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Canine conspiracies, spurned lovers, murderous greed, jealousy, politics, power and knitting: Pelagia and the White Bulldog marks the beginning of an addictively entertaining new crime series from the internationally bestselling author, Boris Akunin.

In the dying days of the nineteenth century, the small Russian town of Zavolzhsk is shaken out of its sleepy rural existence by the arrival from St Petersburg of a Synodical Inspector with a hidden agenda and a dangerously persuasive manner.

Meanwhile, in the nearby country estate of Drozdovka, one of the prized white Bulldogs – prized because of its one brown ear, and its propensity to drool – belonging to the cantankerous lady of the house has been poisoned. The old widow has taken to her bed, sick with fear that her two remaining dogs may face a similar fate, and the many potential beneficiaries of her will wait fretfully to see whether or not she will recover.

Sister Pelagia: bespectacled, freckled, woefully clumsy and astonishingly resourceful is summoned by the Bishop of Zavolzhsk to investigate the bulldog’s death. But her investigation soon takes a far more sinister turn when two headless bodies are pulled out of the river on the edge of the estate.

Ground-breaking biography of the creator of fiction’s best loved detective

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s name is recognised the world over, for decades he was overshadowed by his creation, Sherlock Holmes – one of literature’s most enduring characters.

Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and foolhardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle’s life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena.

Lycett combines access to new material with assiduous research and penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle’s personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.

Ground-breaking biography of the creator of fiction’s best loved detective

Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s name is recognised the world over, for decades he was overshadowed by his creation, Sherlock Holmes – one of literature’s most enduring characters.

Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and foolhardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle’s life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena.

Lycett combines access to new material with assiduous research and penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle’s personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.

A gripping inside look at the Middle East and the future of our world from the former director of Israel’s Mossad.

‘Fascinating insight of what it is like to deal with the intriguing array of characters… of the modern Middle East’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘Mr Halevy gives a fresh twist to the story’ ECONOMIST

‘There are some darkly amusing vignettes… Halevy is enjoyably sharp on the EU’s obsession with Israel/Palestine… his material on Jordan is particularly insightful… This is an important book’ JEWISH CHRONICLE

From Operation Desert Storm to the beginning of US incursions into Iraq, Efraim Halevy was Deputy Director and then Director of Israel’s Mossad, arguably the most developed and, sometimes, ruthless intelligence service in the world. MAN IN THE SHADOWS is Halevy’s memoir of that period from his vantage point inside the Mossad, as well as a look at what lies ahead for a world transformed by Islamic terrorism. Having served as the secret envoy to Prime Ministers Rabin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Barak and Sharon, Halevy was privy to, and collector of, some of the most sensitive information coming out of the region. Beginning with a prologue that describes a visit he made to Jordan in 1993, Halevy looks back to Desert Storm, an event he calls ‘an epic of unfinished business’ and brings the reader up to the present day through 9/11 and the WMD crisis in Iraq.

Informed by his extraordinary access from the beginning of his Mossad career in 1961, he writes frankly of the Israeli PMs he worked under as well as most of the other major players in the region and around the world: Yasir Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Hafez Assad, Hosni Mubaraq, Crown Prince Abdullah, Mu’amar Qadaffi, Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as former CIA director George Tenet and counter-intelligence chief James Angleton. Though Halevy looks to the past, he also looks to the future and talks bluntly about how the world might achieve peace in the region and elsewhere. Much of what he has to say will surprise and shock even those readers well versed in the complexities of the region.

The next great page-turner from the master of the noir spy novel.

By 1939, thousands of Italian intellectuals, teachers and lawyers, journalists and scientists, had fled Mussolini’s fascist government and found refuge in Paris. There, amidst the poverty and difficulty of émigré life, they joined the Italian resistance, founding an underground press that smuggled news and encouragement back to their lost homeland.
In Paris, in the winter of 1939, a murder/suicide at a lovers’ hotel hits the tabloid press. But this is not a romantic tragedy, it is the work of OVRA, Mussolini’s fascist secret police, and meant to eliminate the editor of Liberazione, a clandestine newspaper published by Italian émigrés. Carlo Weisz, who has fled from Trieste and found work as a foreign correspondent for the Reuters bureau, becomes the new editor.

