yeoman Robert Kett leads a force of thousands in overthrowing the landlords and establishing a vast camp outside Norwich. Soon the rebels have taken over the city, England's second largest.Barak throws in his lot with the rebels; Nicholas, opposed to them, becomes a prisoner in Norwich Castle; while Shardlake has to decide where his ultimate loyalties lie, as government forces in London prepare to march north and destroy the rebels. Meanwhile he discovers that the murder of Edith Boleyn may have connections reaching into both the heart of the rebel camp and of the Norfolk gentry . . .Includes an Historical Essay from the author on Reimagining Kett's Rebellion.
B>Date with Poison is the brilliant fourth novel in Julia Chapman's Dales Detective Agency series, and is perfect for fans of M C Beaton's Agatha Raisin series and Gervase Phinn./b>Spring is in the air in Bruncliffe but not everyone is filled with the joys of the season.Samson O'Brien of the Dales Detective Agency is being questioned by the police about a murder, with the truth about his policing past about to be brutally exposed. And with Bruncliffe turning on Samson, his business partner Delilah Metcalfe finds herself in the impossible position of defending him to her friends and family.Then Delilah's nephew, accused of being under Samson's influence, runs away from home and a frantic search begins. And with attention turning to Nathan, only a local vet is paying attention to a worrying spate of canine poisonings happening throughout the village. Bruncliffe is turning toxic and with suspicion raining down on him, Samson knows he has to ask Delilah for help. Can she forgive his transgressions and help him so that they can find Nathan and the poisoner, or has the poison already spread too far?
The number one bestselling author returns with a highly-charged thriller taking Amos Decker, who has proved one of his readers' favourite characters to date, on an action-packed investigation with all the trademark twists and turns which make David Baldacci one of the world's favourite storytellers. FBI consultant Amos Decker and his colleague, Alex Jamison, are summoned to the remote North Dakota Badlands when a hunter discovers the remains of a woman out on the Great Plains. She appears to have had a post-mortem performed on her, reminiscent of those seen on TV cop shows - but this time, there was no slab, morgue or camera in sight. The reason why Irene Cramer's murder merits an FBI investigation becomes rapidly clear when key questions surface about the woman's mysterious past. As a teacher at a school managed by a local male-run sect, the Anabaptists, little is known about who she really was or where she came from. What was her true identity? And what did she have to hide? Seeking information from the local community, Decker and Jamison observe the local town of London, North Dakota, which sits at the very heart of the fracking industry. Enriched with oil money, jealousy and a deep-set rivalry between its richest investors lie beneath a veneer of glitz and opulence. But it is the nearby 'eye in the sky', the London Air Force Station, which may hold the answers. Acting as an early warning system, it can detect a nuclear threat to the US. Was Irene Cramer's death connected in some way to the highly classified facility? When a mysterious government contact reaches out to assist their investigation, Decker realizes that this town holds secrets so explosive that their implications could destabilize the entire country . . .
B>'Brilliant. . . I think Blake Crouch just invented something new.' - Lee Child, author of the /b>b>Jack Reacher series./b>b>From Blake Crouch, the author of the bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy, Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human - a relentlessly surprising thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we'll go to claim the lives we dream of, perfect for fans of Stranger Things and Ready Player One./b>'Are you happy in your life?'br>Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. br>Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. br>Before the man he's never met smiles down at him and says, 'Welcome back.'In this world he's woken up to, Jason's life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.Is it this world or the other that's the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could've imagined - one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
This work of fiction undertakes to imagine the real reason behind Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's trip to his historic enemies in Jerusalem. It is the story of a successful espionage coup.