Weisz is, at that moment, in Spain, reporting on the tragic end of the Spanish civil war, but, as soon as he returns to Paris, he is pursued by the French Surete, by agents of OVRA, and by officers of the British Secret Intelligence Service. In the desperate politics of Europe on the edge of war, a foreign correspondent is a pawn, worth surveillance, or blackmail, or murder.
The Foreign Correspondent is the story of Carlo Weisz and a handful of anti-fascists — the army officer known as Colonel Ferrara, who fights for a lost cause in Spain, Arturo Salamone, the shrewd leader of a resistance group in Paris, and the woman who becomes the love of his Weisz’s life, herself involved in a doomed resistance underground in Berlin, at the heart of Hitler’s Nazi empire.

The gripping personal story of a Falklands Fighter Ace.

David Morgan, RAF officer and poet, relives his experiences during the Falklands War in this vivid memoir. On secondment to the Royal Navy when the Argentine invasion of the Falklands began and personally credited with shooting down two Argentine Skyhawks as well as enemy helicopters, Morgan was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

Here he recounts his involvement in the first British air-strike against Argentine positions around Port Stanley and describes being first on the scene when enemy jets bombed the landing ships SIR TRISTRAM and SIR GALAHAD.

Including the author’s heartfelt letters sent back to England to close family and friends, HOSTILE SKIES dramatically recalls what it was really like to fight, live and love during the Falklands War.

1855: the most ambitious experiment in race science begins on a deserted island, where two infants, a black boy and a white girl, are raised together in the wilderness.

1855: the most ambitious eugenics experiment begins on a deserted Mediterranean island, pitting a British craniologist, Dr Samuel Bates against his French rival, Jean-Louis Belavoix. Two infants, a black boy and a white girl, are raised on the island by a dumb nurse (Norah), away from all human contact but monitored twice yearly by Bates, Belavoix and their assistant, Nicholas Quartley to study their development.

Bates claims the white child would show signs of natural superiority, while Belavoix claims the two races would be equal, with each side showing the urge to conquer and ultimately destroy, the other.
Bates and Belavoix turn into rivals for Norah’s attention but she and Quartley are secretly in love, which fuels even more intense competition between the three men.

Doubts surface in London over the scientist’s real intentions at a time when Darwin’s evolution theories begin to emerge. Soon, Captain Perry, responsible for supplying a ferry service to the island, agrees to help Norah and Quartley escape with the children; however, before Perry returns to the island to rescue them, an ‘accident’ turns their reunion into tragedy.

A tale of murder and literary ambition set on an American university campus from a master of the dark side of human nature

It’s been over a decade since Robert Pendleton published his brilliant short story debut, and his hopes for a dazzling literary career now lie in tatters. Hanging on to his tenure in literature at Bannockburn college by the slimmest of threads, Pendleton’s simmering despair boils over with the arrival on campus of his one-time friend, now nemesis, the bestselling author and king of the coffee-table book, David Horowitz.

For Pendleton, death seems to be the only remaining option, but his attempt to kill himself is wrecked by the intervention of Adi Wiltshire, a graduate student battling her own demons of failure and thwarted ambition. Whilst Pendleton recovers from his suicide attempt, Adi discovers a novel hidden in his basement: a brilliant, bitter story with a gruesome murder at its core.

The publication of Scream causes a storm of publicity, a whirlwind into which Adi and Horowitz are thrust – along with the sister of a young girl whose real-life, unsolved murder bears an uncanny resemblance to the crime in Pendleton’s novel and a burnt-out cop with secrets of his own, who is determined to prove that in this case fact and fiction are one and the same.

Can Fandorin infiltrate a secret society to save Moscow’s youth? A dark and decadent detective story from the master of Russian crime fiction.

There’s been rising concern in Moscow over a wave of suicides among the city’s young bohemians. An intrepid newspaper reporter, Zhemailo, begins to uncover the truth behind the phenomenon – that the victims are linked by a secret society, the Lovers of Death. But Zhemailo is not the only investigator hot on the heels of these disciples of the occult. Little do they realise that the latest ‘convert’ to their secret society, assuming the alias of a Japanese prince, is none other than Erast Fandorin.

But when a young and naïve provincial woman, Masha Mironova, becomes embroiled in the society, and Zhemalio dies a mysterious death, Fandorin must do more than merely infiltrate and observe. Especially when the spin of the Russian roulette wheel decrees that our dashing hero be the next to die by his own hand. Can Fandorin fake his own demise, all while outwitting the cult’s dastardly leader?

Fandorin returns in a swashbuckling tale of abduction and intrigue, set during the build-up to the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II.

Grand Duke Georgii Alexandrovich arrives in Moscow for the coronation, with three of his children. During an afternoon stroll, daughter Xenia is dragged away by bandits, only to be rescued by an elegant gentleman and his oriental sidekick. The passing heroes introduce themselves as Fandorin and Masa, but panic ensues when they realise that four-year old Mikhail has been snatched in the confusion.

A ransom letter arrives from an international criminal demanding the handover of the Count Orlov, an enormous diamond on the royal sceptre which is due to play a part in the coronation. Can the gentleman detective find Mikhail in time?

Dashing hero Erast Fandorin returns for another intriguing Russian crime caper, from the bestselling author of THE WINTER QUEEN.

General Khrapov, newly appointed Governor-General of Siberia and soon-to-be Minister of the Interior, is murdered in his official saloon carriage on his way from St Petersburg to Moscow.

The killer, disguised as Fandorin, leaves a knife thrust up to the hilt in his victim’s chest and escapes through the window of the carriage. Can Fandorin escape suspicion?

A battle of wills and ideals, revolutionaries and traditionalists and good versus evil.

Boris Akunin’s well-loved, inimitable hero faces two very different adversaries: one, a deft, comedic swindler and master of disguise, whose machinations send ripples spreading through the carefully maintained calm of Moscow in 1886. The other is a brutal serial killer, driven by an insane, maniacal obsession, who strikes terror into the heart of the Moscow slums in 1889 – and who may have more in common with London’s own Jack the Ripper than simply a taste for women of easy virtue.

Unauthorised (but authoritative) guide to the mysteries behind the phenomenal bestseller THE DA VINCI CODE

Readers of Dan Brown’s extraordinary bestseller THE DA VINCI CODE are fascinated by the questions raised in the novel. Was Jesus actually married to Mary Magdalene? Was she one of his disciples and did she write her own gospel? Did they have a child together? Did some geniuses of art and science, people like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, belong to secret societies that had the most compelling insider information in history, and did Leonardo convey some of these ideas in The Last Supper and other paintings?

SECRETS OF THE CODE is the definitive guide to the novel and provides the curious reader with authoritative explorations into the major themes within THE DA VINCI CODE.

A celebration of the life and engineering achievements of Isambard Kingdom Brunel by two of the world’s foremost authorities.

In his lifetime, Isambard Kingdom Brunel towered over his profession. Today, he remains the most famous engineer in history, the epitome of the volcanic creative forces which brought about the Industrial Revolution – and brought modern society into being. Brunel’s extraordinary talents were drawn out by some remarkable opportunities – above all his appointment as engineer to the new Great Western Railway at the age of 26 – but it was his nature to take nothing for granted, and to look at every project, whether it was the longest railway yet planned, or the largest ship ever imagined, from first principles.

A hard taskmaster to those who served him, he ultimately sacrificed his own life to his work in his tragically early death at the age of 53. His legacy, though, is all around us, in the railways and bridges that he personally designed, and in his wider influence. This fascinating new book draws on Brunel’s own diaries, letters and sketchbooks to understand his life, times, and work.