The fifth novel in the highly popular Commissario Brunetti series
On the day after Halloween, in the year 1327, four children slip away from the cathedral city of Kingsbridge. They are a thief, a bully, a boy genius and a girl who wants to be a doctor. In the forest they see two men killed. As adults, their lives will be braided together by ambition, love, greed and revenge. They will see prosperity and famine, plague and war. One boy will travel the world but come home in the end; the other will be a powerful, corrupt nobleman. One girl will defy the might of the medieval church; the other will pursue an impossible love. And always they will live under the long shadow of the unexplained killing they witnessed on that fateful childhood day. Ken Folletts masterful epic The Pillars of the Earth enchanted millions of readers with its compelling drama of war, passion and family conflict set around the building of a cathedral. Now World Without End takes readers back to medieval Kingsbridge two centuries later, as the men, women and children of the city once again grapple with the devastating sweep of historical change. 'Folletts storytelling skills keep you compulsively turning the pages to the satisfactory ending of good triumphant over evil' Daily Mail
Wyman Ford is called up for a secret expedition to Cambodia to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world. Meanwhile, a brilliant meteor lights up the Maine coast. Two young women borrow a boat and set out for a distant island anxious to find the impact crater.
Hidden in the shadows of a Scottish river bank in the winter of 1767, a young woman watches a figure emerging from the icy water. Lizzie Hallim has never seen a naked man before; but her excitement is tinged with fear. The man is a slave, and she is helping him to escape.
B>The Darkest Day is the first novel in the five part Inspector Barbarotti series from renowned Swedish crime author Håkan Nesser./b>It's December in the quiet Swedish town of Kymlinge, and the Hermansson family are gathering to celebrate a big family birthday. But beneath the guise of happy festivities, tensions are running high, and it's not long before the night takes a dark and unexpected turn . . . Before the weekend is over, two members of the Hermansson family are missing, and it's up to Inspector Barbarotti - a detective who spends as much of his time debating the existence of God as he does solving cases - to determine exactly what happened on that darkest day, and unravel a web of sinister family secrets in the process . . .
B>Håkan Nesser, /b>b>'the Godfather of Swedish Crime' (Metro), is back with the second installment in the Inspector Barbarotti series, The Root of Evil./b>b>*Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger */b>br>b>/b>br>July 2007. A letter arrives on Inspector Barbarotti's doorstep detailing a murder that is about to take place in his quiet Swedish town. By the time the police track down the subject of the letter, he is already dead. So when a second letter arrives, then a third, and a fourth, it's a game of cat and mouse to stop the killer before he can make good on all of his promises. Meanwhile, an anonymous diary is unearthed depicting the incidents of a two week holiday in France five years earlier, and it doesn't take Barbarotti long to realize the people populating the diary are the ones whose lives are now in the balance . . .
B>Your Truth or Mine? is a gripping psychological suspense title by Trisha Sakhlecha about the breakdown of a marriage, perfect for fans of Erin Kelly's He Said/She Said and Lisa Jewell's Then She Was Gone./b>At their wedding Mia and Roy Kapoor promised to love and cherish each other.Whilst not perfect, their marriage is sacred and their commitment absolute.But a knock at the door changes everything when Roy is questioned over the disappearance of a young woman.As Roy and Mia's life unravels, they must question everything they know about each other if their marriage is to survive.But what if the real truth is not what they, or you, think?
B>Zero Day is the explosive first instalment in David Baldacci's thrilling John Puller series./b>br>b>/b>br>Distinguished as a top investigator in the US government, John Puller is called in to conduct an enquiry into the brutal murders of a family in a remote area of West Virginia. It soon becomes clear that the case has wider implications and as the body count rises he teams up with local homicide detective Samantha Cole. As the web of deceit is revealed, it quickly becomes apparent that there's much more to this case than they had first thought. It is an investigation where nothing is as it seems, and nothing can be taken at face value.When Puller and Cole discover a dangerous situation in the making, Puller finds he must turn to the one person who can help avert certain catastrophe. A person he has known all his life.In a breathtaking rollercoaster race against time, Cole fears for the community in which she was raised, and Puller knows he has to overcome the enemies of his country to avoid far reaching disaster.But in the end, you can't kill what you can't see is coming . . .
The fourth Quirke mystery from John Banville writing as Benjamin Black: now a major TV series starring Gabriel Byrne