Desert explorer Michael Asher investigates the most disastrous exploration mission in the history of the Sahara

In December 1880 a French expedition attempted to map a route for a railway that would stretch from their colony in Algeria right across the Sahara desert to reach their territories in West Africa. ‘Paris to Timbuctoo in Six Days’ was the slogan. It would do for the French colonies what the American railways were doing in the western states at the same time. No native opposition was expected. As one of the expedition’s organizers said, ‘A hundred uncivilized tribesmen armed with old-fashioned spears: what is that against the might of France?’

Four months later, a handful of emaciated survivors staggered into a remote outpost on the edge of the desert. Although armed with modern rifles, the column had been lured to destruction by the self-styled ‘lords of the desert’, the Tuareg. At this, the highpoint of European colonialism in Africa, this story of treachery, massacre, torture and even cannibalism made headlines around the world. Attacked by the Tuareg in their remote heartland, the survivors had been pursued for weeks on end, driven into the waterless desert to die. The desperate lengths they resorted to shocked Victorian sensibilities. They do not make easy reading now.

This grisly story, told by our greatest living desert explorer reveals what happened when the conceit of western colonialism met the equally arrogant Tuareg, who had dominated this remote region, and anyone trying to cross it, for a thousand years.

Desert explorer Michael Asher investigates the most disastrous exploration mission in the history of the Sahara

In December 1880 a French expedition attempted to map a route for a railway that would stretch from their colony in Algeria right across the Sahara desert to reach their territories in West Africa. ‘Paris to Timbuctoo in Six Days’ was the slogan. It would do for the French colonies what the American railways were doing in the western states at the same time. No native opposition was expected. As one of the expedition’s organizers said, ‘A hundred uncivilized tribesmen armed with old-fashioned spears: what is that against the might of France?’

Four months later, a handful of emaciated survivors staggered into a remote outpost on the edge of the desert. Although armed with modern rifles, the column had been lured to destruction by the self-styled ‘lords of the desert’, the Tuareg. At this, the highpoint of European colonialism in Africa, this story of treachery, massacre, torture and even cannibalism made headlines around the world. Attacked by the Tuareg in their remote heartland, the survivors had been pursued for weeks on end, driven into the waterless desert to die. The desperate lengths they resorted to shocked Victorian sensibilities. They do not make easy reading now.

This grisly story, told by our greatest living desert explorer reveals what happened when the conceit of western colonialism met the equally arrogant Tuareg, who had dominated this remote region, and anyone trying to cross it, for a thousand years.

Life of one of the greatest British Prime Ministers – by an author who knows the scene from his years as a senior Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet.

Robert Peel, as much as any man in the nineteenth century, transformed Great Britain into a modern nation. He invented our police force, which became a model for the world. He steered through the Bill which allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament. He reorganised the criminal justice system. Above all he tackled poverty by repealing the Corn Laws. Thanks to Peel the most powerful trading nation chose free trade and opened the door for our globalised world of today.

Peel was not all politics. He built two great houses, filled them with famous pictures and was devoted to a beautiful wife. Many followers never forgave him for splitting his Party. But when in 1850 he was carried home after a fall from his horse crowds gathered outside, mainly of working people, to read the medical bulletins. When he died a few days later, factories closed, flags flew at half mast and thousands contributed small sums to memorials in his honour. He was the man who provided cheap bread and sacrificed his career for the welfare of ordinary people.

The long awaited and highly revealing diaries of the politician, diplomat, and socialite (married to Lady Diana Cooper)

‘This is a fabulous, jaw-dropping read’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘Duff Cooper was as close to the action as anyone during the dramatic events of the mid-20th century. He was also comically priapic, committing enough sexual indiscretions to fill a dozen diaries’ SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

‘Fascinating for two things: their testament to an exhilarating century and their witness to a vanished age of power and privilege … What a man’ OBSERVER

Duff Cooper was a first-rate witness of just about every significant event from 1914 to 1950. His diary includes some magnificent set pieces – as a young soldier at the end of WWI, as a politician during the General Strike of 1926, as King Edward VIII’s friend at the time of the Abdication, and from Paris after the liberation in 1944, when he became British ambassador.

If Duff Cooper’s name has dimmed in the 50 years since his death, publication of these diaries will bring him to the fore once again. His family have long resisted publication – indeed Duff Cooper’s nephew, the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, was so shocked by the sexual revelations that he suggested to John Julius Norwich that it might be best for all concerned if they were burnt. Now, superbly edited by John Julius Norwich, who familial link ensures all kinds of additional information as footnotes, these diaries join the ranks.

The new bestseller from one of Britain’s most pre-eminent philosophers and arguably the best known, A.C. Grayling

Everyone wishes to live a life that is satisfying and fulfilling, in which there is achievement and pleasure, and which has the respect of people one, in turn, respects. And one of the fundamentals to living such a life is to reflect on the choices we make.

In this new collection, A.C. Grayling invites the reader into a conversation with ideas. From personal questions about happiness and quality of life to wider public concerns such as war and democracy, these essays provide a springboard to thought and to exploring what is best about the human heart and mind.

The new bestseller from one of Britain’s most pre-eminent philosophers and arguably the best known, A.C. Grayling

Everyone wishes to live a life that is satisfying and fulfilling, in which there is achievement and pleasure, and which has the respect of people one, in turn, respects. And one of the fundamentals to living such a life is to reflect on the choices we make.

In this new collection, A.C. Grayling invites the reader into a conversation with ideas. From personal questions about happiness and quality of life to wider public concerns such as war and democracy, these essays provide a springboard to thought and to exploring what is best about the human heart and mind.

Duty or Pleasure? This was the legendary choice which faced Hercules and which pre-eminent philosopher A.C. Grayling uses as the starting point of this masterful book.

He shows us how much more people can understand about themselves and their world by reflecting on today’s moral challenges. Above all, he explores the idea that certain demands and certain pleasures are necessary, not just because of their intrinsic merits but because of what they do for each other.

With exceptional clarity and unrivalled prose, Grayling addresses the everyday ethical choices which confront us all.

Duty or Pleasure? This was the legendary choice which faced Hercules and which pre-eminent philosopher A.C. Grayling uses as the starting point of this masterful book.

He shows us how much more people can understand about themselves and their world by reflecting on today’s moral challenges. Above all, he explores the idea that certain demands and certain pleasures are necessary, not just because of their intrinsic merits but because of what they do for each other.

With exceptional clarity and unrivalled prose, Grayling addresses the everyday ethical choices which confront us all.

A bull’s-eye of a short fiction collection that spans the master’s career.

In 1950, fresh out of college and keen to make his name as a writer, Elmore Leonard decided he needed to pick a market, a big one, which would give him a better chance to be published while he learned to write. In choosing between crime and Westerns, the latter had an irresistible pull – Leonard loved movies set in the West. As he researched deeper into settings, Arizona in the 1880s captured his imagination: the Spanish influence, the stand-offs and shoot-outs between Apache Indians and the US cavalry. This is a fantastic collection of over five decades’ worth of stories.

‘America’s greatest crime writer’ (Newsweek) brings his genius for characterisation, his rich ear for dialogue, and his piercing psychological insight to a gripping story set in an era he’s never before explored: the years of the Second World War.

The odd thing about Walter Schoen is he’s a dead ringer for Heinrich Himmler. Walter is a member of a spy ring that sends US war production data to Germany and gives shelter to escaped German prisoners of war.

Honey Deal, Walter’s American wife, has given up trying to make him over as a regular guy. She decides it’s time to stop telling him jokes he doesn’t understand and get a divorce.

Along comes Carl Webster, the Hot Kid of the Marshals Service, looking for an escaped POW. Carl uses Honey to meet Walter, who Carl believes is hiding the POW. Honey’s a free spirit; she likes the hot kid marshal and doesn’t care much that he’s married. But all Carl wants is to do his job without getting shot…